Statewide Iowa (RI) — Summit Carbon Solutions plans to shrink the scope of its carbon pipeline project in Iowa by about 200 miles.
The company has submitted a revised route plan to the Iowa Utilities Commission. Summit no longer plans to connect its pipeline to ethanol plants in St. Ansgar, Corning, Hanlontown or Shenandoah. That means the pipeline route will no longer run through Adams, Fremont, Mitchell, Montgomery, Page, Pottawattamie, Shelby, and Worth counties.
Pipeline miles will also be reduced in Crawford, Dickinson, Floyd, and Sioux counties. In total, the changes affect about 400 landowners.
Summit still plans to connect to 27 Iowa ethanol plants, but after regulatory set backs in the Dakotas, the company now aims to connect with an operating carbon pipeline in Nebraska.
Summit’s CEO says there’s urgency in getting the project started due to economic pressure in the ag sector.
An attorney for the Sierra Club’s Iowa chapter says the project has been on shaky ground for a while, and the latest move suggests it may be falling apart.
For five years, a group of landowners along the pipeline route has been lobbying Iowa legislators to pass a bill that would forbid Summit from using eminent domain to seize their property. Members of the group say they are celebrating the news.
Pipeline backers say the project is essential to the future of Iowa’s ethanol industry, and warn that if it isn’t built, Nebraska could become the primary ethanol-producing state because it has an operating carbon pipeline.
27 Iowa ethanol plants remain part of the proposed project.
KIWA Staff Photo
