Turning a Canceled Pipeline into Lasting Conservation Impact

Client: Plains All American
Location: DeSoto County, Mississippi
Acreage Converted: 430 acres
Mitigation Vehicle: Giftlands Program
 

The Challenge 

The Conservation Fund’s relationship with Plains began years earlier, on the Diamond Pipeline Project where we deployed $4.8 million in voluntary mitigation funds to protect and restore northern long-eared bat habitat across Oklahoma and Arkansas. We completed 22 projects, protecting and restoring more than 5,000 acres. That track record gave Plains’ staff firsthand experience working with The Conservation Fund and built the kind of credibility in mitigation and land conservation that comes only from delivering results. 

So when a pipeline connection in Mississippi fell through, Plains knew who to call. 

Plains still held a 430-acre tract in DeSoto County that had been acquired for the now-canceled project. With no development plan left to justify it, the property had become exactly the kind of asset companies want to avoid: generating property taxes and carrying costs with no clear path to productive use, and no ready buyer in sight. 

Plains asked The Conservation Fund a direct question: Could this property work as mitigation, perhaps as a mitigation bank that could generate income or permitting credit? 

The Solution 

The Conservation Fund’s Mitigation Solutions team conducted a full desktop review of the property to answer that question honestly. The land didn’t have the ecological features needed to function as mitigation. The team also evaluated it against the criteria for permanent conservation and found the same result: no road access, and no proximity to existing conservation lands that would make it a fit for a conservation partner to hold long-term. 

Rather than leave Plains without a path forward, The Conservation Fund recommended a different solution: donating the property into its Giftlands program. The tract may not have had conservation value in place, but The Conservation Fund could put it to work all the same, converting it into capital that funds conservation elsewhere while giving Plains a meaningful tax benefit for the donation. 

The Results 

Plains donated the 430-acre tract to The Conservation Fund, which converted the underutilized asset into nearly $1 million in conservation capital. Those funds are now financing the protection of high-priority lands and waters across the country through The Conservation Fund’s Revolving Fund. 

The property’s highest and best use turned out to be neither a pipeline corridor nor a permanent conservation site; it became a catalyst for conservation elsewhere, at a scale the land itself could never have delivered on its own. 

Read more about how the Giftlands program turns surplus real estate into conservation capital. 

Why It Matters for Industry 

The Plains project shows what’s possible when a trusted mitigation partner looks beyond the obvious answer. By working with The Conservation Fund, Plains was able to: 

• Turn a non-performing asset into a documented, auditable ESG contribution 
• Eliminate ongoing carrying costs and liability tied to a canceled project 
• Capture a meaningful tax benefit through a 501(c)(3) donation 
• Convert a single stranded property into capital supporting conservation nationwide 

For energy and infrastructure companies left holding land from a project that no longer moves forward, this project is proof that the story doesn’t have to end with a liability on the books. The Conservation Fund finds a path forward, even when the obvious solutions don’t fit.