Get It Outta Here: Okla. Property Owner Wants All Signs of Abandoned Pipeline Removed

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A Pawnee County, Oklahoma property owner looks to have Magellan Midstream Partners, L.P. remove all signs of a now-abandoned pipeline that sits idle across the Central United States. 

The five-page lawsuit, initially filed on January 22 in Tulsa County Court, alleges the approximately 1,100-mile pipeline, which stretches from Texas to Minnesota, has not been used since 2019 when it was “permanently abandoned” by the defendants. According to the case, the purpose for the grants of easement to operate the project across proposed class members’ properties no longer exists. 

The fact that the abandoned pipeline continues to sit on proposed class members’ land is a problem for property owners, according to the plaintiff. Per the suit, neither Magellan Midstream Partners nor Magellan Ammonia Pipeline, L.P. have filed with the appropriate government authorities a release of the easements to use proposed class members’ property, leaving the individuals “burdened” as “both a practice matter and as a matter of public record.”

“The easements having been abandoned, Defendants no longer have any right to travel or enter upon the surface of the Landowners [sic] property or to store, maintain or leave any equipment, outbuildings, signage or pipeline on the Landowners [sic] property,” the case contends. 

According to the complaint, the defendants are in the business of transporting petroleum products and hazardous materials via pipeline. The pipeline at issue in the lawsuit began carrying hazardous materials for a company called Mapco in the late 1960s or early 1970s, the case says, and stretched across the country from Texas to Minnesota. The pipeline was acquired and operated by Magellan for years before it was shuttered in 2019, the suit reads. 

Since the defendants have ceased using the pipeline, the purpose for the grant of an easement to transport hazardous materials “is no longer in existence,” the lawsuit stresses. Per the complaint, Magellan Midstream and its subsidiary have publicly stated their intention to render the pipeline permanently inoperable by “sealing the ends and filling it with salt water, an inert gas or by leaving it empty.” The plaintiff is presently unaware of the condition of the pipeline, the case notes. 

According to the suit, the defendants in 2019 filed paperwork with the U.S. Department of Transportation, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, essentially notifying the agency that the pipeline had been abandoned while providing notice that it had been permanently disconnected and sealed. The plaintiff argues that the defendants’ official abandonment of the pipeline and its designation as unusable means the companies have also abandoned the easements on proposed class members’ properties.

From the suit: 

“Defendants have demonstrated their intent to permanently abandon the pipeline. This intention coupled with nonuse of the pipeline creates a forfeiture of any interest in or claim to an easement on the property of the Plaintiff and the Landowners in the proposed class.” 

Although the easements have been abandoned, the defendants have left in place the pipeline itself and related property, which “continue[s] to encroach upon and interfere with Landowners’ rights and interests,” the suit says. 

The plaintiff seeks for himself and proposed class members declaratory relief and monetary damages that include the cost to remove the pipeline and remediate the land, reimbursement for the decrease in landowners’ properties and the “fair market value of the use of their property for storage of the abandoned pipeline and related personal property.” 

The lawsuit, which was removed to Oklahoma federal court on February 24, looks to represent natural persons, privately owned corporations, limited liability companies or trusts and title holders of real property in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and Minnesota across which the defendants’ abandoned pipeline is situated. 

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