G. Moritz, Editor
If you didn’t read Dave Baumeister’s articles about the county last week, you should, because there were some fireworks. I put together a recap of his work this week, check it out here.
I don’t own land in the area myself apart from my home and office commercial space, but I do know a lot of people who are landowners and stakeholders in the community that are none too pleased with Summit Carbon Solutions and the proposed CO2 pipeline projects that could be coming to our area. In fact, I would say livid and outraged is the right terminology.
From Dave’s coverage of the meeting of August 2nd, we know that Mr. Dan Lederman, head of the Republican Party in South Dakota and vert public proponent of Summit Carbon Solutions most likely leaned on the Minnehaha County Commission to vote the way he wanted them to, and postpone indefinitely putting a moratorium on new pipelines. Only Barth voted against it.
Barth had some pretty strong statements to make about that, both at the meeting and on the phone with me this past Monday. Barth’s big grievances were that they weren’t allowed to question Mr. Lederman and that his fellow county commissioners didn’t allow the large gathering of citizens to speak at the meeting to redress their grievances on this issue. Mr. Barth said that his fellow commissioners potentially could have violated SD open meeting laws by not doing so.
Clearly, the county commissioners are under pressure here. Pressure from their party leaders and pressure from the multi-billion-dollar oil industry that wants this pipeline to go through, and make a load of money without having to pay any real significant costs for safety or to bother with fairly compensating the landowners. Already Summit Carbon Solutions is facing difficulty on multiple fronts, including lawsuits from SD landowners in multiple counties. I shouldn’t wonder that if Minnehaha County (the most populace and some of the best ag land in the state) passed such a moratorium on their pipeline, well that it would really look unacceptably bad at their court hearings.
If you find these pipelines objectionable, apply some pressure of your own. Call, write and email your commissioners. Flood their inboxes. Go to their meetings and lodge objections. Let them know that this will hurt you and your families and that it’s their responsibility to protect you. November is coming too.
A FYI, if you are going to Dakotafest, during Dakotafest, on Tuesday, August 16th, the South Dakota Farm Bureau will be presenting an educational forum on the proposed Carbon Pipeline at 10:30 a.m. in the Reaves Technology and Innovation Building. Make sure you show up for that and have some tough questions ready.
This paper, since I have owned it, has stood for the people it serves, and always will continue to do so. As is, these proposed pipelines don’t serve the people of this area or even fairly compensate them for the use of their land by a private company. To say nothing about safety concerns, and there are many, it doesn’t serve the public good. Just a private interest that isn’t interested in sharing the large amount of profit they stand to make with the people whose land they’re hornswoggling. It’s frankly, Un-American.
