Gary Worthan
A state legislator whose farm is in the path of the pipeline that would ship North Dakota crude oil through Iowa to a refinery in Illinois says he’s probably like a lot of landowners.
He waited to see whether state regulators would approve the project before signing a lease agreement with the pipeline developers. The Iowa Utilities Board approved the construction permit Thursday.
“I think a lot of people were just thinking: ‘I’ve got nothing to lose. Let’s see what happens.'” That’s Representative Gary Worthan whose farm near Storm Lake has been in the family since 1878.
About 250 feet of pipeline will cut through Worthan’s property, near the intersection of two gravel roads. “It would have made a lot more sense if they would have bored diagonally under the gravel road intersection, but Iowa law doesn’t allow that, so they have to come into my property from the west and turn it south and go right back out,” Worthan says.
A representative of the pipeline company made Worthan an offer about 19 months ago and Worthan is planning to accept it now that the Iowa Utilities Board issued a permit for construction.
The pipeline route stretches through 17 Iowa counties and cut across the state diagonally from northwest to southeast.