Public continues to voice opposition to pipeline project

Opposition to the construction of the proposed Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline was again expressed at the June 13 meeting of the Board of Supervisors.
The supervisors took public comments from residents regarding the pipeline. Rural Red Oak landowner and board of adjustment member Maggie McQuown urged for steps to be taken.
“We have jurisdictional say over land use and siting of items. The pipeline is proposed to go through land zoned for agricultural use only. Therefore, it requires a special use permit. According to zoning administrator Barry Byers, Summit was given an application for a special use permit months ago. It has not been completed or returned yet. Therefore, we have not been officially notified that they want to use the agriculture land for industrial purpose,” McQuown said. “Yes, they have submitted paperwork for public road usage and public land crossings. They are employing time into going into that, yet they have not officially stated they want to build the pipeline. This approach is being used throughout the state, taking away our only jurisdictional power. We need to fight hard to be able to say where we think a structure should be sited and what the routing and use of that land is.”
Also speaking was Marty Maher who had land adjoining Montgomery County. Maher addressed poor information being handed out about the price of corn.  
“It’s been quite a scare tactic that the Corn Growers Association, ethanol plants, and Summit had sent out about the dire future of ethanol if the project wasn’t in place.
“I looked up the company that put together the information, which is from Urbandale. I picked out the 2018 assessment of the ethanol market. That assessment also expressed a dire future for ethanol and there was no way it could survive. Ethanol companies have made great profits the last few years. My point is the information the company used in their statistics to come up with the dire outputs is questionable,” Maher advised.
Supervisors Chair Mike Olson reiterated to everyone in attendance that the supervisors had no control if the pipeline went in our not.
“It’s not under our jurisdiction. It is up to the IUB and the federal government if that pipeline goes in at this time. I’ve said it many times, and you keep coming and telling us we have to stop this. We can’t stop it. If ethanol goes or doesn’t, that’s beside the point,” Olson said.
Rural Red Oak resident Barb Nelson said she and others understood the county could not make the decision as to whether or not it had pipelines. However, it could make a decision to protect citizens and lands.
“The county can protect us with an ordinance. No one here is saying we can stop the pipeline. We can make it safer for everyone involved. We have an ordinance ready to be voted on by the board of supervisors, and I am urging you to do that. I object that you think we believe you can stop it. We don’t. We think you can help protect us by putting in a good ordinance,” Nelson commented.
Representatives of Summit Carbon Solutions were also present at the meeting to share a status update on the proposed project.
Riley Gibson, representing Turnkey Logistics, and Grant Terry, senior project manager for Summit Carbon were both in attendance. Gibson said the status of the project is in a wait-and-see scenario.
“We’re still waiting for a final date for our Iowa Utilities Board appearance. We’re kind of looking at October. That’s the date on the table so far and it hasn’t changed since the last time we were here in February,” Gibson commented. “We also partnered with two new ethanol plants, one in South Dakota and one in Mitchell County, Iowa.”
Gibson said the number of land acquisition of volunteer easements was at 58%. Those numbers have gone up.
“As of today, we’re at sitting at 75%, or 13.14 easement miles acquired in Montgomery County. We’re happy that is going to continue. I know there’s still a lot of positive negotiation going on right now. A lot of it right now is wrapped up in the details of going between landowners and law firms and ourselves and ironing everything out. So far we’ve made $4.6 million in easement payments. In total, we’ve paid $142 million in easements. We’re happy to be able to pay for the easements, as we should,” Gibson said.
Also, Gibson said they have been coordinating with Montgomery County Secondary Roads on revising road crossing permits.
“Loren Taylor with the secondary roads department came to us and shared some future ditch cleaning in mind. We’ve lowered our depth of cover to eight feet on a few of the road crossings to account for future ditch cleanings. There’s also a few culverts we intersected where we’re going to aim for the inlet instead of the exit of the culvert for erosion concerns. It’s another thing we want to continue to work with the county on. There’s still plenty of time and opportunity for us to discuss those things,” Gibson advised. “Also, our temporary construction access permits have been submitted. We’re just working on revising our road crossing permit applications. Those should be coming down the pike pretty soon.”