Hazardous Material Pipeline Planned

With a proposed pipeline project possible to stretch across dozens of Iowa counties, public meetings will be the first step as project backers to move ahead on storing and capturing carbon.

Summit Carbon Solutions, LLC is currently working through the Iowa Utilities Board for the effort.

The Ames-based company formed last year and is looking at an investment of $4.5 billion with hundreds of permanent jobs resulting.

According to the company’s website, the goal is the reduction of greenhouse gas release through a pipeline connecting industry to an injection site in North Dakota where it will be stored underground.

The theory runs that CO2 not released in the air will cut emissions.

Iowa is one of five states that will be affected by the proposed pipeline under the name Midwest Carbon Express with Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota also involved.

Over 700 miles of pipeline in Iowa are envisioned with the plan.

Partners for the effort include Lawler-based Homeland Energy Solutions as well as other Iowa firms including Corn LP, Golden Grain Energy, Green Plains – Superior, Lincolnway Energy, Little Sioux Corn Processors, Louis Dreyfus – Grand Junction, Pine Lake Corn Processors, Plymouth Energy, Quad County Corn Processors and Siouxland Energy Coop.

Lawler will form the extreme eastern terminus for the project, which will run through massive areas of the state with 30 counties involved.

From Lawler, an east-west line will through much of the state, passing through Floyd and Cerro Gordo counties and then Hancock County before heading to Sioux County and angling northwest.

From Hancock County, a line will run down into Wright County and back east into Franklin County and down into Hardin County and thence to Story County.

Just east of Sioux County, the longest north-south line will drop down into Ida County and run nearly to the Missouri border.

According to a filing Sept. 1 with the IUB, the project will involve from 132 to 198 jobs for capture and compression and over 14,000 jobs for the pipeline and 220 to 307 jobs for capture and compression when in operation and 128 to 156 jobs for the pipeline in operation.

A presentation by the company called it the world’s largest carbon capture and storage project.

Tentatively, surveying the route should begin soon and be completed next February with acquisition of land rights extending to March 2023 and a permit decision in 2023 with start up in 2024.

Before that happens, a formal process must be completed and along with that, upcoming public meetings will include a number of Iowa counties.

In the meantime, public input is being sought, and that has already drawn comments.

Planned meetings include:

Hancock County : Sept. 28, 1 p.m., Viaduct Center, 255 US Highway 69, Garner

Virtual: Oct. 12, 5:30 p.m., IUB.iowa.gov (Registration via the link is required.)

Editor’s Note:Written comments or objections to the proposed pipeline can be filed electronically using the IUB’sOpen Docket Comment Form, by email to customer@iub.iowa.gov, or by postal mail to the Iowa Utilities Board, Attn: Docket No. HLP-2021-0001, 1375 E. Court Ave., Des Moines, IA 50319.

To review documents filed in this docket, click on Docket No. HLP-2021-0001to visit the IUB’s electronic filing system (EFS). For assistance with electronic filing of comments, visit How to Make a Filing with the Boardor call the IUB IT Support team at (515) 725-7337.

For more information about hazardous liquid pipelines, visit the IUB’s Hazardous Liquid Pipeline Permitswebpage.