About 70 people attended a public meeting in Oskaloosa Wednesday afternoon (1/5) about a proposed pipeline that would run through Mahaska County.  This pipeline would carry liquefied carbon dioxide from Minnesota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Iowa to Illinois, where the material would be stored underground.  Elizabeth Burns-Thompson is with Navigator Heartland Greenway, the company that wants to build the pipeline.

“Carbon capture and storage is new for many of us across the corn and soybean belt.  It isn’t necessarily new technology. It has been utilized around the world for a number of decades.  More predominantly and traditionally in the oil and gas space.  But it does have an application to be very beneficial to those of us here in the ag sector, too.”

Burns-Thompson says the next step would be for the company to negotiate with landowners.  Construction on the pipeline would start in 2024….with the startup sometime between late 2024 and the middle of 2025.