There were over 60 people that attended a meeting at the Jefferson City Hall Council Chambers that was organized by the Iowa Chapter of the Sierra Club, which is against the proposed underground pipeline by Summit Carbon Solutions.

Jess Mazour is the conservation coordinator for the Iowa Sierra Club and told the crowd that Summit wants to build an underground pipeline across five Midwest states and capture carbon dioxide emissions from ethanol plants, pressurize it into a liquid and transport the substance via the pipeline and store it in an underground facility in North Dakota. She said there are 23 counties in the second phase of the pipeline – including Greene County- after the first phase was given preliminary approval by the Iowa Utilities Commission.

Mazour claimed what she believed to be the main reason why Summit is wanting to build the pipeline.

“The real reason that Summit wants this project is because there is a lot of money to be made in federal tax credits, mainly the 45Q and 45Z federal tax credits. They’ll get paid per ton of carbon that they either sequester or use for enhanced oil recovery. So that’s the real reason. Nothing to do with Climate Change, nothing to do with saving ethanol, nothing to do with sustaining aviation fuel, everything to do with really wealthy people getting even richer.”     

Greene County resident Dan Tronchetti is part of the 848 unsigned parcels from phase one and he didn’t like the fact that Summit, being a private company, can use eminent domain for the company’s benefit and the proposed route is 1,155 feet from his home, which he claimed is within a kill zone area, that if there is a rupture, he could die in less than four minutes, among other reasons. He also noted the second phase was going to be $8.5 billion.

Mazour talked about the issues with the pipeline including damaging the land, using eminent domain for private gain, pipelines are dangerous and can harm the environment. She informed impacted landowners in Greene County for the second phase that they don’t have to sign an easement agreement, they can submit objections letters to the IUC, attend informational meetings, spread the word to others, and talk to supervisors. 

Summit has scheduled its Greene County informational meeting for August 28th at noon at Clover Hall on the Greene County Fairgrounds.