Navigator CO2 pipeline announces public meetings for new route

Meetings in Delaware, Buchanan, Fayette and Bremer counties would be Aug. 22-23

Iowans whose property may be in the path of the proposed Navigator Heartland Greenway carbon dioxide pipeline are invited to informational meetings in 12 counties, including Delaware, Buchanan, Fayette and Bremer.

The Iowa Utilities Board on Tuesday approved 12 county meetings Aug. 22 through Sept. 21, followed by a virtual meeting Sept. 21.

These meetings are required by law before Navigator may negotiate with landowners about easements to build a 1,300-mile pipeline that would transport pressurized CO2 from ethanol plants in Iowa to an underground sequestration site in southern Illinois.

Navigator, a Texas company, in October proposed a pipeline to pass through 36 Iowa counties and held informational meetings in those counties November through January.

But the company changed part of its route — dropping Linn County from the path — when ADM announced it would partner with Wolf Carbon Solutions to build a separate pipeline to connect with ADM ethanol plants in Cedar Rapids and Clinton.

Navigator announced a deal earlier this month with POET, which operates 33 bioprocessing facilities across eight states, including Iowa. Navigator will collect CO2 from 18 POET plants in Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota as part of the pipeline project.

The main trunk line that carves a diagonal line from northwest to southeast Iowa now will have a lateral line from around the midpoint of the state east to the Dyersville area. That’s why there are new informational meetings in Fayette, Bremer, Buchanan and Delaware counties.

Other counties may have had meetings in the first round, but the route has changed slightly and a new set of landowners is potentially affected, Elizabeth Burns-Thompson, vice president of government and public affairs for Navigator, told The Gazette earlier this month.

Navigator officials and a representative from the Iowa Utilities Board will be available at each meeting to answer questions. Navigator also will have parcel-specific maps for each landowner on the route that will be distributed once the meeting is adjourned.

The Navigator project is one of three proposed CO2 pipelines through Iowa. In addition to the ADM/Wolf project, Summit Carbon Solutions wants to build a 2,000-mile pipeline that would end at a sequestration site in North Dakota.

Storing greenhouse gases in underground rock formations could help reduce the impacts of climate change — which is why the federal government is offering tax credits. But there still are questions about how the relatively new technology would work.

Hundreds of Iowa landowners, county boards of supervisors and environmental groups have opposed use of eminent domain to force easements to build CO2 pipelines. The pipeline companies have said they plan to get voluntary easements, but it’s unclear how many Iowans have signed financial deals so far.

Comments: (319) 339-3157; erin.jordan@thegazette.com