The North Dakota Public Service Commission won’t require Summit Carbon Solutions to publicize a model that would show how CO2 would spread during a pipeline rupture.
The agency on Monday made the decision during a work session, where it discussed a variety of topics related to the company’s project permit. Summit secured a protective order for the model last year, citing concerns about terrorism, but Burleigh County — where the pipeline has faced backlash from local governments — challenged the order in May.
“This commission has, for a lot of years, been very cautious about releasing information like this where protection is sought because of potential for it kind of opening the door for what someone might want to do to impose terrorist action,” said Commission Chair Randy Christmann, who also referenced the recent conviction of a Canadian man who shot at an electric substation in northwest North Dakota.
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The CO2 spread model has been a flashpoint in recent hearings for the five-state, $8 billion project which would capture CO2 emissions from 57 ethanol plants and pipe them to west-central North Dakota for permanent storage underground.
CO2 is heavier than air and can travel close to the ground for extended periods of time in the event of a pipeline rupture. There is no standard potential impact radius for a CO2 leak, according to Kenneth Clarkson, spokesman for the watchdog group Pipeline Safety Trust. In large concentrations it can be hazardous. The federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) is in the process of updating its regulations regarding CO2 lines in response to a 2020 rupture in Satartia, Mississippi, on a pipeline operated by oil firm Denbury. The incident caused over 40 people to seek hospital care and led to an evacuation of over 200 people from the rural town.
Summit project proponents have pointed to a broader CO2 pipeline safety record, including a 205-mile CO2 pipeline in western North Dakota from the Great Plains Synfuels Plant that has been operating for two decades.
Emergency managers from counties along the pipeline route in meetings with the company have been given access to the spread model to begin planning for potential ruptures. Summit also says it will provide the counties with grants for equipment and out-of-state response training.
Summit’s project was denied over a year ago by the PSC but granted a reconsideration. Since that time, the company has moved the proposed pipeline’s closest location to Bismarck, from 2 miles north of the city’s extraterritorial area to 5 miles. The pipeline route on the eastern part of the city — around 3 miles outside the extraterritorial area — has not moved much, however.
Mary Senger, emergency manager for Burleigh and Emmons counties, testified at a project hearing in May that what she has seen so far has not given her confidence that emergency response could effectively deal with a rupture. She said having more parts of the model public would help with emergency planning. County Commissioner Brian Bitner testified that the pipeline was still too close to many in Burleigh County.
The results of the CO2 spread model is public information in an environmental study in Minnesota, where the model showed that a few households along the route in that state could be in the area of a dangerous concentration of CO2 if there was a rupture.
In South Dakota, Summit voiced support for a series of bills passed by the state Legislature that proponents say protect landowners and the public — though it is now subject to a ballot measure. One of those bills required companies make CO2 spread models public.
The ability to extrapolate spread models to North Dakota is limited due to the location-specific nature of how CO2 can spread.
Summit has fought efforts to make its spread models public in North Dakota at both the state and local level.
Still, in recent hearings, prominent Bismarck-area developer Chad Wachter, who opposes the pipeline’s proposed location, testified that Summit showed him and oil industry lobbyists the model in a private meeting. The project has some investments from the oil industry, and company officials have said it could one day be extended to the nearby oilfields for enhanced oil recovery, though for now it will be used for permanent storage.
Wachter previously told the Tribune that he believes the model should be public.
There are about 5,300 miles of CO2 pipelines operating in the U.S. The CO2 pipeline incident rate is historically smaller than for natural gas or oil pipelines, though those footprints are 3 million miles and 230,000 miles, respectively.
Broadly, safety issues are outside the PSC’s jurisdiction and it falls to PHMSA to enforce those rules, Commissioner Sheri Haugen-Hoffart said.
PSC Administrative Law Judge Tim Dawson put the decision in the context of other information that the state withholds from the public. Dawson is serving as a replacement decision-maker for Commissioner Julie Fedorchak, who recused herself from the permitting process since she had signed a contract allowing her land to be used as part of one of Summit’s storage areas.
“I was thinking about the cultural and archeological resources that we keep secret, as well. We do that because people use that information, they go out and steal those resources that are out there. Although a terrorist act is probably unlikely, I’d hate to be the cause of it by releasing too much information,” he said.
Other issues
The PSC spent much of the meeting discussing other issues, including clarifying things it does not have authority over.
Concerns that have been brought up in public hearings, such as state and federal policy incentivizing CO2 transportation and storage projects, eminent domain and safety compliance, are topics that the PSC has little — if any — say over, according to PSC staff.
Carbon capture enjoys bipartisan support as being a potential solution to climate change, which could help keep highly CO2-emitting industries alive as opposed to phasing them out. Some environmental groups opposed to Summit and other carbon capture projects have questioned this approach to climate policy. Meanwhile, a separate group of project opponents have generally denied the reality of climate change — the impetus for carbon capture — at public hearings for Summit’s project.
“We carry out the policy,” Christmann said, explaining the role of the PSC. “There’s a whole lot of government policies that I don’t like, but we follow them because it’s the law of the land.”
Summit says its goal is to get 100% of landowners to sign voluntary contracts for pipeline construction, though there have been significant holdouts around 20% of the project’s North Dakota footprint. Securing the access for pipeline construction with holdouts would require an eminent domain action, the taking of private property for public use with just compensation. Both can be determined by a court, though generally “just compensation” is what gets argued over.
A PSC approval would mean that the company could file eminent domain action. Summit applied for a common carrier permit, making it eligible to use eminent domain.
Common carriers transfer goods or people for a fee. Not all states necessarily classify CO2 pipelines as common carriers, but North Dakota does.
Whether a company would use eminent domain is not something the PSC considers, however.
Summit executives have said they can’t rule out using the procedure.
Christmann also made a note of ensuring that dust suppression along the construction route by the company was adequate. He said this is not just an important consideration for construction near residences.
“Cattle do not have a really refined palette and they’re not going to avoid grazing somewhere they want to graze just because the grass is terribly dusty, and same for the hay that gets distributed to them in the wintertime,” he said. “Grass ammonia is a real thing, and dust is a significant factor in it.”
PSC staff also highlighted correspondence with other state agencies including the Department of Environmental Quality, the North Dakota Geological Survey, the State Historical Preservation Office, North Dakota Game and Fish, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. None brought up major concerns.
The PSC will host at least one more work session to discuss issues brought up at hearings, likely in October.
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Publish date : 2024-09-16 11:00:00
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