To the Editor:

My husband and I take our corn to Poet near our home, and we purchase ethanol blended gasoline. I don’t have millions of dollars to purchase large advertisements for my thoughts, nor can I give you a donation for a baseball stadium like at Harrisburg, but I would like to share part of my experience with an oil pipeline that crosses my Minnehaha County property.

The property runs along Highway 38 where I turned down opportunities to sell as I wanted to keep the land available for my family to build there. If a building were placed there, it would mean a higher and forever tax paid on the property.

However, in 2016 an oil pipeline was built on that property. I can no longer build on that land, nor would I, because of the threat of a leak. A maintenance dig was done on my property in 2020 where oil was on the outside of the pipe before repairs even began. The oil company is taxed on the pipe in the ground but as the pipe depreciates, the tax gets less.

Imagine this happening to property across the state as a carbon pipeline comes through. Developments, building, and expansions by private property owners will be halted. Those increased taxes will never happen.

Temporary income from a private pipeline company will end while the expenses for townships, counties, and the state continue. A donation for a stadium would create a monument reminding the local folks of the damaged field drain tiles, livestock damages, soil issues, damaged roads, fear of a possible leak and more.

Please say no to legislation and decisions that favor out of state investors wanting to build a carbon pipeline. The ethanol plants will do fine without the pipelines.

Peggy Hoogestraat
Chancellor