Real Estate & Property Law

The Costs of Eminent Domain

By Alan Ackerman

Farmington Independent

For months, area electric utility companies Great River Energy, Xcel Energy, along with nine others from the Dakotas to Wisconsin, have held public meetings to explain a proposed power line expansion project called CapX2020.

But a group here in Dakota County is not buying into it. In fact, the Citizens Energy Task Force argues parts of the project are simply not needed. CETA backers say the proposed 345 kilovolt power line that is proposed to come through parts of Eureka and Castle Rock townships and end in Hampton could pose health problems, and certainly decrease property value.

Perhaps most of all, though, CETA members want to make sure that landowners along the route are fairly compensated for the land that the utility companies will acquire for construction of those power lines.

But one of the biggest issues Maccabee and Topp see landowners facing is their ability to be appropriately compensated for the land the utilities group will acquire for construction of the power lines.

The concept is not a foreign one to the area. In 2007, a group of Empire township residents took Great River Energy to court over a 115 kV power line. One homeowner had initially been offered $14,600 for the easement by Great River Energy, but after an appeal received $55,000. The only problem was, a chunk of that award went to the lawyer who fought for the group.

Topp and Maccabee would like to see something built into the state's laws that support landowners' rights, but any such legislation did not get introduced this year, Topp said.

Local owners fighting with low transmission companies seem to be endemic to the system. Making the system fair to the affected owners is difficult.

The costs to the individual owner can be overwhelming. 

Full post as published by National Eminent Domain Blog on April 06, 2009 (boomark / email).