-Farm News photo by Darcy Dougherty Maulsby
Signs of opposition are evident throughout many rural areas where Summit Carbon Solutions has announced plans to build a pipeline as part of a multi-billion-dollar infrastructure project to develop the largest carbon capture and storage project in the world. This sign is in Hardin County.

IOWA FALLS — Kathy Stockdale will never forget the day in August 2021 when she and her husband, Raymond, received 18 certified letters from a law firm they weren’t familiar with.

The letters informed the Hardin County farmers that a carbon dioxide (CO2) pipeline proposed by Summit Carbon Solutions (SCS) would be going through their area.

“They are cutting our farm in half, and I was concerned,” said Kathy Stockdale, who lives on the couple’s Century Farm between Iowa Falls and Ackley.

SCS is promoting a multi-billion-dollar infrastructure project to develop the largest carbon capture and storage project in the world. The project will include nearly 2,000 miles of pipeline, with the ability to transport up to 12 million tons of CO2 per year, according to SCS. It will carry carbon dioxide from ethanol refineries in five Midwestern states (Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota) to an area known as the Broom Creek formation of North Dakota, where the gas would be injected underground, rather than released into the atmosphere.

Stockdale wanted to learn more about CO2 pipelines and investigate what SCS’s request for an easement on the Stockdale’s land might entail. She attended informational meetings. She heard about how this pipeline project is designed to help SCS’s partner facilities reduce their carbon intensity scores. She listened to SCS’s explanations that this will help these facilities sell their product at a premium in the growing number of states and countries, from California to Canada, that have adopted low-carbon fuel standards.

-Farm News photo by Darcy Dougherty Maulsby
Raymond and Kathy Stockdale, who own a Century Farm and also farm in Hardin County, are strongly opposed to the carbon dioxide pipeline proposed by Summit Carbon Solutions. “This whole issue boils down to safety and property rights,” said Kathy Stockdale. “Our rights are being taken away from us.”

Stockdale also heard about how the pipeline will drive economic development in Iowa, according to SCS, in addition to generating new property taxes in Iowa every year for each of the counties where the system will operate.

But she decided to do her own research, too. The more she dug into the CO2 pipeline issue, the more troubled she became. She read about safety issues associated with CO2 pipelines, and eminent domain concerns. Then in May 2022, news broke that SK E&S of South Korea planned to invest $110 million to acquire a 10 percent stake in SCS. (SK became the second-largest South Korean conglomerate in 2021, according to the Korea Fair Trade Commission.)

“This whole issue boils down to to safety and property rights,” Stockdale said. “Our rights are being taken away from us, and this pipeline could destroy everything we’ve worked for.”

Dennis Valen, 68, who farms in Emmet County, agrees. He, too, received multiple letters

about the CO2 pipeline last fall when he was combining grain. He was informed that the

proposed route for SCS’s pipeline would go through his land.

“The more I learned about this, the more concerns I had,” said Valen, a fifth-generation

farmer who farms up to the Minnesota border. “SCS isn’t concerned about farmers. This is a

profit-driven venture for the company behind this. If this pipeline goes through, it could be the

most devastating thing that has happened in my lifetime, in terms of my farm and our rural

communities.”

That’s why Valen, along with a growing number of other rural landowners in the proposed path of the pipeline, have banded together to hire the Domina Law Group in Omaha, Nebraska.

“Hazardous carbon dioxide pipelines were not created to solve any make-believe crises at

ethanol plants, nor are they threatening land owners across the Midwest because these companies are climate change crusaders,” said Brian Jorde, a lawyer from the Domina Law Group who is representing the rural landowners. “These hazardous carbon dioxide pipeline companies, which are poised to infringe upon Midwest landowners’ constitutional rights and property rights and take those rights away from them, were created to grab obscene amounts of tax credits funded on the backs of the American taxpayer, including the very farmers and ranchers and Midwestern folks now under attack.”

Tax credits and safety concerns

Jorde is referring to 45Q, a federal tax credit for carbon sequestration.

“This is designed to encourage false climate solutions,” he said.

It’s not a coincidence that multiple pipeline companies have made a push to build infrastructure in Iowa in recent months, Valen added.

Barb Schomaker of Greenville, is also concerned about the ramifications of 45Q for rural Iowa. “All taxpayers will be paying billions of dollars yearly for these pipelines through the 45Q tax credits to these billionaire companies.”

In addition, Schomaker isn’t convinced about the safety of CO2 pipelines.

SCS’s pipeline will be outfitted with the latest technology, including fiber-optic monitoring equipment, said Jim Pirolli, chief commercial officer with SCS.

However, Schomaker and a number of other rural Iowans impacted by the SCS pipeline point to the tragedy that occurred in Satartia, Mississippi, on February 20, 2020.

A breach in a carbon pipeline owned by the energy company Denbury Inc. left 49 people

near the tiny town of Satartia in western Mississippi hospitalized. About 300 residents in the area were forced to evacuate, according to the online news outlet Mississippi Today.

The pipeline burst unleashed a cloud of fog, along with an odor like rotten eggs. People nearby struggled to breathe, with some collapsing in their homes, according to news reports.

In May 2022, the federal agency in charge of pipeline safety, the Pipeline and Hazardous

Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), released its findings from an investigation. The

PHMSA found that the pipeline broke from heavy pressure caused by movement in the soil after

persistent heavy rain.

It’s reasonable to be concerned about these safety issues, Valen said.

“CO2 is used in fire extinguishers, because it ‘suffocates’ the fire by displacing the oxygen. When CO2 is in a pipeline, it’s under about 2,100 pounds of pressure per square inch. That’s much higher than the pressure natural gas is under in a pipeline. If CO2 escapes from a pipeline, it hangs in the air and cuts off the oxygen to people and animals in the area.”

Valen lives within half a mile of where SCS plans to build its pipeline. “Also, my farmland is in the west fork of the Des Moines River, so if there was a leak from the pipeline, the CO2 would hang in those low-lying areas.”

Marty Maher, who farms near Imogene in southwest Iowa, is also upset about SCS’s proposed pipeline, which will cross his land and run under rivers and creeks.

“I know there are shut-off valves with this system. It’s probably unlikely the pipeline would rupture, but if it did, the risks are high,” said Maher, who points out that SCS is a startup company without years of

pipeline experience. “Look at Satartia, Mississippi. That pipeline left some of those people with permanent disabilities.”

This worries Jan Norris, a landowner who lives in southwest Iowa near Emerson with her husband, James. “This pipeline has the potential to maim or kill people and animals. It rapes Iowa farmland. It’s also a greenwashing scheme that’s not a solution to benefit the climate, farmers or the ethanol industry.”

Don’t count on liability insurance to come to the rescue if there is a pipeline leak, Valen added. “CO2 is considered a hazardous pollutant, and my liability policy doesn’t cover hazardous materials.”

Lessons from Satartia, Mississippi

Carbon dioxide pipelines are dangerous and under-regulated, reports the Pipeline Safety Trust (PST), a Washington-state-based, nonprofit public charity promoting pipeline safety. It’s especially concerning, since pipeline companies have started proposing massive CO2 pipeline mileage throughout the Midwest and Gulf Coast regions in the interest of carbon capture and sequestration, noted Bill Caram, executive director of the PST.

In response to the failure of the CO2 pipeline in Satartia, Mississippi, and the expansion of tax credits incentivizing carbon capture and sequestration, the PST commissioned and published a report on the unique safety risks and regulatory shortfalls of CO2 pipelines. The

report, which is published on the PST’s website, notes:

• Pipeline buildout, incentivized by the 45Q tax credit expanded in the recent bipartisan infrastructure bill, has a major problem: CO2 pipelines pose significant safety hazards and are terribly under-regulated.

• CO2 is an asphyxiant that’s heavier than air, and it can travel large distances at lethal concentrations from the pipeline after a rupture.

• CO2 pipelines are susceptible to ductile fractures, which can, like a zipper, open up and run down a significant length of the pipe. They can release immense amounts of CO2, hurl large sections of pipe, expel pipe shrapnel and generate enormous craters.

• Water, notoriously difficult to eliminate from CO2 pipelines, allows the formation of carbonic acid, which has a “ferocious appetite” for carbon steel, in the pipeline.

• Current CO2 pipeline regulations do not sufficiently address any of these risks.

• PHMSA regulations have “terrifyingly” large gaps on carbon dioxide pipelines, including having no regulations if the CO2 is transported as a liquid or a gas, only as a supercritical fluid.

• PHMSA can and should impose stricter safety regulations to keep the public safe from future CO2 pipeline plans.

“CO2 is an asphyxiant that’s heavier than air,” Caram said. “In the case of a failure, a plume in dangerous or lethal concentrations can travel long distances away from the pipeline, depending on the terrain and the weather.”

PST’s report detailed the many unique risks posed by CO2 pipelines and the ways the current regulations are inadequate to ensure their safe operation, Caram added. “For example, there are no standards on toxic and corrosive impurities, little required mitigation of ductile ruptures, no specific requirements around emergency planning given CO2’s unique properties in a pipeline failure, and inadequate requirements to determine the areas that might be within the danger zone after a release.”

PHMSA has announced a new rulemaking process to update standards for CO2 pipelines.

“We’re thrilled that PHMSA agrees that the current regulations are inadequate and applaud their efforts to update safety standards,” Caram said. “However, it’s important to remember that the

rule making process can take a very long time.”

Some recent rules published by PHMSA have been a decade in the making, for example.

PHMSA is also prohibited by Congress to make rules that would apply to certain elements of existing pipelines, Caram noted. “So, any CO2 pipeline that gets built before the new PHMSA rules take effect would not be subject to any new design, installation, construction, initial

inspection or initial testing standards.”

“An easement is forever”

Maher, who attended informational meetings about the SCS pipeline, said he wasn’t convinced or “overly impressed” by SCS’s statements about the benefits of the pipeline. “My first thought was that with all the uses for carbon dioxide, storing it in the ground makes no sense,” he said.

Then he started wondering what the proposed pipeline might do to his farmland, tile lines and terraces. “What I see with this pipeline are plugged, cut tile lines,” said Maher, a third-generation farmer who is among the landowners working with the Domina Law Group. “Even if you try to repair it, I’ve never seen a tile line that has been cut through ever work properly again.”

This is a huge concern to Maher, who has been a no-till farmer since the 1980s and farms land his grandfather purchased in 1900. “I’ve spent years working to improve my farm. My goal is to keep soil on my side hills.”

Valen, who hopes the sixth generation of his family will farm someday, doesn’t want to see his investment in pattern tiling wrecked. “I have tile every 30 feet in the area where this pipeline is going to go. Drainage tile runs on grade. How do you fix this if the pipeline destroys it?”

The fact that the proposed pipeline is designed to run under rivers and streams also doesn’t sit well with Valen. “If water gets into the CO2 pipeline, this creates an acid that eats away at the pipe,” he said.

SCS hasn’t been transparent about these issues, he added, plus they have harassed landowners who haven’t signed easements.

“They’ve had surveyors out here who don’t have permission to be on my land,” Valen said. “It also really bugs me to see 85-year-old widows being lied to and pressured to sign an easement.”

All this leaves Maher extremely uneasy, as well.

“A very kind person rents a house on my property, and they’re scared of this pipeline, which would run within 400 feet of the house,” he said. “My family and I are also concerned, since we have a grain-handling facility within 150 feet of the pipeline route.”

Maher has refused to sign an easement.

“SCS visited with me a few weeks ago and presented me with a very handsome financial offer if I’d sign with them. I simply said, ‘I don’t

want your pipeline.'”

Landowners cite eminent domain fears

Valen and many of his neighbors haven’t signed easements, either. “An easement is forever. Why would you give control of your farm to a corporation?” Valen asked. “What’s your life and your livelihood worth? What will your property be worth, compared to property without

a pipeline of hazardous material running through it? You need to think about the future as you make these decisions.”

SCS says it remains committed to negotiating voluntary easements with landowners as the company moves ahead with the pipeline project. “We want to be a good neighbor,” Pirolli said.

By early August 2022, SCS reported that more than 700 Iowa landowners had signed more than 1,200 voluntary easements in the state.

Many landowners along the proposed pipeline route worry, however, that SCS is using the threat of eminent domain to advance the pipeline project. Pipeline opponents are carefully tracking Exhibit H, which is part of SCS’s application process to secure approval from the Iowa Utilities Board. The red boxes on these maps represent property that is expected to be taken by eminent domain.

“I call this the ‘hell no’ list,'” said Jan Norris, a Montgomery County resident who noted that a third filing of Montgomery County Exhibit H land was posted on Sept. 2. “We are now up to 37 percent of the route being identified as potential eminent domain property. The Franklin County map is nearly 90 percent or better.”

Eminent domain in this situation doesn’t sit well with Bonnie Ewoldt of Milford, whose family owns a farm in Goodrich Township in Crawford County.

“We’re furious at how SCS has been treating us. Eminent domain for profit is absolutely wrong. I want to see corn farmers and rural communities succeed, and I like ethanol, but I don’t think we should be forced to have this pipeline on our land. If the Iowa Utilities Board approves this pipeline, no one who owns property in Iowa is safe.”

Norris fears that if the SCS pipeline is approved, this will unleash other pipeline projects.

“History shows that pipelines tend to go where other pipelines have gone. I don’t want western Iowa to become a ‘pipeline interstate.'”

Farmers and landowners have the power to stop this, Valen said. “Just like we band together to help harvest a crop when a neighbor is sick, we need to stand together against this pipeline.”

Schomaker is glad to get involved. “In simple terms — as a landowner, I pay for the pipeline, my prime farmland is ruined forever, I can’t get liability insurance covering a leak if it’s deemed my fault, and my land value decreases. I also live in fear of a pipeline rupture. It’s not if, but when and where, a rupture will happen, all while a company reaps billions of dollars on an annual basis.”

Landowners including the Stockdales in Hardin County feel like their state lawmakers aren’t listening to their concerns.

The battle these Midwestern folks currently face is nothing new, Jorde said.

“State legislatures across the country have consistently sold out landowners in favor of lobbyist-fueled, for-profit entities that believed they should be given the right of eminent domain typically reserved for the sovereign government. Then these hazardous pipeline companies can take from land owners and profit off their backs by paying them a one-time-only payment and sticking them with a one-sided, unfavorable and dangerous forever easement contract.”

What recourse do landowners have?

“The only hope a landowner has to either stop this madness and do what their elected officials refuse to do — which is protect the landowners, voters and taxpayers of each state — is to rise up and join in a coalition of like-minded, pro-property-rights landowners and hire experienced legal counsel and a team to protect them,” Jorde said.

Battling a “massive boondoggle”

It’s sad it has to get to this point, said Maher, who doesn’t view the pipeline as a vital way to boost Iowa’s rural economy.

“While SCS pitches the pipeline as the savior of the ethanol industry, I don’t see it that way,” he said. “Not all ethanol plants want to be part of this, and neither do a lot of land owners.”

Valen agreed. “No one wants their farmland destroyed 5 feet deep for a one-cent increase in the price of a bushel of corn.”

Norris urges people who are opposed to the SCS pipeline to write letters to the editor of area newspapers, talk to their neighbors, and visit with members of local zoning boards, county supervisors, state lawmakers and others who will be affected by the proposed pipeline. “A growing number of county supervisors across Iowa are objecting to this pipeline,” Valen noted.

Valen also encourages people to submit an objection, either online or via the mail, with the Iowa Utilities Board, using the docket number HLP-2021-001 (Petition for Hazardous Liquid Pipeline Permit). Valen noted that the City of Terril and the school district in the Terril area have sent objections. “The more voices the Iowa Utilities Board hears, the better,” Valen said.

Indifference is the enemy, added James Norris, who is the fourth generation to live on his family’s land in Montgomery County. “When something is wrong, like this massive boondoggle, you need to speak up,” said Norris, who noted that the proposed SCS pipeline would go between his family’s farms and behind his house. “There are much better solutions to capture carbon and still allow people to own their land. Why not pay farmers handsomely for cover crops and other conservation practices that sequester carbon, all at a fraction of the cost of this pipeline project?”

In his comments this summer to the Iowa Utilities Board, Norris wrote, “Carbon pipelines are not the savior of ethanol. If they were, every farmer would be lined up behind this project. They’re NOT! Carbon pipelines have virtually no positive impact on the climate issue. If they did, nearly every climate organization would be backing this project. They’re NOT! These pipelines offer permanent damage to our farms. They represent real danger to our communities. This is all wrapped up in billions of dollars in 45Q tax credits — massive corporate welfare. Does any of that sound reasonable to you?”

Valen urges action, not apathy. “It’s important to get involved to protect your family, your farm, your history and your future. I’ll fight this pipeline to the end.”