A group of farmers and climate change activists attended the Iowa Utilities Board (IUB) meeting in Des Moines last week and demanded the board vote against using eminent domain to acquire land for several proposed carbon pipeline projects. The group, which calls itself the Iowa Carbon Pipeline Resistance Coalition, also requested a meeting with Gov. Kim Reynolds to discuss the projects and afterward caravanned to the governor’s mansion.
The rally of more than 50 people coincided with the one-year anniversary of when Summit Carbon Solutions first filed its proposal to build a 2,000 mile-pipeline that would ferry CO2 from ethanol plants in Iowa and other states to be buried underground in North Dakota.
Two days after the rally, Wolf Carbon Solutions filed a new pipeline proposal with the board to build a 350-mile pipeline through southwest Iowa, ending in Decatur, Illinois, where the CO2 would be permanently stored underground. Wolf will hold six public meetings on its proposal in late August and September.
“It’s clear that no one wants carbon pipelines except for those who stand to benefit,” said Jess Mazour, conservation program coordinator for the Iowa Chapter of the Sierra Club who helped organize the rally. “Seventy percent of landowners won’t sign easements, 34 county boards of supervisors are saying no — Iowa doesn’t want these pipelines. The IUB needs to say no to carbon pipelines now.”
Mazour said the coalition has contacted Reynolds numerous times to request a meeting so they can share their concerns with her. So far, Reynolds has not agreed to meet. Reynolds’ spokesman Alex Murphy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“Land agents call us 20 times a week — worse than telemarketers or a presidential election,” said Sherri Webb, who also attended the rally and whose farm in Shelby County would be affected by the Summit pipeline. “We do not want these pipelines destroying our land.”
In April, a poll commissioned by the advocacy group Food & Water Watch found that 80 percent of Iowans opposed the use of eminent domain to obtain right-of-ways for the pipelines. Sometime next year, the Board will hold a hearing concerning whether it will allow Summit to use eminent domain to obtain land that it cannot get through voluntary land easements. That ruling will affect whether other proposed pipeline projects, such as the Wolf pipeline and the 1,300-mile Navigator Heartland Greenway pipeline, will be able to use eminent domain as well.
FERN produced a story on the Iowa pipeline controversy, “The great carbon-capture debate,” here.