Texas Ranch Owner Battles TransCanada to Restore Her Pipeline-Scarred Land

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Eleanor Fairchild, an 82-year-old grandmother who owns a 425-acre ranch outside of Winnsboro, Texas, has advice for anyone who is asked to sign a contract by a company that wants to build a pipeline to transport tar sands oil on their land: โ€œDonโ€™t signย it.โ€

During a recent visit to her ranch, I saw the damageย to her land caused by the installation of TransCanadaโ€™s Gulf Coast Pipeline, which is the original southern route of the Keystone XL pipeline before the project was broken intoย segments.ย 

I first met Fairchild in October 2012, a few days after she was arrested, along with environmentalist actress Daryl Hannah. The two had stood in the way of land-moving vehicles on Fairchildโ€™s land where TransCanada had started clearing trees and readying a right-of-way to install its pipeline. At that time, Fairchild was refusing to make a deal with TransCanada, but the company moved forward with clearing her landย anyway.ย 

Video: Eleanor Fairchild on Eminentย Domain

My first visit coincided with TransCanada filing a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP suit)ย that accused Fairchild โ€” along with activists in the Tar Sands Blockade โ€” of being eco-terrorists. I took a picture of her behind the stack of paperwork that was over an inch thick. She thinks the use of SLAPP suits by companies like TransCanada should be forbidden because their sole purpose is to try toย silenceย critics.


Eleanor Fairchild flipping though the SLAPP suit. ยฉ2012 Julie Dermanskyย 


Fairchild on the TransCanadaโ€™s right-of-way during the construction of the Gulf Coast Pipeline. ยฉ2012 Julieย Dermansky

The charges lingered until late 2014, when she reached an agreement with TransCanada. Besides settling on a dollar amount for the companyโ€™s use of a right-of-way through her property, TransCanada dropped the charges and apologized for calling her an eco-terrorist. The apology was a condition Fairchild insisted on before any agreement would beย signed.ย 

Fairchild now regrets that she made a deal withย TransCanada.

โ€œOnce I signed an agreement, TransCanada seemed to think it could get away with ruining my property,โ€ sheย said.

But she plans to do everything in her power to stop that fromย happening.

During my first visit to Fairchild’s ranch, we went to the easement where workers with land-moving machines were digging.ย  We walked across the creek to the other side where a wide swath of trees running the length of the right-of-way had been cut down to make room for theย pipeline.ย 

Fairchild warned that clearing the trees would cause erosion issues, and she was right. A hole large enough for her to stand in opened up in Januaryย 2013.


Eleanor Fairchild in a hole that opened up on her land due to erosion caused by the KXL pipeline installation. ยฉ2013 Kathyย Redman

TransCanada filled in the hole and did some work to strengthen the banks of the creek that the pipeline installation hadย weakened.

But Fairchild believes that whatever work the company did ended up making problemsย worse.ย 

โ€œTransCanada sends people who donโ€™t know what they are doing,โ€ she toldย me.

The contractors sent to plant trees admitted it was their first time ever planting trees. โ€œOnly 30 of the 200 trees that were planted are still alive,โ€ Fairchildย said.

Four years later, Fairchild and I went back to the same spot we visited in 2012. This time we couldnโ€™t walk down to the creek because the banks were covered with loose rocks too dangerous to walkย on.

Fairchild recounted what a horror it was for her to find TransCanada had dumped truckloads of rocks down the banks and into the creek bed to deal with the erosion that had worsened since the companyโ€™s first restorative attempt in 2013. She let the company know its first effort to stop the erosion had not worked, and asked them to try again. But she never imaged the company would move forward without discussing with her what they planned toย do.ย 

TransCanada maintains that covering the banks of the creek with medium-sized rocks, known as rip-rap, is a good solution to stabilize creek banks. But Fairchild doesnโ€™t believe it will work. The rocks are continuing to sink into the sand, making the banks more unstable than they hadย been.

She is not the only one with a negative assessment of TransCanadaโ€™s restoration efforts. Earlier this year, an inspector sent by TransCanada to check the status of erosion on Fairchildโ€™s land, told her the work TransCanada is doing to fix her land is patchwork that ultimately wonโ€™t do the job. In his opinion, all the rip-rap needs to be removed and a drain system constructed, like one TransCanada installed for one of her neighbors whose land had similar problems. He also confirmed that a deep cut that formed alongside the right-of-way was caused by remediation work alreadyย done.

But another TransCanada representative had told Fairchild the company was not responsible for the cut because it wasnโ€™t part of theย right-of-way.ย 


Rocks lining the banks of a creek on Fairchildโ€™s land that the Gulf Coat pipeline crosses. ยฉ2016 Julieย Dermansky

Agreements between TransCanada and landowners require the company to return property to its original condition, or as close as possible toย it.

โ€œThe banks and the creek bottom didnโ€™t have rocks before the pipeline installation, and now they do. There were no rocks anywhere in that area, it was just solid sand.โ€ Fairchild said. โ€œHow can this be considered returning my land to its original condition?โ€ sheย wonders.ย 

TransCanada doesnโ€™t deny that some landowners have complaints. The companyโ€™s media specialist Matthew John told me that more than 90% of the landowners are satisfied with restoration efforts. โ€œRestoration along the Keystone System right-of-way has been progressing well,โ€ John claimed in an email to me. As for issues on Fairchild’s land, the company is still working with her on that, according toย John.

After Judah Lopez, the TransCanada land representative for Fairchildโ€™s area told her the company would address the problems on her land โ€” but that there was no money to get to them this year โ€” Fairchild wrote to TransCanadaโ€™s CEO and the companyโ€™s Dallas office to let them know waiting until next year was notย acceptable.ย 

In response to Fairchildโ€™s letter, Andrew Craig, the land manager for the Keystone Pipeline, came to take a look with a team. He agreed to fix the cut in her land this fall, but her request to take the rip-rap away was denied. โ€œI am pleased that things look better,โ€ he wrote Fairchild following hisย visit.ย 

Things didnโ€™t look good to me. I wondered where landowners like Fairchild could turn after the government green lighted a pipeline companyโ€™s eminent domain use of their land, and then that company didnโ€™t restore it to near its originalย condition.

I asked the US Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) if it has any role in helping a landowner in a case likeย Fairchildโ€™s.

PHSMA representative Damon Hill explained in an email that it isnโ€™t PHMSAโ€™s job to handle complaints from landowners unless the complaint is directly related to the pipeline, for example a spillย incident.ย 

โ€œWe can only hope they hire people who know how to do theย jobโ€

So what agency should a landowner turn to if a pipeline operator damages their land, if not PHMSA? Hill suggested the landowner try a state agency, but could not say which one. In a follow-up conversation*, he also added that the landowner could sue the pipelineย company.ย 

I contacted the Texas Railroad Commission, the agency that regulates the oil and gas industry in Texas, about Fairchildโ€™s situation and asked if it handled landownersโ€™ complaints about damage caused by pipeline companies. Ramona Nye, a spokesperson for the commission, referred me to PHMSA.

Next I tried the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). I was unable to get a response from the Fort Worth office, which deals with creeks in the Winnsboro area, but a spokesperson in the Galveston office, Kristi McMillian, returned my call. The Corps would like to be able to respond to all the complaints concerning damage to creeks caused by pipelines, she said, but its manpower isย limited.

I asked Smith if TransCanada needed to use licensed contractors to do restoration work when a problem arose along a creek after the pipeline installation, as in Fairchild’sย case.

โ€œWe can only hope they hire people who know how to do the job,โ€ she said, but there is no license required for a contractor to do restoration work on the creekย banks.

Fairchild reached out to the USACE after my June visit. She spoke to Corp compliance officer David Madden on June 16*ย about the situation on her land. He told her he would look into it and get back to her. A couple of months later, Fairchild called him again to ask if anyone was planning to have a look. Ryan told her he had passed on her information and would check to see on theย progress.

Fairchild bristles when she hears Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump talk about how people can get rich from eminentย domain.

โ€œItโ€™s not true,โ€ she said. โ€œThat is aย lie.โ€

If a company can claim it is entitled to use eminent domain to get a project built, you can either make the best deal you can with that company, or the government will allow the company to take your land anyway, sheย said.

My takeaway from Fairchild and other landowners who have opposed the pipeline from the start โ€” and have had to deal with issues similar to Fairchildโ€™s โ€” is that once a pipeline company decides it is going to take your land, you are on yourย own.ย 

โ€œIt just isnโ€™t right how these companies are allowed to treat people,โ€ Fairchild told me. โ€œBut if TransCanada thinks it can just wear me down and Iโ€™ll stop fighting, they areย wrong.โ€

She plans to do whatever its takes to get TransCanada to comply with not only its contract with her but also the federally mandated rules, which obligates the company to restore her land to its original condition or as close as possible toย it.

Video:ย Eleanor Fairchild on David Danielย and the fight against tar sandsย pipelines

* This story has been updated to clarify dates and names of agencyย contacts.

LEAD IMAGE:ย Eleanor Fairchild standing in a cut on her land caused by erosion connected to the Gulf Coast Pipeline that TransCanada has agreed to fix. ยฉ2016 Julie Dermanskyย 

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Julie Dermansky is a multimedia reporter and artist based in New Orleans. She is an affiliate scholar at Rutgers Universityโ€™s Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights. Visit her website at www.jsdart.com.

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