A proposed $20 million project to ship crude oil from North Dakota down the Mississippi River is unlikely to go forward as a result of a Missouri Supreme Court ruling Tuesday blocking the use of eminent domain by a port authority.
The state's highest court ruled that the Southeast Missouri Regional Port Authority cannot condemn 30 acres of private land in Scott County, because it produced no justification for taking the land other than economic development. The ruling was the first by the state Supreme Court applying a 2006 Missouri law that barred condemnations "for solely economic development purposes."
The port authority had resorted to eminent domain after failing to agree on a purchase price for some hilly land along Mississippi River. Port authority officials had hoped to lease the land to a company that would build large storage tanks. The intent was to provide a place to hold crude oil shipped by train from North Dakota until it could be loaded onto barges for a further southward journey, said Dan Overbey, the executive director of the port authority.
The $20 million project also would have included the construction of a rail line loop on existing port authority property that would have been large enough to handle the long oil trains, he said. All told, the project could have employed 30 to 40 people, Overbey said.
As a result of the court ruling, "I don't think that project is going to work," he said. "That will mean there are jobs and investment that will not occur."