EAST TEXAS - Today the Sierra Club released a new report that profiles Americans living on the front lines of toxic tar sands oil development. TransCanada, a foreign oil company, wants to build the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline to pump highly-toxic tar sands oil from North Dakota to Texas, and is using the threat of eminent domain to pressure landowners to sell their land for the project. The report, called “Toxic Tar Sands: Profiles from the Front Lines” can be found online: http://www.sierraclub.org/dirtyfuels/tar-sands/faces/

One of the Americans featured in this new report is David Daniel, a Texas landowner from Winnsboro. He first became aware of the tar sands controversy when TransCanada surveyors were trespassing on his land two years ago. They followed up with threatening letters saying they would use eminent domain to take his land.

Mr. Daniel voiced his frustration with the process, saying, “the fact that a foreign company can take Americans’ private property is just plain wrong. This is our home, which was supposed to be a safe place to raise our daughter, and now it is at risk for an oil disaster.”

Fearing he would lose his land completely, Daniel eventually signed an easement agreement. But he hasn't given up. Now, Daniel is stepping up his fight to protect property owners from being forced to endure the unacceptably high risks tar sands pipelines pose to their land.

2,554 pipeline spills occurred between the years 2000-2009 alone, and Daniel knows a pipeline leak is not a question of "if," but "when." Daniel is educating his fellow farmers and landowners from Nebraska to Texas about the risks toxic pipelines poses, and the organizing with them to oppose TransCanada’s strongarm tactics.