In a time when countries around the globe are attempting to cut back on CO2 emissions and transition to sustainable energy sources, yet another oil company is in talks to expand their oil pipeline across the United States.
In a time when countries around the globe are attempting to cut back on CO2 emissions and transition to sustainable energy sources, yet another oil company is in talks to expand their oil pipeline across the United States.
Enbridge Inc. has been conducting field surveys since 2014 for their potential $3 to $4 billion 340 mile pipeline that will cut across the center of Wisconsin, all the way from the northwestern edge in Douglas County to the southern edge in Rock County. Domina Law Group attorney Brian Jorde began meeting with property owners living along the potential pipeline route last week. Mark Borchardt, a resident of Marshfield, WI which is located along the pipeline’s potential route, spoke with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, saying that:
“This is a massive step on our part to beat back what Enbridge wants to do… We have two goals. One is to stop the pipeline, and Mr. Jorde has experience with that. Goal 2 is that, if absolutely forced to, then negotiating as a group, we get a better deal."
Brian successfully represented Nebraska landowners in their case against the TransCanada Keystone XL Pipeline which would have run from Alberta, Canada down to Steel City, NB. The pipeline was rejected in November of 2016 by President Barack Obama after years of fighting back against the foreign company’s attempts to exert powers of eminent domain to seize the land of United States citizens. He helped those landowners form the Nebraska Easement Action Team in order to band together and resist the pipeline, and intends to create a similar group called the Wisconsin Easement Action Team in order to replicate his prior success. Brian commented to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that:
“We had members who under no circumstances were they going to negotiate, and we had some who were very willing to do that. But what they quickly understood is that the longer they stuck together, they would get better prices."
Environmentalist groups are concerned that since the Keystone XL Pipeline was stopped, other oil companies may attempt to expand their own pipelines. Enbridge has a particularly shoddy track record, and were required to pay Wisconsin $1.1 million for violating several environmental laws during the construction of the pipeline that already crosses the state back in 2007 and 2008. According to officials, the construction workers illegally disrupted and cleared out various wooded wetlands, degrading the streams, land, and other properties in the area.
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