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Summit Carbon Solutions Avoids Direct Pelican Lake Route for CO2 Pipeline, Curves Around Harmony Hill, Crosses Highway 81 Twice

On February 23, Summit Carbon Solutions submitted index maps to the Public Utilities Commission to clarify where each of its local area maps fit in the overall route of its proposes carbon dioxide pipeline through South Dakota. The index map showing the end of the pipeline spur to the Glacial Lakes Energy ethanol plant on the south side of Watertown shows that the company is indeed detouring around the Benedictine Sisters’ Harmony Hill property:

Summit Carbon Solutions, "Midwest Carbon Express" carbon dioxide pipeline proposed route, end of Glacial Lakes–Watertown spur, index map submitted to Public Utilities Commission 2022.02.23.
Summit Carbon Solutions, “Midwest Carbon Express” carbon dioxide pipeline proposed route, end of Glacial Lakes–Watertown spur, index map submitted to Public Utilities Commission 2022.02.23. Click to embiggen!

Summit Carbon Solutions could have kept running its Midwest Carbon Express along the Willow Lake–Vienna–Hazel BNSF rail line, threaded the needle between Harmony Hill and Pelican Lake, and saved itself two to two and a half miles of pipe and two crossings of Highway 81. Proximity to lakes evidently isn’t a problem for these Iowa pipeliners, as that same spur to the southwest passes through all sorts of soggy potholey prairie, and as SCS plans to build their Dakota Ethanol–Wentworth spur in Lake County right through the mushy ground between Round Lake and Brant Lake:

Summit Carbon Solutions, index map, PUC 2022.02.23.
Summit Carbon Solutions, index map, PUC 2022.02.23. Click to embiggen!

But as Summit Carbon Solutions’ lawyer in Pierre said last week, that Watertown detour has been the plan for months, so there was no need for Senate President Pro-Tempore Lee Schoenbeck (R-5/Lake Kampeska) to threaten Summit with punitive legislation if it threatened the benedictine Sisters with pipeline placement.