A Boston-based company is the only defendant in an eminent domain lawsuit that has not given permission for an easement allowing Rural Water District No. 5 to expand its service area in Lyon County, according to the water district’s attorney.
The water district filed the petition for eminent domain on July 20 in Lyon County District Court. Defendants named in the suit were W.H.B. Cattle, Oklahoma City; American Tower, Boston; GCC License Corp., a Delaware corporation; W.H. Braum Inc., Oklahoma City; Chase Bank of Texas, Novatel Finance, a Delaware corporation and a variety of unknown defendants whose identities may become known later.
Topeka attorney Quentin Kurtz said Thursday that American Tower’s lack of permission caused the district to file suit. American Tower has a 99-year lease on the property.
Kurtz said that attempts to gain consent for the easements have been ongoing for “at least two months and probably longer.”
The Braum companies and others named in the suit already have agreed to the easement, he said.
“The Braums have provided easements, voluntary easements, to us for everything they own and don’t lease,” Kurtz said. “So this eminent domain isn’t really about the Braums at all.”
He said state law requires the lawsuit to include everyone with ties to the property, whether or not consent has been given. The entities with local ties granted easements quickly; the larger company in Boston did not.
“We got to the point where the wheels of their big company were just moving too slow and we were not going to be able to get the line in to satisfy our customers’ water needs in time,” Kurtz said.
He termed the lawsuit “a last resort for us on one small piece of property involving the only owner along the route that didn’t have local ties. ... and in this case it was for the final 600 feet, when we couldn’t get a Boston company to make a corporate decision fast enough.”
That small piece of property is part of six miles of easement that already has been gained from businesses and individuals along the route.
Kurtz said that he has been dealing on the easement with Richard Palermo, a representative of American Tower.
Palermo would not talk about the easement or the lawsuit in a telephone interview this morning.
“I don’t have any information for you,” Palermo said.
A call to American Tower’s media relations contact was not returned by press time.
The water district expansion has been needed for several years to increase pipeline and pumping capacity, according to John Rice, retired operator of the district who has returned temporarily as easement acquisition agent.
The need to act on the expansion became pressing when Westar Energy began constructing its peaking plant northeast of Emporia.
“That’s what put the final impetus, we need to get started on this,” Rice said. “It’s basically doubled the pipeline size we were thinking of running.”
Once the property easements are in place and construction is completed, the capacity of the district “should be adequate for years to come,” Rice said.