Landowners' Radio Ad Exposes Dangers of CO2 Pipelines with 911 Call from 2020 Explosion
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Oct. 3, 2022
Contact:
Eliot Huggins, Dakota Resource Council, eliot@drcinfo.com, 701-997-5181
Landowners' Radio Ad Exposes Dangers of CO2 Pipelines with 911 Call from 2020 Explosion
Chilling audio exposes carbon pipeline dangers to human life, livestock, as well as CO2’s ability to stall vehicles, endanger first responders
Bismarck, ND — The North Dakota Easement Team, a landowners’ groups in North Dakota that vehemently opposes the use of eminent domain for private gain to seize their property for proposed carbon (CO2) pipeline projects, on Monday released a radio ad campaign that uses actual 911 recordings from a 2020 carbon pipeline rupture in Satartia, MS to highlight the serious dangers to human life – including to first responders – posed by an explosive release of toxic CO2 by these highly-pressurized pipelines.
In the radio ad – that will launch across rural markets in North Dakota and other Midwest states where the proposed pipelines are routed – the narrator describes what happened during the 2020 incident in Satartia, MS where a carbon pipeline operated by Denbury Resources ruptured, causing an explosive release of carbon in an immense plume, which was later found by a government-issued report to be toxic for more than a mile from the site of the accident, which was caused by a girth weld failure following a landslide after heavy rain.
The ad then cuts to a 911 recording from a victim who is very concerned and confused about what is happening after her car has stalled – a direct result of the high CO2 concentration making the combustion engine nonfunctional – and her friend is having what she believes is a seizure.
The 911 recording was used with permission from journalist Dan Zegart, who obtained it via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in the course of his extensive reporting on the pipeline accident for his article, “The Gassing of Satartia,” for HuffPost:
(https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gassing-satartia-mississippi-co2-pipeline_n_60ddea9fe4b0ddef8b0ddc8f)
“My name is Howard Malloy and I own irrigated farm land in the Missouri river bottomland a few miles north of Mandan. It is very valuable crop land which borders Highway 1806 and Square Butte Creek. Its proximity to the City of Mandan, Highway 1806 and Square Butte Creek also make it very valuable residential development land, as Mandan is growing to the north and there is already extensive residential development in the area. The CO2 pipeline would devalue the land for irrigated farming and greatly devalue the property for residential development purposes. The liability of exposing families to the dangers of a CO2 pipeline rupture would effectively eliminate this property from residential development. This proposed pipeline is far too close to the Cities of Bismarck and Mandan and a danger to its inhabitants,” said Howard Malloy, North Dakota Easement Team member and landowner in Morton County, N.D.
The North Dakota Easement Team is growing its number of landowner members daily, holding regular meetings to inform landowners about the pipeline projects and the landowners’ legal co-op. Attorneys with Omaha-based Domina Law Group are currently defending North Dakota Easement Team-affiliated landowners in court who have refused to allow pipeline surveyors onto their property. The Domina Law Group will also represent landowners filing as intervenors in state agency permitting processes in North Dakota over the next year.
In addition to radio ads, landowners with the North Dakota Easement Team have raised funds to purchase billboards along the proposed pipeline routes.
Online version of the radio ad:
https://youtu.be/14bdGO1Yfrs
North Dakota Easement Team (NDET)
https://northdakotaeasement.org
Easement Action Teams LLC
https://easementllc.org