Summit Carbon Solutions plans to shrink the scope of its 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 stretch through Adams, Fremont, Mitchell, Montgomery, Page, Pottawattamie, Shelby and Worth Counties. Pipeline miles will be reduced in the following four counties — Crawford, Dickinson, Floyd and Sioux. These 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 aims to connect with a carbon pipeline in Nebraska that’s already operating. Summit’s CEO says there’s “urgency” in getting the project started due to economic pressure in the ag sector. Pipeline backers like the Iowa Corn Growers Association and the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association say the project is essential to the future of Iowa’s ethanol industry and, if it isn’t built, Nebraska will become the main place to make ethanol because it has an operating carbon pipeline.
An attorney for the Sierra Club’s Iowa chapter says the project has been on “shaky ground” for a while and this latest move “suggests it’s falling apart.” For five years, a group of landowners along the pipeline route have been lobbying Iowa legislators to pass a bill that would forbid Summit from using eminent domain authority to seize their property. Members of the group say they’re celebrating today.
Here are the 27 Iowa ethanol plants that remain part of the project:
Plymouth Energy LLC Valero Renewable Fuels Company – Fort Dodge Siouxland Energy Cooperative POET Biorefining – Gowrie POET Biorefining – Ashton Louis Dreyfus – Grand Junction Little Sioux Corn Processors POET Biorefining – Coon Rapids Quad County Corn Processors POET Biorefining – Menlo POET Biorefining – Arthur Lincolnway Energy LLC Andersons Denison Ethanol POET Biorefining – Jewell Green Plains Inc. – Superior POET Biorefining – Iowa Falls Valero Renewable Fuels Company – Hartley Pine Lake Corn Processors Valero Renewable Fuels Company – Albert City Golden Grain Energy LLC POET Biorefining – Emmetsburg Valero Renewable Fuels Company – Charles City Valero Renewable Fuels Company – Lakota POET Biorefining – Shell Rock Corn LP Homeland Energy Solutions POET Biorefining – Fairbank
