South Dakota hearings start on crude oil pipeline

Western South Dakota residents get their chance Monday and Tuesday to speak out about a planned crude oil pipeline that could one day carry 900,000 barrels of oil a day through the state.

TransCanada Keystone Pipeline already is building a pipeline through eastern South Dakota. The company's second proposed pipeline, Keystone XL, is designed to run 313 miles through western South Dakota as part of a project to deliver Alberta tar sands crude oil to Gulf Coast terminals and refineries in Texas.

If approved, construction would begin in 2011.

The state Public Utilities Commission expects to hear from residents who want to make sure the project is environmentally safe and ensure that the company will treat them with respect during contract negotiations, during construction and in the decades the pipeline would be in operation, said Commissioner Dusty Johnson.

The PUC already dealt with many similar issues during its approval of the first TransCanada pipeline, but the West River project is different. Plans call for using 36-inch-wide pipe instead of 30-inch pipe, and the area's terrain has a dryer soil that could present erosion issues.

The commission already has tens of thousands of pages of information on its Web site related to the first pipeline, and Johnson said it can use the hearings to build upon that knowledge.

"That being said, this is a different project, and it's going through a very different geographic area with different topography different soil types, different landowners issues," Johnson said. "And although our first experience is going to be instructive, to me it's not a foregone conclusion how this ends up."

The Keystone XL project spanning nearly 2,000 miles would pass through eastern Montana, continue through South Dakota and into Nebraska. It would end near the Nebraska-Kansas border. There it would connect to a pipeline that is set for construction in 2010 and would end at Cushing, Okla. A proposed pipeline from Cushing would go through Texas, to the Gulf Coast.

TransCanada Keystone Pipeline, owned by affiliates of TransCanada Corp. and ConocoPhillips Co., filed its siting application with the PUC March 12. People who want to take part as formal parties in the case have until May 11 to file as interveners.

Johnson said he doesn't expect many landowners to need to apply for legal party status, which would allow them to call witnesses.

"If they just want to make their opinions known and their voices heard, they can do that through these hearings, or by sending the PUC a letter or an e-mail," he said. "And they can do that all the way up to the time in which we render a decision."

Johnson said he expects landowner rights to be a big issue at the hearings, though no more than with the first pipeline.

"Sometimes we do associate West River with a more strident interest in landowner rights," Johnson said. "But I'm going to be honest with you. The row-crop farmer in McCook County cares just as much about his land as the rancher does in Harding County.

"And there is a very emotional connection to the land for anybody that's grown up on a land, to anybody who's worked it."

The public hearings are scheduled for Monday at noon at the Winner Community Playhouse, Monday at 7 p.m. at the Fine Arts School in Philip, and Tuesday at 6 p.m. at the Harding County Recreation Center in Buffalo.

In North Dakota, a study says building a pipeline from northwestern North Dakota to the new Keystone pipeline in southern Saskatchewan would be the most efficient way to move the region's oil production.

North Dakota officials said they intend to pitch the idea this week at a regional oil conference in Regina, Saskatchewan, that is expected to draw more than 900 industry officials.