Judge acquits pipeline surveyor of trespassing charge

A district court judge has dismissed a trespassing charge against a carbon dioxide pipeline company’s land surveyor because there was no evidence he was told to avoid the property, according to court records.

Stephen James Larsen, 29, of Arlington, S.D., was part of a survey group that went onto private property in Dickinson County in August 2022. He was the only person cited for trespassing.

The survey work for Summit Carbon Solutions will help determine the path and depth of the company’s proposed pipeline, which is set for a final permit hearing later this year.

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State law allows the surveys after pipeline companies hold informational meetings about their proposals and send notices to landowners and tenants via certified mail. But judges have differed in recent months about whether the law is constitutional, and one of the rulings has been appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court.

District Associate Judge Shawna Ditsworth did not address the constitutionality of the law in her recent ruling that acquitted Larsen of the trespassing charge.

“The State failed to bring forward any evidence that Mr. Larsen was told to previously leave the property or not to enter the property,” Ditsworth wrote. Instead, it was another group of presumed Summit surveyors who were told to leave in March 2022 by a tenant of the Dickinson County land, court records show.

A prosecutor argued Larsen “had to have had notice” that he was not to go onto the land because of the previous encounter involving other people, but Ditsworth was unconvinced. “Accordingly, the court concludes that a judgment of acquittal must be entered,” she wrote.

Summit seeks to build a pipeline to transport captured carbon dioxide from ethanol plants in several states to North Dakota, where it will be sequestered deep in the ground. About 680 miles of pipe are included in its initial proposal that is under consideration by the Iowa Utilities Board. The project will be the subject of a final evidentiary hearing set to start in August.

Summit also plans to add another 31 miles of pipe to connect to an ethanol plant in Northern Iowa.

This article first appeared in the Iowa Capital Dispatch.