Dakota Access pipeline wrecking soil, farmers complain

GRANVILLE, Ia. — All Francis Goebel wanted was for Dakota Access pipeline crews to put his soil back the way they found it.

Instead, he's got a scar running across his soybean fields where the dark, fertile topsoil is being stacked on top of several feet of hard clay mixed with clay loam.

The result, Goebel fears, will be soil less suited for growing crops — and much less valuable.

"Nature separated those soils for a reason, that's the way I feel," said Goebel, who runs a 164-acre century farm in Sioux County. "If nature put it there, they should put it back the way it was."

His complaint is one of several popping up across Iowa as work ramps up on the pipeline that will stretch from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota across Iowa to Patoka, IIl.

Admittedly, Goebel was against the pipeline from day one. But he's not the only landowner complaining about how Dakota Access is handling their soil.

Although Dakota Access is separating the rich topsoil from the soil beneath, it isn't being as careful with the next two layers, mixing the clay loam subsoil with the hard clay underneath.

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Goebel acknowledges he was well compensated by Dakota Access for the 12-acre easement the company obtained to cross his land. He received $21,000 per acre for the easement, plus payments for initial crop losses.

But he's worried about his future corn and soybean yields. In some places, crews excavated 20 feet deep, meaning the hard clay at the bottom could end up just a couple feet from the ground.

"To me, it's a scar," he said.

'It will come up red'

Across the street from Goebel, Tom Konz shares his neighbor's concern.

He grows crops on 120 acres of his wife's family farm. Crews dug up about 4.5 acres for pipeline work.

He grudgingly began negotiating an easement agreement with Dakota Access this spring after it became clear the company could use eminent domain to condemn properties in the pipeline's path.

But he never really knew much about the dirt deep beneath his topsoil. He really had no need.

"How often do you go out in your field with an excavator and dig 20 feet deep to see what your soil looks like?" he asked.

After crews dug 20 feet deep to bore under a county road at the border of his and Goebel's properties, he said the soil layers became visibly apparent. He lobbied contractors to separate his soil layers, but they refused.

He even offered to dig and separate the soil himself with his own excavator, but he said Dakota Access declined.

Konz acknowledges that it is too late for his and his neighbor's land — contractors buried the pipe last week. But he wants other Iowa landowners in the pipeline's path to remain vigilant about their soil as crews begin tearing into the ground.

Konz received about $102,000 from Dakota Access, a figure that included payments for the easement, plus three years' worth of crop damage. But he said that's nothing compared with the ongoing costs of anticipated crop losses.

"The rest of my life, I guarantee you will see that pipeline forever," Konz said. "It will come up as red (on a yield map). We'll fight it every year for yield loss."

Disturbing the ground

Dakota Access did not reply to requests for comment. But in a court hearing Friday, an attorney representing the pipeline company addressed allegations of soil disruption.

An attorney representing landowners in a lawsuit over the pipeline argued that trenching deep into cropland would "irreparably harm" landowners by disrupting soil that had been layered over "thousands and thousands of years."

But Dakota Access attorney Bret Dublinski noted that all the contested farms already had tile buried under crops to help drain fields. It is often removed, repaired and replaced, he said.

"You cannot consistently argue both that Dakota Access is going to irreparably harm my soil because it hasn’t been changed in 1,000 years and then also say 'I'm concerned about my pattern tile that I put in by turning up the soil,'" Dublinski said. "… Those are arguments that simply cannot exist in the same space."

'Home of black soil'

Drivers who approach Granville, population 300, on Iowa Highway 10 are greeted by billboards that boast of the town's status as "Home of Black Soil."

Northwest Iowa is home to some of the state's most fertile and coveted farmland. Land here often fetches among the state's highest prices per acre.

In Sioux and O'Brien counties, the average farmland price topped $10,800 per acre in 2015, according to statistics kept by Iowa State University. The statewide average sale price was $7,633 per acre.

Paul Kassel, a field agronomist at Iowa State University Extension in Spencer, said he understands why farmers are worried about the soil being mixed. Corn and soybean plants absorb most nutrients from the first foot of soil, but he said the first 5 feet of soil are important to crop yield.

"It would definitely be a concern," he said.

Too much clay or gravel in the first few feet of soil can hurt yields, Kassel said. And mixing soil is not a problem that can be mitigated later.

"They have one shot to do it right," Kassel says, "and they may be encountering things that they don’t even know."

Hands tied for county inspectors

Dakota Access is required to follow soil guidelines in Iowa law and the Agricultural Impact Mitigation Plan, which was approved by the Iowa Utilities Board. But the plan stipulates only that the topsoil be segregated.

Some landowners negotiated further provisions, such as separating three layers of soil, rather than two. But not all farmers knew to ask for such an arrangement.

"A realty with a project like this is that landowners are learning more about what is below the surface of their lands than they knew before," said Evan Del Val, a civil engineer with ISG, one of the companies hired by counties to inspect pipeline work. "And these landowners already knew a lot about their fields."

Aside from soil issues, Del Val said the pipeline work will provide farmers with GPS mapping of underground drainage tile that historically has been poorly tracked. ISG was hired by 13 of the 18 Iowa counties in the path of the pipeline, including O'Brien and Sioux counties (Polk County has elected to do inspections in-house).

Del Val said he's sympathetic to landowners' concerns over their soil. But county inspectors cannot change the rules on contractors.

"From an inspection standpoint, this is what we are limited to," he said.

ISG has received complaints from landowners that not enough topsoil is being stripped and stockpiled. Requirements call for removing up to 36 inches of topsoil on top of the pipeline ditchline and up to 12 inches from the adjacent easement area.

Landowners may request removal of all topsoil, with a hired soil expert determining just how much dirt qualifies. Landowners haven't always agreed with those determinations.

Still, Del Val said soil complaints have been isolated and that inspectors are working alongside contractors to ensure construction follows the pipeline company's agreement with landowners

'Sign of what's to come'

But for pipeline opponents, the landowner complaints about construction are only just the beginning.

Storm Lake lawyer John Murray, who represented landowners opposing the project, said aside from the soil issues, he's heard complaints that construction is causing drainage and runoff issues. In some cases, water has been flowing out of construction zones onto cropland.

He said more issues will arise when work goes on in wet fields.

"If we have rain, we’re going to see a lot more complaints," he said. "If we don’t have rain, you’re still going to have issues, but they’re not going to be as extensive."

Adam Mason, state policy organizing director at Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, said the system for landowners lodging complaints is flawed. CCI last week asked the Iowa Utilities Board to authorize a public complaints officer to streamline complaints from landowners.

The Iowa Utilities Board said two routes for complaints exist: through the board or through county inspectors. But landowners are suspicious of inspectors. While hired by counties, the cost for inspection firms is paid by Dakota Access.

"We feel that since the IUB granted the permit, they should be the one doing the inspecting," Mason said.

At a recent press conference, landowners aired grievances over pipeline work, including inadequate protection of topsoil, trash piling up in the work zone and deterioration of fields because crews continued working in wet areas.

"I think it’s a sign of what's to come," he said.