Lake Charles group forms to dismantle eminent domain laws
3rd April 2023 · 0 Comments
By Ryan Whirty
Contributing Writer
With the help of a national organization dedicated to stopping the use of eminent domain laws that allow petrochemical companies to seize private property, southwest Louisiana property owners have joined with an organization recently formed to combat the construction of pipelines and other gas-industry related infrastructure through their community.
Defend Our Land, a Lake Charles-based organization, has been formed as a branch of the national Property Rights and Pipeline Center, which is committed to battling the legal mechanisms that allow oil and gas companies to snatch private property without landowner consent.
According to the PRPC and Defend Our Land, petrochemical companies use the seized land to construct what activists say are dangerous, possibly toxic pipelines and other infrastructure underneath or next to private homes and protected forests, water supplies, farms and neighborhoods.
Defend Our Land has targeted two proposed gas projects in particular. One would construct a natural-gas pipeline through Cameron Parish as well as neighboring communities. The other project on the boards would run a carbon dioxide pipeline underneath Lake Maurepas, infrastructure that opponents believe could expose the lake and neighboring communities to millions of tons of toxic materials a year.
Opponents of pipeline expansion said one key facet of their fight involves informing the public about the proposed pipeline and raising awareness of the potentially devastating impacts on the ecology and communities affected.
Lori Simmons, the Texas/Louisi-ana community organizer for PRPC, said the organization has so far been able to spread the word through affected communities.
“Conversations are happening, which is always good,” Simmons said. “People are learning more about the devastating health and ecological effects these projects will bring and how they do have rights when it comes to negotiating an easement with the pipeline company.”
She said Defend Our Land strives to not only engage the public, but to also encourage people to make their voices heard to the petroleum [industry] and to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and other government institutions.
“People are feeling empowered to approach [the] government and permitting agencies [and voice] their concerns,” Simmons said. “Change never happens without someone sharing their story.”
She said that nationwide, more than 90 percent of landowners projected to be affected by pipeline projects sign the very first easement agreement that companies show them. Such land-use and property-rights easement agreements “leave all the liability with the landowners and are often permanent. We always tell people that there is no hurry to sign an easement and they should not sign without understanding it all.”
Simmons added that in specifically targeting the pipeline project in Cameron Parish and the land and communities that the project threatens to disrupt, the PRPC and Defend Our Land are working to involve the public, especially by encouraging residents to tell their own stories and relate their concerns about the proposed pipeline there and in communities like Vinton, a town in neighboring Calcasieu Parish.
She said some citizens have alleged outright dishonesty on the part of the company, which reportedly tries to exploit residents’ naiveté and ignorance about land-use and property-rights issues.
“I have spoken to many people all along the route who are upset at how they have been treated by the pipeline company and at how little they have been offered [in compensation for their land],” she said.
“They tell stories of the company representatives often lying [and] saying things that are misleading, and tak[ing] advantage of people who don’t know their landowner rights. The land agents will say, ‘All of your neighbors have signed, you’re the only hold-out,’ even if that is not true. And no one ever follows up to make sure people on the pipeline route were even notified properly. We often come across landowners who say ‘I didn’t know that – the PL company didn’t tell me that.’”
She added that she “also see[s] landowners that have been devastated by the news of all the proposed projects coming into the area.”
Activists in Louisiana particularly fear for the fate of residents and land in Cameron and Calcasieu parishes, where Venture Global LNG is already moving ahead with planning a new pipeline named CP Express to cut through both parishes. Venture Global has proposed the construction of a new compressor station in Vinton.
“We have been reaching out in [the town of] Vinton and Cameron [Parish] to find landowners along the route who want help dealing with the pipeline,” Simmons said. “There are community members, like a hunter I recently talked to, who is not happy that a pipeline – those things that leak, seep and sometimes explode – will be on his hunting land and threaten his livelihood, just so one company can make even more profit.”
In addition, asserted Defend Our Land leader Cynthia Robertson, Venture has proposed a line called Delta Express through large portions of Louisiana, while Driftwood LNG wants to place a line through Acadia, Jefferson Davis and Calcasieu parishes. Such projects also loom on the horizon.
“Anyone on or even near these routes could be affected,” Robertson said. “Because it’s in the interest of these companies to keep their pipeline builds quiet, many in these communities don’t even know what’s happening. Our mission is to change that and make landowners aware of their rights.”
Finally, noted Simmons, is another project that’s still in the early stages that opponents say threatens the ecology surrounding Lake Maurepas and the people who live around it. According to Simmons, the Blue Hydrogen project, put forth by Air Products, would dig and funnel below the lake, a frightening prospect that residents adamantly oppose.
Simmons said community members in the area have formed the Lake Maurepas Preservation Socie-ty, with a community-wide meeting held in March that was aimed at further informing citizens about the project and its potential impact.
Anti-pipeline forces also held two additional community meetings in March aimed at gathering community response to the pipeline fight, with two of the gatherings centering on soliciting public comments directed at FERC.
However, representatives from the petroleum industry push back against the efforts to limit expansion of pipelines like the one in southwest Louisiana, arguing that the benefits of tapping and distributing petroleum resources requires quality new and existing infrastructure.
Robin Rorick, vice president of Midstream Policy for the American Petroleum Institute, said they strive to respect landowner rights, including seeking eminent domain only if all else fails.
“Fully harnessing American energy, including bringing the benefits of natural gas, oil and low carbon energy to all parts of the country, depends on new and existing infrastructure,” Rorick told The Louisiana Weekly. “Pipeline operators are committed to treating landowners who may be impacted by critical energy infrastructure development, fairly responsibly and consistently.
“Eminent domain, while a necessary tool that is used in the construction of all U.S. infrastructure, is viewed as a last resort by the natural gas and oil industry when all other means of stakeholder engagement and fair negotiations are exhausted,” he added.
Repeated emails from The Louisiana Weekly to representatives from both Venture Global and Air Products for comment were not answered.
At least one Louisiana legislator, State Rep. Robby Carter, a Democrat from Amite, La., who represents Statehouse District 72, last month pre-filed a bill for the upcoming 2023 Legislative session that would end eminent-domain rights that allow companies to seize private property as part of carbon-capture pipelines.
Carter told The Louisiana Weekly that the Louisiana statutes that allow for eminent domain seizures were passed decades ago and are now antiquated and shouldn’t be applicable after 60-odd years. He said the petrochemical industry has grown so much and now has so much influence that the outdated laws are completely inadequate to keep massive corporations in check.
Carter said that just the very concept of eminent domain seizures by their nature trample all over the rights and lives of average citizens.
“Eminent domain is just constitutionally tricky to me,” he said, “because it conflicts with private property rights.”
Carter said his family has owned land in southern Louisiana, going back to his grandfather, who Carter said would be astounded by the situation today.
“I just don’t think it’s right that [corporations] have the right to just take our land so they can make billions,” he said.
“When all our good corporate neighbors come into our communities, they give back to the communities by sponsoring things like church festivals or whatever,” he added. “But these [oil and gas] companies just come right in and do give us anything back besides property taxes,”
Activists opposing pipeline expansion assert that harsh attitudes and responses by petroleum officials can not only inhibit and blunt the efforts of activists, but also outright instill fear and intimidation. Robertson said that “many citizens directly affected by pipeline builds are justifiably afraid of reprisals from the oil and gas industry [and] so aren’t willing to go on the record with the media.”
Still, she added that activists on the ground in Louisiana persist in fighting back against what they view as the bullying tactics and disregard of residents’ well-being. She said that potential success in fighting pipelines depends on gathering and sustaining momentum in spreading information about their battles and bringing more people into anti-pipeline campaigns.
Robertson said that to that end, activist leaders in southwest Louisiana are in the early stages of spreading public awareness through TV, radio and digital ads “to help spread the word to the community about what to do if a pipeline company tries to cross your land.
“We know from experience that once communities become widely informed about this issue,” she added, “they become very receptive to our goals, so I’m very pleased with what we’ve accomplished so far.”
She said that so far, activists haven’t yet received much blowback from the petroleum industry but are still girding for it.
“We know that as our numbers grow and our voices are heard they will likely use insidious tactics to try to push back,” she said. “We’re ready to fight them whenever that happens.”
Simmons said that despite this group’s focus on gas pipelines in Louisiana, activists also decry the use of eminent domain in other locations and for other industries as well. She said multi-billion, multinational corporations should not be able to take control of citizens’ land for financial gain and profit while communities are polluted and fractured.
She said that communities “need to stand up and say no, [that] we won’t be sacrificed” because of corporate greed, pointing to the Rise St. James activist group that has had success in fighting the calamitous effects of the chemical industry in Cancer Alley.
“People are not expendable,” Simmons said, “and we are Americans who have rights. We wonder why these pipelines are even allowed to take people’s land against their will to build export projects that make them billions of dollars and nothing for the community except worry.”
Simmons added that the push to find and produce more green energy will assist in curbing land being seized and used by petroleum kingpins.
“How many more people have to die before we rethink being so heavily dependent on this industry?” she posed. “It’s time to start talking about transitioning and stop destroying what little we have left.
“The oil and gas industry is like the horse carriage makers in the 1920’s – they see the writing on the wall and will fight like mad to keep us hooked on their product as long as possible.”
This article originally published in the April 3, 2023 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
