A Walsh County farm couple and the Dakota Resource Council are challenging the eastern North Dakota route of a proposed $2.1 billion crude oil pipeline, citing a new state constitutional amendment on eminent domain.

John and Janie Capp of Lankin and the DRC have asked the state Public Service Commission for a hearing on the TransCanada Keystone Pipeline.

North Dakota voters last fall approved a constitutional amendment to prevent the state or local governments from forcing the sale of private property for another private project, unless the land is used for "conducting a common carrier or utility business" such as power lines or pipelines.

If the Public Service commission finds the Keystone pipeline is a necessity and grants a route permit, it will have the power of eminent domain to seize land or easements.

Lawyers for DRC and the Capps said in a letter to the Public Service Commission that the state should not grant a route permit before a U.S. State Department environmental impact statement is finished.

The Keystone pipeline's planned corridor goes right through a quarter of their farm land, Janie Capp said. She believes it is bound to leak, "no matter what," and contaminate the air and the shallow wells that her farm uses for water.

Capp said she and her husband hope to stop the pipeline from coming through North Dakota or have it buried in the Interstate 29 right-of-way.

"We cannot see what benefit it will give North Dakota," Janie Capp said Monday. "Where is the benefit?"

The pipeline's sole purpose is to pass through the state carrying a thick crude oil mined from northern Alberta tar sands, the Capps and their attorneys say.

The DRC said arguments that the building and maintenance of the pipeline will create jobs and tax revenue do not qualify it for eminent domain.

The 1,845-mile pipeline would bring crude oil from Hardisty, Alberta, to Patoka, Ill., with a possible extension to Oklahoma. TransCanada says it hopes to start construction in the spring and have the pipeline operating by 2009.

In North Dakota, the company proposes 218 miles of 30-inch pipeline in Cavalier, Pembina, Walsh, Nelson, Steele, Barnes, Ransom and Sargent counties.

The PSC hearing sought by the DRC and the Capps would be in addition to route permit hearings, already set July 23 in Valley City and July 24 in Park River.