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NW Ohio | Sorry for the long post! I know this isn't exactly what you were asking for but....
It has been a while, and I did not have any land directly affected by it, but we just recently had 2 large pipelines go through our area. Two 42" Natural Gas lines. At least double the going rate of land, most likely more than that is what people in this area got paid. I'm thinking the total was somewhere in that $100/foot range, maybe a little more. Again, I was not directly affected by it on my land. Drainage tile repair was not included in, but on top of the cost of the easement. (I am drainage contractor so that's where I came into the picture). 60' permanent easement and 150' temporary construction easement. Pipeline company wanted me to sign up and work for them as a contractor, but I refused. Too many restrictions on who I could talk to and what I could do. Drainage repair costs were paid from the pipeline company to the land owner then they could decide how and when they wanted to proceed.
The people in my area who seemed to make out the best were the ones who hired a good local lawyer by themselves or with a small group of people. The big law firm that came in and represented a lot of people did alright, but they only got paid if it went through so a little bit of a conflict of interest according to some people. The lawyer is probably the most important thing, making sure all of the fine print doesn't let them do whatever they want. I know a couple people who ended up having pumping stations or valve stations built on their property because nothing said they couldn't. No extra compensation needed.
Have rocks REMOVED not just buried. You will find them again if you don't. I found lots of them, buried about 1.5'-3' deep just off the pipelines permanent easement so they are your problem, not theirs. Have any drainage repair plans in writing ahead of time, I imagine the same would go for irrigation repair or fence repair. Basically, have everything in writing. Drainage tile repair was double the normal rate, but should have probably been a little higher than that. The repairs are slow going as they need to be out there with you while you work on their easement. If your soil is anything like ours around northwest Ohio, the ground will be in tough shape when they leave. Installing drainage tile the Sumer after they finished, the trench stayed open after the tile plow went through. Could see the tile up to 4' deep in some places and it pulled hard. More times than I care to think about we had to hook another dozer on the front of a self propelled Bron 350 plow to get the tile in the ground. Most of the tile the pipeline company "repaired" across the work area needed to be fixed correctly when I got to them. They didn't care a bit about it, and some times the tile was only hooked up on the one side then just fell off into the trench somewhere! It's been about 6 years since install and you can still see the area in the crops from the road, and on the yield monitors as I am told. I am also told it has improved, but not back to normal and may never get there.
If they need to remove water from their workspace, they just pump it off to the side, onto your field. Watched them deliver a lot of pipe to the workspace when it was too wet to drive a pick up across the field. They pull semi in off the road, hook a dozer on the front and drag the semi across the field to the cranes unloading the pipe. Once empty, pull the semi across the rest of the section to the next road and off the truck goes again.
Your time is worth something too. For example, you can bill them for time spent talking to your drainage contractor and he can bill for the time spent drawing up a plan. Or if you are your drainage person, bill them an hourly rate for the work you do. $100/hour was not unreasonable for the amount paper work I had to fill out to get things approved for my customers and they didn't flinch at that price.
NOW, As a third party local guy, I heard a lot of the bad stories. I do know that if you were nice to them, and treated the workers politely, they were very friendly and would do little things help you out if you asked. Most of my contact people from the pipeline were very easy to work with. They would help me out and approve changes as needed. During my planning, if I needed to cross their pipes in a certain spot, I could request that the pipes be a little deeper there and they accommodated my request. However, if you were a pain, and caused problems in some way, shape, or form, they could care less about you.
If they build new bridges into your farm across a ditch or something, they may be able to leave them in when construction is finished, if you ask. Not always, but I know of a couple that were able to be left behind. I know people who got stone and culvert pipes from the construction crews as they were cleaning up after install. Saves the installation company from having to haul them away somewhere.
None of this may apply to you, but I felt the urge to inform. I'm sure you can find a lot of this info elsewhere, but most of the people I talked to said the money wasn't worth it. They would have been happier without having to deal with it. Hopefully your experience will be better. I'm not sure how large of a project you are talking about, but the project I was around went from Pennsylvania through Ohio and then up into Michigan. Dual 42" pipes installed 20' apart. It was such a large project and the easement cost was such a small amount of the overall total cost that I'm not sure how good of a comparison it is. If nothing else, this project taught me what to watch out for if another project like this comes through my area!
One final note! The school districts in my area were supposed to get a lot of extra tax revenue from these pipelines somehow. The yearly tax dollars was a big selling point for some of the area commissioners and other officials. The year after it was installed they somehow got the pipelines final value decreased and drastically reduced the amount of revenue the schools in the area will get. I'm not sure how they were able to do that, but somehow they did.... I am not as informed as I should be on things like that...
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going rate for potential pipeline on your land
