Summit Carbon Solutions changes route of proposed pipeline
DES MOINES, Iowa — Summit Carbon Solutions announced Wednesday it is changing the route of its proposed pipeline in Iowa.
The new route will no longer go through Shelby, Pottawattamie, Montgomery, Adams, Page, Fremont, Mitchell and Worth counties. The company also plans to lay less pipeline in Crawford, Floyd, Sioux and Dickinson counties.
The new plan reduces the size of the project by about 200 miles of pipeline and lowers the number of affected landowners by over 400, Summit Carbon Solutions said.
“Farmers and ethanol producers need access to new markets and long-term growth opportunities, and there is urgency to getting infrastructure like this moving forward,” said Joe Griffin, Summit Carbon Solutions CEO.
Summit said the new plan will also allow the pipeline to expand more in the future, depending on market demands and project developments. The route will travel out of Iowa, through Nebraska and into a carbon “sequestration solution” in Wyoming — a state previously not included in Summit’s proposed route.
Summit previously planned to deposit the captured carbon at a site in North Dakota. The earlier proposal is below.
“We are building this project for the long haul because strong infrastructure is critical to the future of agriculture, rural communities, and America’s energy future,” Griffin said. He also added that the majority of landowners and stakeholders involved continue to support the project.
However, Marty Maher, a landowner in Page County, does not support the project. He is one of the approximately 400 landowners taken out of the pipeline’s plan.
“It feels glorious. It’s a relief that’s been hanging over your head the past five years,” he said. “I feel relief for my children and grandchildren.”
Maher said the pipeline would have been 300 feet from his residence on one side and 300 feet from his grain bins on the other side, meaning his grandchildren would have been driving farming equipment across the top of the pipeline.
“If there was a leak or a rupture we would be in what they call the kill zone. At 300 feet and the pipeline ruptures, there’s no chance of survival. You can see why I’m extremely jubilant and grateful and relieved to have this good news,” said Maher.
Maher said that while he’s positive today, he’s not naive enough to think the new pipeline route has solved all landowners’ problems.
“We don’t know what’s coming down the line next week, next month, next year,” Maher said. “There will be other projects, and Summit can sell and assign and transfer the easements they do have to someone else, so we can be doing this again a year from now.”
The Sierra Club of Iowa also provided a statement to Local 5. Chapter Conservation Associate Jess Mazour said, in part, “These significant changes show that Summit is struggling to make their project happen and trying to spin it as a win.”
Public documents from the Iowa Utilities Commission (IUC) show that Summit faced pressure to change its route in the wake of a new South Dakota law prohibiting the use of eminent domain for carbon dioxide-carrying pipelines.
Summit’s announcement comes just over 10 days after the end of the 2026 Iowa legislative session, where a similar bill limiting the use of eminent domain failed to make it to the Senate floor.
“[South Dakota House Bill 1052] materially changed Summit’s ability to use the route the Commission assumed would carry Iowa CO₂ through South Dakota to a North Dakota sequestration site,” writes Jess Vilsack, General Counsel for Summit Carbon Solutions.
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