May 30, 2023 (May 30, 2023)

Our invocation was offered by Jamie Larson. President Ken Harty was back to lead us after a couple weeks off during which we were led by Zack Stach. Ken was in Louisiana where he is managing another of the Wick newspapers. While there, Ken attended a Rotary meeting and renewed old friendships. Pres Ken congratulated the club on their successful highway clean-up that had eight Rotarian engaged in the project. Randy Kempfer promoted distribution of the Josh the Otter books and said he has six volunteer readers for May 31, but needs two more volunteers. Kathy read and distributed to the Hillcrest kindergarten classes on Tuesday and Hal and Buzz went to McKinley following our meeting…where they were warmly welcomed.

We had many brags and Steve Leitte announced that he had not only prepared the LTHC Community Garden for planting, but also had assisted in the planting process. All the food that is harvested from this garden goes to the Salvation Army and the Food Shelf.

Steve Andrews bragged on his 20th Anniversary and that his mother had just celebrated her 97th birthday. Steve Leitte bragged on the eight volunteers who cleaned the Highway 210 ditch last Saturday. Deb Maertens fined herself for wearing a very old Rotary shirt. John MacFarlane paid a scooter buck and bragged on our visiting Rotarian John Andreason whom he has known for a long time. John Andreason, past-President of the Moorhead club, bragged on the Fargo Moorhead area missing Deb Maertens, but he was glad she had found a new home with us. Katie Johnson bragged about her daughter going to Ireland for a six weeks Intern program (in Interior Design).

Mark Bring introduced Joe Caruso, President of Summit Carbon Solutions as speaker of the day. Joe told us that the last time he got to go to a Rotary meeting was in Ames, Iowa during his school years where he was Student Council President! Joe brought us an interesting program regarding his company and the recovery of CO2 from the fermenting corn in ethanol plants in a five-state area (MN, ND, SD, IA and NE). Step 2 in his business is compressing the CO2 and then step 3 is transporting it and burying it in ND. There are 34 ethanol plants in this area, and this project will require 2,100 miles of 4” pipe to get the CO2 deposited deep into the ground. ND welcomes this waste disposal and considers their unique underground as an asset and not a place just to get rid of waste. This land has eight layers of different types of soil and is located about 50 miles from the Bakken Oil Fields. Joe said this is a $4.5 billion dollar project. If they get permits in all five states and pass all environmental rules, they will start construction next spring and be operational in 2024. Joe said that difficulties in getting public consensus about this issue is that people don’t like to hear the word “pipeline” and the sentiment among many that “global warming” is a myth and collecting a little CO2 this way is simply not warranted. Joe’s program was enlightening for all of us and with several questions following his presentation, it was obvious that we were all paying attention.