Pipeline Pushing Forward

EAST TEXAS — A judge in Paris ruled Friday that work on the Keystone XL Pipeline could proceed through the northernmost of 18 Texas counties on its route to the Gulf Coast. Lamar County Court at Law Judge Bill Harris granted pipeline company TransCanada’s motion to dissolve a Feb. 13 temporary restraining order that had stopped construction. That halt had been based on a landowner’s claim the company trampled her property rights and the project could harm Caddo Indian artifacts on her family farm.

Keystone last month announced plans to continue the Texas leg of the project, along with new route that bypasses North Dakota where protests have arisen, despite President Barack Obama’s denial of its permit. That permit was necessary because the pipeline crosses an international boundary, but Prescott said in an earlier interview it only affected a 30-mile stretch crossing the U.S./Canadian border.