Carbon Pipeline Company Seeks Dismissals of North Dakota Court Challenges

By Jeff Beach

Summit Carbon Solutions is asking North Dakota judges to dismiss appeals in different legal challenges to its five-state carbon capture and storage project.

Attorneys for Summit and North Dakota landowners argued a Summit request for dismissal in a Burleigh County Court on Tuesday. Landowners have appealed the legality of the North Dakota Industrial Commission’s order granting Summit permission to pump carbon dioxide into underground sequestration sites in Mercer, Oliver, and Morton counties.

Summit also has filed motions to dismiss appeals related to the North Dakota Public Service Commission’s pipeline route permit.

Summit is attempting to move carbon captured at ethanol plants in five states to the underground storage site in North Dakota through a network of pipelines.

The case heard Tuesday in Burleigh County involves landowners who have objected to the storage plan. Summit’s motion to dismiss argues that landowner attorney Derrick Braaten did not notify parties properly and that the case does not belong in Burleigh County but instead belongs in one of the counties where the storage wells are planned.

“This is not the only case where Summit is making these arguments,” Braaten said.

The hourlong hearing on Tuesday focused on procedural issues and not the merits of the appeal. Landowners contend the state Department of Mineral Resources withheld information about Summit’s models that would predict where the carbon dioxide would move when the gas is pumped underground.

Braaten also is involved in appeals on the PSC decision involving Burleigh County, Emmons County, the city of Bismarck, and multiple landowners. In those cases, Summit also says not all parties were notified properly.

Among the issues being challenged are the PSC ruling that state zoning rules trump county zoning ordinances on pipelines and that the PSC did not give enough weight to the safety of residents along the proposed route.

A hearing on one motion to dismiss was held Monday and another is set for April 22.

Each of the three cases has a different judge.

No ruling has been issued in either of the motions argued this week.

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