How safe can carbon pipelines in South Dakota be? Inside the debate between Navigator, landowners

BROOKINGS — When a plaid-wearing, hair-graying landowner approached the formally dressed carbon capture company executive, outstretched hand angling for a handshake, the first words that came out of his mouth weren't "thanks for coming."

"I just wanted to say, they've got you brainwashed," the elderly man told Navigator CO2's Elizabeth Burns-Thompson. He left after saying his piece.

The Navigator suit has heard worse.

"You get used to it," Burns-Thompson told the Argus Leader.

The man's comment wasn't something you heard regularly during Tuesday night's moderated debate on CO2 pipelines between Burns-Thompson, who drove up from Nebraska, and Rep. Jon Hansen, a Republican lawmaker staunchly opposed to carbon capture projects in South Dakota, at the Dacotah Bank Center in Brookings.

But the harsh statement reflected the tough task ahead of Burns-Thompson, who sought to make a positive impression on those opposed to her company's controversial project.

At the other end of the debate stage, Hansen, before an audience mostly comprised of affected landowners who view carbon capture companies as an existential threat, remained focused at levying critique at the company throughout the hour-long discussion.

Navigator's Heartland Greenway System, a $3.2 billion endeavor, is expected to run through about 111.9 miles of eastern South Dakota farmland between Brookings, Lincoln, Minnehaha, Moody and Turner counties. If built, the proposed system will connect to five ethanol plants under POET, one of the largest biorefiners in the U.S., as well as a Valero Renewable Fuels plant. Overall, the project promises to bring over 1,300 miles of pipeline to Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota, for the purposes of sequestering the greenhouse gas and the financial windfalls that would come from transportation fees associated with the project.

Similarly, Summit Carbon Solutions, another carbon capture company and Navigator's rival, looks to install their $4.5 billion Midwest Carbon Express system to five Corn Belt states, with 495 miles of anticipated pipeline preliminarily routed through South Dakota.

Both companies have yet to receive a permit necessary to build the project from the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission.

Debate night

Sara Frankenstein, a Rapid City attorney and moderator of the debate, posed the first question to Hansen, asking how much the 45Q and 45Z federal tax credits play a role in financially supporting carbon dioxide sequestration projects. She also asked the speakers about the long-term viability of the project under different presidential administrations.

Hansen's first answer was to characterize the Navigator project as a "boondoggle." He said the project "wouldn't be happening without the 45Q tax credit" and claimed there is "no free market" driving it.

"If there's a different administration, that might change. I would be grateful for a different administration," Hansen said. "Frankly, that would put an end to the 45Q tax credit and we could restore the free market, because, at the end of the day, if we have a free market deciding whether this carbon gets sequestered or not, I guarantee you it's not going to happen."

Burns-Thompson agreed to disagree. She explained the 45Q tax credit has existed for "multiple decades at this point," beginning under the Bush administration in 2008.

"Those credit values were further expanded under the Trump administration in 2018 and then most recently in 2022, those values were then expanded again," Burns-Thompson said.

Burns-Thompson also highlighted other financial supports to the project in an attempt to expand upon Hansen's characterization. She said carbon sequestration projects are also uplifted by carbon-based programs and markets, such as those in California and Canada.

In terms of the ethanol industry, Burns-Thompson also said carbon pipelines are necessary to further monetize corn by tapping into the byproduct. She said of the 16 million bushels of corn produced by South Dakota farmers on an annual basis, 78% of those corn kernels end up in an ethanol plant, which is used to make a variety of valuable products.

"This type of infrastructure is what is going to ensure that we are now — and I say we as an ethanol industry, as rural America, as agriculture broadly — are truly able to monetize every piece of that corn kernel, but that's going to take marketplaces and it's going to take infrastructure," Burns-Thompson said.

Hansen, however, claimed the creation of such a carbon market in South Dakota would "completely decimate, destroy the ethanol industry." Hansen appealed to the farm-crowd by saying the Advanced Clean Cars II rule, a measure adopted by California and eight other states that would ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles in favor of zero-emission automobiles by 2035, would dismantle the ethanol industry in lockstep.

He also depicted the policies that form the backbone of carbon markets in California, Oregon and Washington as drafted by "climate-crazed regulators and legislators."

"If we're going to say we're going to chase those markets and appease those climate regulators, it's the last thing that ethanol would want to do because those are the markets that want to completely decimate the internal combustion engine, which obviously ethanol powers. It's a terrible long term strategy for ethanol," Hansen said. "We should be defeating those mentalities and I think that's what will lead to the long term viability of the ethanol industry."

Pipeline safety

One of the big topics of the night, pipeline safety, came up early in the Tuesday night debate.

Frankenstein, after describing pipelines as a "proven technology, one with a decent track record measured in terms of injuries per unit transported," asked Hansen why he particularly opposed those of the carbon dioxide variety.

Hansen responded largely with an anecdote pulled from a Summit Carbon Solutions hearing before the North Dakota Public Service Commission, in which former natural gas engineer Curtis Jundt provided testimony in opposition of the proposed CO2 pipeline.

Hansen relayed that Jundt, who the legislator dubbed an "expert in pipelines and pipeline safety" despite having no clear record of experience with carbon dioxide pipelines, told the commission at some point that his sole mitigation measure against a potential pipeline rupture would be to "put [his] house on the market for sale."

"I think about our own family, and every summer, me and the kids, we like to pitch the tent in the backyard and we'll have a couple nights out, you know, lighting the fire and staying in the tent," Hansen said. "Imagine if that was your house and your children and there's a pipeline rupture in the middle of the night and that plume comes over your family's house [and] what that could do to those kids."

This led Hansen into his first major volley of the debate: Navigator's refusal to release their plume dispersion models. These models can be used to demonstrate how far and where a cloud of carbon dioxide, a known asphyxiant, could travel in the event of a pipeline rupture, which is a rare event in and of itself.

"They're not being forthcoming as a company when it comes to saying what the plume modeling would be," Hansen said. "Probably the most serious safety concern is that plume modeling. They won't show us. They won't show the county commissioners. They won't show the public."

Answering to another question later in the debate, Burns-Thompson said their plume models are "necessarily protected." She characterized the risks as a matter of preventing "bad actors" from abusing the information should they provide it.

Burns-Thompson also took a turn to tout the technical features of the pipeline. She said Navigator's proposed system would be able to manage up to 15 million metric tons of CO2 annually. This is the equivalent, she added, of using 500,000 trucks or 100,000 rail cars to transport the same product.

"Pipelines are tried and true. The most economic, the most efficient and largely the safest mode of being able to do that," Burns-Thompson said.

Hansen, after reiterating his frustration at Navigator's unwillingness to release their plume models, rebuked Burn-Thompson's "bad actors" comment.

"With all due respect, the biggest threat to freedom and safety of these property owners is not 'bad actors.' It's carbon sequestration pipeline companies that want to take their land without consent and put a dangerous pipeline in their ground," Hansen said.

Pipeline alternatives

After a spirited discussion on one of the more contentious topics of the debate, the dialogue drifted to potential alternatives to CO2 sequestration.

Hansen claimed there are better options in terms of sequestering carbon. One idea he proposed was to have ethanol plants directly sequester the carbon themselves. He later inaccurately claimed that on-site sequestration is not funded by 45Q tax credits — the Inflation Reduction Act-tied incentive does not prohibit industrial facilities like ethanol plants from benefiting from credit.

He went on to make another, simpler suggestion: "Just let the plant food feed the plants."

This alternative — the best one, in Hansen's opinion — promotes the idea that carbon dioxide, a significant greenhouse gas which also aids in plant and crop growth, should not be sequestered and instead freely released into the atmosphere. This argument is also part and parcel of groups known for denying the existence of man-made climate change, such as the CO2 Coalition, which conflicts with the overwhelming consensus within the science community.

But on stage, Burns-Thompson glossed over the sentiment. Neither did she disagree with Hansen's claims in a post-debate interview with the Argus Leader, despite the fact that reducing the amount of CO2 entering the atmosphere is one of the main reasons to build the pipelines in the first place.

Part of Burns-Thompson's debate strategy was not to scrutinize and contend every single statement from her opponent — who already had a built-in support team within the audience — however much she may personally disagree.

Instead, Burns-Thompson was hopeful she instilled some sense of commonality between herself and the landowners her company may impact.

First responder planning

The mid-point of the debate shifted to first responders and emergency response plans in an offshoot of the earlier discussion on pipeline safety.

Tackling the topic first, Burns-Thompson said Navigator has taken their first steps in equipping local first responders across the project by conducting education training sessions throughout January and February.

"I grew up in a community with an entirely volunteer fire department. In fact, the Monroe Fire Department still is 100% volunteer," Burns-Thompson said. "We recognize that that type of relationships are what makes rural America run, and that's why those those meetings were brought."

Where emergency response plans — documents used to instruct organizations on how to best respond to emergencies — are concerned, Burns-Thompson said Navigator has started meeting with emergency management agencies in Illinois to go over the forms and answer questions. She added they plan to eventually do the same in South Dakota.

These documents were previously considered confidential, but South Dakota Public Broadcasting reported in August Navigator's ERP has been made public.

Burns-Thompson also said Navigator is working on developing a grant program that would pay local emergency agencies for some of the equipment needed to respond to a CO2 rupture.

Hansen initially circled back to criticizing Navigator for keeping its plume models private, calling it "the most important piece of information when it come to safety of these pipelines."

Asked whether Navigator's approach to pipeline safety risks was adequate, Hansen said, "I don't think so. Not by a long shot."

The Dell Rapids representative would later bring up the complications first responders face in accessing CO2 rupture sites. Citing reports on the breach of a carbon dioxide pipeline in Satartia, Mississippi in 2020, Hansen said the exposed gas effectively shuts down emergency vehicles upon entering their engines.

"Now we're talking about, 'OK, well, do we need electric fire trucks? Do we need electric powered equipment for all of these places in order to make sure we can keep our people safe?'" Hansen said. "I think that's a real concern, and, if that's the case, that's a massive, massive burden on our local fire departments that are already extremely, extremely short."

Hansen also highlighted building delays in carbon-friendly California, a state whose legislature passed a moratorium on allowing the flow of CO2 in new carbon dioxide pipelines until the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration adjusts its safety regulations governing said pipelines — partially in response to the Satartia incident.

Hansen also said pipelines present an insurance liability regardless of the safety risks.

"If there's a pipeline that's proposed to run across your land, you might have asked your insurance company, 'Is this insurable?' and your insurance company probably told you, 'No, it is not,'" Hansen said. "All of these things just evidence the fact that they haven't, in my opinion, done their due diligence on safety."

Responding to a follow-up question about pipeline maintenance, Hansen said Navigator's pledge to maintain and repair all CO2 pipeline in a safe and responsible manner is not adequate.

"I think land owners in South Dakota need to see some real actual assurance actions speak louder than words," Hansen said.

To which Burns-Thompson said she "couldn't agree more."

"Which is also why I'm here tonight," Burns-Thompson continued. "Landowners that said, 'We don't want you on our land' — we have done our absolute best to be respectful of that, be that through survey work or others. We believe actions speak louder than words, and we are holding ourselves and our teams to that exact same standard."

Navigator has been previously credited for refraining from taking some controversial actions that the company's competitor, Summit Carbon Solutions, hasn't shied away from. PUC Utility Analyst Jon Thurber pointed out in prefiled testimony the company has chosen not to survey "those landowners that are empathically resistant to grant survey permission," which Commission Chairperson Kristie Fiegen noted during an Aug. 5 evidentiary hearing.

This stands in contrast to Summit Carbon, who went ahead with surveys and geotechnical drilling on the lands belonging to people expressly opposed to their project June, which outraged anti-pipeline advocates.

Just as well, Navigator has not, up to this point, initiated any condemnation proceedings — the first step to using eminent domain — against opposed landowners in South Dakota. Whereas Summit Carbon in April filed more than 80 eminent domain lawsuits in nine South Dakota counties — a number, according to Hansen, that has now risen to more than 120 since.

Burns-Thompson has previously made comments that the practice of eminent domain "does not make friends." She expounded upon this on Tuesday, saying Navigator is "incentivized" to build the pipeline system in "as much of a voluntary fashion as is possible."

But despite Navigator's track record so far — one that Hansen admitted was more "landowner-friendly" than Navigator's Iowan rival — she could not guarantee that eminent domain would not be utilized at some point.

"I don't think that there has been a pipeline developed or a piece of linear infrastructure that has been developed today that can make that pledge either," Burns-Thompson said.

She later referred to eminent domain as a "tool of last resort."

Post-debate, Hansen maintained his doubts.

"They haven't filed the condemnation proceedings like we see Summit doing today. But you also heard today, in this discussion, that they won't commit to not doing that," Hansen said. "They include the threat of eminent domain in their opening letter on the first page to land owners. So to say that they're going to use it as the 'matter of last resort,' that's just not true. The reality is they are threatening eminent domain as soon as they make first contact with those landowners."

Dominik Dausch is the agriculture and environment reporter for the Argus Leader and editor of Farm Forum. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook @DomDNP and send news tips to ddausch@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Navigator CO2 insists pipelines not a threat to SD landowners, farmers