DRIFTLESS WATER DEFENDERS SEEKS INTERVENTION IN SUMMIT PIPELINE APPEAL
CONTACT INFORMATION
Driftless Water Defenders
James Larew
Phone: 319-541-4240
Email: Admin@driftlesswaterdefenders.com
Website: Driftlesswaterdefenders.com
RELEASE DATE: FEBRUARY 6, 2024
Driftless Water Defenders (“DWD”), an Iowa non-profit environmental law and advocacy organization focused on reducing farm-related water pollution and improving the state’s water quality, filed a motion asking the Iowa District Court for permission to allow DWD to intervene in an appeal made by multiple parties to a decision issued by the Iowa Utilities Commission (“IUC”) to permit Summit Carbon Solutions LLC (“Summit”), exercising powers of eminent domain, to construct a CO2 pipeline across Iowa.
The DWD motion argues that, in approving the 688-mile pipeline, which would cross 29 Iowa counties, the IUC failed to consider the consequences that the hazardous liquid pipeline and its use by state ethanol refineries would have on both the quantity of water drawn from Iowa’s surface and groundwater sources as well as its adverse impact on that water’s quality. The DWD argument comes in addition to the challenges by Sierra Club Iowa Chapter and other pipeline opponents, whose arguments have largely focused on the risks of a leak or rupture and the effects of escaping gas, which can be deadly.
Under state law, argued DWD, Summit’s intended use of Iowa’s water “would not promote the requisite ‘public convenience and necessity’ due to the pipeline’s adverse impacts both on the quantity of Iowa’s water used by the ethanol industry also upon the quality of Iowa’s water due to contaminations, pollutions, and/or changes in natural water’s temperatures that may or will occur as a result of processes required to convert gaseous CO2 into a supercritical fluid.”
The DWD action today adds to the chorus of public opposition to the 2,500-mile long $8 billion pipeline that has attracted criticism almost from the moment that plans for it were made public four years ago. The pipeline’s purpose is to capture and transport carbon dioxide emissions from ethanol plants in Iowa and four other Midwestern states to permanent disposal in geologic layers deep underground in other states.
The idea, promoted by Summit, the pipeline developer, is to make a difference in reducing climate changing carbon emissions. The Summit pipeline and several other carbon pipelines proposed in the Midwest gained important allies in the Biden Whitehouse and in Congress, which approved tax incentives and grants for carbon dioxide pipelines as part of the 2021 Infrastructure Act, and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
DWD asserts in its motion today that the Summit pipeline raises significant risks that have not been thoroughly studied, especially to state groundwater reserves. Citing a comprehensive report last year by the Sierra Club, DWD asserts that, with respect to the enormous quantities of water used, “the process of ethanol plants collecting and compressing CO2 requires a great deal of water before the final supercritical fluid enters the pipeline. Sierra Club explained that Iowa’s aquifers are in danger of not being recharged and that the increased burden on Iowa’s aquifers caused by carbon capture programs at the thirty-one ethanol plants currently signed up with Summit will be significant.”
In addition, adverse changes to the water used in the pipeline process—ranging from chemical alterations and temperature changes—were never addressed by the parties to the IUC evidentiary proceedings or by the agency in its final decision. DWD alleges that such an omission resulted in a final decision that is unlawful and should be reversed by the Iowa District Court.
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Attached: DWD Application to Intervene, or in the Alternative, Motion for Leave to File an Amicus Curiae Brief
