Landowners are raising alarms over the safety of oil pipelines snaking through an expanding corridor of Saskatchewan countryside.

They want closer government scrutiny and better compensation from a major pipeline company for lost productivity and access to easements where the lines are buried on their property.

"We don't believe anything we're signing anymore. We're scared," said Ken Habermehl, part of a group of about 100 farmers who banded together earlier this year to form the Saskatchewan Association of Pipeline Landowners, in hopes of gaining a stronger negotiating position with Enbridge, the second-largest pipeline company in Canada.

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Similar organizations at odds with pipeline companies already exist in Manitoba, B.C. and Ontario. Saskatchewan's group adds new members daily, as frustrated farmers read the fine print and decide they can't fight a large corporation alone, Habermehl said.

"We're going to keep growing."

Enbridge is planning to seek National Energy Board (NEB) approval to start construction on a new line, dubbed the Alberta Clipper, by the end of 2007 or early in 2008. Valued at $2 billion US, it's intended to carry light and heavy crude oil from Hardisty, Alta., to the company's American system in Superior, Wis., -- covering a distance of about 1,600 kilometres -- at a rate of up to 450,000 barrels a day.

The company already has five pipelines in the corridor that stretches from Luseland and Kerrobert in the west to Maryfield at the Manitoba border -- and there are outstanding issues related to all of them, the landowners' group says. Their concerns relate to safety and environmental damage, especially since the pipes run into and out of the South Saskatchewan River, which is a major source of drinking water, they stated in a letter faxed to news outlets recently.

"This company has to buy new easements to accommodate this massive project. The landowners have concerns over the last five lines and want those issues addressed first before there is any more easement being bought from us. . . . We are concerned about our neighbours who live downstream from where these pipelines cross."

The National Energy Board, which regulates oil and gas pipelines, has allowed Enbridge "to avoid a full Comprehensive or Review Panel Environmental Assessment of their proposed massive Alberta Clipper pipeline project" in favour of a simple screening process, the group wrote.

"This screening process is one that is taking place behind closed doors and is far less rigorous than what is truly needed."

The group of farmers contends the existing lines are potentially unsafe because they're too shallow and pass too close to farmyards. Worst of all, they say it's unclear who will be responsible for cleaning up once the pipes -- two of which are more than 50 years old and one of which is more than 40 -- have served their purpose.

Enbridge is offering to buy easements only 18 metres wide, but due to "safety zones" legislated by the NEB, the company will actually control access to another 30 metres of property on each side -- 60 additional metres in total -- without paying landowners any compensation, the group says.