CO2 Pipeline Update

• Summit CO2 pipeline approved

• Pipelines: This is far from over

• Join us on Saturday, July 27 at 2pm at Logsdon Park in Eldora for a Carbon Pipeline Opposition BBQ! 

• Iowa Utilities Commission, new name for the Iowa Utilities Board

• Summit Holding Informational Meetings for their Expansion Routes

Protecting the Environment

• Another East Nishnabotna polluter fined

• NextEra Considers Duane Arnold Nuclear Plant Restart

• Lunch and Learns Fridays at noon

• Reserve October 5 – Sierra Club Annual Meeting

Plus

• Contribute to the Iowa Chapter

• Volunteer for the Iowa Chapter

• Calendar of events

• To see the archive of previous Iowa Chapter newsletters

• To see the White Pine Needle newsletter

Summit CO2 pipeline approved

The Iowa Utilities Board approved Summit's application for a carbon pipeline.  This decision is angering but it does not change our plans.  The next step is an appeal.  You can read the IUB order  Although this is disappointing, it was not unexpected because the commission members were appointed by the Governor Branstad and Governor Reynolds, both who both support construction of the pipeline.

We will continue our work opposing the Summit CO2 pipeline; this is far from over.

Here are some details about the order:

• Summit must have its route and sequestration approval in North Dakota before construction
• Summit must have route approval in South Dakota before construction
• Summit must have a permit in Minnesota to construct the Superior line
• Summit must have authority to construct a pipeline to an ethanol plant in Nebraska to construct the Plymouth line to the Nebraska and Iowa border
• Summit must X-ray 100% of the welds
• Summit must obtain $100 million of insurance for the project
• Summit must provide CO2 monitors to volunteer first responders for their personal vehicles, as well as for all emergency response vehicles
• Summit must provide grants to communities to buy additional emergency response equipment
• Summit must work with counties to get a real time alert system
• Summit must make landowners whole for any CRP or other contracts that are broken as a result of the pipeline construction
• Summit must update Exhibit H filings to the exact pipe size
• Summit must keep trying to get voluntary easements with the last best offer
• The bond requirement increased from $35 million to $100 million

And a few statistics about the property covered by the Summit pipeline route:

• Total parcels Summit requested eminent domain on: 853
• Parcels where eminent domain was denied: 7
• Parcels granted eminent domain with conditions: 89
• Parcels granted eminent domain rights exactly as requested by Summit: 757
• Number of impacted families: 441

Pipelines: This is far from over

Although the ruling from the Iowa Utilities Board (IUB), now called the Iowa Utilities Commission (IUC), approving the application for Summit's carbon dioxide pipeline was a huge disappointment, it was not unexpected.  The pipeline battle is far from over.  There are a number of steps and battles that remain, including:

• A motion to reconsider, which asks the Iowa Utilities Commission to reconsider their ruling.  The motion would name areas where the lawyers believe the IUC were incorrect in their ruling and would explain the issues.  Several parties filed motions on July 12 and 15.  It is not clear when the Commission will issue the results from the motions to reconsider.

• Once the IUC rules on the motion to reconsider, the next step would be to file an appeal in Polk County District Court.  There the lawyers will lay out in detail areas where the IUC ruling was incorrect.

• Once the Polk County District Court rules, that decision can be appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court.

• Summit will be required to ask the Iowa Department of Natural Resources for water withdrawal permits for each of its carbon capture sites.

• Summit still needs permits in all of the other states the pipeline is crossing, particularly in South Dakota and North Dakota.  They need to obtain the permits in the Dakotas before they can begin construction activities in Iowa.

Iowa Utilities Commission

The Iowa Utilities Board (IUB) has a new name - the Iowa Utilities Commission (IUC).  The Iowa legislature made this name change as part of their effort to reduce the number of boards and commissions that exist in state government.

Carbon Pipeline Opposition BBQ Potluck!

Join us on Saturday, July 27 at 2pm for a Carbon Pipeline Opposition BBQ!

Every year Bruce Rastetter, owner of Summit Carbon Solutions, hosts a summer political party.  His guests include politicians from across the country, candidates, investors, big-wigs from powerful companies and more.  We will hold our BBQ at Logsdon Park, near the entrance to his party so we can share a meal, welcome his guests, expose his carbon pipeline scam, and have some fun! 

Details:

• Hamburgers/Hot Dogs, potato salad, water and lemonade provided
• Bring a side dish or dessert to share
• Bring a lawn chair
• Bring a sign or yard sign
• Music and yard games provided!

We look forward to seeing you at Logsdon Park to "welcome" Rastetter’s guests.  Please  RSVP

Summit Holding Informational Meetings for their Expansion Routes

After Navigator canceled its carbon pipeline project in 2023, Summit contracted with some of Navigator’s ethanol plants, and then Summit expanded its proposed pipeline route through Iowa and neighboring states.  Now Summit is beginning the Iowa Utilities Commission (IUC) process for the expansion routes. 

The first step in the IUC process is holding Informational meetings in every impacted county.  Every landowner in the corridor of Summit’s newly proposed expansion route will receive a notice that they are impacted in the upcoming weeks.  We need to make sure they hear the truth about the Summit Carbon Pipeline scam!

The Informational Meetings are open to the public.  Members of the IUC and staff from Summit will give information about the project and the public will have an opportunity to ask questions or give comments. 

We went to Summit’s Informational Meetings in 2021 and know that Summit uses these meetings to mislead, give a false sense of security, and pressure landowners to sign easements.

The public comment period is our chance to tell the truth about carbon pipelines and the dangers they pose to our land, our families and our communities.  We also need to make sure impacted landowners know they DO NOT have to sign an easement. 

Please mark your calendar for the meetings near you.  Wear red and help make sure we expose Summit’s scam for what it really is.

Another East Nishnabotna polluter fined

In June, the city of Audubon was fined $8,000 for discharging excess amounts of ammonia into a creek that flows into the East Nishnabotna River.  The wastewater treatment plant violated its National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit for ammonia every month in 2021, 2022, and several months in 2023 - a total of 48 times.  The NPDES permit sets a threshold for the amount of ammonia that can be discharged.  In addition to the fine, the city must develop a Plan of Action that details how they will comply with their NPDES permit.

The reason that the Audubon municipal wastewater treatment plant was in violation related to the wastewater it was receiving from Waspy's Truck Wash.  The truck wash cleans out trailers that are used to transport livestock.   Waspy's has a Treatment Agreement with the Audubon waste water treatment facility that lays out the limits of the pollutants in the wastewater that it sends to the municipal treatment facility.  Waspy's violated its permit 529 times between September 1, 2019, and March 11, 2024.  It was sending excess amounts of ammonia nitrogen, waste solids, oil, and grease to the municipal treatment plant.

In May, Waspy's was fined $8,000 for its failure to comply with the Treatment Agreement and must submit a Plan of Action to the Department of Natural Resources detailing how it will come into compliance.

In reporting by Jared Strong of Iowa Capital Dispatch, he indicated that Waspy's claimed that an engineer misplaced a decimal point in a figure provided to the Department of Natural Resources.  That miscalculation led to Waspy's telling the DNR that it was planning to discharge 10% of what it actually was discharging.  Waspy's also indicated that they had installed barriers to collect debris from the animal trailers, which is helping to reduce the pollution.

The City of Audubon and Waspy's were each notified numerous times between 2021 and 2024 by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources that they were in violation of the NPDES permit.  Each Notice of Violation included recommended corrective actions.    Hopefully the fines that were assessed against the City of Audubon and Waspy's Truck Wash, along with the Plan of Action, will bring them into compliance with the NPDES permit.

This is not the only industry polluting the East Nishnabotna River.  In March, a valve was left open on a large fertilizer storage tank at NEW Cooperative, Inc. near Red Oak, Iowa.  The open valve allowed 1,500 tons of liquid nitrogen fertilizer to drain into a drainage ditch, which then flowed into the East Nishnabotna River.  That spill traveled all the way downstream in Iowa, through Missouri, and to the confluence of the Nishnabotna River with the Missouri River – a distance of 60 miles.  Along the way, it killed almost 800,000 fish, plus frogs, snakes, mussels, and earthworms.  Iowa's Attorney General is reviewing this incident for a fine and an injunction to ensure that an event like this by NEW Cooperative will not happen again.

Sources

In The Matter of Wasp's Truck Wash, Audubon County, Iowa, Administrative Consent Order, Iowa Department of Natural Resources, 2024-WW-03,  May 1, 2024

In The Matter of City of Audubon, Audubon County, Iowa, Administrative Consent Order, Iowa Department of Natural Resources, 2024-WW-09,  June 24, 2024

Jared Strong, "Audubon fined for excessive wastewater pollution", Iowa Capital Dispatch, July 10, 2024

Jared Strong, "Iowa truck stop fined for excessive pollution in wastewater; company blames clerical error", Des Moines Register republished from Iowa Capital Dispatch, May 17, 2024

NextEra Considers Duane Arnold Nuclear Plant Restart

NextEra is considering restarting the Duane Arnold nuclear power plant, near Palo, Iowa.  The Iowa Chapter is monitoring NextEra's plans to restart the plant.

The Duane Arnold nuclear power plant, closed in 2020.  It was originally scheduled to close in October, 2020, due to the high costs of providing power and its largest customer (Alliant) cancelling its power purchase agreement.  It instead shuttered early, in August of 2020, after damage due to a derecho which caused an emergency scram (an emergency shutdown).

The Iowa Chapter was an intervenor in the case before the Iowa Utilities Board where it was decided that Alliant could cancel its power purchase agreement.  The cost of producing electricity by Duane Arnold was higher than wind and solar energy.

NextEra, Duane Arnold’s owner, currently does not have enough money to complete the decommissioning of the plant which includes removal of the buildings and equipment.  However, they began performing some of the decommissioning activities on the site.  The Nuclear Regulatory Commission allows nuclear power plants to be mothballed for 60 years, during which the owners work on increasing the amount of money in their decommissioning funds.

In the meantime, according to NextEra, some companies operating data centers have been asking NextEra to help them find locations across the country that can provide enough power to operate their data centers.  A data center has asked NextEra about restarting Duane Arnold. [1]  NextEra has not publicly announced who is requesting the power from Duane Arnold.  However, Google is planning a new data center south of Cedar Rapids, which could benefit from a restarted Duane Arnold nuclear plant. 

NextEra is studying if the restart could be done safely and on budget. [2]  There were indications in media reports that a feasibility study had been completed.  It was later reported that NextEra had not performed a feasibility study. [3]

Nuclear power is dirty, dangerous, and expensive.  The nuclear waste is radioactive for thousands of years.  We do not have a permanent nuclear waste depository.  Wind and solar energy are much cheaper than nuclear energy.  The mining process for nuclear fuel creates toxic waste piles and destroys the landscape.  The Duane Arnold nuclear plant should not be restarted.

References

[1] Erin Jordan, “CEO says he’d ‘consider’ restarting Duane Arnold”, Cedar Rapids Gazette, June 27, 2024

[2] Bloomberg News, “Tech firms seeking U.S. sites with big renewable energy potential”, Cedar Rapids Gazette, June 14, 2024

[3] Erin Jordan, “CEO says he’d ‘consider’ restarting Duane Arnold”, Cedar Rapids Gazette, June 27, 2024

Reserve October 5 – Sierra Club Annual Meeting

The Sierra Club annual meeting will be on October 5, 2024, from 10:00 to 3:30 at the Drake University Olmsted Center, 2507 University Ave, Des Moines, Iowa.  The cost is $40 per person.  We hope you can join us. 

The schedule for the day is:

10:00 - 10:30 - Arrive and check in

10:30 - Welcome and opening remarks

10:45 -11:45 - Dr. Larry Weber, "Iowa Watershed Approach: A plan for a more resilient Iowa".  The State of Iowa recently completed a project entitled the Iowa Watershed Approach focused on improving community resilience to floods, droughts and declining water quality.  The presentation will provide a vision for a more resilient Iowa across all sizes of cities, from small rural communities to large urban centers.  Larry Weber is the Edwin B. Green Chair in Hydraulics in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director of IIHR – Hydroscience and Engineering.  He also serves as the interim director of the Iowa Flood Center at the University of Iowa and co-founded the Iowa Nutrient Research Center in partnership with Iowa State University. 

11:45 - 12:45 - Lunch, followed by Sierra Club lunch and learn

1:00 - 2:00 - Dr. David Cwiertny, "Understanding the Impact of Iowa's Water Quality on Public Health".  David Cwiertny is a Professor of Environmental Engineering and Chemistry at the University of Iowa, where he also directs the state-funded Center for Health Effects of Environmental Contamination. His work at the University sits at the intersection of water quality, public health and public policy, with a particular focus on water quality challenges in Iowa.

2:00 - 3:00 - Mike Owen, "Tax Cuts and Real World Choices: The Threat to Iowa's Future".   Tax cuts, as proposed by the legislature, will have huge impacts on environmental protection, parks and recreation areas, and protection of natural resources.  Mike Owen is deputy director of Common Good Iowa, a nonpartisan, nonprofit policy research and advocacy organization based in Des Moines.  Mike is a former journalist in Iowa and Pennsylvania, and since 2001 has followed that effort to inform and engage Iowans on issues that matter to their daily lives and future, first with the Iowa Policy Project and, since 2020, Common Good Iowa. 

3:00 - 3:30 - Open forum and next steps

3:30 - Adjourn

We hope to see you on October 5.

Lunch and Learns Fridays at noon

Fridays at noon, we do a Lunch and Learn livestream.  See us on Facebook at "Sierra Club Iowa Chapter".  These will be recorded so you can watch them anytime.  Topics will be selected based on what is happening during the week.  During the legislative session, we cover issues coming before the Iowa legislature.

In case you missed our past webinars and lunch and learn sessions, you can still see them.

Volunteer for the Iowa Chapter

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Sierra Club is Iowa’s oldest and largest grassroots environmental organization.  Not only that, we are the best bet in the state for achieving bold solutions to Iowa’s environmental problems.

We work in the courts, before Iowa’s public agencies, and in the halls of the legislature.  The Iowa Chapter's effort to protect the environment takes financial support.  The Chapter receives very little financial support from the national Sierra Club.  Can we count on you for a donation to ensure even more victories?  Your contribution will be put to work here in Iowa on issues that affect every day Iowans – water quality, clean air, protection of Iowa's soil, parks and natural areas, and a strong democracy.  The Iowa Chapter is relentless in fighting back bad legislation that affects every one of us. 

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