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Fallon talks of farmers, oil pipelines
by Rick DeClue · News · April 16, 2015


Ed Fallon said he met a feisty libertarian farmer who attended a meeting about the proposed Bakken oil pipeline, and found it curious to see law enforcement in attendance.


Fallon said the farmer believed they were there because Dakota Access, LLC, the company developing the pipeline, may have had concerns about the meeting becoming contentious when discussions began on right-of way issues.

With some 200 to 300 people in attendance, the farmer’s reaction was, “I think we’ve got you beat.”

Fallon, an Iowa activist, told this story and others to a crowd of more than two dozen Friday about his 343-mile walk across the state from Keokuk in Lee County in the southeast to Lyon County in the distant northwest corner of Iowa. The route is the proposed path of the Bakken pipeline.

It was an unusual anecdote given the setting of Fallon’s presentation in the Scattergood Friends School, which brought a series of speakers to highlight a travelling exhibition of posters – “Boycott! The Art of Economic Activism” sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee.

The posters are visual remnants of various successful non-violent campaigns for social and economic change over the past 60 years.

Don Stursma, an engineer with the Iowa Utilities Board who conducted several of the informational meetings in the southeast counties during early December last year confirmed the law enforcement presence at some of the meetings, but could not say whether they were there at the request of the company or local officials.

“Their presence at a large public gathering was not unusual – and some of the meetings were contentious,” he said.

Fallon and Janet Coester, another veteran activist, visited Scattergood to talk about how to turn personal passions into activism by committing to social justice and engaging in causes “greater than yourself.”

Coester got started in 1986 with the issues of worldwide peace and nuclear disarmament.

Born on an Iowa farm, she marched in the U.S. and Ukraine for American/Soviet relations. In 1992-1993, she walked solo for peace across the Russian Federation – trek of over 6,200 miles.

Fallon, a resident of Des Moines, is a long-time activist. He is a former member of the Iowa House representing District 66 from 1993 to 2006, and was a candidate for governor in 2006 and a U.S. House of Representatives seat in 2008. He also hosts a radio call-in show called the Fallon Forum.

While the county pipeline meeting described by Fallon was ultimately a non-violent affair, it was only one example he heard from farmers along his route of tactics used by pipeline representatives. Dakota Access is a subsidiary of Energy Transfer Partners, LLC, which is based in Dallas.

The proposed 30-inch-wide pipeline will carry up to 570,000 barrels per day of petroleum products from the Bakken formation in northwest North Dakota to a transfer terminal in Patoka, Ill. Dakota Access confirmed contractual obligations in place of 430,000 barrels per day when they applied for approval from the Iowa Utilities Board and the state Department of Natural Resources. It seeks a 50-foot easement for the route, and up to 150-foot construction right-of-way.

The company said that from Illinois the oil will move either east by rail or south by pipeline to Texas for refinement and export.

Initial efforts by Dakota Access in Iowa request voluntary transfer of the easement from landowners before the company pursues land by eminent domain.

Fallon said this is the issue that famers along the proposed route have latched onto. Whatever their political background or basic interest in climate change issues, the desire to protect the land, water sources and forests are key factors in the whether they approve or disapprove of the project.

He told of one farmer who said he signed on because he was receiving so many phone calls from pipeline representatives, and just wanted his phone to stop ringing.

Attorney Wallace Taylor of Cedar Rapids, who represents the Iowa chapter of the Sierra Club said that he had received reports of pressure being placed on landowners by representatives of Bakken by phone or visits to properties. He said some farmers were told that signing agreements now was in their best interest or else they could receive less compensation in an eminent domain proceeding.

Taylor also questioned some of the language contained in the easement agreements, along with why the company was seeking the easements before the project was approved by the state.

One farm of about 4,000 acres has nearly $1,000 per acre invested in drain tile. Damage to tiling can be a significant risk, Fallon said.

The pipeline will lie at a minimum depth of 48 inches or 24 inches below drain tiles, according to Dakota Access.

On the other hand, a farmer who agreed about 50 years ago to a pipeline built across his farm said it settled significantly. Tiles laid with a minimum grade to keep water flowing divided his field causing visibly different growth and lower yields on one side of the pipeline easement – year after year, Fallon said.

Another farmer talked about a forest that he and his son had planted 50 or 60 years ago, Fallon said, and the proposed pipeline route would go right through those now mature woods, cutting them in half.

Fallon estimates that only 25 percent or so of the land owners he spoke with approve of the pipeline. And of those, he said, as many as half appear to approve reluctantly.

Fallon said Nebraska appears to be in a position to stop the pipeline route through that state with approximately 10 percent of solid opposition.

In a lively question-and-answer after the presentation, Coester and Fallon had an opportunity to interact with an audience interested in learning how to turn their own passions into work for a cause. The group ranged from three members under the age of 21 to veterans of previous campaigns such as opposition to American participation in the war in Vietnam.