Carbon Dioxide Pipeline Concerns Heard

For more than a year, a debate has raged in South Dakota over two proposed carbon dioxide pipelines that would capture the toxic gas from ethanol plants and carry it to North Dakota and Illinois for disposal underground.

Two controversial multi-billion-dollar carbon dioxide pipelines are in the permitting stage of possible approval.

Dozens of South Dakota landowners, many of them East River Farmers, aren’t pleased that they are having their land targeted for use by the pipeline companies, and some fear that eminent domain will be used  to dig through their land without consent.  

Charlie Johnson is an organic farmer who farms near Madison, He spoke on some concerns that he had on the pipe line that might pass through his farmland. Johnson thinks there are better ways to deal with carbon dioxide than the pipeline and questioned if it was necessary. 

There are two separate pipeline projects, proposed by Summit Carbon Solutions and Navigator CO2 Ventures, both are in the early stages of planning and permitting, and both hope to be operational in 2024. Both projects seek to use carbon-capture and sequestration technology, or CCS, to collect CO2 from ethanol plants and ship it in liquid form through miles of pipelines to sites where it will be buried and held deep underground. The 2,000-mile, $3.7 billion Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline would cross 469 miles in South Dakota, carrying 12 million tons of CO2 northward each year.