KDSN RADIO News
Petitioners seek reversal of Iowa regulators’ approval of carbon pipeline
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Officials from seven Iowa counties are asking the Iowa Utilities Commission to reconsider its conditional approval of the Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline project.
Shelby County Board of Supervisors chairman Kevin Kenkel said for starters, the commission’s decision did not address zoning issues. “The counties also maintain that Summit is not a ‘common carrier’ and is not proposing a public use or benefit to the public and should not be granted the right of eminent domain,” Kenkel said.
Monday was the deadline for filing the paperwork, asking the Iowa Utilities Commission to rescind the construction permit. Landowners who oppose the project and the Sierra Club of Iowa have also filed objections. Kenkel isn’t making any predictions on how the commission might respond.
“We feel we deserve a fair and impartial shot at this,” Kenkel told Radio Iowa.
In addition to Shelby County, officials from Kossuth, Floyd, Emmet, Dickinson, Wright and Woodbury Counties signed the 16-page challenge filed with the Iowa Utilities Commission. It’s unrelated to the pending case in a federal appeals court over hardous pipeline zoning ordinances in Shelby and Story Counties. “Other counties started passing ordinances and wanted to get involved in intervention at Iowa Utilities Board — Commission now — hearings, so we formed a coalition of intervenors,” Kenkel said. “We are all inpacted on phase one of Summit.”
Summit recently announced plans to expand the pipeline route through Iowa by over 300 miles to connect to ethanol plants that had been part of the abandoned Navigator CO2 pipeline project. The commission’s ruling on Summit’s initial request says the company has to get approval for its route through South and North Dakota before construction may start in Iowa.
A final option for groups that oppose the pipeline project would be filing a lawsuit asking the courts to block construction.
