I went to an emergency homeowners meeting last week and have only just calmed down enough to write about it.
Our subdivision is an older neighborhood with minimum lot sizes of >1 acre.
A MUD (Municipal Utility District) in a nearby subdivision has decided it needs to run a 24inch water pipe and build a water treatment facility in our subdivision.
To this end they have been happily measuring up on everyones front yards without saying a word. One poor sod has been earmarked to loose a huge chunk of his land to house the treatment plant, they are actually suing him to sell the land to them.
The others are getting 30feet of front yard taken by compulsory purchase.
This means all of our 20-30 year old trees will be clear-cut from the road back 30 feet.
To cap it all, apparently we cannot stop them.

Ahh, the land of the free (to be screwed over by large corporations)

My first instinct is to get the press involved. They've probably already tried that, though, right?

MUDs in Texas are evil... One near mine (who I am happy with so far) got the residents to approve a little park on an odd-shaped tract of land. Then all of the sudden over half the land is going to be a MUD Administration building and they can't stop it...

My father manages a trade association for title insurance companies (the American Land Title Association). I asked him what he had to say about this, given as much info as could be gathered from your post, and here's his reply, whether it helps or not:

I gather from his post that this is some kind of condemnation procedure exercised by either the local county/city government or one of thousands of quasi-governmental bodies set up to provide public services but vested with condemnation powers. Presumably, the homeowners cannot have their land taken without "just compensation," which may not truly compensate them for the loss they suffer but is intended to quantify it ($) and get on with the construction. It's important to remember that significant public improvements, particularly in already-developed areas, can't proceed if they require every impacted homeowner to agree with everything done--particurarly if what's being done benefits others but not the impacted homeowners! That's why eminent domain (condemnation) is in every state constitution.

The only way they might not be recompensed is if all this is done pursuant to an outstanding easement which is part of their title already. In that case, all those trees are just gone, period. Just like the disruption to our lawn by Cox this summer. Nothing we could do about that either--although politically we can complain loudly and local politicians might put some pressure, etc. on Cox. Probably not the case here.

dead right, eminent domain.
It is cheaper to steal 30 feet of front yard space and 50 acres or so in our area than dig up the road or choose an alternate route.
They even had the balls to come to the meeting and claim it was just a "proposal". In this case the "proposal" had been on the table for years without letting anybody else know about it.

The best part is that they have to do this because the current water supplier (City of Round Rock) is refusing to extend the current agreement so they have to lay more pipe of their own.

Its no wonder I have no faith in elected officials.

[edited to correct stupid typos]