The path the Navigator Heartland Pipeline is taking across eastern Iowa may be changing.
Elizabeth Burns-Thompson, vice president of government and public affairs at Navigator CO2 announced the possibility at Navigator’s public hearing in front of the Iowa Utilities Board Wednesday, Jan. 19.
Earlier in the week, the Clinton Herald reported the pipeline would no longer be going through both Cedar and Clinton Counties, citing the upcoming Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) Wolf Carbon Solutions proposed pipeline. That pipeline would connect ADM’s properties in Clinton and Cedar Rapids to a sequestration site in Decatur, Ill. The pipeline will be capable of transporting 12 million tons of carbon dioxide per year and would have enough capacity to serve other customers.
The path that the ADM pipeline will take between Cedar Rapids and Clinton is still undetermined, as the pipeline was just announced.
Without the Clinton and Cedar County connections to the Navigator Heartland pipeline, Burns-Thompson confirmed that Navigator is reevaluating the path Navigator’s pipe would take through Linn County.
“There’s a chance that pipeline doesn’t traverse the south portion of Linn County the way it is designed now,” Burns-Thompson said.
The path through Linn County’s southern border would have taken the Navigator pipeline close to the communities of Mount Vernon and Lisbon, as maps and communications to impacted landowners have noted.
The Navigator pipeline also ventured north through Linn County at roughly the west edge of the Mount Vernon community, taking it in a path past Springville as it worked towards another ethanol or bio-diesel plant to the north.
During the hearing, representatives of the Iowa Utilities Board and Navigator Heartland Pipeline heard questions from those opposed and in favor of the project for more than four hours.
The Navigator Heartland Pipeline is a 1,300-mile carbon sequestration pipeline, with more than 900 miles proposed through Iowa. The project is slated to generate $3 billion in revenue during construction.
Ethanol and bio-diesel plants across Iowa have captured carbon dioxide, dehydrated and compressed that carbon into a liquid status to be transported by pipeline to a sequestration site in Illinois.
Navigator is planning on trenching, boring or horizontal directional drilling their pipelines across Iowa, with most sections of pipe going five feet or deeper underground to avoid other infrastructure elements.
The pipeline would transport CO2 gas under a pressure of 1200 psi from across the state to Illinois.
Questions by landowners included why not go through county ditches instead of through landowners’ properties and how these pipelines would fare underground in Iowa’s brutally harsh winters when water pipelines routinely freeze and rupture.
The reason for not using ditches is because of the need for access of the pipeline, and that would close roads during construction or maintenance of the pipes, as they would fall within the 50 to 75 foot right of way needed.
Navigator spokespeople noted there is a difference between water and liquid carbon dioxide as a gas and the pressure in the pipelines eliminates the same fate as water pipelines.
Supporters of the pipeline spoke about the safety of the unions installing the lines and jobs these projects would create for them and their company.
To the Iowa Utilities Board, the questions included if a pipeline has as much opposition to it as these projects are running into, how could the board give them the go ahead? Also, has there been a time the IUB has denied a pipeline?
Geri D. Huser, Iowa Utilities board chair, noted he has not made up his mind on any decision, and is waiting until the public hearing in April to make a decision when all sides have presented information on the case. The Iowa Utilities Board has not denied a hazardous pipeline from crossing the State of Iowa.