Readers Write: Environment, white-collar crime, noise pollution

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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Over the past four years, landowners in Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska have been protesting Summit Carbon Solutions’ intention to acquire private property through eminent domain to build their proposed 2,500-mile CO2 pipeline. The captured CO2 from ethanol plants would be transported via pipelines buried across private properties to a storage site in North Dakota.

Summit wants to bury these risky and dangerous pipelines next to communities, homes, schools, parks, nursing homes, hospitals, businesses, etc. If the pipeline ruptures, the plume can spread within a mile or more and can sicken or kill people, animals and vegetation in its path. The CO2 displaces oxygen and could cause asphyxiation.

Summit’s project is a grab for federal tax dollars via the 45Q tax credit. Reports show that billions of taxpayer dollars have already been given to this technology that remains unproven and exhibits failures, fraud and risks. Because Summit’s project would impose financial costs on taxpayers and doesn’t benefit the public, Summit shouldn’t be able to petition for eminent domain.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act could grant the federal government eminent domain authority and allow companies to pay $10 million to fast-track pipeline permits, bypassing environmental reviews and limiting resident and local, county and state government input.

Please help to stop this overreach by the government and urge Congress to:

Visit curemn.org/carbon-pipelines-mn for more information.

Colleen Tucker, Brooklyn Park

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Big Tech and Amazon are seeking extend tax exemptions. Data centers are being built by the richest companies in the world — Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft — but they benefit from a 2011 law that exempts them from paying sales tax on the hardware, software and electricity they use.

The state needs to put guardrails on data centers so they don’t gobble up our electricity and water and to ensure that they contribute to the sales taxes that fund our schools, roads, health and environment at a time when we are cutting budgets due to a projected deficit. When tech giants don’t pay taxes, their share is spread on the rest of us: Minnesota businesses and individuals. Why on earth should the biggest, most profitable businesses be given a tax break at the expense of the rest of us?

Our rules around data centers need a reset. Data centers need to be good neighbors — protecting and contributing to the communities they are near.

If we are changing the laws about data centers, here are some needed changes:

Minnesota has been a beacon of putting people, democracy and natural resources first. Let’s continue Minnesota’s legacy of being a haven for human rights and the environment by opposing bills extending tax breaks and environmental exemptions for data centers.

Katy Lowery, St. Paul

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The writer of the May 27 letter “I’ll take my water clean, thanks” appreciates a cleanliness he assumes exists on golf courses that are not built on landfills. But I wonder whether he also knows of the problem of continued pesticide use on the courses he does frequent. Unresolved environmental issues exist when chemicals are used year after year to keep the weeds down and the grass green. The Minnesota Department of Agriculture points out that heavy metals — such as arsenic, mercury and chromium — can persist in the soil from herbicide and fungicide use. The green revolution has yet to create the changes needed on many golf courses that are still a hazard, and not in the sand-trap sense.

Marie Ward, West St. Paul

The president just pardoned Paul Walczak, the health care executive who was convicted of tax evasion for using payroll taxes from the checks of doctors and nurses for his personal lifestyle. After Walczak’s mother attended Trump’s $1 million-a-head dinner at Mar-a-Lago, the president issued the pardon, saying that Walczak was the political victim of former president Joe Biden. Obviously, the facts that Walczak cheated not only the employees who depended on his firm for ethical payroll processing, but also the IRS, and that he was convicted and sentenced, does not matter to the president as long as he claims it was a false indictment. As an American taxpayer, I believe all tax evasion is a crime that should be prosecuted and not influenced by a “coincidental donation” that gains a pardon for the criminal. The judge commented at sentencing that Walczak’s wealth was not a “get-out-of-jail-free card.” Guess he was wrong!

Jan McCarthy, Eden Prairie

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Remember Thomas Petters and his Ponzi scheme? He should realize that if he just buys $5 million to $10 million in Trump meme coins he will probably get a pardon on his 50-year prison sentence. Once released, he can return to his business and, by just buying another few million in Trump meme coins every year, ensure that he will continue to be pardoned. When he accumulates a few hundred million, he can make a huge purchase of meme coins. Pardon attorney Ed Martin and House Speaker Mike Johnson would probably convince Trump to grant a perpetual pardon to Petters so that he could never again be charged with a federal crime.

Richard Olmsted, Vadnais Heights

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Just in case you missed it, May 30 marked the one-year anniversary of Trump’s conviction on 34 counts of falsified business records to conceal a payment to an adult film star. Although he received an unconditional discharge for his felonies in January 2025, we must not forget that Trump remains a convicted felon … unrepentant, unpardoned, unpunished.

Ironically, it is the American people who are paying the price for his crimes every day that he’s in office. Happy anniversary!

Alan Bray, St. Peter, Minn

I write this letter as the jets whirl over my head every three minutes, much like they did for the Apple Valley resident interviewed in “Shift in flight paths rattles neighbors,” a cover story in the May 19 Minnesota Star Tribune. The article describes the intense airplane noise that has rankled residents in Apple Valley, Eagan and parts of Minneapolis since April due to temporary runway closures for construction and upgrading. The article goes on to assure these residents that, as construction ends, normal flight paths will be restored and noise in their areas returned to normal. Unfortunately, airplane noise in my neighborhood never stops and never will. As a longtime resident of Linden Hills, I am green with envy, as I am typically awakened by a jet over my house in the wee hours of the morning, and the flights sometimes continue after midnight. Years ago, a City Council member suggested they would try to initiate a more equitable sharing of the noise or perhaps the implementation of a curfew like at other airports. These improvements weren’t possible. You might ask why I haven’t moved away, but the magnificent lakes in my neighborhood (also riddled with airplane noise), hospitable neighbors and an array of delightful eateries and shops within walking distance have kept me here. I could once again ask the Metropolitan Airports Commission if anything could be done to improve this situation, but, sadly, I know this is a pipe dream, and my noisy world will continue as is.

Gay Herzberg, Minneapolis