The South Dakota Public Utilities Commission, which denied Summit Carbon Solutions a pipeline permit in September.
It could take more than a year for Summit Carbon Solutions to get approval for its proposed carbon dioxide pipeline in South Dakota.
That’s because the company, which was denied a pipeline permit by utility regulators in that state last month, won’t reapply until it identifies a new route that complies with county ordinances.
“Moving forward, we are committed to working with the counties in South Dakota to find a mutually agreeable path through each county,” said Sabrina Zenor, a spokesperson for the company. “This means working within ordinances regarding applicability of waivers, etc. and more dynamic conversations around routing.”
Summit applied for a permit to construct a carbon dioxide transmission pipeline in that state in February 2022. The South Dakota Public Utilities Commission denied the application about 19 months later in September, citing the route’s conflicts with ordinances in four counties.
Summit had asked the commission to overrule those ordinances but withdrew that request after the commission upheld the ordinances in regard to another pipeline proposal by Navigator CO2. That company has since suspended its negotiations for land easements in South Dakota and requested to suspend its permit process in Iowa.
Both companies have sought permission to build multistate pipeline systems to transport captured carbon dioxide emissions from ethanol plants and other facilities to deep underground sequestration sites ― in North Dakota for Summit and Illinois for Navigator. South Dakota is crucial for Summit’s proposal because it has eight of the 31 ethanol plants that would connect to Summit’s system and because it is a link between North Dakota and most of the remaining plants in Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska.
South Dakota law allows counties to adopt restrictions on the pipelines, but state regulators can overrule them if they are “unreasonably restrictive.”
The state has four counties — Brown, McPherson, Minnehaha and Spink — that have adopted ordinances that require the pipelines to be certain distances from residences, livestock facilities, nursing homes and other buildings. But they also have exceptions to those restrictions in some cases if county officials and landowners approve of them.
“We issue conditional use permits for lots of things that people don’t like,” said Scott Anderson, director of planning and zoning for Minnehaha County. “I don’t think it was the intent of the county commission to set up an ordinance to block anything. … It is a complicated situation with lots of people having strong emotions.”
‘Starting at ground zero’
Summit has begun discussions with Minnehaha and other counties to plot a new route. A company representative who spoke to county officials in Brown “basically said, ‘We’re starting at ground zero, we have to look at it like we don’t have a route,’” according to Scott Bader, planning and zoning director for Brown County.
Tracey Millar, zoning administrator for Spink County, said the company is seeking the county’s input on its route and has indicated it is moving the pipeline path farther away from people who oppose the project.
A Spink ordinance precludes the pipeline from being built within a half mile of a property line of a residence, but it can be built closer if the owner signs a waiver.
It’s unclear when Summit might reapply for a South Dakota permit.
“We plan to refile our application once we have a path through the state,” Zenor said.
State law requires the Public Utilities Commission to make a decision about permit requests within a year of the application. Summit’s first permit request took longer because the company sought a deadline extension for submitting its evidence and updating its application.
Company takes different approach in North Dakota
Summit has renewed its request with North Dakota utility regulators to nullify the effects of two county ordinances that restrict the placement of its proposed carbon dioxide pipeline.
The company recently filed the motion with that state’s Public Service Commission, which denied its permit request in August. At that time, the commission did not issue a ruling about the county ordinances because it was denying the permit for other reasons.
The commission has since agreed to reconsider the company’s permit request, and Summit wants a ruling on the ordinances before any further hearings are held for the reconsideration.
“This threshold issue will affect the evidence presented in the upcoming hearing by both (Summit) and intervenors, and thus a pre-hearing decision will save both the parties and the commission time and resources,” wrote Lawrence Bender, an attorney for Summit.
The company has argued that the Burleigh County and Emmons County ordinances are so restrictive that they prevent any possible pipeline route through them. It further points to part of state law that says: “Except as provided in this section, a permit for the construction of a gas or liquid transmission facility within a designated corridor supersedes and preempts any local land use or zoning regulations.”
Opponents of the pipeline route argue that other elements of the law — and the intent of legislators who adopted it — give counties a right to restrict the siting of pipelines. They also say Summit is exaggerating the effects of the ordinances.
It’s unclear when state regulators will rule on Summit’s request. They have not yet scheduled a new hearing to reconsider the company’s proposal, which is being modified to allay some of the concerns about the route.
Permit hearing continues in Iowa
An evidentiary hearing for Summit’s hazardous liquid pipeline permit request in Iowa began its seventh week on Tuesday with the Iowa Utilities Board.
Landowners who have declined to give Summit land easements to build its pipeline — and who are subject to eminent domain requests — testified about their concerns with the project. That included safety threats posed by pipeline ruptures, damage to farmland, potential inability to get liability insurance and other concerns.
Their testimony was scheduled to continue Wednesday and Thursday.
Also on Tuesday, the IUB granted Navigator’s request to suspend its permit proceedings. The company wants to pause its process in Iowa until Illinois utility regulators decide whether to approve the project in that state, which is where Navigator plans to sequester carbon dioxide.
The Sierra Club of Iowa resisted Navigator’s request to cancel a meeting next week to discuss the project. The IUB was poised to hold a scheduling conference to help determine a timeline for the remainder of the company’s permit process.
“The landowners impacted by Navigator’s project, the public, and for that matter, the board, deserve to know the facts surrounding the status of the Navigator project,” wrote Wally Taylor, a Sierra Club attorney. “There has been some indication that Navigator is dropping the portion of its proposed project in South Dakota, and even some portions of the project in northwest Iowa. But Navigator has been less than transparent about the situation.”
The IUB denied Taylor’s request for the meeting because it “would not provide substantive information.”
Find this story at Iowa Capital Dispatch, which is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: kobradovich@iowacapitaldispatch.com.
The battle over massive carbon dioxide pipelines proposed for Illinois and other Midwestern states has reached Congress, with 13 House Democrats — including U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García of Illinois — calling on President Joe Biden to block construction until new federal safety guidelines are released.
In a letter sent to the president Tuesday, the lawmakers cited a 2020 pipeline rupture in Mississippi in which CO2, an invisible gas that displaces oxygen, spread to the nearby town of Satartia. There were reports that victims experienced breathing problems and confusion, and three men were found in a stalled car, unconscious.
No one died but 45 people sought hospital care, and federal regulators started working on updated safety standards, which are expected to be completed and in place in 2024.
“New pipeline infrastructure will invariably put more communities in danger given the complexity of transporting CO2 thousands of miles with what could create dozens of points of entry and exit for CO2,” said the letter, an effort led by Garcia and Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, with co-signers including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
The letter urges Biden to issue an executive order declaring a moratorium on federal permits for new carbon pipelines until safety regulations are finalized by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
“We further request that the Administration direct PHMSA to consider the unique hazards of CO2 and the knowledge gaps about CO2 transportation safety to ensure we do not have more disasters like the one that happened in Satartia, Mississippi,” the letter says.
Illinois farmers, landowners and environmentalists are in a pitched battle over whether to allow Navigator CO2’s 1,350-mile Heartland Greenway pipeline to cross the state. Opponents say safety is a top concern.
A carbon dioxide pipeline ruptured near Satartia, Miss., in 2020. The 24-inch high-pressure pipeline containing carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide burst and over 222 barrels escaped into the air. The pipeline, owned by the Texas-based Denbury Gulf Coast Pipelines, failed after heavy rains caused a hillside underneath it to give way. (Yazoo County Office of Emergency Management)
Navigator has said the pipeline can be operated safely and the company has pointed to thousands of miles of CO2 pipeline already in use in the United States, mostly by the oil industry, which uses carbon dioxide to boost production.
Other proposals for CO2 pipelines include the 260-mile Wolf Carbon Solutions pipeline in Illinois and Iowa and the 2,000-mile Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline, which could span Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska.
All are part of an explosion in interest in capturing carbon dioxide, transporting it via pipeline and burying it deep underground. The interest is driven, in part, by generous tax incentives in the federal Inflation Reduction Act.
Scientists say that capturing and storing carbon dioxide is necessary if the United States is to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and stave off the worst effects of climate change.
The United States, currently home to about 5,300 miles of CO2 pipeline, could have more than 68,000 miles by 2050, according to a Princeton University report.
Carbon dioxide is easily captured during the production of corn-based ethanol, making the Midwest highly attractive to companies seeking the tax credits offered by the Inflation Reduction Act.
The letter to Biden cited a report commissioned by the nonprofit Pipeline Safety Trust that highlighted concerns about current CO2 pipeline safety regulations including a potential loophole that could leave some CO2 pipelines unregulated.
There is no state or federal limit on how close pipelines carrying a potentially suffocating gas can be placed to a home, school or hospital.
There is no requirement that an odorant be added to the CO2 to alert the public to a leak, as is done with natural gas.
There is no limit on the impurities that are allowed in the carbon dioxide, despite the potential for pipeline corrosion and health hazards in the event of a leak.
There is no requirement that pipeline companies use a specific method to map potential accident hazard zones, although one standard approach — which failed in Mississippi — doesn’t take complex topography into account.
In May, more than 150 environmental and advocacy groups — including the Center for Biological Diversity, Eco-Justice Collaborative and Food & Water Watch — signed a letter to Biden calling for a moratorium on new CO2 pipelines.
Tuesday’s letter to the president was endorsed by groups including the Sierra Club, the Congressional Progressive Caucus Center, Progressive Democrats of America, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Center for International Environmental Law, according to García’s office.
Karen, a family farmer who lives in Iowa but has a farm in Hamilton County, Nebraska, spoke to NBC News about the pipelines but asked to withhold her last name because her family is concerned about upsetting neighbors. She said she is prioritizing 2024 presidential candidates who support individual property rights.
“We’ve kind of been burned by wind companies, solar companies, all making these big promises, and ‘Oh, all these tax dollars that will be going to your little counties,’” Karen said. “This is just like the third strike.”
Her family turned down a proposed lease agreement to build under their corn and bean farm, but they are now worried that Summit may be granted permission to use eminent domain to install the pipeline on their property anyway.
“It’s not like you get a rental agreement where you’re going to get paid every year or anything. There’s not hardly any negotiations to this. We talked to people about trying to move the pipeline, and they say no,” Karen said. “It’s all put on the shoulders of the landowner, big or small, as far as how to negotiate and what to do to protect your property and your property rights.”
Summit Carbon Solutions is still negotiating with about 460 landowners in Iowa, said Sabrina Zenor, the company’s marketing and communications director. The proposed pipeline route currently shown on Summit’s website does not appear to run through Hamilton County, Nebraska, where Karen’s farm is located.
Karen said the fear going forward is whether the pipeline companies are “going to make things harder on us.”
“Are they going to offer us less money for this same thing being forced upon us?” she asked. “It really leaves you vulnerable.”
Chris Boshart, the CEO of Corn LP, one of more than 30 ethanol plants partnering with Summit, said he sees the pipelines as a way to make the ethanol industry, which many Iowa farmers rely on, cleaner and more sustainable.
“We would view this as a pathway for greener energy that we’ve been on for a long time. And really, that’s where ethanol has always found a placeholder, in, in liquid fuels, because we are a renewable source of energy,” Boshart said. “We feel like for the next 20 years, carbon capture is a way to really put ethanol on a permanent placeholder in the renewable energy future.”
And not all of the pipeline companies are interested in using eminent domain.
“The Wolf development team has never used eminent domain in its collective careers in building long-haul pipelines and it doesn’t intend to start now,” Nick Noppinger, Wolf Carbon Solutions’ vice president for corporate development, told The Gazette in February.
Apart from using private land to build the pipelines, some environmental experts take issue with ethanol, which is often used in gasoline, and say using carbon capture and sequestration to reduce its environmental impact may not have as many long-term advantages as switching entirely to renewable energy, instead.
“Carbon capture is just a scheme that’s been developed by the fossil fuel industry to keep themselves going,” said Mark Jacobson, the director of Stanford University’s Atmosphere/Energy Program. Jacobson published a study in the journal Energy and Environmental Science that suggests carbon capture harms the environment. “It has no benefit to anybody. It just raises prices for all consumers,” he said.
“When you’re trying to address climate and air pollution and energy security, there’s always a trade-off,” Jacobson said. “Even in the best case, where you use renewable electricity to power carbon capture equipment … using wind to power carbon capture increases carbon dioxide compared to using the same wind to just replace the coal plant that the carbon capture was designed for.”
If you happened to look up at the sky during the 2023 Farm Progress Show, you might have seen a lone plane, circling the airspace, pulling a banner with a message: “No dangerous CO2pipelines!”
I noticed because it’s hard to miss a plane overhead, but also because a billboard in our town carries the same message, just before the blacktop where I turn to head home. All the way home, yard signs stand at the edge of fields, all saying absolutely no thank you to a proposed carbon pipeline.
Back at the Farm Progress Show, the same group that flew the banner — the Coalition to Stop CO2Pipelines — also had a booth, where they asked people to fill out cards asking the Illinois Farm Bureau to oppose eminent domain for a private project. Many did.
The pipeline at hand is proposed by Navigator CO2Ventures: a1,300-mile, $3.2 billion proposed carbon pipelinethat would move 15 million metric tons of CO2a year from nearly three dozen fertilizer and ethanol plants in South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois. The CO2would go to an underground sandstone formation in central Illinois known as the Mount Simon Sandstone, where carbon can be sequestered. Navigator says the proposed pipeline would be a 20-inch pipeline buried 5 feet underground.
On the farm
Full disclosure, it would come right through my neighborhood — in fact, right across the first farm my husband and I bought together in 2004, when I was fully pregnant and thought I’d need a sick day to recover from the stress of bidding what felt like an astronomical price of $4,250 an acre. (Precious, no?)
It’s a farm we’ve wanted to tile but never got around to. We could with what Navigator is offering us, if we agree to let the pipeline go through. We could potentially negotiate for Navigator to lay mains on either side of the pipeline; then we could tie into them when we install drainage tile.
It’s virtually a best-case scenario. We are lucky, but not everyone would be so lucky. Our neighbor has the worst-case scenario. He has a beautiful 160-acre field that he pattern-tiled a couple of years ago. The pipeline would cut across it, corner to corner.
He hates it, and I don’t blame him. I hate it for him.
Projects like this affect everyone differently. Navigator is offering a lot of money to the counties the pipeline would cross. No one really knows if it’s worth it. But our county highway engineer has done the math, and it’s enough to tar and chip every county road that’s currently gravel, which is a lot.
But safety? Folks in opposition point to aCO2 pipeline that explodedin Satartia, Miss., in early 2020. Federal investigators determined that the pipeline operator, Denbury Inc., violated several regulations. Obviously, the chance of an explosion like that is lower than your chance of wrecking your car on the highway today — but it’s not zero.
Navigator argues this is for the common good, and pro-ethanol folks agree. Sequestering carbon via pipeline will help ethanol plants dramatically lower their carbon footprint, which would mean higher biofuel sales in California and beyond. That could translate into better prices for Midwest corn.
Despite its 13 letters, eminent domain is the four-letter word here, even among pro-ethanol farmers. And in Illinois, if the Illinois Commerce Commission approves Navigator’s permit, the company receives eminent domain authority.
None of us wants to be the last guy negotiating on the courthouse steps.
Who’s got leverage?
Earlier this year, Gov. JB Pritzker signed a bill removing county authority over siting of wind and solar projects, creating a commission to oversee wind turbines everywhere but in Chicago, and allowing possible turbine siting within one-tenth of a mile from rural homes.
In response, Sen. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, filed a bill — literally called the If This Is Such A Good Idea, Let’s Start With You Act — that would convert Chicago’s Millenium Park into a solar field and put wind turbines in every Chicago city park.
Political sarcasm at its finest.
But also, a reflection that rural Illinois is tired of being the political lightweight. We’re tired of government that pushes the work of green energy on the backs of its rural citizens, if only because we’re outnumbered (and outvoted). Yes, we’d get paid. Yes, that’s good. But the sheer contentiousness that’s arisen between country neighbors over the past 15 years because of wind turbines — and now pipelines? It’s hard to argue that it’s worth it.
Good alternatives
In the big picture, that carbon pipeline is a byproduct of an overarching effort to get the world off of fossil fuels and to slow greenhouse gas emissions. The GHG issue has brought new pressure to adopt alternative energy options, which we can’t dismiss out of hand. Rod Weinzierl, IL Corn, is right when he says the trajectory of the conversation around greenhouse gases will only increase.
In the past five years, I’ve been on enough farms with solar panels that power livestock barns and grain systems to know that farmers support solar power. We’re thoughtful people, and we have to thoughtfully consider how alternative energy can help us all.
We’re also thoughtful people who know projects like a carbon pipeline will affect people completely differently. I get why people are angry. But there’s no way to have it all. There never is.
If we’re going to do something for a common good, some people will win. Some will not. Do we call for better regulations? Better safety measures? Do we stop progress? It’s an honest question, and I’d love to hear what you think. But it’s often hard to have these rational discussions when outrage fills the countryside.
Because before you know it, there’s a banner in the air and a billboard in town. And we need to give the people it affects most a bigger voice in the process.
Sept 20 (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) on Wednesday awarded $14.8 million in grants for pipeline safety training and technological research.
The grants, authorized under the 2020 Protecting Our Infrastructure of Pipelines and Enhancing Safety (PIPES) Act, add to the $64.4 million of funding in August for the safety of pipeline and underground natural gas storage operations.
The funds will support projects spanning from safety training and educational initiatives to advancements in safety tech, with damage prevention centers, community organizations, non-profits and six universities standing to benefit.
The largest share of $5.8 million has been allocated to support training for incident response related to transportation of gas or hazardous liquids transportation through pipelines.
This is followed by $4.3 million for research on carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and older, higher risk pipelines, $2.6 million for damage prevention by states, and $2 million for technical assistance.
The world’s largest pipeline system would need every level of government and the non-profit sector working together to mitigate risk, said PHMSA Deputy Administrator Tristan Brown.
Last month, PHMSA also proposed new rules to improve safety on the country’s gas distribution pipelines through the improvement of emergency response plans, integrity management plans and operation manuals.
The updated regulations came in response to the Massachusetts gas explosions in 2018, linked to a utility, which killed one person and injured 22 others.
We're fighting for our homes and our land, and for the safety of South Dakota communities just like yours. But we can't do this alone, we need your help, so if you can, pitch in and let's make some hay.
We're fighting for our homes and our land, and for the safety of South Dakota communities just like yours. But we can't do this alone, we need your help, by being informed and taking action when it matters most.
