Licking County landowner fights pipeline and appears to have won
“A Licking County landowner decided he didn’t want a pipeline to cross his property. When he refused, Enterprise Liquids Pipeline threatened to use eminent domain proceedings to take private property for the purpose of the ATEX pipeline the company was constructing.
The Licking County, Ohio, landowner fought back with the help of a nonprofit legal center and, so far, Enterprise Liquids Pipeline has not filed a lawsuit or staked the property for construction to begin.
The center wrote a memorandum to the company on Bonifant’s behalf, stating there was no constitutional basis to take the Bonifant private property through eminent domain.
Bonifant and the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law claim that the ethane-carrying lines would not fit into the state’s definition of a “common carrier” because the lines are not carrying natural gas, but a natural gas byproduct.
The memo detailed why the economic benefits to private interests are not public uses and therefore eminent domain doesn’t apply in this case. The center also wrote that similar pipelines are being built in Ohio without the use of eminent domain, and there is evidence that ELP considered alternative routes that circumvent the property.
ELP responded with letters from its attorneys threatening a lawsuit and eminent domain. However, construction has started on the pipeline and, as of now, the pipeline is going around Bonifant’s property.”
Seachrist, Kristy Foster. Farm and Dairy 1 April 2013.