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Iowa Developers Share CO2 Pipeline Map, Announce Public Meetings in SD Oct 26–27

Last week I reported on the carbon capture pipeline that Dan Lederman is pitching to county commissions up and down East River on behalf of his rich Iowa Republican friends. An eager reader responds with a copy of the letter landowners are receiving from aspiring pipeliners Summit Carbon Solutions, the schedule of the four public meetings the Iowa company is holding here in East River, and a map of the South Dakota branches of this project:

Eric Schovanec, Midwest Carbon Express pipeline project director, letter to South Dakota landowners, Summit Carbon Solutions, 2021.10.14.
Eric Schovanec, Midwest Carbon Express pipeline project director, letter to South Dakota landowners, Summit Carbon Solutions, 2021.10.14.
Summit Carbon Solutions, proposed South Dakota route of Midwest Carbon Express pipeline, 2021.10.05.
Summit Carbon Solutions, proposed South Dakota route of Midwest Carbon Express pipeline, 2021.10.05.

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Comparing the proposed map to the most recent Dakota Access pipeline map on file with the Public Utilities Commission…

Dakota Access pipeline route in South Dakota, April 2016; submitted by Dakota Access to SD Public Utilities Commission 2016.04.11.
Dakota Access pipeline route in South Dakota, April 2016; submitted by Dakota Access to SD Public Utilities Commission 2016.04.11.

…we can see that the proposed Midwest Carbon Express carbon dioxide pipeline, which would carry CO2 northwest from Iowa up to underground depositories in North Dakota, appears to parallel the Bakken oil pipeline from near Canton onward through its detour around the Sioux Falls metroplex to Hartford, up to Charlie Johnson’s farm in southern Lake County, and up to southwestern Kingsbury County. But then, near Highway 14 the CO2 pipeline appears to diverge from the Dakota Access route, leaning a bit more northerly to perhaps better thread the needle among our northern ethanol plants and to reduce the distance the Minnesota–North Dakota branch has to cover to reach the main line.

According to the map sent by Summit Carbon Solutions, the pipeline will be 20 inches in diameter at its Lincoln County entry point and past the connection point of the 6-inch spur from the Dakota Ethanol Plant in Wentworth. But by the time the pipeline enters North Dakota from McPherson County, it will be 24 inches in diameter. The pipeline apparently needs to get wider to accommodate CO2 carried in via 6-inch spurs from Watertown and Onida, 4-inch spurs from Huron and Aberdeen, and the 8-inch Minnesota-North Dakota line that dips down into South Dakota right around the west shore of Elm Lake to join the main line near Leola.

Landowners and others interested in more detail about the Midwest Carbon Express CO2 pipeline get four meetings squeezed into two days to ask questions, with two meetings held during the daytime when working people will have a hard time attending, and all four held during peak harvest time when farmers may not be able to spare any time to attend:

  • Aberdeen: Tuesday, October 26, noon–2 p.m., Dakota Event Center, 720 Lamont St.
  • Redfield: Tuesday, October 26, 5:30–7:30 p.m., Shanty Haven, 1223 W 5th St.
  • Madison: Wednesday, October 27, noon–2 p.m., Dakota Prairie Playhouse, 1205 N. Washington Ave.
  • Tea: Wednesday, October 27, 5:30 p.m.–7:30 p.m., Prairie View Event Hall, 27091 Kerslake Pl.

22 Comments

  1. Bonnie B Fairbank 2021-10-19 16:24

    I dunno nuffin’ about nuffin’, but I’m getting a “Marge vs the Monorail” feeling about this. I truly hope there is further enlightened discussion about this here so I may understand it better.

  2. Mark Anderson 2021-10-19 16:44

    Well been there done that, alot of short term jobs there. Too bad it’s all a front on the climate side. I worked on construction every summer I was in college, thanks dad. We put in power lines through South Dakota. I was about to do it again after I graduated but I got the art job at Sears in Aberdeen. When my girlfriend ( now my wife) went to see the ragin’ cajun Doug Kershaw in an auditorium in North Dakota, folding chairs none the less, in conversation a girl right behind us said she was “dating a line crew”. Small world, you’ll have to watch your daughters Leolans. There will be a rough bunch coming through.

  3. grudznick 2021-10-19 18:00

    It is hard to believe Mr. mike, who is from Iowa, would allow developers from his state to create a new pipeline. That’s finger-wiggling tsk-tsk-ish.

  4. Jake 2021-10-19 18:43

    Inherent in this post is the implication that landowners owning the land across which this proposal will traverse will be impacted again by a corporate plan to screw them somehow by offering a pittance for
    CONDEMNATION probably of their land if they refuse first or second offer by a corporation with governmental blessing to cross their lands to profit from such crossing with governmental blessing.
    Such was the plan by the Canadian company wanting to run a pipeline to the Gulf of Mexico across
    South Dakota prairies carrying oil from Canada to send to the Chinese.
    Liederman, being the consummate GQP operative, is not surprisingly instrumental in the momentum of this boonswagle.
    It smells to me as bad as the smells from the CAFOs that he has championed in past years in Eastern So. Dak.

  5. Jake 2021-10-19 18:44

    Grudz, why din’t you just take a hike and vanish?

  6. Dakota roots 2021-10-19 18:52

    grudz, just a reminder when the Dakota access pipeline went threw nara single N.D. or S.D. farmer objected at least a few Iowans took them to court in a futile attempt to stop it…

  7. grudznick 2021-10-19 19:01

    Gets your goat when grudznick’s right, don’t it, Mr. Jake.

  8. ds 2021-10-19 19:18

    OK call me stupid but why not just inject the CO2 into adjacent greenhouses and grow giant tomatoes, lettuce, and Recreational/Medical pot?

  9. larry kurtz 2021-10-19 19:27

    Philip and Midland are sitting on hydrothermal resources that could grow a cannabis industry beyond mortal comprehension.

  10. Jake 2021-10-19 19:32

    Grudz- you couldn’t be any “further from “right” than you are! Don’t try ‘capturing’ my goat man- ya don’t haave it in ya!

  11. DaveFN 2021-10-19 22:02

    Carbon dioxide at room temp and pressure is a gas so any leak poses no environmental land risk—other than increasing CO2 greenhouse gases. The scientific merits of the CO2 pipeline project and whether its stated objectives have any scientific merit whatsoever require much closer examination. As it is I hear nothing regarding the latter and everything regarding big money.

    https://www.nwestiowa.com/news/nwest-iowa-questions-carbon-pipeline/article_8364589c-1cf0-11ec-9f6e-43f8f8d67703.html#:~:text=The%20%244.5%20billion%20pipeline%20will%20run%20through%20five,The%20purpose%3A%20Keeping%20CO2%20out%20of%20the%20atmosphere.

  12. Nick Nemec 2021-10-20 05:54

    Are there in more detailed maps, more accurately showing the route. I am especially curious about the spur to Onida through north Hyde County.

  13. Ed 2021-10-20 07:12

    I am a farmer being crossed by this proposed pipeline. Most of my neighbors and I have been throwing their surveyors off our land repeatedly since August. The county sheriff has been called numerous times to report them trespassing. They keep coming back and sneaking on our land when we aren’t around. Notice that you must RSVP to the company to attend their meetings. Since their letters should have gone only to affected landowners, why the need to know who is coming? Are they planning on stacking the crowd with unaffected promoters of their scheme to show strong support? Sure looks that way. As reported in our local newspaper, Mr. Lederman told several untruths when he appeared before our local county commission promoting the project. I wonder how much he is getting paid to be their lobbyist?

  14. larry kurtz 2021-10-20 08:43

    The KXL developer has removed the last of its pipe so they’re looking for salvage buyers. Why tribes aren’t resisting another pipeline through ancestral cemeteries remains a mystery.

    In Wyoming, Oneok is struggling to control weeds and erosion over one of its pipeline routes: that’s a chronic problem in this time of extreme and exceptional drought.

    https://www.sundancetimes.com/story/2021/10/14/news/oneok-reclamation-efforts-continue/4942.html

  15. mike from iowa 2021-10-20 09:10

    iowa leg of pipeline will receive inputs from Nebraska and Minnesota. I think South Dakota should receive all inputs before they touch iowa.

    This could be very profitable venture for ethanol refineries who could conceivably open up California’s hard to crack fuel industry with cleaner, lower carbon ethanol. Not so much for landowners.

  16. John 2021-10-20 09:37

    Wasteful, it’ll go bankrupt in <10 years. Electric vehicles will implode the ethanol & surface transportation fuel market (gas/diesel) within 10-15 years.
    The quicker means to reduce CO2 & green house gases is increasing the speed of adopting EVs. Even Deere & Co are designing e-tractors and vehicles.
    The quicker means to reduce CO2 & green house gases is increasing the speed of adopting solar, wind, and battery electrical systems and capitalizing the grid so all can produce, trade, and sell electricity — like we sell ideas and goods on the internet.

  17. Jake 2021-10-20 10:02

    Solar panels on every roof will help put ‘a chicken in every pot!’

  18. Yvonne 2021-10-20 10:32

    Hydrocarbons are molecules consisting of both hydrogen and carbon.
    Carbon dioxide is added to the atmosphere by human activities. When hydrocarbon fuels (i.e. wood, coal, natural gas, gasoline, and oil) are burned, carbon dioxide is released. During combustion or burning, carbon from fossil fuels combine with oxygen in the air to form carbon dioxide and water vapor. All cleanups from petroleum hydrocarbon leaks are either mixed into soil and/or disposed of into landfills.
    This state already allows landfills to accept petroleum hydrocarbons into these landfills alongside methane producing solid waste which is emitted into the air and the ground water on a day to day basis.
    There’s no push back by this states governing powers to be and has not been there for too many years…rather an open invitation for companies with the the significant potential to pollute this states valuable natural resources.–air, land and water and not held accountable to repair the systems they seek to put in place.

    Instead, they’re allowed to pillage the land and the natural resources then allowed to cut and run with maybe a mere pittance of a fine leaving the financial burden to this states taxpayers to foot the bill. Once contaminated…pretty much irreversible and these bad actors are long gone.

    Here’s a link of an example involving a landowners “nightmare” in this state in dealing with not only this states failure to protect the environment, but also, failed its ministerial duty to properly permit back actors that intentionlly polluted a landowners property. How many other south dakotans are being affected by this type of non-governance.

    https://www.sdstandardnow.com/home/a-rapid-city-homeowners-nightmare-city-and-state-ignore-permit-rules-as-environmental-hazard-threatens-their-property

  19. Peter Carrels 2021-10-20 18:21

    This proposal gives me pause. For starters, that this idea exists as it does in its current form and design is an admission by the corn ethanol industry that their manufacturing plants do release worrisome amounts of CO2. Right? Second, storing CO2 as this company proposes is especially attractive -financially- if the CO2 is used in some way, and not simply stored. One of the most common uses for CO2 transport is to move CO2 to locations where it is used to push buried and hard-to-get-at crude oil from the ground. I don’t know if that’s the case here, but the general ND destination infers this is a reasonable guess. If that is true, than the enterprise is counterproductive in terms of slowing climate change. Corn ethanol producers and Big Ag’s corn-chemical sector continue to claim corn ethanol is environmentally friendly. If you pay attention to hypoxia, fertilizer manufacturing and use, the use of pesticides and herbicides on corn fields and the release of CO2 from corn ethanol plants, you understand that this is far from reality.

  20. Bonnie B Fairbank 2021-10-21 16:20

    So many intelligent and informed comments; I cannot pretend I understand them all fully.

  21. jmiller 2022-01-21 17:16

    There is a large coalition forming to oppose these CO2 pipelines. Come see a live webinar on Jan 26, 2022. (Info below)
    Sierra Club of Iowa has lots of info too. The pipelines are a part of the largest operation like this in the world! They are attempting do a huge land grab of some of the best farmland in the world!!
    Go to Iowa Chapter Sierra Club website—sierraclub.org/iowa—“No CO2 Pipelines in Iowa”. If you give them your email address, you can even get weekly updates. (No spam)
    This could change our nation. It is reaching media. There are affected landowners in 5 states forming a big group & they are all joining under the same stellar law firm—Domina Law (Brian Jorde). A supportive coalition is growing. There are over 700 people already! This is a big deal and will be a major historical event. These pipelines are dangerous. Officials and others are gathering at a webinar soon. Below is how to join that live webinar:

    Carbon Pipelines: Stories from Satartia
    Monday, January 26 @ 6pm CT
    Zoom: https://fwwatch.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_RnkpEBwuR8KI8P5FTmnaAw
    Overflow link if zoom is full: https://fb.me/e/bg2IHsAfF

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