Calgary-based TransCanada Corporation has won a state appeals court battle over putting the Keystone XL pipeline across Lamar County farm, in a ruling released late Tuesday.
Landowner Julia Trigg Crawford claimed TransCanada lacked the right to use eminent domain laws to cross her 600-acre farm without her permission.
Crawford failed to convince the appellate court that Texas law grants condemnation power only to pipelines within the state and not to pipelines crossing state lines. Crawford took her case to the appeals court after losing her first attempt at the case in a Lamar County court last year. A separate appeals court had rejected the same argument by another landowner, who was also fighting Keystone’s ability to cross his land near Beaumont.
TransCanada has been fighting court challenges from a handful of landowners who object to the Keystone XL’s route through East Texas. This portion of the pipeline, which runs from Cushing, Oklahoma to Beaumont comprises the southernmost leg of a 2,151-mile system that will carry tar-sands crude from western Canada to refineries on the Texas Gulf coast.
Ina public statement, Crawford said she’s considering taking the case to the next level in the legal system, which would be the State of Texas Supreme Court.
