A Sioux County dairy farmer says she received little direction from state regulators about how to prepare for a hearing on Tuesday that might determine whether she will be forced to allow a carbon dioxide pipeline to be built across her 80 acres.
“All I got was a set of questions that they’re going to ask me,” said Nelva Huitink, who with her husband has about 90 dairy cows north of Orange City.
Huitink is among three people who are set to testify on the first day of Summit Carbon Solutions’ evidentiary hearing with the Iowa Utilities Board — the culmination of a two-year process that will decide whether the company gets permission to build the pipeline system and use eminent domain to do so. The system would span more than 680 miles in Iowa.
The IUB took the unusual step to weigh many of the company’s eminent domain requests at the start of its evidentiary hearing. That is meant to allow farmers who have not signed voluntary easements with the company and are subject to the requests to participate before harvest begins.
The peak harvest of corn and soybeans typically occurs in October, which is more than a month away, but the hearing could go for months.
To consider eminent domain requests early in the proceedings breaks with longstanding board precedent to discuss eminent domain toward the end of the hearing — after the details of the projects are discussed.
Huitink said she has kept abreast of Summit’s project by examining the documents in its electronic IUB docket.
How the hearing will be conducted this week is unclear. The Iowa Capital Dispatch sought a general overview of the first day of the hearing from an IUB spokesperson who pointed to the board’s “weekly digest” online. That only shows a list of landowners or their representatives who will testify about the eminent domain requests on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
The hearing starts Tuesday at 10 a.m. at the Cardiff Event Center in Fort Dodge. Huitink is listed as the third witness, but there is no time estimate for when her testimony might start. She was told it would likely be that afternoon.
“I have a two-and-a-half to three-hour drive to get to Fort Dodge, so I asked, ‘What if I’m late?’” Huitink said. “And they were like, ‘Well, we can’t guarantee that we’ll get you in if you’re not there when we call your name.’”
Summit proposes to connect its pipeline to more than 30 ethanol plants in five states to transport their captured carbon dioxide to North Dakota for underground sequestration.
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Federal officials have said such projects are crucial to meeting goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but environmental groups have opposed Summit’s project because it might elongate the use of ethanol as a fuel and delay a transition to electric vehicles.
The ethanol industry is a key market for Iowa corn — more than half of it is used to produce ethanol.
Ethanol proponents pipeline proposals in Iowa by Summit and two other companies are critical to the industry’s future and would generate significant new revenue for the industry.
That’s because there are substantial federal tax credits available for ethanol plants that capture and sequester their carbon dioxide or that produce low-carbon fuels. The producers could also sell their fuels in more markets.
A study commissioned by the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association concluded that the producers could more than triple their profits with projects like Summit’s. The company has forged profit-sharing agreements with the facilities, and the terms of those agreements were recently made available to attorneys for the Sierra Club of Iowa and the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation.
The company’s evidentiary hearing will be held on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays until it concludes, said Jess Mazour, of the Sierra Club of Iowa, who attended a pre-hearing meeting on Monday in Fort Dodge that was closed to the public. She said the IUB gave no more details of the scheduling.
Huitink, the dairy farmer, said the list of questions the IUB provided her ask about her land’s legal description, whether it has other easements, how a Summit easement would affect her and whether there are outstanding issues that haven’t been resolved.
She said Summit offered her about $100,000 for easements on her two parcels.
“I don’t want the money,” she said.
The Dakota Access oil pipeline also runs through her property, and that alone has affected her family’s ability to expand its dairy operation. Her son has considered building a new facility with automated milking capabilities, and adding Summit’s pipeline would make that improbable, Huitink said.
Opponents of the project have sought a delay from the board and from a district court judge because of pending disputes over evidence, the IUB’s jurisdiction over the project, and North Dakota’s recent denial of a permit to Summit.
The company says it has obtained voluntary easements from landowners for about 75% of its route in Iowa.
“This overwhelming level of support is a clear reflection that they believe like we do that our project will ensure the long-term viability of the ethanol industry, strengthen the agricultural marketplace for farmers, and generate tens of millions of dollars in new revenue for local communities across the Midwest,” the company said Monday.
REGIONAL—Scores of people for and against the proposed Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline are making their final preparations before the CO2 project’s hearing with the Iowa Utilities Board set for Tuesday, Aug. 22.
Proceedings are set to start at 10 a.m., although protesters expect to show up at least an hour early at the Cardiff Event Center in Fort Dodge. The IUB will meet for at least a month, with every weekday adding to testimony.
The Iowa Farmers Union, one of several statewide groups organizing against Summit and similar pipelines, held a virtual meeting Thursday, Aug. 17, to discuss the hearing.
“It’s super important for people to take action,” said IFU president Aaron Lehman.
The hearing will start with Exhibit H landowners. These are people who are on Summit’s proposed route who have not signed a voluntary easement with the Ames-based company.
There are about 1,000 parcels still unsigned in Iowa, about a third of the route. The landowner total is likely smaller since one person can own multiple parcels.
While the critics are vocal, having a majority signed onto the project shows ample approval in the view of Summit spokesperson Jesse Harris.
“There is overwhelming support among Iowa landowners for this project and importantly more easement agreements are being signed every day and that will continue throughout the upcoming hearing,” Harris said
Hs could eventually be subject to eminent domain. After the hearing concludes, the three-member board will decide the scope of land seizures, if any, if it decides to grant Summit construction permission in the first place.
This anti-pipeline sign north of Sheldon is a larger than most in N’West Iowa. After more than two years of prelude, the Iowa Utilities Board will start its hearing on the Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline Tuesday, Aug. 22. Elijah Helton ehelton@iowainformation.com
“Ultimately, the IUB decides whether the applicant will be allowed to exercise eminent domain and, if so, exactly what rights can be condemned,” said IUB communications director Don Tormey.
After Exhibit Hs testify, it will be Summit’s turn to make its case in the hearing’s second phase.
The main argument is economic. The proposed five-state pipeline system would sequester carbon dioxide from 32 ethanol plants, including 13 in Iowa such as Siouxland Energy Cooperative near Sioux Center, and pump it underground to be stored indefinitely in North Dakota.
Keeping CO2 out of the atmosphere earns those plants a more climate-friendly rating, making the biofuels more profitable in green-conscious markets such as California.
Without CO2 pipelines, the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association said the state could lose up to 75 percent of its ethanol production within a decade, more than $10 billion.
Summit missed out on a permit Aug. 4 in North Dakota with a similar process to the IUB’s. That led some Iowa anti-pipeliners to argue the Hawkeye State should postpone its Aug. 22 hearing. They call Summit’s project “a pipeline to nowhere.”
“Rushing this only benefits Summit. It does not benefit any of the landowners who never asked to be a part of this process in the first place,” Jess Mazour said.
Mazour spoke to the IFU and its virtual audience Aug. 17. She is one of the leading public faces of the anti-pipeline movement in Iowa, working for the Sierra Club.
But postponement isn’t happening. Tormey said the IUB’s process is separate and unaffected by North Dakota.
“Any action taken by the IUB regarding this matter would be filed in the Summit Carbon docket that is pending before the IUB,” Tormey said.
Harris said everyone has had plenty of time.
“Our project was announced two and a half years ago. We completed county informational meetings nearly two years ago. We submitted our permit application more than a year and a half ago,” Harris said. “Having met those important regulatory milestones, scheduling a start date for the hearing in August is well within the typical timeline for projects such as this and clearly provides substantial time for participation by all stakeholders.”
The third phase of the IUB hearing features interveners. These are Exhibit Hs as well as outside actors, such as the IFU and Sierra Club, to argue for or against the project.
“Some of these Exhibit H landowners have intervened to participate at a higher level in the process and some haven’t. That’s fine. They’re all going to get their ‘day in court’ to testify in front of the IUB,” Mazour said.
IUB approval would not green light the entire project, although it would be the biggest state-level step forward for Summit. The company plans 720 miles of its 2,000-mile route to be in the Hawkeye State.
Summit has reapplied in North Dakota. Harris said the company is still on schedule to break ground in the first or second quarter of 2024.
“We look forward to starting the hearing next week and continuing to move the project through the regulatory process,” Harris said.
Besides North Dakota, the company faces a variety of processes in Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota, all with different CO2 pipeline approval rules.
But for right now, Lehman said, the fight is converging on Fort Dodge.
“We know that we are strongest when we have the best voice, when we all work together,” he said.
Will Summit Carbon Solutions’ planned $5.5 billion carbon capture pipeline across Iowa provide a public benefit to the state and its residents?
That will be the question at the heart of a monthslong hearing scheduled to begin Tuesday in Fort Dodge as Summit seeks a permit from the Iowa Utilities Board to build the 700-mile Iowa segment. The planned pipeline would transport liquefied carbon dioxide emissions from ethanol plants and other agriculture-based industries in Iowa and four other states to a deep subterranean sequestration site in North Dakota.
Jennifer Zwagerman, a Drake University law professor and the school’s Agriculture Law Center director, says a core legal consideration as the board decides whether to grant the permit will be whether it promotes “public convenience and necessity.”
Landing a permit would be the first step to Summit winning eminent domain powers to force unwilling landowners in the project’s pathway to sell the company access to build the pipeline. Summit has said about 480 property owners rejected easement overtures.
Possibly helping Summit is the last controversial hazardous liquid pipeline state regulators considered. In the 2016 Dakota Access case, the utilities board determined it could weigh a pipeline’s public benefit beyond Iowa as it granted developers a permit to build the $4 billion crude oil pipeline that cuts a diagonal northwest-to-southeast path across the state.
“The board will consider all benefits of a proposed hazardous liquid pipeline, regardless of whether they are Iowa-specific benefits,” the board said in that case.
Zwagerman, though, says it might be trickier for Summit to demonstrate the pipeline would benefit more than just ethanol producers.
“The IUB will want to see a general benefit to the public,” Zwagerman says.
Here’s what she had to say about the legal issues likely to emerge in the weeks ahead.
Does public “convenience and necessity” in the Summit project differ from Dakota Access, the 2016 crude oil pipeline project that sparked widespread opposition in Iowa?
While “it wasn’t always popular, there was a pretty strong history of natural gas and oil pipelines having a big public benefit,” Zwagerman says. Products made from crude oil heat homes, fuel vehicles and power jets, among other uses.
Proving the public benefit of carbon capture and sequestration could be more challenging, since its track record isn’t as well established, Zwagerman says. Summit and its experts will press the idea that the project will have “greater climate and environmental benefits to the public” by reducing the carbon footprint of Iowa ethanol producers and farmers, she says, while the opponents’ experts will question whether it will have the claimed climate benefits or if better options than sequestration are available.
Summit says the project will sequester 18 million tons of CO2 annually, a calculation critics say is exaggerated, based on a Texas company’s past efforts to capture emissions at a coal-fired power plant. The company used the carbon emissions to extract oil.
Will the economic benefits of the project play a role in deciding its public benefits?
The Iowa Utilities Board said in the Dakota Access decision that the added safety of transporting crude oil by pipeline instead of by rail, along with the project’s jobs and economic impact, outweighed environmental risks and intrusion on private landowners’ property.
An economic study that Summit commissioned says the project over the five states involved will create about 11,430 jobs each year during construction, with $2.1 billion paid to workers, contractors and suppliers. Landowners are expected to receive $309 million for right-of-way access, the report says.
After the pipeline is built, the project would employ 1,170 people, with $71 million paid to suppliers and contractors, Summit says. And the company is expected to point to the viability of ethanol, which absorbs half of Iowa’s annual corn crop. The industry says ethanol adds about $4.5 billion to the Iowa economy and supports about 44,000 jobs in the state.
But opponents say the project wouldn’t be feasible without lucrative federal tax incentives, which could reach $100 billion, according to a Bloomberg report. And critics have pointed to the added costs local governments will face if they must respond to a leak or rupture.
Summit and other pipeline developers say they will train and equip local emergency responders. But some local first responders complain they haven’t been contacted.
How will safety play out in the hearing?
The Sierra Club’s Iowa chapter, along other groups and government officials, are pushing Summit to release dispersion modeling showing the homes, businesses and communities that might be in the plume of a rupture or leak in the pipeline. An administrative judge agreed with the Sierra Club and other groups this month, ordering Summit to release the modeling.
Summit is appealing the decision to the utilities board. The company says safety falls within the oversight of the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and that Iowa regulators should follow North Dakota’s decision and prevent the release so bad actors couldn’t use the information to damage or sabotage critical infrastructure.
The Sierra Club and other groups say Iowa regulators play a role in safety oversight, given the three-member panel’s authority over the pipeline’s route. Counties also argue that concerns about the pipeline will hamper their ability to grow.
In a filing, Neil Hamilton, former director of Drake’s Agriculture Law Center, pointed to Rockford, southeast of Mason City, which he says feels “the potential health, safety and environmental concerns of the pipeline will be a deterrent for future growth” in an “already struggling small community.”
And opponents point to a rupture three years ago in a carbon dioxide pipeline near Satartia, Mississippi, that forced the evacuation of 250 people and sickened 45. Some residents continue to struggle with health issues. As a result, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration said it would strengthen carbon capture pipeline safety oversight. Pipeline critics say projects should be halted until the federal agency has completed its work.
Summit and other pipeline companies say they’ll meet and exceed federal pipeline regulations.
Zwagerman says the utilities board will have to weigh which arguments are stronger as part of an “overall balancing test,” used to make its decision.
Will North Dakota’s denial of Summit’s pipeline permit request be an issue in the Iowa case?
North Dakota’s public service commission on Aug. 4 denied a pipeline permit request there, saying Summit had “not taken steps to address outstanding legitimate impacts and concerns expressed by landowners or demonstrated why a reroute is not feasible. The Commission also requested additional information on a number of issues that came up during the hearings. Summit either did not adequately address these requests or did not tender a witness to answer the questions.”
Summit says it will reapply for the permit, addressing regulators’ concerns, and several groups have requested the Iowa hearing be postponed until there is a decision. Zwagerman, however, says she doubts their request will be granted.
If state regulators were to approve a permit for Summit, Zwagerman says, she thinks they will make construction in Iowa conditional on getting a permit in North Dakota.
Donnelle Eller covers agriculture, the environment and energy for the Register. Reach her at deller@registermedia.com or 515-284-8457.
FORT PIERRE, S.D. — A carbon dioxide sequestration pipeline that may ferry climate-heating gas from the stacks of ethanol plants to burial points deep in Illinois rock bed may soon need Minnesota’s approval. But first, the project must clear South Dakota regulators.
And the farmers attending last month’s hearing in a rodeo museum were firmly opposed.
“We’re all pro-ethanol,” said Kay Burkhart, who farms outside Valley Springs, S.D., which hugs the Minnesota state line. “But they’re going to force us to sign an easement that we don’t want to sign.”
A billion-dollar-plus bet is afoot to dramatically lower corn ethanol’s carbon footprint by spider-webbing pipelines across the Upper Midwest. Omaha-based Navigator C02 and Iowa’s Summit Carbon Solutions aim to sell more biofuel in greenhouse-conscious California and Canada, as well as qualify for lucrative federal tax credits.
Signs opposing the proposed route of the Wolf Carbon Solutions captured carbon dioxide pipeline are seen along Ivanhoe Rd. near Ely, Iowa, on Wednesday, October 12, 2022. Signs opposing eminent domain, a method used to acquire land for projects like this, are also along Ivanhoe Rd. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)That could translate into a premium price for many Midwest farmers’ corn.
But to do so, they need to run pipe beneath private land, rivers and marshes.
For Burkhart and others, their opposition is largely over eminent domain. Under that legal authority, her land can be forcibly traversed for a court-approved sum of money — including by CO2 pipeline companies in South Dakota.
That’s not the case in Minnesota, where farmer sentiment is more mixed on the subject.
Under Minnesota statute, only natural gas and oil pipelines possess that authority. So far, that’s meant a world of difference in the attitudes toward the CO2 pipeline here compared to in Iowa and South Dakota. In those neighboring states, the proposal has stirred anger, with flurries of lawsuits, tense stand-offs between surveyors and landowners, and calls for legislative special sessions.
“You don’t have eminent domain, but you have running water and electricity in Minnesota?” asked Burkhart, who wishes South Dakota’s eminent domain law was more narrowly tailored. “How do you have civilization?”
The same farmers who could benefit financially often stand opposed to the idea of forced access to their land. Eminent domain is typically reserved for public projects or utilities and these CO2 pipelines are a private endeavor.
At least in Minnesota, the companies are obligated to pay farmers up-front for entirely voluntary easements.
“Every one of the other states we intend to operate in does provide a pathway to condemnation,” said Elizabeth Burns-Thompson, the vice president of government and public affairs with Navigator CO2. “Minnesota does not.”
From the exterior, the absence of this lever for the pipelines has seemingly made it easier, not harder for business because in principle, the approach feels less hostile.
Navigator says they’ve gathered “a bulk” of the easements in Minnesota, though they’ve yet to formally apply for a route permit from the state’s Public Utilities Commission.
Similarly, Summit Carbon, which has applied for a permit along one of the three branches it intends to build in Minnesota, says it’s netted nearly two-thirds of the private crossings in Minnesota — including more than 90 percent in Jackson and Otter Tail counties.
The companies declined to discuss whether they’ve paid Minnesotans more for easements. But Brian Jorde, an Omaha attorney representing landowners in South Dakota and Iowa, says Minnesota’s high legal barrier, at least in theory, means landowners are better protected.
“Where they have eminent domain and where they have survey laws that say we can do what we want, they’re just more like the Wild West,” Jorde said. “When the law protects people, corporations have to treat people better.”
By comparison, Navigator revealed before South Dakota’s public utilities commission that they’d secured only 30 percent of the necessary easements in that state.
But some Minnesotans are also passionately opposed to the CO2 pipelines.
At the first round of public listening sessions in western Minnesota earlier this year, and in public filings, opponents accused Summit of minimizing the safety risks of a pipeline rupture. One woman suggested the company bamboozled her infirm mother into signing a contract — a charge Summit’s CEO Jimmy Powell denies.
Peg Furshong, director of programs at Montevideo-based nonprofit Clean Up the River Environment (CURE), fears the company may use Minnesota as a prop for showing investors “some movement in the project.”
Earlier this month at FarmFest, Minnesota’s annual ag-industry gathering, workers at Summit Carbon booth mostly answered farmers’ polite questions.
“We’re working directly with the landowners,” said Scott O’Konek, a project manager. While Summit has sued dozens and dozens of landowners in South Dakota, they’ve needed to work “100 percent for voluntary easements” in Minnesota.
“Each landowner is met with and negotiated with,” O’Konek said. “A majority of the easements are [already] acquired.”
Standing not far away, Thom Petersen, Minnesota Department of Agriculture commissioner, acknowledged “farmers are really split.”
While Minnesota has “a really strong eminent domain law” for projects like the Enbridge Line 3 oil pipeline, which crossed northern Minnesota, Petersen said CO2 sequestration pipelines don’t qualify for the same legal authority. “[For] a private utility, it’s going to make it very difficult to take the land. So they need to negotiate fairly.”
Both CO2 pipelines are still a long way from breaking ground. Minnesota’s PUC will vote on a scope of survey on Aug. 31. Similarly, in Nebraska, the companies so far are seeking voluntary easements.
Summit’s hearings in Iowa and South Dakota begin within the month.
Kim Junker, who farms near Stout, Iowa, in Grundy County, speaks at an anti-carbon capture pipeline rally at the Iowa Capitol in Des Moines on Wednesday, March 22, 2023. Photo by Erin Murphy.
On the witness stand in Fort Pierre last month, a Navigator C02 executive told regulators his company will always first seek voluntary landowner easements.
“We strive not to go down that path,” said Chief Financial Officer Jeff Allen. “That is literally the last option available.”
But when pressed by Jorde on whether he would vow not to seek eminent domain should the pipeline be approved, Allen demurred.
In the audience, Valley Springs landowner Dan Nelson said he worries about carbon dioxide bursting out of a pipe would overtake campers at nearby Palisades State Park.
“You get a 10-mile-an-hour wind,” Nelson said, “it’ll follow the creek and be there in three and a half minutes.”
Nelson said he spoke with the local fire department about who’d answer such a call and was told the volunteers would phone Sioux Falls, which is a 30-minute drive away.
Nelson agreed he wasn’t concerned about ethanol’s future. It was safety consequences that scared him. Eminent domain, too.
“This is a private enterprise, and they want to go through our land with eminent domain,” Nelson said, taking off a baseball cap emblazoned with a Minnesota company’s logo.
Bismarck, ND (Bismarck Tribune) – North Dakota regulators who rejected a siting permit for Summit Carbon Solutions’ proposed 2,000-mile interstate carbon dioxide storage pipeline made it clear the decision was not a judgment on the idea of storing climate-warming emissions underground.
“This is only about this project, in this location, under these circumstances,” Public Service Commission Chair Randy Christmann said after the PSC issued its decision Aug. 4.
The denial was not routine for a commission that sees 15-20 applications for pipelines of various sizes every year. PSC Director of Public Utilities Victor Schock said he is not aware of any other pipelines that have been rejected in his nine years working for the commission.
“It’s absolutely not the norm,” he said.
The commission cited several reasons for its decision, including that Summit had not adequately addressed how the project would impact sensitive areas including cultural sites, some wildlife areas and unstable geological areas. The PSC in its order also said that Summit “has not taken the steps to address outstanding legitimate impacts expressed by landowners during the public comment or demonstrated why a reroute is not feasible.”
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Iowa-based Summit previously said it planned to reapply and address the issues brought by the PSC. But Summit on Friday submitted a petition for reconsideration of the PSC’s Aug. 4 decision. The request presents numerous route adjustments and asks for a one-day hearing for witness testimony in support of its new plans.
If the PSC does not accept Summit’s motion for reconsideration and Summit has to reapply, another application process, upcoming new federal regulations and legal questions over where CO2 will be stored paints a picture of a long wait until construction can begin.
But Summit Executive Vice President Wade Boeshans said he does not believe the PSC decision “has a material impact on the overall schedule.”
Summit has said previously it expects the pipeline to be operational in 2024.
The North Dakota portion of the initial proposed route for the Midwest Carbon Express pipeline.PROVIDED
A lengthy process
The Midwest Carbon Express pipeline is to move CO2 emissions from dozens of ethanol plants in Nebraska, Iowa, the Dakotas and Minnesota and to western North Dakota’s Oliver County for permanent storage underground. The 320-mile route in North Dakota that the PSC rejected was to pass through Burleigh, Cass, Dickey, Emmons, Logan, McIntosh, Morton, Oliver, Richland and Sargent counties.
Summit submitted its siting application to the PSC in October 2022. The process entailed filing numerous forms, addressing the concerns of intervenors and attending five PSC public hearings held across the state.
This is a process that will have to begin again if Summit has to reapply.
The prior application took about 10 months to work its way through the process. Schock expects a similar timeline for any reapplication.
If Summit hopes to be approved it needs to properly address every issue the commission brought up in its order, according to Schock.
At a sparsely attended public open house that Summit held Monday to demonstrate the project’s safety, multiple company representatives attributed the route rejection to not enough communication from Summit with the PSC and landowners. They maintained that the company had the ability to, and would, address the concerns of all stakeholders.
Hearings for the project are set to begin later this month in Iowa and in September in South Dakota. Minnesota is in the midst of its permitting process. Nebraska does not have statewide regulations pertaining to CO2 pipelines but counties can enact local ordinances.
A North Dakota Public Service Commission public hearing June 2 on Summit Carbon Solutions’ planned Midwest Carbon Express pipeline drew a large crowd. The hearing was in Russell Reid Auditorium at the North Dakota Heritage Center & State Museum on the Capitol grounds in Bismarck.TOM STROMME, TRIBUNE
Reroutes, big and small
Summit must demonstrate that the project poses minimal risk to the environment and the welfare of North Dakota residents to gain PSC approval.
Some form of a reroute likely will be necessary unless the company can prove there are no other options or that it addressed the specific factors the commission took issue with along the initial proposed route, according to Schock.
“They need to present a document or a witness that’s able to be cross-examined,” he said.
Schock said Summit did not provide this for many of the issues under contention in its previous application.
“There were a lot of things where it’s possible that the company already rectified, but it’s not in the record,” he said.
Some changes to the route will be more straightforward than others. The company will have to account for many of the avoidance areas that the PSC expressed concern over — such as those with geological instability highlighted by the state Geological Survey as well as some wildlife management areas.
Boeshans said he could not speak directly to the Tribune regarding these specific issues but that the company is in the process of addressing them with the PSC.
Other elements of a reroute may be more substantial. The originally proposed route put the pipeline just 2 miles outside of Bismarck’s extraterritorial area at its closest point, sparking concerns that it would impede the city’s growth to the north and east. The commission found that while some intervenors stretched the likelihood of adverse effects on property values, Summit had not adequately minimized these potential impacts.
Summit’s request for reconsideration states those concerns are moot because the company has an alternative route for north of Bismarck that is now 5 miles north of the city’s extraterritorial area.
Summit ruled out a southern Bismarck route after the PSC requested the company analyze one. Summit cited the goal of avoiding Dakota Access Pipeline-type protests along with other geographic and cultural concerns.
Schock said the primary issue with the analysis was that Summit did not sufficiently explain why another route was not feasible. He said the story may have played out differently had the document been submitted to the record for the PSC to cross-examine at a hearing.
Prior to Summit sending in a reconsideration, Boeshans said all potential routes would be back under consideration, including a southern route, but he said pushing the project farther north is preferable. Summit claims in its petition that the issue of a southern route is now moot, given it believes its reroute addresses the north-Bismarck landowners’ concerns, but it is willing to offer a witness to testify to the issues with a southern route.
Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Archeologist Tyrell Iron Eyes testified at a public hearing in June that moving the pipeline route south of Bismarck would place it in treaty territory. That was an issue during the DAPL protests, with Native Americans maintaining the route was on land that was rightfully theirs under an 1851 treaty agreement broken by the U.S. government.
The costs are in the millions for every extra mile of pipeline laid. Crossing new properties also means working to obtain new easement agreements with landowners.
Summit said it has secured easements with 80% of landowners across the route in North Dakota.
Every landowner who has signed an easement agreement has already received the compensation provided for in their contracts, and the landowners will keep the money, according to Boeshans.
North Dakota Public Service Commissioner Sheri Haugen-Hoffart, left, Commissioner Randy Christmann, center, and Administrative Law Judge Tim Dawson on Aug. 4 detail their reasoning for rejecting a route permit for Summit Carbon Solutions’ Midwest Carbon Express carbon dioxide pipeline.JOEY HARRIS
New regulations
A new siting application would push the project’s start date closer to when new federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration regulations regarding CO2 pipelines are expected to be in place. A draft of these is expected in June 2024.
PHMSA regulates pipelines in the U.S. The agency set out to update regulations after a CO2 pipeline operated by Denbury Gulf Coast Pipelines ruptured in 2020 near Satartia, Mississippi, resulting in 45 people seeking hospital care.
Many who expressed opposition to Summit’s siting application in North Dakota pressed the PSC to not approve the project until new regulations were in place. The PSC said compliance with PHMSA regulations are outside of the commission’s jurisdiction.
Boeshans said current regulations will allow for Summit to build a safe pipeline.
“All the root causes of (the Satartia) failure are addressed in the current set of regulations,” he said.
Summit Project Manager Aaron Eldridge said even if there are new PHMSA regulations that the company does not anticipate, pipeline operators have been able to adjust to new standards in the past without upgrading infrastructure.
Boeshans said much of the public’s concern over the project was due to misinformation and misunderstanding about CO2.
“The facts are there’s 5,000 miles of CO2 pipelines operating in the U.S. today, and of all (pipelines) operating in the U.S., CO2 lines have the best safety record,” he said.
Experts say there are different considerations necessary for CO2 pipelines.
CO2 is odorless, colorless and an asphyxiant that displaces oxygen, which can cause breathing problems and hamper emergency responses because most vehicles require oxygen to run. CO2 does not burn, but it is heavier than air, and once a rupture occurs it could spread near the ground undetected.
There is no standard potential impact radius for a CO2 pipeline leak, according to Kenneth Clarkson, spokesman for the watchdog group Pipeline Safety Trust. Since the dissipation and dispersion of CO2 is dependent on geography, weather and atmospheric conditions, it has the potential to spread to a greater area than other types of gases, he said.
The PSC on Aug. 4 denied requests to make Summit’s dispersion model public information, accepting the company’s arguments that the model is a security system plan for critical infrastructure.
Rod Dillon, director of regulatory compliance at Summit, said the company is accounting for all of the safety issues. Summit will utilize an operations control center in Ames, Iowa, that will allow for constant monitoring of the pipeline. This will give operators the ability to remotely shut off valves in 30 seconds, according to Dillon.
He said there also will be continuous monitoring of atmospheric conditions in order to determine where and how far a leak could travel, and that Summit plans to regularly train first responders in every county along the route.
North Dakota Public Service Commission attorney Zachary Pelham, left, and Victor Schock listen to Jimmy Powell, chief operating officer for Summit Carbon Solutions, testify at a March 14 hearing for Summit’s proposed carbon dioxide pipeline. The hearing at the North Dakota Heritage Center in Bismarck was the first of five public hearings for the project.DARREN GIBBINS, TRIBUNE
Storage snags
A lawsuit brought by a state landowner’s group may create complications for Summit beyond the pipeline.
CO2 storage requires access to small cavities below the ground called pore space, which is the part of the subsurface that is porous enough for liquid and gas to flow through. Summit says it has signed easements with the owners of around 90% of the pore space at the Oliver County site.
The permitting of storage facilities is under the authority of the state Industrial Commission made up of the governor, the attorney general and the agriculture commissioner.
CO2 gas cannot be blocked off from the pore space of one part of a storage facility, so the company needs permission to use all of the pore space in question. If not every pore space owner agrees, the Industrial Commission relies on a process called amalgamation.
North Dakota law says for amalgamation to occur, owners of at least 60% of pore space must consent to easements and the storage facility operator must make a “good-faith effort” to get the consent of all landowners. Those who do not sign easements are to be “equitably compensated.”
The Northwest Landowners Association has filed a lawsuit against the state arguing that amalgamation is a taking of land, and for the state to engage in a taking of land, it must file eminent domain proceedings with landowners. Eminent domain is the taking of private property for public use, with just compensation. This includes hearings to determine what is a “just” compensation.
If the lawsuit is successful, there could be a potential for relitigating certain takings, according to Derrick Braaten, the group’s attorney.
This means that even in the event that Summit is able to acquire a storage facility prior to a decision on the lawsuit, a win by the landowners group may mean the company would have to file eminent domain cases to use the pore space of landowners who don’t sign easements.
Summit filed to intervene in this suit. Basin Electric Power Cooperative and Minnkota Power Cooperative, which respectively operate and plan to operate carbon storage facilities, also intervened.
Separately, Summit signed an agreement in 2022 to co-develop carbon storage facilities in and around Oliver County with Minnkota.
Minnkota is finishing up the process of deciding whether it will go ahead with construction of Project Tundra, which would be the country’s largest CO2 storage project, capturing emissions from the Milton R. Young Station, a coal-fired power plant in Oliver County.
An application for Minnkota’s third storage facility will be headed to the Industrial Commission for approval in the coming months, according to state Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms.
Minnkota’s application for the facility says the proposed site will be primarily used for CO2 emissions from the Milton R. Young Station, but if there is remaining pore space it will market that to third-party sources.
Boeshans has told the Tribune there are “no firm commitments to deliver CO2 to” the facility.
PEORIA (25News Now) – Advocates and survivors of a pipeline rupture say no to the CO2 pipeline installment plan.
Saturday afternoon, the Southside Peoria Nourish Group and Central Illinois Healthy Community Alliance hosted a Citizens Against Predatory Pipelines presentation and panel at the Peoria Public Library.
Two companies, Wolf Carbon Solutions, and Navigator CO2 Ventures, are trying to push multiple pipeline projects through Illinois…which includes Peoria County.
But those speaking for the panel, and many of the residents in attendance, are questioning the health and safety of their communities.
Debra’e Burns suffered CO2 poisoning in 2020 after he was exposed to large amounts of CO2 after the pipeline in his hometown of Satartia, Mississippi, burst.
“I don’t want y’all to be afraid. We didn’t know what was going to happen, but you guys do,” said Burns.
He says he was coming home from a fishing trip with his family when he saw an explosion just a quarter of a mile from the car they were driving in. He described it as a mushroom cloud.
“I had 17 seconds to call my mom and tell her we were on our way to pick her up because a pipeline blew up,” said Burns. “But by the time we turned on our road, our car just shut off and went dead. After the car shut off, we went out. I woke up at the hospital about 3 hours later.”
Burns was rescued by a first responder from the next County over, Jerry Briggs. He described Satartia that day as a ghost town.
“The world just stopped, and everybody was gone,” Burns said. “Headlights were still on in cars sitting in the middle of the highway.”
Briggs said when he found Burns and his family, he thought they were dead.
“They were foaming at the mouth, and one of them had a drink in their hand, resting on their knee, and it was still there,” described Briggs. “It was like they were frozen in place.”
Daurice Coaster, the founder of Nourish Group and a Peoria County resident, says her home is less than a mile from the proposed route.
After hearing Burns’s story and doing her own research, she doesn’t want to risk her safety.
“I’m standing for myself, my neighbors, my community, and I’m saying no. I cannot think of one good idea to entertain a pipeline,” said Coaster.
The senior vice president of Wolf Carbon Solutions, Nick Noppinger, previously told 25 News that they stand by their safety record and plan to communicate with local first responders on what to do in the event of a rupture.
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.
“It’s absolutely not the norm,” he said.
