Imminent Domain, what to do

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

SNIP...

What is a sewage lagoon?

These eight "private" sewage lagoons (owned by Seneca, the sweet corn canning plant), which make up about half a section, are about 2 miles from my back yard.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gl...!4d-94.1517524


These five sewage lagoons are part of the City of Cologne's sanitary sewer system, as you can see, it is right at the edge of that town...about 20 miles from me.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Co...!4d-93.7805556
notice the proximity to the two lakes, which are connected by and to Carver Creek, which drains into the Minnesota River.

[MUSTANG]

JonBinGlenco has a great photo describing all the things I mentioned on Sewage Lagoons. The "Green" is where algae and other life is growing in the Sewage Lagoon, the Brown - well that is newer raw effluent sometimes referred to as ****, and then the dark (gray turning to black) is a sewage Lagoon where the water has either been removed/evaporated (or new and not yet used) - one can see machinery in that pond which looks to me as if they are cleaning the sludge out and the Black area is the Pond Liner where sludge is gone (Of course an Expert on Sewage Lagoons ad **** processing could weigh in and correct my observations).

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Mustang,
I think that machinery is a pump. They pump the aged sludge/slurry, it has some water content to make it pump-able for up to a couple miles through a flexible hose that may be about 10" dia? The hose get connected to a tractor and plow, they 'incorporate" the slurry right into the soil. They do this once in the spring and once in the Fall...if there is a west wind, then the whole town can smell it. But that is the only time the smell is noticeable.

[MUSTANG]

The local Septic Pump Trucks in both Moapa and Kalispell dispose of Sludge on Fields. Acts as a Fertilizer and soil moderator; Greenies Hate This as they think it contributes to "Algae Blooms" in the waterways. In actuality; all of the high levels of nutrients are gone by the time it is spread on the Fields. Unlike Chicken, Hog, and Stockyard run off where the Nitrogen and other "Fertilizer" items are in high quantities; so high in fact they would burn grass and other items growing in a field - why so much of the ground in those locations has no vegetation; but grows well at the borders.

[richhodg66]

Lots of good information, thanks.

Gonna get in touch with all of the affected people. I'm not the guy who's gonna lose property here, just the encroachment of running that pipe through part of my property and the almost certainty it will raise taxes and drop property values. The old guy whose 56 acres they're talking about taking is the one to lose the most.

I'll ask around, in rural Kansas there has to be a lawyer who has experience in this sort of thing, I just have to find out who that is, get all of us affected by it on a united front and figure out what to do.

[Petrol & Powder]

Can the government take land for public use ? = YES
Can you stop them from taking that land for public use? = NO
Is the government required to compensate you for the land they take? = YES
Does the government have to give you "fair market value" for the land they take? = YES
Is "fair market value" sometimes disputed and settled by the courts? = YES


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SO.......find out EXACTLY what the proposal is. Don't ask your neighbor, don't listen to rumor, don't refer to social media, don' listen to the guy at the convenience store down the road.....- go to the government agency and LOOK FOR YOURSELF. Look at plats, plans, drawings, etc. and determine EXACTLY what will be impacted.
Then decide what your loss, if any, will be.

Make your decisions concerning fair market value based on your property that will be impacted.
Don't get emotionally involved in other people's fights and don't base your decisions on emotion.

If the government is going to take a small sliver of your property for a pipeline, get fair market value for the little sliver of land they are taking and go on with your life.

Don't lose money over "principle". Make what money you can because they are going to take that land regardless of how you feel about it.

[popper]

I was raised in a small town in east Ks doring the 50s, it had a real sewage disposal plant. Concrete basins with rotating arms to increase sludge. Don't ever remember seeing any city septic tanks around the small towns. Basically same as a sewage pond. I guess these are really just sludge pits for evaporate drying.

[rancher1913]

been down this road not to long ago. city wanted to expand the airport and take some land from one of my neighbors and the air space from everybody within a 5 mile radius. we were successful in stopping the taking of the air space and the neighbor almost bankrupted himself trying to stop the taking of his land, he lost, they took it.

there is a very big difference in stopping a pipeline from crossing your land and stopping city hall. one is a private company and the other is, well, city hall.

every road has a governmental row that extends "x" number of feet from the centerline of the road, telephone and power and other utilities have unhampered use of the row and you have no say so in what goes thru or get any compensation for it.

[Kraschenbirn]

Dunno about the guy who's losing the 56 acres for the site of the sewage lagoon but it may be that the OP has no actual control over the land where the pipe is to be laid. Most public roads have an easement on both sides ranging from just a few feet to as much as 50 yards and owner of adjacent property has, essentially, no say about public work performed within that boundary. Same goes for 'navigable' waterways. We've recently had a considerable outcry from property owners along a drainage slough feeding into a tributary of the Vermilion River. County drainage commissioners decided to dredge and clean up the slough and, in the process, cleared a 30' strip along both sides of all the brush and trees. Adjacent property owner raised a considerable fuss and, in the end, found that, under state law, they had no recourse against 'public work' performed within the easement zones.

[MaryB]

We redid the sewage lagoons here about 20 years ago... they added a temporary pipe to tanker trucks for the sewage and asked people to keep water use to a minimum for 5 days while they pumped the ponds out, dug down to the clay liner, relined with a rubber membrane system to stop the ground water leak. Back in business on day 6... and it was 1/2 the cost of developing new ponds

[Petrol & Powder]

................ - and the neighbor almost bankrupted himself trying to stop the taking of his land, he lost, they took it.

...................

/\ This is the key point

When it comes to eminent domain the question is not "can the government take the land for public use". The answer to that question is almost always - "Yes, the government CAN take land for public use". That's not where the fight is.

The real question is: "what is fair market value for what they are actually taking"? You have a better chance of winning that battle or at least improving your outcome if you're smart.

[Three44s]

All public roads do not have an official easement. The county road past our ranch is a good example. Our county claims they sort of have an easement. What they are really hang their hat on is adverse possession, beyond that they are bluffing.

The local power company wanted to move the rest of their line down onto the county road like a portion they already had several years ago. The problem is that too many folks run off the road and often shear off poles or anchors in the process.

One such incident while our father was also using the road. A hot rod kid meeting him oncoming sheared a pole on a corner and dropped 12,000 volt three phase right onto the road surface missing him by a few feet.

A few weeks latter .....

We caught the power folks out driving stakes and we told them to roll up their sleeves and meet with us. The area boss tried to be cute with us, telling us they had no record of accidents of the kind we were concerned with. One of his underlings indicated to me the company knows full well the danger after the boss drifted away. The power boss tried to impress us with the imaginary county road easement. That fell flat. We wanted to keep the power line where it is and offered to assist in building better access ourselves as an incentive for them to keep it where it is (out reach of sloppy drivers).

The net result was a stalemate and the power company just left things as they are. That is sad because the power load has grown and the line needs upgrading.

If we were just bean counters we would cheer them moving the line down to the road because if they did that we would have more freedom to dig rock in our pit. But it’s not about money to us. We are concerned about human life and to a lesser extent long power outages while the utility company fix the damages.

Do not kid yourself, government does not always get their ducks in a row. In our fight with the USFS did more blunders than I can enumerate here. The killer goof is that they failed to do an Environmental Assessment to build a new road system. Further, they cooked the books. When the FS let a timber sale contract (three days after the Declaration Of Taking) the logger got in touch with us. We gave him a tour and he was impressed with our road system enough that he requested that the FS delete the unnecessary road segments thus saving the taxpayers that cost. The cooking of the books became obvious when the actual timber sale contract was laid side by side with the cost analysis the FS used in the Taking just three days prior to letting the logging contract. Interestingly, when we asked for a copy of that analysis prior to the Taking, we were informed that the document had been THROWN AWAY!

We were more than willing to accommodate the agency but the they wanted it all their way. We wanted the government to harvest their defective Hemlock more so apparently than they did. With declarations from the government’s own logger on our behalf and a mistake by the US Attorney in Spokane, we were finally able to have our day in court.

The Federal District Judge ruled in our favor by Vacating the Taking. This rattled chops all the way to DC as it had only happened once before (1977 in Ohio I believe). Now the Dept Of Justice took the case over. They appealed to the Ninth Circuit.

We went full on public relations and had things stirred up all the way to the Cheif’s office. This area is a huge hit with the public and we found we had friends from all over the region, the trail using public (primarily horse backers) ready in the wings to let the FS how they felt, which they did, so much so that the Dept of Justice tried to scare our attorney by threatening to get her disbarred!

The Government was HOT!

But our public outreach had nothing to do with any lawyer and our attorney is not one to scare easy.

During Oral Argument at the Ninth Circuit, the lead judge (a Reagan appointee) stopped the DOJ lawyer dead in her tracks ten seconds into her presentation and chewed the Gov a new back side. The DOJ lawyer was struggling for words. Even the two (Carter) judges were starring in disbelief.

While the Ninth Circuit did reinstate the vacated taking they did it such that the FS could not effectively use it. We substantially prevailed on the lack of an environmental assessment and the agency had to ultimately pay us damages.

Now I have no illusions about the situation of our fight being the same or remotely on the same scale as the OP because we were saving our families 3400 acres of good timber land that was being threatened by the government taking just 15 acres from us. But there are parrellels .... We were told ..... “well there is nothing we can do now” by outsiders. “ Just take your lumps and move on .....”

The FS logger ended going broke and those defective Hemlock trees are still spreading their misery. In the settlement there is administrative access for the FS just like we offered repeatedly. Oddly where the Gov stated they were intent on public access to justify the condemnation, when the deal was struck they never even mentioned the trails across our lands even though we also specified trail access for the public in our offers prior to the taking.

We learned a lot, met a lot of good people, made lots of friends. We paved a partnership with the trail using public that gives the FS pause even after 28 years. Least the Government chooses to get high an mighty again .....

Three44s

[samari46]

We had a company that wanted to build a medical and hospital waste right in the middle of town. That got shot down. However in your case a effluent (polite word for human waste) Just cannot be built so as to allow the waste to be pumped into a pit with no remediation or treatment. They the town would have to do an epa environmental study, possibly install a liner to prevent waste from getting into the water table and much more. The idea of just pumping untreated human waste into a pit with no treatment borders on the insane. Sounds like some one or a bunch of someones stand to make some serious bucks thinking they can get away with it. What about plans for treatment, or heavy rains causing the retention pond to overflow onto someones property or into the navigable waterways?. Last I looked it was a 30K fine for causing a sheen or discoloration on or in the navigable waters of the United States. Are the provisions for preventing this??. Maybe they think the quarry would be
the perfect place since its all rock. Who will be responsible for maintaining the pumps and pipe? What type pipe are they going to use? Regular schedule 40 pipe will start to corrode very quickly due to the corrosive elements in human waste so it would have to have a liner of some sort. Plus piping exposed to the elements would have to be also protected. Will they being installing cathodic protection? Gas and oil companies do this as a regular thing when installing pipelines. It protects against corrosion from stray or eddy currents that both occur naturally and from electric lines buried in the ground. Will they have an emergency plan in place regarding monitoring it for leaks or pipeline failures?. And quality of welds. When doing new installs or replacing old pipelines we actually had to have certified welders who could do X ray quality welds. And each joint was actually x rayed to check the quality of the welds, if the weld failed the x ray test it was supposed to be ground out and the weld redone. And Re x rayed.
I could go one but you get where I'm going. There must be a thousand and one details in installing pipelines. Most oil and gas lines are installed underground today. Rarely does one above ground. Hope this does provide arguments in your favor. I will say this. There is a 4-5 foot easement on our property for oil and water lined that runs through our front of the property. They dug it up one day with no notice to tie in a new house across the street. Kicked them off the property and told them send someone for me to talk to regarding the easement. 4 hours later guy shows up and very heatedly starts telling me that it will be done wether or not I want it to. Told him to get off my property. I knew darn well there was an easement when we bought the property. What I objected to was the foreman telling me it will get done with or without me. And no prior notice. Next day another guy shows up and patiently explains to me about the easement. And can they proceed?. I explained to him where was the written notice time and date when this was to be done. he had no argument there. I told him any excavation and back fill was to be done so as to leave my property in as found condition. Well that was not done. called the water company and told then what happened. Showed up with a crew and equipment and did not leave until I was satisfied. Told him I cut the grass there and didn't want busted or broken tractor blades. They did the same to a neighbor of mine, gave him the contact number next day crew shows up at his place. Frank

[Greg S]

My question is how far are you from the proposed new lagoon and what is the prevailing wind direction perticularly during times of calm, (late evening/early morning). Think odor.

[Lloyd Smale]

yup sadly that's the best advice here. You can pay a lawyer thousands to research all of this and make an attempt at it but in the end you will probably loose and what they pay you will be nothing after you pay your lawyer. I worked for the power company for over 30 years. I saw them force right aways onto many people who didn't want them. Nevers saw a single case where the power company lost and that's a private business. You would be fighting the government officials that would rule on the power company.

Save your money, some dirtbag lawyer will tell you he can handle it, he can't... The Las Vegas strip is built on land that was taken by eminent domaine. Make the city, county or state pay a reasonable price that includes a nuisance fee... With the government, the path of least resistance is best...

[richhodg66]

The small town we lived in for years and still own a house in has its sewage lagoon south of town, but probably isn't any farther, maybe not as far, from where we lived than this proposed one will be from us here. I never would have noticed that one if I hadn't driven past it pretty regularly. Done right, I'm sure these can be built with minimal impact.

They said it's a pretty big engineering firm in a nearby town that's doing the work. Not sure if they have done all the EPA studies and bureaucratic details it takes to do just about anything anymore. Gonna look into that too. Like most rural folks, we're on well water out here, so definitely concerns about that.

[Three44s]

It seems like the city folk would rather have the “the hicks in the sticks” smell their “do” than they who have made it, otherwise they would fix what is already serving the purpose where it is now.

Three44s

[waksupi]

yup sadly that's the best advice here. You can pay a lawyer thousands to research all of this and make an attempt at it but in the end you will probably loose and what they pay you will be nothing after you pay your lawyer. I worked for the power company for over 30 years. I saw them force right aways onto many people who didn't want them. Nevers saw a single case where the power company lost and that's a private business. You would be fighting the government officials that would rule on the power company.

A local guy did fight the power company and won, when they were widening the highway. Drive north from my place towards Kalispell, and you will see where the power lines make a jog around the front of the Cycle Haus property.

[popper]

Google Leonard, KS for a well done one. Hamilton,Mo has a poor one (actually several). Don't know the KS rules but Tx a city cannot eminent domain county land. They can annex it. County can take the land if a county 'water/sewage' district (tx calls them MUD) provides city service.

[TCLouis]

Have not read all responses yet, but will add this . . .

Is anyonne planning a subdivision/commercial/industrial development in that area?