Nov. 4--The property tax exemption that has been offered to a multibillion-dollar energy company to build an oil pipeline that cuts through Kansas will cost Dickinson County at least $400,000 in lost property tax revenue the first year the pipeline is built.

The Chapman School District stands to lose an equivalent amount. The Rural Vista School District will lose about $140,000, according to estimates derived from Kansas Department of Revenue data. And that's just in Dickinson County.

According to officials with TransCanada, the company building the Keystone pipeline, the losses could be double these numbers. TransCanada's pipeline operations earn it $2 billion a year.

Meanwhile, investors in the Kansas portion of the pipeline could qualify for upward of $45 million in income tax credits.

A meeting to explore the pipeline's effect on Kansas and to see what can be salvaged from the project begins at 6:30 p.m. today in the Dickinson County Courthouse in Abilene. Representatives from the five Kansas counties the pipeline is to pass through -- Washington, Clay, Dickinson, Marion, Butler and Cowley -- have been invited.

This is the third such meeting, said Brad Homman, director of administration at Dickinson County.

"The main purpose is to have all the counties together to discuss the common issues as it relates to permitting the Keystone pipeline," Homman said.

Among the topics to be discussed is the suggestion that TransCanada be charged $1,500 for each county road the pipeline crosses, Homman said.

Kansas grants tax break

The main leg travels through North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri and ends at Pakota, Ill.

An extension drops down from Steele City, Neb., nearly straight south through Kansas to Cushing, Okla., which bills itself as the "Pipeline Crossroads of the World." From there it continues south to the Gulf.

Kansas is the only state that granted TransCanada a tax exemption for the project, said spokesman Jim Prescott.

When the company was lobbying local officials about the project in late 2005 and early 2006, local officials were led to believe it would raise considerable tax revenue. In 2005, a route being considered took the pipeline through Iowa. The Nov. 23, 2005, Page 1 headline in the Akron (Iowa) Homeowner newspaper was "Proposed pipeline project slated to bring revenue."

They gave it to us

When asked how TransCanada managed to obtain a tax exemption from Kansas, Prescott was noncommittal.

"We didn't obtain it," he said. "The Kansas Legislature gave it to us."

Sen.