Pipe hauling to begin in Jasper County

Dakota Access, LLC can now start hauling pipe across Jasper County. A permit and road damages agreement for secondary roads use was approved by the Jasper County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.

The agreement allows for temporary use of certain roadways throughout the Jasper County Secondary Road system to haul materials and equipment related to the construction and installation of the pipeline. Also, since the Dakota Access expects operations to generate roadway usage in excess of normal use, it is prepared to restore and repair damages done to the roads.

Thousands of thirty-inch pipes to be used for the pipeline have been stored in a farm field north east of Newton on East 76th Street North since April 2015.

“This is actually an agreement that a bunch of counties got together and worked on,” county engineer Russ Stutt said.

The Iowa Utilities Board gave Dakota Access — a subsidiary of Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners — a green light to begin construction of the 343-mile Iowa segment of the project in an order earlier this month. The 1,164-mile pipeline will run from North Dakota to Illinois and will have a capacity of 540,000 barrels per day. But the IUB only gave the pipeline company permission to excavate in areas where all federal permits and private land easements have been obtained.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources recently issued the company an exception to bore underneath Native American tribal lands through the Big Sioux River Wildlife Management Area in Lyon County.

The company will also have to negotiate with private landowners who still have not accepted voluntary construction and maintenance easements for the pipeline. Each county will mediate condemnation hearings between private landowners and Dakota Access. According to Jasper County Sheriff John Halferty, the first of these hearings in Jasper County is scheduled for July 21. Although, the sheriff said landowners could still choose to accept a voluntary easement and avoid the condemnation process.

The contract approved by the Supervisors has several parts including notification regulations, signage requirements and traffic operations. To begin, Dakota Access agrees to contact the county engineer’s office 48 business hours prior to starting hauling operations. That time will allow the county to adequately inform the public of future work.

The company will install and maintain warning signs at all sites to ensure all traffic control complies with Iowa Department of Transportation regulations.

“Some of the locations do not have proper sight distance so they are going to stock those areas and have flaggers at all of those locations anytime people are going in and out,” assistant to the engineer Pam Olson said. “They will also have advanced notification signage around as well. They are covering it very well.”

The agreement includes the allowance of local traffic use of the road during hauling operations. Tools, equipment, materials, supplies, company vehicles or workers vehicles will not be allowed to park or be stored in the public right of way.

To maintain the roads, Dakota Access has agreed to place 300 feet of dust palliative on all gravel approaches to intersections prior to hauling operations starting. It will also reshape roadways at the end of each day, if necessary, as judged by the engineer’s office.

When hauling is completed, the roadways will be restored to pre-haul conditions including repairs to drainage structures, re-shaping the road top and replacing granular surfacing or damaged pavement.

The agreement does not permit oversize or overweight vehicles and will not allow hauling operation to cross any structure with a posted weight restriction that is exceeded by the haul vehicle, except as otherwise authorized.

Stutt said that Dakota Access would like to begin operations soon, but it still has a few infrastructure needs to address.

“They want to get going pretty quickly but it will be at least a few weeks because they haven’t started work on the entrances,” Stutt said. “To the best of my knowledge, they are going to start in the middle of the state, just north of Interstate 80 and work their way north. Then later they are going to begin from the south. They will have multiple crews across the state working together.”

Exact times and places where work will be done in Jasper County are not yet known.

Contact Jamee A. Pierson at 641-792-3121 ext. 6534 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com