by Jordan Mason | Sep 22, 2023 | Archived
Lee County officials have been notified that Navigator CO2 Ventures is temporarily stopping its push to put a CO2 pipeline through Iowa, but Supervisor Garry Seyb says impacted landowners should continue to be vigilant in their efforts to protect their property rights.
At Lee County Supervisors’ meeting Monday, Seyb read portions of an email officials received from from Percheron, an acquisition and permitting contractor for Navigator, stating the project is being postponed temporarily.
Christina Kibel, a regulatory agent for Percheron, wrote that Navigator has “postponed all acquisitions and permits in Iowa until further notice.”
Seyb said her email stated Navigator has not officially shut down the entire project, but elected to pause various aspects until a later date, and that the company still plans to build the pipeline at some point in the future.
He said Navigator has closed their office, ceased land acquisition efforts, and assigned agents to other projects.
“They are definitely taking a serious pause but I would urge everyone that has dog in that fight to remind vigilant, I guess,’ Seyb said at Monday’s meeting.
The pipeline has faced an an onslaught of opposition from affected landowners, some of whom threatened with eminent domain proceedings to place the pipeline on their land without their consent, as well as from environmental groups and property rights advocates.
Among those with “a dog in the fight” and repeatedly voicing opposition to the CO2 Pipeline project, are Andrew and Amber Johnson that own just over 200 acres on the outskirts of West Point. The proposed route for the CO2 pipeline was to go through their land, with a portion of it coming within 375 feet of their home.
The couple has attended many of the Iowa Utility Board’s hearings on the project and opposed it. They have refused to voluntarily grant permission for use of their land and were threatened with the use of eminent domain from the onset of the project.
Andrew Johnson said Monday he is “cautiously optimistic” and believes the public resistance to the project played a significant role in the company’s decision to pause operations.
“I think there was such resistance that they didn’t expect, not just here but in North Dakota, South Dakota.”
He said he and Amber plan to follow Seyb’s advice and continue efforts to oppose the CO2 pipeline as well as to lobby against the use of eminent domain.
“I will continue to email and continue to support any official and person seeking elected office that is opposed to the use of eminent domain,” he said.
While he is pleased about Navigator’s decision to temporarily cease operations, Johnson says he won’t rest easy until the idea is abandoned once and for all.
“What would put my mind at ease is if the ethanol and fertilizer plants would say they will be using an alternative method to get their CO2 so that a pipeline won’t be needed now or in the future.”
by Jordan Mason | Sep 22, 2023 | Archived
I was there the day a DAPL security team set attack dogs on protesters at Standing Rock. When my son remerged after videoing an event echoing 1963 Birmingham, he had a distant stare. “Dad, I can’t believe they’d do that to people.”
Brown people. Let’s be specific. Believe it.
The oil pipeline had been rerouted from Bismarck to a site underneath the Missouri River near the Standing Rock reservation. Bismarck had more political clout than Native Americans in the sticks. Manifest Destiny, you know.
Now, the spigot may be closed.
DAPL failed to heed an EPA directive to hold water security discussions with the tribe and do a substantive environmental impact statement before proceeding. A catastrophic leak would affect as many as 20 million people. And all pipelines leak.
They bullied ahead, anyway, despite a federal request to pause construction for further study, over the objections of three federal agencies, instead trusting an Army Corps of Engineers-approved environmental overview from … wait for it … DAPL itself. The fox guarding the pipeline. The cart before the horse. Oil before the EPA.
Meanwhile, the controversial Summit Carbon Pipeline that would dump mostly out-of-state toxic ethanol sludge underground near Bismarck is stalled largely because of protests from the landed gentry concerned about safety and eminent domain.
To their credit, Summit henchmen haven’t unleashed German Shepherds on white women and children, hosed people down in the dead of winter, shot them with rubber bullets for sport, or bulldozed a cemetery.
After all, we have a two-tiered system of justice. Based on pigmentation. However, fascism is narrowing the gap. In New Amerika, corporations can seize even a Caucasian’s land for a pipeline.
Fascism is the defined merger of government and corporate power, and DAPL approached it like a military operation, employed mercenaries, embedded provocateurs, and coordinated with law enforcement. Spin doctors demonized and propagandized.
The dog attack was a setup. Despite legal filings calling for a construction pause after the identification of sacred artifacts and a possible burial site, history was bulldozed away, a provocation that led to the march. The dogs were waiting.
Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney reveled in the opportunity to drag surplus military vehicles across the state to intimidate Water Protectors. The state borrowed $43 million to fund policing. DAPL later “donated” back $15 million. Taxpayers covered the rest.
Presumably, criminals in Cass County declared a cease-fire out of respect for Laney’s showboating oppression of tribes who’d already lost more than 200,000 acres to eminent domain and Oahe Dam inundation. So much for treaties.
Nobody wants to see exploding oil trains again. Pipelines are a temporary necessity until we get off the climatological suicide ride of fossil fuels. However, there are laws. Due process. “But we already built it,” is a hubristic defense. What was done was criminal.
I shan’t weep if courts shut DAPL down, and I’ll rejoice when we finally begin to put the planet before obscene corporate profits. You can’t eat, drink, or breathe money.
Tony Bender writes an exclusive weekly column from North Dakota for Forum News Service.
by Sam Parsons | Sep 22, 2023 | Archived
By O. Kay Henderson (Radio Iowa)
An Iowa lawmaker is suggesting the Iowa Utilities Board lacks the authority to grant Summit Carbon Solutions permission to seize property along its proposed pipeline route from unwilling landowners.
Republican Representative Steven Holt of Denison says eminent domain authority is reserved for projects that have a clear public use and public benefit. “It’s a terrible cost that my constituents and the folks in Iowa are paying when their land is going to be seized for this economic development project that does not fit the Iowa Constitutional requirement…for the use of eminent domain,”
Holt says. Holt, who is chairman of the Iowa House Judiciary Committee, says he’s not opposed to pipeline projects that developers argue would benefit farmers by making corn-based ethanol carbon neutral. “Let the pipelines be built using voluntary easements, but not using the heavy hand of government to take the land of others for what is a private economic development project,” Holt says.
Holt was one of two Republican lawmakers who testified today at the Iowa Utilities Board hearing reviewing Summit’s application for a permit to build and maintain a carbon pipeline in Iowa. Senator Sandy Salmon, a Republican from Janesville, called Summit’s request to seize about a third of its route across Iowa “breathtaking.”
“To me this is outrageous, reprehensible and shameless action,” Salmon said, “and all Iowans can see it.”
Salmon said private property rights are essential for property and must be preserved.
by Jordan Mason | Sep 22, 2023 | Archived
Pekin (25News Now) – A group in Tazewell County is growing quickly, all centered on the goal of stopping the CO2 pipeline that Wolf Carbon Solutions wants to build through Central Illinois.
The group claims the project is not safe and could compromise the farmland it’s built on.
“I think the general sentiment is, nobody wants it,” farmer Mark Berg said. He’s been working on fields across Tazewell County since the 1980′s.
He wasn’t really aware of the project until the landlords for the fields he farmed received a letter informing them they were possibly in the path of the pipeline.
Wolf Carbon Solutions has asked the state for approval to build a 259-mile pipeline from Iowa to Decatur. The plan is for ethanol plants along the way to deposit their carbon dioxide for it to be put deep underground in saline aquifer rock.
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The proposed path for the Mt. Simon Hub Pipeline from Wolf Carbon Solutions(WEEK)
“I know as a farmer we need ethanol, and we cannot lose the billion-bushel demand for corn… but the biggest thing is safety,” said Berg. He’s worried there aren’t enough regulations in place to protect the families and workers along the path.
Berg and more than 1,900 other people have joined the Tazewell County: Stop the CO2 Pipeline Facebook group. Their main concerns were the safety and property values of their homes.
Group spokesman Elton Rocke says many people they speak with don’t initially know about the pipeline proposal.
“As soon as we start telling them, they’re immediately against it. They’re just shocked at the magnitude of it and how they’re trying to slide it in on us and the dangers of it,” said Rocke.
In our previous reporting, Wolf Carbon Solutions maintained they have a good safety record with their other pipeline. WCS is looking for state approval. If they get approval, they want to build the pipeline in 2024 and have it running by 2025.
A comprehensive story on everything we know so far about the pipeline can be found below.
Wolf Carbon Solutions sent notices to anyone within a mile of the pipeline’s path, but now they are sending teams to survey the land where it will be built.
Rocke is recommending anyone who opposes the pipeline deny the surveyors the ability to look at the land.
Berg remembers when two natural gas lines were built on some of his farmland, he worried the construction would hurt the soil even with the company’s help.
It impacts the productivity for years, five or more… the ground is just not the same,” said Berg.
The company has previously stated they want to work with landowners… but Rocke is concerned their consent won’t matter when it’s time to build.
“They came in and said we want to be your neighbors, we want to be your best friends and we’re going to give you all these benefits, but they have the veiled threat of eminent domain. Imminent domain was created for the good of the people not for the good of enterprise and not for the good of the company’s bottom lines,” said Rocke.
The opposition group wants to halt progress on the pipeline until more regulations are released from the federal government.
Those new rules aren’t expected to come out until October 2024. Illinois must decide on WCS’s proposal in May 2024.
Copyright 2023 WEEK. All rights reserved.
by O. Kay Henderson | Sep 14, 2023 | Archived
A vice president for Summit Carbon Solutions says rejected requests to build the company’s carbon pipeline in North and South Dakota should not impact its pursuit of a construction permit in Iowa. Micah Rorie is in charge of land acquisition for the company and took the witness stand this morning at an Iowa Utilities Board hearing in Fort Dodge.
“I was asked the question last week about whether I thought we ought to get a permit without other state permits in play,” Rorie said, “to which I responded, ‘Yes, I think we ought to seek a permit in Iowa regardless of what’s going on in other states.’”
John Murray, an attorney for property owners who don’t want the pipeline on their land, quizzed Rorie about yesterday’s permit denial in South Dakota. “We’re confident of our ability to obtain a permit in South Dakota. As far as what we know, I don’t know that there’s any guarantee,” Rorie said.
Murray asked: “So isn’t it possible South Dakota will not grant Summit a permit?”
Rorie responded: “I don’t like to think that way.”
Murray, an attorney from Storm Lake, also asked Rorie about last month’s denial of a permit to extend Summit’s pipeline through North Dakota, where the company plans to store its liquid carbon underground.
“Isn’t it possible that you’re building a pipeline to nowhere?” Murray asked.
Rorie responded: “I don’t see it that way. I don’t think about how things are going in other states as it relates to what we’re needing to get done in Iowa. Yes, if we built a pipeline that didn’t have a terminus, then I guess that would be a pipeline to nowhere, but that’s not the way I see it. The way I see it is certainly the time we’re spending this morning it to see a permit in Iowa and make sure we accomplish all of the criteria to do so.”
Rorie said over 1200 Iowa landowners have voluntarily signed easements that give Summit access to over 3300 parcels of land along its proposed route through Iowa. The company is asking the Iowa Utilities Board for eminent domain authority to force 469 Iowa landowners who object to the project to sign property easements.
by Jordan Mason | Sep 14, 2023 | Archived
Bruce Rastetter, the influential co-founder of Summit Carbon Solutions, should be subpoenaed to testify to state regulators in support of his company’s carbon dioxide pipeline proposal, according to the daughter of a landowner who is affected by the project.
The daughter, Kerry Hirth, has filed a motion with the Iowa Utilities Board seeking to compel Rastetter’s testimony. If she succeeds, the move has the potential to subject him to questioning from pipeline opponents on a variety of issues.
The political muscle of Rastetter, whose Summit Agricultural Group spawned the pipeline company, has been key to expediting a permit for the pipeline project in Iowa, its opponents allege.
Those who oppose the project have been unsuccessful so far in fleshing out a clear view of the people and companies that own Summit Carbon Solutions. They sought more information from the company’s executives last week during the third week of testimony for Summit’s evidentiary hearing with the IUB, but those executives said they didn’t know much about the company’s owners.
“That’s a private investment,” said James Powell, chief operating officer of Summit Carbon Solutions. “I’m not part of that decision-making process.”
Rastetter, an investor in Summit Carbon Solutions as well as its co-founder, might be able to provide those details.
Hirth alleges that Summit’s parent company has the ability to depress ethanol prices, undercutting its justification for the project.
“Mr. Rastetter’s testimony will help the board see the entire stage that Summit Ag has set and understand whether or not Summit Carbon’s proposed pipeline is part of a larger corporate undertaking that violates” Iowa law, wrote Anna Ryon, an attorney for Hirth.
Hirth alleges that Summit Agricultural Group’s infrastructure in Brazil — which the company claims produces the “lowest cost, most sustainable gallon of ethanol in the world” — threatens the price of Iowa-made ethanol. Hirth also claims that Summit Carbon Solutions’ agreements with a dozen ethanol plants in Iowa contain “anticompetitive provisions.”
The details of those agreements are obscured from public view because of a confidentiality agreement that has restricted their disclosure to the attorneys who represent groups who sought them.
Summit has said it has profit-sharing arrangements with the ethanol producers. Its pipeline system would transport captured carbon dioxide from more than 30 ethanol plants in five states to North Dakota for underground sequestration. The company and the ethanol producers would be eligible for generous federal tax credits, and the producers would be able to sell their ethanol in low-carbon markets at a higher price.
Summit has argued that its project benefits the public — a key component of its hazardous liquid pipeline permit request in Iowa — by boosting profits for ethanol producers, an important market for farmers. More than half of the state’s corn is used to produce ethanol.
“Whether or not Summit Carbon’s proposed pipeline is part of a larger corporate enterprise that violates Iowa’s anti-competition law is highly relevant to whether the proposed pipeline promotes the public convenience and necessity,” Hirth argues. “It is necessary for the IUB to understand Summit Ag’s overall business model and how the various subsidiaries – including Summit Carbon – fit into that business model.”
The Sierra Club of Iowa joined Hirth’s motion to subpoena Rastetter to help determine whether the pipeline system will benefit ethanol producers.
“So Summit is therefore claiming that the support of the Iowa ethanol industry promotes public convenience and necessity,” wrote Wallace Taylor, a Sierra Club attorney. “But, as Ms. Hirth explains, Mr. Rastetter’s scheme will actually harm Iowa’s ethanol industry, to the benefit of Mr. Rastetter and Summit Agricultural Group.”
Summit declined to comment about the motion to subpoena Rastetter. A representative of Summit Agricultural Group said Rastetter was unavailable for comment. It’s unclear when the IUB will rule on Hirth’s request.
Summit suffers setbacks
Utility regulators in South Dakota on Monday denied Summit a permit to build its pipeline in that state.
The company’s proposal was set to start its final evidentiary hearing that day, but the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission agreed with its staff that the project would violate several county ordinances that restrict where the pipeline can be built.
In North Dakota, utility regulators denied Summit a siting permit last month. The company has modified its route and asked for a reconsideration. Its other options are to challenge the denial in court or to reapply.
Two of the three commissioners in that state indicated they are open to a reconsideration, according to a recording of their meeting last week, because forcing Summit to reapply would result in a duplicative, lengthy process. It took about 10 months for that state’s Public Service Commission to rule on the company’s application.
Summit has said it wants to start construction on its project next year, but Powell, the company’s chief operating officer, testified that construction in Iowa would not happen without approval from the Dakotas.
The company’s fourth week of testimony for its evidentiary hearing in Iowa is set to start Tuesday.
