Nancy Dugan lives in Altoona, Iowa and has worked as an online editor for the past 12 years.

Three Iowa women who rely on the Devonian aquifer for their water have filed suit in Polk County seeking to vacate a water use permit granted earlier this year, in connection with a CO2 pipeline project.

Kimberly Junker, Candice Brandau Larson, and Kathy Carter are suing the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR), which on May 29 issued a water use permit to Lawler SCS Capture, LLC. The permit allows the LLC to withdraw up to 55.9 million gallons of water per year from the Devonian aquifer, at a maximum rate of 100 gallons per minute.

Formed in 2022, Lawler SCS Capture is one of myriad Delaware-based businesses affiliated with Summit Carbon Solutions, LLC. The well and associated carbon capture facility would be located on land owned by Homeland Energy Solutions, an ethanol plant and Summit Carbon partner in Chickasaw County. Bleeding Heartland was first to report last month that the DNR issued the Lawler permit.

Attorney Wally Taylor is representing the plaintiffs in his personal capacity. (He is also the legal chair of the Sierra Club Iowa chapter, which opposes Summit Carbon’s efforts to build a CO2 pipeline, but Sierra Club is not a party in this lawsuit.) Here’s the full text of the petition filed in Polk County District Court on October 18.

Nancy Dugan lives in Altoona, Iowa and has worked as an online editor for the past 12 years.

The Iowa Utilities Board announced on October 4 it was canceling the remainder of its 2023 monthly public board meetings, previously set for October 9, November 7, and December 12. The board’s news release cited a “high volume of docket calls,” as well as “the risk of ex parte communications under Iowa law.” Screenshots of the board’s October and November calendars, captured on the morning of October 17, document the board’s schedule in the coming weeks.

The board may be scrambling, in part, due to vacancies in two attorney positions, one for Utility Attorney 1, posted on October 11, and the other for Utility Attorney 2, posted on October 10. It is not known whether these positions are due to staff attrition or staff expansion. An October 12 email to the board’s general counsel, Jon Tack, inquiring about the vacancies went unanswered.

Nancy Dugan lives in Altoona, Iowa and has worked as an online editor for the past 12 years.

During the Iowa Utilities Board’s October 3 evidentiary hearing on Summit Carbon Solutions’ proposed CO2 pipeline, Summit attorney Bret Dublinske asked landowner Craig Woodward, “Are you aware that in Cerro Gordo County, 83 percent of the route has been acquired by voluntary agreement?”

Brian Jorde, an attorney for landowners who oppose the pipeline, quickly objected. “Irrelevant. And there’s no evidence of that in the record.”

“I think it’s absolutely relevant, and it can be calculated from the Exhibit Hs, but I’ll withdraw the question,” Dublinske responded.

Nancy Dugan lives in Altoona, Iowa and has worked as an online editor for the past 12 years. 

Last week, North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley denied a request from three counties in the state to investigate Summit Carbon Solutions’ investors. A new statute in North Dakota, which went into effect on August 1, tightens restrictions on foreign ownership of land in that state, among other measures.

But Summit Carbon Solutions, LLC as it exists today was formed in Delaware in 2021, according to the Iowa Secretary of State’s database of business entities. (That database shows the Summit Carbon Solutions, LLC created in Iowa in 2020 as “inactive.”) Wrigley explained in a recent letter to county commissioners that the effective date of the new legislation means “this office is unable to conduct a civil review of the company.”

Wrigley’s argument underscores one of the more disturbing aspects of the Summit Carbon matter, which is the false premise that state and local governments are powerless to regulate a Delaware LLC whose ownership structure remains largely a mystery, and whose own legal arguments identify the pipeline it proposes to build as a security threat.

Nancy Dugan lives in Altoona, Iowa and has worked as an online editor for the past 12 years. 

During the August 15 Director’s Cut webcast, Dr. Lynn Helms, Director of North Dakota’s Department of Mineral Resources, was asked about the Public Service Commission’s August 4 decision to deny Summit Carbon Solutions’ North Dakota pipeline permit.

Helms first explained that the state’s current CO2 production only meets 3 to 10 percent of the need for shale oil recovery in North Dakota. “So carbon dioxide has got to come to North Dakota from somewhere if we’re going to stabilize and sustain Bakken oil production,” he added.

Nancy Dugan lives in Altoona, Iowa and has worked as an online editor for the past 12 years. 

A small plane with the tail number N215TS has been making routine flights in Alaska in recent months. Its owner is Eagle Wings, LLC, and its Federal Aviation Administration registration shares an address with Summit Agricultural Group in Alden, Iowa.

When looking at Alaska’s carbon initiatives, one may wonder: Is the Summit project part of a larger plan? Might its pipeline one day transport oil or natural gas?

Eagle Wings’ near daily flights are a tenuous, unsubstantiated link, a pipe dream if you will. But even if these flights are unrelated, other evidence suggests that the Summit Carbon project and Alaska’s aggressive push to advance carbon management and sequestration legislation may not be a mere coincidence.