Summit Carbon Solutions can conduct surveys on private property for its proposed carbon dioxide (CO2) pipeline, the Iowa Supreme Court said in a ruling Friday.
The ruling comes after a landowner in the central part of the state refused to let Summit onto his property for a survey. A district court had previously ruled against the landowner, which sent the case to the Supreme Court.
The court said pipeline companies have long had the ability to survey privately held lands and that the landowner’s claims didn’t hold up because he did not lose any property rights.
"To go onto the property and just look for the meets and bounds to make sure that the easement that they're going to seek is where they say it is, that's about as simple as it can be," a Summit Carbon Solutions attorney said during oral arguments in October.
The overall project (see map below) would capture CO2 from 57 ethanol plants in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. The CO2 would be aggregated and transported by pipeline to North Dakota, where it would be permanently sequestered in deep geologic formations.
The court also affirmed Summit's status as a pipeline company, which has access rights under Iowa Code, and ruled that Summit complied with statutory notice requirements.
