Keystone pipeline defiance triggers further assault on citizens' rights

Words by Oliver Laughland, photos and video by Laurence Mathieu-Léger

Bret Clanton might not belong to the most obvious group of opponents to the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. But when a survey crew from TransCanada arrived on his property eight years ago, the rancher and registered Republican – worried they were cattle thieves – says he called the sheriff’s department, and marched out to confront them.

He says the encounter changed his life, and set up a battle that would come to dominate his existence.

On the outer perimeter of the Clanton ranch, where three large sandstone rock formations stand over the otherwise empty horizon, TransCanada later told him it planned to dig up three miles of his land and lay a section of the Keystone XL pipeline. TransCanada also hopes to bulldoze along another two and half miles of his pastures to make way for an access road.

“I’ve lived here all my life and this ground is pretty much as God, or whoever, made it, and I just want it stay that way,” he says.

Clanton fought from the beginning and lobbied the state government for several years. But he was made aware almost instantly it was likely to be a losing fight. “From the very first meeting [with TransCanada] I was informed they would have power of condemnation,” he says.

The bleak assessment was correct. As soon as the XL route had received the necessary state approval in South Dakota back in 2010, TransCanada was essentially able to seize control of any private land it needed, in return for a fee, through the power of eminent domain.

A principle protected by the fifth amendment to the US constitution, eminent domain permits the seizure of private land for “public use” in exchange for “just compensation”. It was used by government at the turn of the 19th century, when Clanton’s great grandfather arrived in South Dakota on horseback, driving cattle from the south, to reclaim land for public infrastructure and to preserve historic sites.

But eminent domain has since morphed to empower various gas and oil pipeline companies to construct across the US, buoyed by a 2005 supreme court ruling that found private entities providing “economic development” were essentially providing a public service.

Advocates estimate that dozens of landowners in South Dakota and Montana were essentially forced to settle with TransCanada to avoid eminent domain enactments during the Obama administration.

Close to the north-east border with Montana, Clanton’s remote ranch, outside the small town of Buffalo, is one of the first properties the XL will cross in South Dakota. It marks the Guardian’s first stop-off in the state during a trip that traces the proposed pipeline’s entire length through the US to examine the battles that have reignited after the Trump administration resurrected the project.

It is not just environmentalists and Native Americans lined up against the construction. Registered Republican ranchers like Clanton are also among the opposition, pitting them against the leaders of their own party who have long supported the pipeline.

Read more https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/03/keystone-pipeline-protests-land-rights-south-dakota

Courtesy of Guardian News & Media Ltd