PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) — A lawyer for Navigator Heartland Greenway has acknowledged the company didn’t comply with a South Dakota requirement when it failed to notify more than 200 landowners along the route of a proposed carbon dioxide pipeline.

James Moore of Sioux Falls reported the problem in a recent email letter to the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission. State law requires timely notice to landowners within one-half mile of a proposed pipeline’s route.

The proposed pipeline originally was planned to serve the Valero plant near Aurora, South Dakota. Landowners were missed when laterals to the Poet plants near Chancellor and Hudson became part of the application, according to Moore.

He said Navigator sent 1,052 letters to landowners providing notice of the application and the commission’s informational meetings, but should have sent 1,256.

Moore requested that the commission set an additional public-input meeting for the missed landowners that would be held virtually. The three commissioners discussed the situation Tuesday but didn’t take any action.

Instead, commission chair Chris Nelson said the commission has met its legal requirements to schedule and hold a public-input meeting and to notify the public about the meetings November 21-22 that occurred in Canton, Flandreau and Sioux Falls.

“They’ve made the mistake. They have to decide how they’re going to fix it,” commissioner Kristie Fiegen said about Navigator.

Said landowners lawyer Brian Jorde of Omaha, Nebraska, “I think the commission’s going the right direction on this.”