Summit Carbon briefs Hardin County on leadership, permit amendments and landowner payments; residents press safety and easement concerns

JD Myers, Summit Carbon’s ag and stakeholder relations representative, told the Hardin County Board the company has a new leadership team and has requested amendments to its Phase 1 permit to increase pipe size in western Iowa and to remove a South Dakota permit requirement to allow more routing options. He said the company has revised landowner compensation options — offering cash easements, annual per-foot payments and an investor-style return option — and described survey and construction commitments, an Ag Impact Mitigation Plan (AIMP) and emergency-responder support including county grants and equipment funding.

“My name is JD Myers. I’m the ag and stakeholder relations for Summit Carbon,” he said, and invited residents to public open-house meetings in Iowa Falls (Nov. 12), Waverly and Fort Dodge to discuss details one-on-one.

Myers said Summit proposes nearly 60 miles of pipeline through Hardin County and included a property-tax estimate in materials provided to the board. He also described emergency-responder preparedness funding (described in the materials as $50,000 per county plus $1,000 per pipeline mile) and CO2-specific equipment and annual training for volunteer departments.

During public remarks and Q&A, commenter Robert said Summit cannot meet conditions set by the Iowa Utilities Board (IUB) for Phase 1 and that the company has encountered “roadblocks” in South Dakota. Robert questioned Summit’s voluntary easement figures for Phase 1 and Phase 2 and alleged the project’s permitting and public materials had been altered to present more favorable numbers.

Myers declined to provide on-the-spot confirmation of specific county-level voluntary-easement percentages for Phase 2, instead urging attendees to attend the open-house meetings where the company would provide detailed figures. He said some earlier numbers were the result of different docketing and that the company would share updated information at the public sessions.

Residents also raised safety and land-consequence concerns. A landowner who has followed the project for years said maps of a two-mile radius around a pump station in Iowa Falls include the hospital, emergency management, an industrial park and schools; she urged the board to consider property-rights implications and asked whether the board would intervene in ongoing legal actions. The board did not vote on any county-level action regarding intervention during the meeting.

Questions about operational impacts prompted a technical reply from Myers: he said increased water use for compressor cooling would change per-plant water use only modestly — from roughly 1% to about 1.09–1.1% of permitted water statewide for a typical plant — and that the CO2 stream itself does not contain water because the CO2 is dehydrated before transmission.

The update closed with Myers encouraging individual landowners to meet with Summit staff at the upcoming open houses and to seek one-on-one discussions for specific easement or safety questions.