BOONE COUNTY, Iowa — A few dozen people met in Boone County Thursday to speak out against a proposed oil pipeline that would run through Iowa.

“You are not going to come and put your pipeline through our farm,” Arlene Bates of Boone County told the crowd, “We’ve had this farm for too many years. And it’s not going to be an asset for my family, to my daughters who I pass this farm to. And it’s not helping out this community.”

The pipeline would transport oil from North Dakota to Illinois. And while the company is offering fair market value to landowners, eminent domain, which would allow the company to take private land over a property owners objections, is not off the table. That and environmental concerns are what folks talked most about Thursday night.

“The justice of it,” landowner Keith Carlson said, “I mean they dig a big trench right through Iowa and we’re the recipients of all this possible leakage and violation of property rights.”

The state legislature is considering bills that would make eminent domain more difficult. Meanwhile, folks at Thursday’s meeting discussed sending letters opposing the plan to the Iowa Utilities Board. The board could make a decision about the pipeline before the end of the year.