HURON — The Beadle County Commission met on Tuesday morning, with a public comment from Summit Carbon Solutions presented to update the county on the company’s plans after the company was denied a permit by the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission (PUC).
The Summit spokesperson at the meeting stated that Summit has “work to do” to get to the table with counties and work within their ordinances, a prerequisite given by the PUC for re-applying. The intention for Summit is to spend the fall coming to agreements with those counties where local ordinances do not match building plans and then re-apply by the end of the year.
On top of that, Summit announced a grant to the emergency management of each county that the pipeline will be built through. The grant will be $50,000, plus $1,000 per mile of pipeline built through the county.
For Beadle, that would mean a total of $87,000. This will be paid with a first installment of $10,000 and remaining funds to be distributed once all permits have been secured.
The commission also convened as the board of adjustment to approve two variances for construction projects that did not meet setbacks. The first was a re-application by John and Jack Wellnitz in Foster township to build a residence on a parcel with difficult shape to meet setbacks. The second was from Tony Broderson to build a new steel frame building in Wolsey that does not meet full setbacks. Both were approved with no comments against them.
The commission heard from residents of Lake Byron regarding suggested harassment of the residents by county staff. After hearing the concerns, the commission stated that the matter is a civil matter to work out between neighbors, perhaps legally, but that the county would not be involved in the dispute.
Commissioners approved two reconveyances. The first was to Daniel Boria in the city of Huron, and the second was to Gene and Betty Sprecher in Wolsey.
Commissioners also:
• Approved the hiring of one full-time and one part-time jailer.
• Accepted the resignation of the WIC/county nurse clerk.
• Approved an on/off sale malt beverage and S.D. farm wine license for J Musil Wines LLC.
• Approved participation in the National Center for Public Land Counties.
• Approved Eagleview agreement to provide aerial photography services for the Equalization office.
The next meeting of the Beadle County Commission is Tuesday, October 31, in the commission room on the second floor of the courthouse.
CANTON, S.D. — The Lincoln County Commission has pressed pause on yet another CO2 pipeline ordinance as a majority of commissioners say they need more time to consider the multiple proposals circulating throughout the county.
The proposal comes from Commissioner Joel Arends, who spent roughly six weeks speaking with county staff and pipeline officials.
Arends said that during those conversations, Summit Carbon Solutions made a series of concessions that he believes are beneficial to residents.
The route of a proposed carbon dioxide pipeline through Lincoln County. Summit Carbon Solutions is still seeking a permit from state regulators. Contributed / Summit Carbon Solution
“We’ve settled on a 500-foot setback from habitative props as well as a … one mile setback from any municipalities, regardless of size,” Arends said. “[Additionally,] they have agreed here in Lincoln County to move their pipeline route back south by two miles.”
The shift to the south, Arends explained, was a result of his push for giving municipalities near the pipeline more room to grow, and called it a “major” concession.
“Essentially, it’s a multi-million dollar concession, because all of the money they gave to pay for easements is going to remain with those people who purchased the easements,” he said, “and they’re going to have to purchase new easements on those lands [to the south].”
Summit — who is working to reapply for a permit after it was first denied in September by the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission — also committed to a million-dollar grant program to provide first responders along the pipeline’s route with extra training. Arends said 35-40% of that would be delivered as soon as possible, with the remainder upon permitting.
“In terms of major concessions, I do believe that the pipeline now has got the message,” Arends said confidently, “and they’re starting to work with local communities in terms of what’s going to have to be done in order to bring the pipeline through.”
A ‘rush to judgment’
The proposal from Arends sought to send the ordinance to the Lincoln County Planning Commission with a do-pass recommendation from the county board.
Lincoln County Commission Chair Tiffani Landeen
Lincoln County Commission Chair Tiffani Landeen and fellow Commissioner Jim Schmidt took issue with Arends’ proposal — not necessarily for its merit, but rather for its timing.
“This came on the agenda really late on Friday on a holiday weekend. I’m confident in saying I don’t think the other commissioners have had a chance to look at any of these proposals in any depth,” Landeen said. “I don’t think we’re at a point to make a recommendation, and I certainly don’t want [the Planning Commission] to get the impression that the commission as a whole would be endorsing this particular ordinance.”
As Landeen entertained a motion to table, Arends suggested a 30-day table to put the proposal on the Planning Commission’s agenda for its November meeting. That’s where Schmidt chimed in.
“Commissioner Arends, I’ll commend you for your activity and your digging into this. I don’t understand why we want to rush to judgment on this thing,” Schmidt said. “As our chair has said, there’s probably three competing ordinances that have been considered out there.”
Those other proposals, most of which are citizen-driven, call for larger setbacks of 1,300 or 1,800 feet, Schmidt said, advocating for more time to review and publicly discuss all options.
“I don’t have any heartburn if we waited until the first of the year — until we’ve had time to publicly discuss this thing in an open forum where people can put their input,” Schmidt said.
Arends contended that it’s time to address the pipeline questions that have been circulating for some time.
“This thing’s been percolating now for a year. You don’t need another year, being a little facetious of course,” Arends, a lawyer, said. “I think you just
Lincoln County Commissioner Jim Schmidt
need to cowboy up and say we’re gonna do it, put our big boy pants on, and put it to the people in [planning and zoning] and do it in November.”
“You’re well spoken, counselor, but there’s no way in my interpretation that we were not going to come up with some kind of ordinance. We will have an ordinance, we will have that,” Schmidt replied. “If it takes 30 or 60 days, fine.”
During a period of public comment, roughly a dozen members of the public spoke on the agenda item, most of whom thanked the commission for considering a table of the ordinance.
Ultimately, the commission voted 4-0, including Arends, to table the pipeline ordinance for a period of 60 days. Commissioner Michael Poppens recused himself from discussion as well as the vote.
Ordinances are already in place in Minnehaha County.
The argument that county ordinances should be overruled to build a carbon dioxide pipeline in North Dakota has “far-reaching implications” and should be discussed during a public hearing, according to landowners who oppose Summit Carbon Solutions’ project.
The company seeks to build a roughly 2,000-mile pipeline network in five states to transport captured carbon dioxide from ethanol plants to North Dakota for underground sequestration.
The North Dakota Public Service Commission unanimously denied Summit a permit for its pipeline in August because the company failed to show it minimized the impact of the project on residents.
After the denial, the commission agreed to reconsider Summit’s permit application. The company has made numerous changes to its route to assuage landowners and those in the Bismarck area who said the route came too close to the city and might impede development.
As part of that reconsideration process, Summit has asked the commission to invalidate ordinances in Burleigh and Emmons counties that restrict how far pipelines can be placed to cities, houses, livestock facilities and other sites, arguing that they are so restrictive they prevent Summit’s proposal.
The company wants the commission to rule on that request before any future hearings because it is a crucial issue to its project. But a group of landowners said the issue is so important it deserves a hearing itself.
“This is a matter of intense public interest, and the commission’s ruling will impact the powers and rights of the public’s elected officials,” wrote David Knoll, one of the affected landowners’ attorneys. “Both the argument and the analysis should be public.”
Those who have sought to uphold the ordinances have said state legislators intended to allow counties to restrict the siting of pipelines and that Summit is exaggerating the effects of the two counties’ ordinances.
The company cites one element of a state law that says “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.”
It’s unclear when the commission will rule on the landowners’ request. It has yet to set a schedule for the reconsideration process, and state law does not dictate how long that process should take.
Two pipelines hoping to capture, transport and store a greenhouse gas produced by ethanol plants are facing vastly different futures following regulatory defeats.
Omaha-based Navigator C02 Ventures, an entity that had been hoping to construct a carbon dioxide pipeline across five Midwest states, including Minnesota, said Tuesday it is withdrawing its application in Illinois and putting all its permit applications on hold.
The 1,300-mile pipeline would have connected to a number of midwestern ethanol plants, carrying carbon dioxide emissions to a sequestration site deep underground in Illinois.
“As is consistent with our recent filing in neighboring jurisdictions, Navigator will be taking time to reassess the route and application,” Navigator said in a statement to the Star Tribune.
Last month, the company’s application for a permit was denied by South Dakota utilities board. While Navigator C02 had planned to run the pipeline into southern Minnesota’s Martin County, the company had not yet filed an application to build any pipeline with the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission.
For Iowa-based Summit Carbon Solutions, however, plans for its CO2 pipeline remain the same.
The company, which wants to run a pipeline across the Upper Midwest, including in western Minnesota, has faced several setbacks.
In September, South Dakota regulators rejected Summit Carbon Solutions’ application for a pipeline permit, citing newly crafted county ordinances. A month earlier, regulators in North Dakota — where the company plans to store Co2 underground from dozens of ethanol facilities — also sent Summit back to the drawing board.
Meanwhile, a hearing in Iowa will resume in November.
“We respect this initial ruling and remain committed to South Dakota and deeply appreciative of the overwhelming support we have received from landowners and community members,” Lee Blank, Summit’s CEO, said in a statement issued in September.
The pipelines are largely supported by representatives of the ethanol industry, which has pointed to Co2 sequestration technology as an opportunity to lower the carbon footprint of ethanol, which is a fuel additive currently used in motor vehicles.
Leaders from commodity groups to farm country political leaders have extolled opportunities in new markets, such as sustainable aviation fuel.
But the campaign has faced pushback both from some farmers and landowners, who have decried potentially hazardous and privately-owned pipelines — funded primarily by federal tax credits — from intruding upon their backyards.
Many environmentalists have also expressed doubt about the purported climate benefits of carbon pipelines, which they say may compel farmers to convert more acres to cornfields.
In Minnesota, ethanol pipelines do not have access to eminent domain authority. In August, the PUC approved the scope of an environmental review of Summit’s 12-mile build, from the North Dakota border to an ethanol facility in Otter Tail County.
In an email, Sarah Mooradian, government and policy director with Montevideo-based CURE, which is a community group opposed to the pipelines, said the companies had once projected the systems would be operational by 2024.
“Without any permits approved (or even pending now),” Mooradian said, “that seems impossible to accomplish at this point.”
SIOUX FALLS, SD – South Dakotans First (SDF) officially launches as a statewide grassroots coalition of organizations and individuals committed to safeguarding property rights from out-of-state corporations.
Impacted property owners and representatives from partner organizations will speak to the coalition’s stand against pipeline companies exploiting eminent domain laws and unjustly taking land from South Dakota’s property owners.
South Dakotans First believes no private company should be able to rob South Dakota landowners of their property rights. This abuse of authority directly threatens the well-being and rights of local communities and overrides local control; setting a dangerous precedent.
South Dakotans First will share results from their survey conducted in September of this year finding nearly 90% of voters do not think Summit Carbon Solutions should be able to use eminent domain to force property owners to sell access to their land (88%), including three fourths who “strongly oppose” this use of eminent domain by a private company.
Landowner victories over carbon-capture land grabs have finally caught the attention of major media, with Reuters publishing an analysis over the weekend entitled “U.S. Carbon Capture Pipeline Setbacks Reflect Challenges in Climate Fight.”
The flagrantly biased report rightly explains that the Biden administration views carbon capture and storage “as critical to reaching the nation’s goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.”
The 2021 Infrastructure Act included billions toward technological development, and last year’s Inflation Reduction Act awarded huge tax credits for pipeline projects.
With that kind of overwhelming federal support behind them, companies planning the pipelines continue to push forward despite recent setbacks.
North Dakota, where Summit Carbon Solutions proposes to store carbon dioxide captured from ethanol plants throughout the Corn Belt, denied that company’s permit application in August. The Public Services Commission objected over safety concerns. Summit has appealed the decision.
Dakota News Now reports that Summit will also appeal the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission’s denial of its construction permit application last month. The company plans to reroute its pipeline and, toward that end, is moving teams of staff to Aberdeen and Sioux Falls in the eastern part of the state. However, Summit also agreed to dismiss around 160 condemnation lawsuits it had brought against landowners who refused to sign voluntary easements for its initial pipeline plan.
Meanwhile, in Montana, the federal Bureau of Land Management is holding the standard dog and pony show, calling for public comments for a carbon-sequestration project planned on public land.
The outcome is fairly easy to anticipate, since the BLM issued a policy in June 2022 allowing for the permanent underground storage of carbon dioxide on land it manages, which amounts to more than 245 million acres, mostly in western states, including Alaska.
In Illinois, Wolf Carbon Solutions “got an icy reception” at a county board meeting last week. That company is planning a pipeline from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to underground storage in Decatur, Illinois. The board heard Wolf’s presentation, but the room was packed with landowners who oppose the land grab that pipelines present. “They’re playing a shell game,” Elton Rocke of Pekin told NPR. “And it’s not profiting the people. It’s profiting the big corporations and the pipeline companies.”
But it is the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) that has ultimate say-so over this project in that state, and it is set to finalize a decision on Wolf’s construction application next May.
The ICC is gathering public comments, which anyone can submit, regardless of Illinois residency. To do so, you can visit www.icc.illinois.gov, and under e-docket, search for P2023-0161. On the right side of the page, choose “Public Comments,” and then click “File a Comment.”
Meanwhile, grassroots groups are gaining traction on Facebook. Tazewell County: Stop the CO2 Pipeline has more than 2,300 members. Other groups include:
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.
