Hardin County landowner seeing Summit route for first time during IUB hearing

FORT DODGE — Wednesday was day two of the Iowa Utilities Board hearing on the Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline project.

Glen Alden of Klemme says he’s had to hire a lawyer. “Poor landowners are out here kind of bewildered,” Alden says. “…I don’t know why I should have to go to great expense and effort which I have done to protect my property from an intrusion that I had not wanted.”

Alden says as a township trustee he’s concerned emergency responders in the township have little information about how to respond if the proposed pipeline ruptured.  “We have to know what some of these risks are,” Alden said, “at least in some vague way.”

Hollis Oelmann raises corn and soybeans on a farm in Hardin County. After the pipeline route through his farm was projected on a screen in the hearing room, Oelmann told regulators he was seeing the actual route for the first time.  “But I knew from the surveyors that were out there that it was going to be pretty close to my field entry,” he said. “That’s a real concern to me about in and out traffic on my part.”

Oelmann says a tractor pulling a grain wagon in that area during harvest would weigh around 50 tons. Oelmann says he sees no upside to having the pipeline on his property.

Summit Carbon Solutions has said the pipeline will benefit corn growers by making ethanol carbon neutral and opening up new markets for the fuel.