Developers of the Heartland Greenway carbon pipeline have cancelled the project.
The Navigator CO2 pipeline was one of three projects proposed to ship carbon from ethanol plants to underground storage. Navigator’s 810-mile route through Iowa would have sent the liquid carbon to storage in central Illinois. Last month, South Dakota regulators denied the company’s pipeline route application for that state. Last week, Navigator asked the Iowa Utilities Board to put its Iowa application on hold. Navigator’s CEO says as good stewards of capital and responsible managers of people, the company has made the difficult decision to cancel the project. The Iowa Utility Board’s hearing on the application from a different developer, Summit Carbon Solutions, is scheduled to resume next month. Summit executives recently pushed back the estimated start date for moving carbon through their pipeline by more than a year after permit setbacks in both North and South Dakota.
Monte Shaw of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association says Navigator’s decision was not a surprise after some of its permit applications were pulled, but Shaw says it doesn’t change the reality for the ethanol industry.
Shaw says the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association respects Navigator’s decision and continues to support other pipeline projects.
Shaw expects some of the ethanol producers that had signed agreements with Navigator to seek another partner to capture carbon and ship it out of their plants.
Andrew Johnson is one of the landowners who opposed Navigator’s project. Johnson says the pipeline would have run through his Lee County farm.
Johnson says he’ll never again take his property rights for granted.
Matthew Ung chairman of the Woodbury County Board of Supervisors says he’s heard from landowners in his northwest Iowa county who were concerned that Navigator would improperly seek eminent domain authority to seize their land for the pipeline.
Ung, who is a Republican, has been a Woodbury County Supervisor for nearly nine years.
