Three environmental groups filed a lawsuit accusing a Louisiana pipeline company of refusing to hand over records about its claim to easements across hundreds of residents’ private properties.

The lawsuit, filed..by the Center for Constitutional Rights, claims 400 parcels of private property are being taken for the construction of the Bayou Bridge Pipeline.

Bayou Bridge Pipeline LLC – which is majority owned by Energy Transfer Partners, which also owns the Dakota Access Pipeline, as well as by Phillips 66 and Sunoco – has tried to seize even unwilling homeowners’ land on the pretext that “it has legal authority to exercise eminent domain and take private property because it is a ‘common carrier’ under Louisiana law and that its proposed pipeline is ‘in the public interest and necessity,’” according to the complaint brought on behalf of Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, Louisiana Bucket Brigade and 350 New Orleans.

The conservation groups claim that, in 2016, before it received the required permits for the proposed pipeline, Bayou Bridge Pipeline “began pursuing easements and/or servitudes across privately-owned property and expropriating the properties when negotiations with landowners failed.”

...In response to a request for comment ...Energy Transfer Partners avoided addressing claims that it is improperly taking land from hundreds of residents and dodging records requests.

...environmentalist groups said in a news release that Energy Transfer Partners’ existing pipelines have a terrible track record for spills and violating regulations...

...Tuesday’s lawsuit is just one of several legal actions taken in the past few months by groups opposed to the Bayou Bridge Pipeline...This week’s lawsuit calls for an expedited hearing. A date has not yet been set.

[Also refers to Bayou Bridge Pipeline LLC]