(Radio Iowa) – Officials in a northwest Iowa city are considering whether to join other local governments in sending the Iowa Utilities Board a letter objecting to development of carbon capture pipelines. Estherville’s City Council has held a work session to gather information about the Navigator and Summit pipelines that would pass through Emmet County. Estherville Fire Chief Travis Sheridan says if there’s a pipeline rupture, his department would likely need a new mobile vehicle that’s equipped with air packs. “An electric vehicle that we can drive, go in and save people, and get them out,” he says. Sheridan is also Emmet County’s Emergency Management Director Craig Schoenfeld, a spokesman for developers of the Navigator pipeline, says the company will provide equipment and training.

“It is not to be encumbered by the City of Estherville in your general budget or whatever you allot for your fire department,” Schoenfeld says. “Those needs are incumbent upon us to provide, whether that’s personal apparatus, if we need to come up with other types of trucks, other types of personnel…those types of things are on our nickel.” Kylie Lang, the Iowa project manager for Summit Carbon Solutions, says carbon pipelines are not new technology and the companies are preparing for potential leaks.

“(Carbon dioxide) is an asphyxiant. We take that very seriously. That means it displaces oxygen, making it challenging to breathe in high concentrations, but it is not combustible and it is not flammable,” she says, “so in terms of safety and comparison to other pipelines, a lot of different leaders in the industry have come out and said CO2 is safer.” The Iowa Renewable Fuels Association has sent an alert to its members today (Thursday), saying a bill pending in the Iowa House is a major threat to the ethanol industry.

The bill establishes new rules that ethanol backers say would derail the proposed carbon pipelines.