To the editor,
Iowa Nice. A term many of us have probably heard on multiple occasions. It has been displayed in recent past when a tornado hit Greene County and destroyed Larsons’ farmstead and damaged many others. Hundreds of volunteers showed up for cleanup. It has been displayed when a farmer has illness or injury with a crop in the field. Farmers helping farmers. Greene County residents helping other Greene County residents.
Now, we need your help. As do those homeowners, landowners and tenants along the proposed Summit Carbon pipeline. If you aren’t aware, Summit Carbon intends to put in a carbon dioxide pipeline that will connect Poet in Coon Rapids to Louis Dreyfus in Grand Junction. Summit is a private company that intends to pipe the carbon dioxide to North Dakota to sequester and use for fracking oil. They will use eminent domain to gain a permanent easement to our properties to put in the pipeline. No eminent domain should be used to seize our properties for private gain.
The carbon pipelines have a 1500 foot “kill zone”. If a home, school, business, animal feed plot, hog confinement are within 1500 feet of the pipe, and it leaks you have 4 minutes to get to safety before you suffocate. You will need to do this on foot because combustion engines need oxygen to function, they won’t work in the “zone” because all the oxygen will be depleted. Within the 1500- foot zone all life will be killed – human and animal. That is nearly 1/3 of a mile!
How many school bus routes are along the pipeline? Are your kids and grandkids at risk each time they ride the bus in the area?
Any farmer along the route should think about the future of the land. Do you plan to sell it in the future or pass it down to your heirs? Homeowners whose land the pipeline passes through or near have already been told their insurance will be dropped. What happens to your home if you have a mortgage and one of the requirements is that you have homeowners’ insurance but are now uninsurable because of the pipeline? No insurance = no loan. Maybe you should call your lender and see how this affects you.
Another reason for concern for all Greene County residents is the amount of groundwater that this will take. The process to transport the small amount of carbon dioxide that Summit intends to capture will require very large amounts of water which will be taken from deep water aquifers.
Having come through several years of drought, this should concern every resident. Even with the wet year we have had our river and streams are still below normal stage.
Will you help? Can I count on Iowa Nice? Please call or write the Greene County supervisors and ask them to implement an 1800-foot setback from homes, schools, livestock feedlots and confinements. Greene County is not up for grabs by outsiders. Please attend the supervisors meeting Aug. 26 when Summit makes their presentation to the board and the Summit meeting Aug. 28 at Clover Hall at noon to voice your opposition.
Per an editorial in the Jefferson Herald last week, county supervisors swear this oath:
“I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Iowa, and that I will faithfully and impartially, to the best of my ability, discharge all the duties of the office of County Supervisor in Greene County Iowa, as now or hereafter required by law.”
The Iowa State Association of County Supervisors (ISACS) explains that “The Board of Supervisors is the governing body of county government” and, I add, sets policy, within the limits of the laws of Iowa and of the United States. More specifically, ISACS explains that the Supervisor’s duty is to “protect and preserve the rights, privileges, and property of the county or of its residents, and to preserve and improve the peace, safety, health, welfare, comfort and convenience of its residents.”
Current Board: District 1, Mick Burkett, term expires 2024. Candidates for election: Greg Ruth, Joe Gannon
District 2: Dawn Rudolph. term expires 2026
District 3: Dan Benitz, term expires 2026
District 4: John Muir, term expires 2024; Candidates for election: John Muir, Tori Riley
District 5: Pete Bardole, term expires 2024; Candidate for election: Pete Bardole
Thank you for your help,
Kim Bendickson, rural Jefferson
