Fairbank City Council will discuss its position on a proposed carbon dioxide-capture pipeline on Monday after some council members discussed the topic at Fayette County Board of Supervisors meeting recently.
Navigator is the company proposing to build a 1,300-mile-long pipeline across five states called the Heartland Greenway Project.
According to Iowa Capital Dispatch, Navigator announced in June a major agreement with biofuels producer POET to transport captured carbon dioxide from 18 facilities in three states, including Iowa. The company can file its permit petition 30 days after the final public meeting, which is set for Sept. 21.
Government entities among others may file their comments on the proposed pipeline with the Iowa Utilities Board.
A public forum will be held at the Oelwein Coliseum on Tuesday, Aug. 23, at noon.
Possible decision items on the agenda as of mid-afternoon Friday include: Riverside Park gazebo maintenance, city shed concrete, a resolution for a local option sales tax revenue purpose statement (1% for the city), and setting fall cleanup for Monday, Oct. 3.
Ron Woods — a Fairbank councilman, mayor pro-tem, and businessman — said the proposed pipeline is supposed to go through near Fairbank, within about 3,000 feet of the ethanol plant. He said, as far as he knows, everything gained from the pipeline is going to corporations far away from Fairbank.
Fairbank Councilwoman Tamara Erickson was quoted at the time of the supervisors meeting discussing the proposed Navigator CO2 capture pipeline, as saying she believed, “I would say the whole council would be against it. It looks like big profits for big corporations.”
The topic is on the agenda as “discussion — regarding opposition on proposed CO2 pipeline.”
Ron Woods is the mayor pro-tem.
This means he will be filling in following the tragic July 18 loss of Mayor Mike Harter, who died in an automobile accident “while doing one of the things he most enjoyed, educating young people,” his obituary read.
As to the question of mayoral succession, City Clerk Brittany Fuller said in an email Friday, Aug. 5, “The council is not ready to discuss this at this time.”
There was no meeting on July 25.
