Iowa landowner and carbon pipeline developer battle over property access

Oil, steam and pure gasoline pipelines run via the forest on the Cenovus Foster Creek SAGD oil sands operations close to Chilly Lake, Alberta. REUTERS/Todd Korol

(Reuters) – An Iowa landowner is countersuing a carbon pipeline developer after it sued him and different residents to realize entry to their properties for surveying. The household says the Iowa legislation that enables entry to personal property for the needs of power improvement quantities to an unlawful taking and desires an injunction barring the corporate from getting into.
Navigator CO2 Ventures, a partnership between Valero Power Corp and BlackRock, is proposing the Heartland Greenway, a 1,300-mile community of pipelines that will join biofuel producers within the Midwest to an underground storage facility in central Illinois the place an anticipated 15 million metric tons of carbon dioxide might be sequestered annually, in response to the corporate.

The majority of the pipeline system would cross Iowa, the place the corporate is drafting an in depth route proposal as required by the Iowa Utilities Board earlier than approvals are granted. As part of that scoping, Navigator has sought to make use of an Iowa statute that enables hazardous liquid pipeline and storage corporations to survey and study personal property supplied the landowners are given 10 days’ written discover and after an informational assembly.
Navigator sued Martin Koenig and three different landowners in August saying they’d violated the statute by refusing the corporate entry to their land.

The pipeline would facilitate carbon seize and storage (CCS), a course of that has been touted by business and a few authorities officers as a approach to assist the biofuel business scale back emissions amid calls to transition in the direction of clear power.

Heartland Greenway is considered one of three carbon pipeline programs proposed for the state which have obtained pushback from landowners and conservation teams that say CCS is a largely untested expertise, and that the pressurized pipelines that transport liquefied CO2 current well being risks for close by communities. The pipelines want a number of state and federal approvals, and a few Iowa lawmakers have expressed considerations about extending eminent area rights to the tasks.
“This combat is for the truthful remedy of landowners,” mentioned Brian Jorde, an legal professional at Domina Legislation Group who represents Koenig and different landowners preventing Navigator’s pipeline.
Navigator didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

The case is Navigator Heartland Greenway v. Martin P. Koenig, Iowa District Court docket for Clay County, case No. EQCV034863.

For Navigator: Brian Rickert, James Pray, Caitlin Stachon, Thomas Story and Jackson O’Brien of Brown Winick Graves Gross and Baskerville

For the landowner: Brian Jorde and Christian Williams of Domina Legislation Group

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