Dakota oil pipeline fight goes to courts to block tar-sands fuels

Expect a long afternoon Tuesday when the state Public Utilities Commission tries to sift through the competing claims and objections between Dakota Rural Action and lawyers for TransCanada over the company’s proposed XL crude-oil pipeline. The issue before the commissioners Tuesday is whether to give DRA more time to submit pre-filed testimony.

The big question the PUC will decide later this year is whether to grant approval for the XL pipeline through western South Dakota. TransCanada already has its Keystone pipeline far along in the construction process down the James River valley of South Dakota. The PUC approved the Keystone permit application on April 25, 2008.

Representing DRA in the XL pipeline permitting process now under way are former state Rep. Caitlin Collier, D-Vermillion, and Plains Justice attorney Paul Blackburn of Vermillion.  He specializes in environmental law and joined the Vermillion office of Plains Justice in 2008.

They’re now seeking an additional two weeks beyond the Sept. 8 deadline, which the PUC set more than two months ago, for DRA to submit pre-filed testimony. While the DRA lawyers specifically request “two weeks” of additional time, they also included the phrase “until September 22nd, 2009, or until all discovery has been completed” — which leaves open an indefinite period of time.

Collier and Blackburn filed their official request for more time to the PUC on Sept. 2. In it, they report they recently received two large boxes of other information from TransCanada which they had sought in the discovery process and they don’t think they can have that information processed in time to make it part of DRA’s pre-filed testimony by Sept. 8. The lawyers alos say the additional time is necessary because TransCanada’s lawyers have objected to various requests for discovery.

Based on other discovery requests which remain in dispute between the sides, the XL permit arguments likely will follow along many of the same themes regarding pipeline safety, such as pipe strength standards and emergency response, which Curt Hohn of WEB rural water tried to use in his attempt to derail the Keystone pipeline permit two years ago.