Cedar Rapids, IA (The Gazette) – Summit’s proposed route in North Dakota is part of a 2,000-mile, five-state Carbon Storage and Sequestration (CCS) plan to carry hazardous liquid CO2 from 17 ethanol plants in South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota and Iowa to North Dakota where it would be permanently buried underground in abandoned oil wells west of Bismarck. When operational, investors in the $5.5 billion project would reap billions of dollars profit in carbon capture with 45Q federal tax credits. However, without the PSC permit and access to North Dakota’s underground storage sites, the Midwest Carbon Express is a pipeline to nowhere.
An ethanol refinery in Chancellor, S.D., one of many in the midwest, is shown, July 22, 2021. North Dakota’s biggest oil driller says it will commit $250 million to help fund a proposed pipeline that would gather carbon dioxide produced by ethanol plants across the Midwest and pump it underground for permanent storage. Billionaire oil tycoon Harold Hamm’s Continental Resources was scheduled to make a formal announcement of the investment into Summit Carbon Solutions’ $4.5 billion pipeline Wednesday, March 2, 2022 at an ethanol plant in North Dakota. (AP Photo/Stephen Groves, file) North Dakota’s Public Service Commission threw a major roadblock in the path of Summit Carbon Solutions’ Midwest Carbon Express on Aug. 4 when it voted unanimously to deny the company’s hazardous CO2 pipeline permit. According to PSC Chair, Randy Christmann, Summit “failed to meet its burden of proof to show that the location, construction, operation and maintenance will produce minimal adverse effects on the environment and on the citizen of North Dakota.”
The Midwest Carbon Express is on shaky ground all along its multi-state route. Summit is seeking a permit in Iowa with little more than two-thirds of easements voluntarily signed. Hundreds of Iowa landowners refuse to sign and choose instead to face the prospect of eminent domain. Minnesota requires an Environmental Impact Study (EPS) and will not allow eminent domain to be used for this project. South Dakotans are outraged by the lack of action in their Legislature, and thousands have signed a petition demanding Gov. Kristi Noem call a special session.
Summit’s risky CO2 pipeline faces strong opposition. Environmentalists, conservatives, Indigenous Peoples, Republicans, Democrats, independents, and civic groups have joined with impacted landowners to stop one of the biggest land grabs in American history. A recent Iowa Poll by Selzer & Co. in The Des Moines Register found that 80% of Iowans across all demographics oppose the use of eminent domain for the dangerous CO2 pipelines being built by a private company for profit.
In Iowa, Summit-impacted landowners, the Sierra Club, and other interested parties have been frantically preparing for the Iowa Utilities Board (IUB) hearing for Summit’s permit, scheduled to begin in two short weeks on Aug. 22. Recently, the date was unexpectedly moved ahead from an anticipated start in October. This move by the IUB was a suckerpunch to intervenors who suddenly have four months less time to prepare testimony and consult with legal counsel.
Now that Summit has no way to get to the sequestration site in North Dakota, and the Midwest Carbon Express has no endpoint, the IUB hearing should be postponed indefinitely. Without a CCS storage location, there is no reason to waste time, resources, and taxpayer money to hold a hearing on a half-baked proposal for Summit’s permit.
The Iowa Utilities Board needs to put the brakes on the Midwest Carbon Express. There is no urgent need to approve a permit for a dangerous CO2 pipeline to nowhere.
Bonnie Ewoldt is a Milford resident and Crawford County landowner.