"Byhalia Connection offered this Southwest Memphis resident what he said were “pennies and peanuts” for an easement, then sued him when he said no."
"Three houses stand on the Owens family land along Tully Road in Southwest Memphis. Joseph Owens lives with his wife in one facing the woods. His sister-in-law rrents another that’s a quick walk down the dead-end street, and his son lives in the home down the hill, where Owens grew up. The family has lived on the plot since at least the 1940s.
Owens, who is Black, considers the acre of land a generational inheritance. That’s why he turned down an offer of $3,000 from an oil pipeline company to buy easements on the property, he said. So the company took Owens to court, claimed eminent domain and took the easements anyway.
Owens, 59, is among at least eight Southwest Memphis landowners who have lost or may lose some property rights through eminent domain, a governmental power that has been handed off to a big corporation. The Byhalia Connection Pipeline, a joint venture of oil giants Valero Energy and Plains All American Pipeline, has been taking Shelby County landowners to court since mid-October in a last-ditch effort to obtain easements on land in the path of its proposed pipeline."
