The developer of a carbon pipeline has pledged $1.1 million to Nebraska communities and first responders along its route in a unique agreement that won backing from an environmental group that has opposed those projects.
Tallgrass Energy, which is converting 392 miles of natural gas pipeline to carry carbon dioxide, reached a “first-of-its-kind” agreement with Bold Alliance to support community initiatives and equip and train first responders.
The “community benefits agreement” also establishes rigorous protections for landowners throughout the Trailblazer Pipeline’s life, including returning easements to landowners who elected to have it abandoned or removed from their property.
Jane Kleeb, the founder of Bold Alliance, which was successful in opposing the Keystone XL pipeline, said the agreement “must set a standard” for future energy infrastructure developers and the landowners and communities they work with.
“Tallgrass is the first pipeline company we have encountered that has been willing to engage proactively, acknowledge the need for the landowner benefits that Bold fights to achieve, and genuinely commit itself to addressing those benefits by written agreement,” Kleeb said.
Along with Tallgrass and Bold Alliance, the agreement received the blessing of 11 statewide organizations, including Renewable Fuels Nebraska, the Nebraska Farm Bureau, Nebraska Corn Growers Association, Nebraska Cattlemen and others.
Kyle Quackenbush, the segment president at Tallgrass, called the agreement a “milestone” that will keep Nebraska’s bioeconomy thriving.
“Everyone involved worked hard to bridge the challenges of reaching a groundbreaking agreement like this one because of a common commitment to seeing Nebraska win,” Quackenbush said. “We are proud to have found common ground with so many key community organizations to keep Nebraska at the forefront of innovation and economic growth in the decades to come.”
As part of the agreement, Tallgrass Energy has pledged $500,000 to nonprofit communities in the counties where the Trailblazer pipeline crosses.
Tallgrass also has promised $400,000 to equip first responders during development of the project, as well as ongoing support for replacing that equipment once carbon dioxide is flowing through the project.
The community benefit agreement also includes $200,000 in funding to train first responders, as well as an annual obligation to provide public safety notifications to families living near the pipeline’s right of way.
A 2020 rupture of a carbon pipeline near Satartia, Mississippi, which forced more than 200 people to evacuate and resulted in 45 people being hospitalized, has often been pointed to as a safety concern by landowners opposing the project.
Last week, residents near Sulphur, Louisiana, were asked to shelter-in-place after a leak was discovered in another carbon pipeline.
The community benefits agreement also allows landowners to receive yearly royalty checks based on the volume of CO2 being transported, rather than the lump sum usually paid to landowners for an easement.
And it also returns the easement to landowners upon the decommissioning of the Trailblazer Pipeline, allowing them to abandon or remove the pipes at that time.
The Trailblazer Pipeline project, announced in May 2022, stretches between Fillmore County and the pipeline’s western terminus south of Cheyenne, Wyoming, where the greenhouse gas will be injected deep underground as part of the Eastern Wyoming Sequestration Hub.
It is believed to be one of the first and biggest projects to convert an existing natural gas pipeline for carbon capture and sequestration, and won the backing of then-Gov. Pete Ricketts and several Nebraska state senators.
At least three carbon pipelines have been proposed in the Cornhusker state after Congress expanded the 45Q tax credit that will provide $50 for every ton of CO2 they capture and store underground beginning in 2026.
One of those pipelines, the Iowa-based Midwest Carbon Express by Summit Carbon Solutions, aims to bury carbon dioxide from four ethanol plants in Nebraska in a sequestration site in North Dakota.
The Heartland Greenway, a $2 billion, 1,300-mile pipeline network from Omaha-based Navigator Ventures, was canceled last year after the company was denied construction permits by the South Dakota Utilities Commission.
Because Trailblazer’s 36-inch pipe was installed in the 1980s, the company did not need to secure new easements for its main line.
It instead made an application to the Federal Energy Regulation Commission to abandon the natural gas line in order to repurpose it.