Carbon pipeline says it has secured easements for half of Nebraska route

via Lincoln Journal Star
Dec. 6, 2022

“…While Summit Carbon Solutions is touting the progress made in Nebraska and other states along the pipeline's path, environmentalists, public health organizations, landowner rights groups and Native tribes have joined to oppose it.

Those unlikely alliances have led to calls asking the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to delay any action on the carbon pipelines until new safety guidelines can be established, as well as calls to states and counties to review rules regulating where those infrastructure projects can be located.

Regulators in Iowa and South Dakota are currently reviewing permit applications from Summit Carbon Solutions, and could approve the project sometime next year.

Nebraska, which doesn't have state regulations governing carbon pipelines, leaves the permitting process up to the individual counties… While Summit Carbon Solutions said it hopes to find "an economic resolution" to securing rights to the full route — Blank said he believes the company can secure most of the route through voluntary easements — it might have to file eminent domain proceedings in some cases. "I would see that as a very small percentage by the time we're finished," Blank said.

The notion that the private company could use eminent domain to seize land in order to complete its route has generated opposition in Nebraska and elsewhere, however.

About 60 landowners have signed up with the Nebraska Easement Action Team, which describes itself as a kind of legal co-op, to provide advice on property rights, or assistance in securing better terms on any right-of-way acquisition deals. More have signed up to be on an email list with updates, organizers said.

Similar legal co-ops set up to allow landowners to pool their resources have been formed in Iowa and South Dakota — where landowners have sued the carbon pipeline companies to stop them from surveying property — with hundreds of individuals having joined to date.

Jane Kleeb, the founder and president of Bold Alliance and the chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party, said she believes more landowners along the carbon pipeline routes will join as litigation is settled in other states. "We don't have the same pressure right now because we don't have a state regulatory body," Kleeb said. "Landowners are waiting to see what happens, knowing lots of litigation and moving parts are ahead of us."