Advocates urge more safety regulations over CO2 pipelines

Pipeline safety advocates continued to urge more stringent safety regulations for carbon dioxide pipelines in a meeting with federal regulators on Thursday.

It was the second of a two-day meeting by the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration in Des Moines to discuss risks and regulations around the technology as three companies seek to build carbon capture and storage systems running through Iowa. The meeting was requested by several organizations who have raised concerns about the safety of CO2 pipelines.

The federal pipeline agency, a division of the U.S. Department of Transportation, sets regulations and safety requirements for pipelines, including CO2 pipelines. The agency is in the process of writing new regulations after a CO2 pipeline ruptured near Satartia, Miss., in 2020, which led to the evacuation of the town and sickened dozens of residents.

Three companies — Summit Carbon Solutions, Navigator CO2 Ventures, and Wolf Carbon Solutions — are proposing a combined 1,500 miles of pipeline across the state, requesting permits from the Iowa Utilities Board. Summit and Navigator have requested eminent domain authority to take land from unwilling landowners, while Wolf has not.

Dispersion models

During a panel on dispersion modeling, safety advocates argued for stronger modeling to simulate what would happen in the event of a pipeline rupture.

Companies use dispersion modeling to estimate the potential impact of a CO2 pipeline burst, modeling the direction and path of gas after escaping the pipe. An investigation into the Mississippi rupture revealed that the pipeline’s operator did not predict a rupture would reach Satartia.

The more simple form of modeling available to pipeline companies, and what was used in Satartia, does not take topographical information into account, said Paul Blackburn, an attorney with Bold Alliance, an environmental nonprofit. A more complex and expensive modeling, called computational fluid dynamics, delivers more accurate results, but is more cost and labor intensive.

Blackburn said the federal pipeline agency should require companies to do more specific modeling in areas that run by large population centers.

“We can’t get perfect information, but we can at least give people some understanding about the risk of that pipeline,” he said.

Industry consultants and regulators said the cost of the more complex modeling makes it untenable to perform across the entire footprint of a pipeline.

Chris Ruhl, accident investigation director at PHMSA, said the agency continues to work on dispersion models “to get the most accurate modeling available so that it goes into real life situations.”

State regulators last year asked Summit Carbon Solutions to provide several safety-related documents as part of their application to build a CO2 pipeline, including a plume model. The company argued the materials were not under the state’s jurisdiction, and the Iowa Utilities Board dropped the request.

Summit said in March it would share its plume model with North Dakota regulators, according to AgWeek, but it had not shared them with landowners along the route.

Emergency management

Jodi Freet, the director of Cedar County’s Emergency Management Agency, said during a separate panel rural emergency management services in Iowa are not prepared for the type of pipeline rupture seen in Satartia.

Cedar County is along the path of Wolf Carbon Solution’s proposed pipeline, the shortest of the three that touches five Iowa counties on its path to a carbon sequestration site in Illinois.

“My volunteer fire departments do not have the level of training in hazardous materials that they need to respond to a CO2 pipeline emergency,” she said.

At large enough concentrations, CO2 is an asphyxiant, and emergency responders need self-contained breathing apparatuses, costing more than $6,000 each, she said.

If a large rupture happened in Cedar County, Freet said a more specialized team from Linn County would need to respond, which could take up to 45 minutes to respond. She said she has been coordinating with neighboring counties about what an emergency response would look like.

“We know we need to work together to prepare for this,” Freet said. “ … Even though we’re doing a lot of planning in Cedar County, I don’t think we’re prepared.”

Jack Willingham, director of emergency management in Yazoo County, Miss., where the Satartia pipeline rupture happened, said during the panel that PHMSA should increase enforcement to ensure companies are following regulations.

“They need more inspectors to be able to police it,” he said. “Because just having laws or rules is not good enough … We can't count on companies to police themselves.”