By Jennifer Dorsett
Field Editor
The 86th Texas Legislature has come and gone, and Texans are still left without meaningful eminent domain reform.
Families like the Whatleys continue to face an uphill battle in getting fair contracts when faced with forced condemnation from a private entity.
“Over the last 12 years, we’ve had nine different pipelines laid across property that we either own or manage,” Jon Whatley, a fourth generation farmer, said.
Earlier this year, Whatley was negotiating on three pipelines, and he was told four more pipelines would be coming through.
Whatley and his family live in San Patricio County, ground zero for transmission lines that stretch from the Permian Basin to the Texas Gulf Coast. Millions of dollars of fossil fuels will flow through these pipelines before being refined and shipped across the globe.
“One of the reasons they’re coming in here is we’re so near the coast,” Whatley said. “And there’s not a big population here on the north side of Corpus Christi. It’s predominantly farm and ranch land.”
He understands the importance of the pipelines, and the oil and gas industry’s contributions to Texas’ booming economy. What Whatley doesn’t understand, though, is the attitude some of the companies using eminent domain take toward landowners.
“There are good and bad companies just like there’s good and bad people all over the world,” Whatley said. “But some companies are vicious. They don’t feel like they owe you anything. Matter of fact, they almost feel like the landowner is somebody that’s just in their way, that’s stopping them from their progress.”
Whatley wants to work with pipeline companies, not against them. He wants them to understand what their projects cost him as a farmer and landowner, and he wants fair compensation.
“I’m not against progress. I understand we need to get the oil moved, and we need to make the economy go,” he said. “But it’s disheartening when you come out here and see the piles of dirt. You have subsoil mixed with topsoil.”
Whatley said crop production is impacted for years.
“I’ve got some land that the pipelines were laid in the ’40s and ’50s, and you can still take our yield monitors on our equipment and look at your yield maps and see the pipelines going across it because the production dips through there,” he said.
Whatley has been farming cotton, corn and sorghum in the Coastal Bend since 1993. Some of his land has been in his family for generations, and he’d like to pass it down to his sons someday. But he’s worried the value of the land is permanently diminished for future generations.
“When you negotiate a pipeline, yeah, they pay for the easement, and sometimes they pay the right amount. It takes a lot of negotiations,” he said. “But my kids or my kid’s kids, they’ll never, ever have benefit from this pipeline. The pipeline company’s still going to be making plenty of money on it, but my kids are only going to have the headaches, the loss of value of the property and a restriction on what they can do.”
He’s already dealt with that firsthand. The Whatleys bought property that had an old easement contract dating back to 1938. The contract didn’t show up in a title search conducted at the time of purchase, but a pipeline company showed up several years later saying the easement was still in force.
“They came and showed up with a 1938 easement that paid by the rod,” Whatley said. “It was during the Depression. People had decided that that was good money in the Depression but not in 2015.”
Whatley tried to negotiate with them, but the entity condemned the land, effectively taking away his bargaining rights.
“I lost all my rights of negotiation. I just had to let them lay the line and then see what the courts might do from there,” he said. “One of the problems is they were trying to use that ’38 easement, but actually the easement had been returned back to the property owners back in the ’70s, so no production in the old easement had been used since 1970. But they tried to state that it was still under a valid contract.”
Despite all the headaches, phone calls, lost time, lost crop production and legal fees, Whatley said he doesn’t begrudge the pipeline companies. They have a job to do, just like him, he said. Whatley only wants to be treated fairly and with resp
Extremely disheartening to see that the landowner seems to frequently get the “short end of the stick” when it comes to governmental consideration overall, but most especially when it comes to support from our Texas lawmakers and legislators. I realize that my comments are likely a bit a off-topic, but I and my family are very likely about to learn more about the unpleasant matter ofTexas eminent domain as an unwanted limestone quarry may eventually be successful in opening operations almost on top of our family ranch which was established in 1945. Then, to add insult to injury, their business model involves two of three proposed rail lines crossing our ranch under eminent domain although that may very well pale in comparision to the matter of airborne particulate matter generated by a rock-crushing operation permitted to be installed in the midst of hundreds of homes and multiple schools. I suppose I, my family, and my hard-working neighbors who are fighting this travesty with everything they have will just have to “live with it” as it appears that our state government welcomes these situations as long as none of them appear in their own back yards. A shameful travesty that, with the potential health ramifications, one would expect to see occuring in the 1800’s and early 1900’s, but not in this day and age. Again, purely shameful.
Seriously, do you actually think landowners are going to ever get a fair shake with former House Speaker Tom Craddick still pulling the strings? And with his daughter Christi on the Texas Railroad Commission, the outfit that oversees the State’s oil and gas industries? Why do you think that ALL of the eminent domain reform bills went down in flames in the Legislature? Why do you think this behemoth 42” natural gas pipeline is being crammed down landowners’ throats despite the fact that it passes over the extremely critical Edwards Aquifer recharge district and a break in the area would threaten the safety of the drinking water for millions of people, including all of San Antonio? Something needs to change; natural gas needs to make it to market, but more careful consideration needs to be given to landowners and anyone who happens to drink water as opposed to just the oil and gas barons.