Following presentations by eight pipeline executives at the June North Dakota Governor’s Pipeline Summit, McKenzie County Job Development Authority Executive Director and North Dakota rancher Gene Veeder provided an entirely different perspective of pipeline development.
With no slides and feeling like the “odd duck” in the room, Veeder said that while he doesn’t work directly in oil and gas, he does know some of the challenges the pipeline companies face when they “come into a community of 1,500 people and engage a workforce of 1,500.”
Descending on a community to build a gas plant or bringing in a crew that is going to build a pipeline, he said, has a big impact on that community.
Landowner perspective
Living on a ranch nearly 100 years old, Veeder said there has been a pipeline on his property for as long as he can remember. That pipeline, he said, carried crude oil to a refinery in Mandan, S.D., and in all the years he has been on the ranch, only once does he remember someone coming on the ranch to service it. That one event, coupled with airplane flyovers, was all he ever knew about the pipeline.
That experience of the minimal impact a pipeline on his property had on him is the vision that he wants to see for future pipeline development in his community.
Veeder said he doesn’t have a lot of energy interests on his own ranch, but still with all of the activity in McKenzie County he said he can drive into his property and see five pipelines, a transmission line, and six roads, all of which have been built in approximately the last 12 months, so naturally, he said, that is a real impact for landowners.
“I’m a very strong proponent of pipelines,” he said, but it only takes “one bad player” to impact all other operators.
Five to 10 years ago, he said, the big concern with landowners was “how much are you going to pay me to cross my land.”
But now, he said, that has changed and he believes that safety has become as a more important issue with the public. He said the public wants know what’s in the pipelines, what’s going to happen if there is a spill, and what the safety factor is.
He went on to say that he agrees compensation is still a big issue, but reclamation can be even a bigger one because some of the vegetation on newer pipelines has not yet grown back.
In addition, he said, liability is also a big concern and he doesn’t think average landowners know what their long-term liability is for a pipeline.
The landman
Veeder said that all of the people he deals with in the pipeline business are professionals, but he said dealing with landowners goes down to the “lowest denominator,” and that, he said, is the landman, and it is that person who initially negotiates the lease with the landowner.
More importantly, and what is sometimes unrecognized by the pipeline company, he continued, is the construction company representing the pipeline company. That, he said, could be one of the biggest challenges currently facing pipeline companies. “You will live and die by the professionalism of that construction company that builds that pipeline,” he said, and “the damage control after the construction company that came in and drove too fast on the road in front of my place, or left trash on my place, or drove off right-of-way, that can come right back and park on you later when you try to do another pipeline.”
On the water side
Veeder noted that he belongs to a water district which builds its own water pipelines, so another growing issue he sees for the pipeline companies is how the influx of oil pipelines might affect the “water side.”
People in the community, he said, are aware of this issue and he believes it is the only issue not being addressed as it should be.
Overall, Veeder said, his office is pleased with how the pipeline grid is coming together in his county. He said the message he is trying to promote in his community is essentially the same message that Bridger Pipeline Vice President Tad True has recently been voicing, which is “if you don’t like flares, you have to like pipelines; if you don’t like trucks, you have to like pipelines.”
Words of advice
Offering some last words of advice, Veeder told the pipeline companies at the summit to hire the highest caliber construction company they can, and make sure its people that are out there on the ground on a daily basis are professional.
The faster a company can get on and off of a landowner’s property, the less chance there is of a landowner making a complaint to the pipeline company, he said.
Western North Dakota, he continued, is very rugged land, especially in McKenzie County where erosion and invasive species are important issues on the native prairie, so landowners, he said, don’t want to “see you in the rear view mirror,” but instead he said, they want to see you six months from now, and they want to see you again a year from now.
“It has been a real pleasant experience working with the pipeline companies,” Veeder said in closing, and “I appreciate you all working with us and the employment you bring to us.”
