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Summit offers August, September meetings on Iowa pipeline extensions

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The company that won approval last week from state regulators for its carbon dioxide pipeline system in Iowa told the board it wants to start the process for filing expansion requests for that system in late August.

Summit Carbon Solutions has provided new proposed dates for public informational meetings in 23 counties, covering about a four-week period, according to documents filed recently with the Iowa Utilities Commission, formerly known as the Iowa Utilities Board. The first would be Aug. 26 in Adams County.

The company must hold the meetings in affected counties before it can begin the formal process of negotiations with landowners for easements and filing of petitions for permits in order to construct the extensions.

The 14 proposed laterals to additional ethanol plants from Summit’s original proposal would add about 341 miles to the size of the system in Iowa — or about 50%. The IUC indicated last week it would grant Summit a permit for the company’s original proposal, which has about 690 miles of pipe.
 
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The company plans to transport captured carbon dioxide from ethanol producers in five states to North Dakota, where it would store it underground. IUC has ordered Summit not to start laying down pipes in Iowa until it secures permits in the Dakotas. It may use the eminent domain process to force unwilling landowners to let their properties be used for the project.

Now, North Dakota regulators review Summit’s pipeline route in that state and whether it would be allowed to inject the greenhouse gas beneath the ground there. Summit has said it will reapply for a pipeline permit in South Dakota this month. Summit hopes to break ground next year.

The IUC denied motions from pipeline opponents to consider the extensions simultaneously with the original proposal. Those extensions and maps of their routes were announced in March, while the initial permit process was yet underway. Some contended to no avail some of the system route should be redesigned to lessen its overall length.

Instead, each of the laterals off the main route will require a separate permit. Summit had asked to hold informational meetings for them in April and May, but the commission denial those dates, without giving a reason.

Summit submitted new maps of the extension routes last week that increased their total length by about a half mile. One notable change was in Hardin County, where a proposed route crept a little closer to Iowa Falls.

A new proposed schedule, not yet approved by the IUC, runs from Aug. 26 to Sept. 20 in the following counties: Adams, Bremer, Buchanan, Buena Vista, Butler, Clay, Fayette, Floyd, Greene, Guthrie, Hamilton, Hancock, Hardin, Ida, Kossuth, Mitchell, Montgomery, O’Brien, Osceola, Palo Alto, Sioux, Webster, and Worth.

Although neither of the proposed routes would pass through Buchanan, an ethanol plant located near Fairbank shares its property line with Fayette County.

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