Iowans Won’t Give Up the Fight Against Carbon Pipelines

For over two years, Iowans from every corner have been threatened with the possibility of hazardous carbon pipelines harming the land, public safety, and the very future of the state. 

Three carbon capture pipeline projects were originally proposed, but fierce resistance has whittled the proposals down to two – an estimated 1,000-mile pipeline by Summit Carbon Solutions and a nearly 100-mile pipeline by Wolf Carbon Solutions and ADM. 

Of the two existing proposals, Summit is furthest along, with the Iowa Utilities Board currently deciding whether to issue a permit for 700 miles of the project. Many Iowans objected to the rushed proceedings – the permit hearing largely took place during harvest, leading one affected landowner to provide testimony from the cab of his tractor, while many other voices, including tenants of impacted farm ground and nearby neighbors, were silenced completely.

As hundreds of Iowans await a decision on whether a privately-owned corporation will be granted powers to take their land against their consent, and thousands more are biding time uncertain if they will have to live next to a lethal, proven-to-fail pipeline, they are urging the Iowa legislature to take action.

Iowans have a vast number of worries regarding risky carbon pipelines and the associated carbon capture facilities. People affected by the proposed pipelines have offered testimonials sharing their experiences and concerns in the hopes that Iowa’s leaders will step in and protect communities from exploitative carbon pipeline projects. 

Brenda Barr, Hancock County landowner:

“At 83 years old, life has taught me not to be easily intimidated, especially by a company like Summit Carbon Solutions. I’ve faced hardships before and overcome – like the 2020 stroke that left the right side of my body paralyzed or the years I spent treating every multitude of medical crises as an emergency room nurse.

My family legacy is rooted in agriculture. A legacy that was torn from our family in 1929 when the stock market crash forced my great-grandfather off the farm. My father refused to let that be the end of our story, however. After serving for two years of WWII, including at the Battle of Luzon (the largest net casualty battle U.S. forces fought during the war), my dad made it home and decided it was time to return to farming. The post-war economic boom allowed him to purchase 80 acres of prime farmland in northern Iowa, which gradually expanded to 240 acres which were eventually passed down to my siblings and me.

I’ve seen what carbon dioxide can do. Two men came into the emergency room one day after being exposed to toxic levels of CO2. They were very confused and couldn’t follow basic directions. They were acutely anxious because they were struggling to breathe. The skin was peeling off their hands, deeply burned from the carbon dioxide. Summit doesn’t mention those risks. Why should we have to put our safety, our lives on the line for a pipeline project that offers us nothing in return? The Iowa Legislature needs to take action to protect the people of this state from unnecessary carbon capture projects!”

Patty Beyer, Cherokee County landower:

“Summit Carbon Solutions proposes to run a 12 inch pipeline carrying lethal amounts of carbon dioxide across 3,398 feet of our farmland. If Summit is allowed to take this land against our consent, their hazardous carbon pipeline will be 715 feet from our neighbor’s doorstep and 574 feet from the children’s jungle gym in their yard.

Plume modeling has shown that the rupture of a CO2 pipeline of similar size and pressure would be fatal to anyone within 760 feet in under a minute. Our neighbors are facing the prospect of asphyxiating to death before they even know what is happening to them.

Schools located within 2 miles of the proposed carbon pipelines

In 2023, Iowa legislative energy was poured into passing a law to protect children from school library books depicting sexual acts and from teachers raising gender identity and sexual orientation issues with students before seventh grade.  Yet it was not possible for the Iowa Senate to find a way to protect these same children from hazardous carbon dioxide pipelines that put their very lives at risk.

Which scenario is more dire? A child reading a banned book or a child suffocating on a  jungle gym 574 feet from a ruptured CO2 pipeline? The worst is obvious.  Yet the worst is a very real threat facing children across Iowa. In just one example, Summit’s proposed pipeline route would place a lethal carbon dioxide pipeline 2,200 feet from an elementary school.  

If our state government is truly interested in safeguarding the health and safety of our children, then legislators must prioritize protecting our children, our families,  our communities and our land from the very real dangers of the risky carbon pipelines.” 

Marj Swan and Jean Ritter, Wright County landowners:

“Summit likes to claim they are a company guided by honesty and integrity. If the experiences we’ve had with them are anything to go by, Summit needs a new compass because the principles of honesty and integrity seem to be lost on them. 

We hung 17 “No trespassing” signs across the property after the project was announced to keep Summit from trampling across our land without our consent. Apparently 17 signs wasn’t enough because Summit was still caught attempting to survey the land without permission. 

They tried again later – bringing six vehicles, a semi, and boring equipment to survey without ever providing notification or asking for consent. And while Summit couldn’t be bothered to contact us, they had no problem reaching out to the sheriff’s department in order to lie and tell officers they’d received permission to survey.

Image of unsanctioned surveying provided by Marj Swan

I urge Iowa’s leaders to protect their constituents from the intimidation, deceit, and underhanded business practices corporations like Summit utilize to coerce Iowans into signing easements.”

Marty Maher, Page County landowner:

“Carbon pipelines are a threat to Iowa’s farmers, not a savior like the pipeline industry wants us to believe. If our leaders don’t stop this money-grabbing scheme, a hazardous carbon pipeline will be located across three of my parcels and just over 300 feet from my home. This would have a disastrous impact on the value of my property. 

According to the assessment I had done, the house and acreage would have a loss of 50%, or $60,000. The farm ground would decrease in value by 25%, or $788,500. This is in addition to the $70,000 I spent on projects to prepare the land last year on the chance the pipeline is approved since I would be barred from making any future improvements to my property if eminent domain is granted. That’s a total loss of  $918,500 – and I’m just one landowner. The proposed pipelines would be an irrecoverable financial drain on farmers — we’d be saddled with all the damages and liability and get nothing in return. Iowa’s leaders must defend our Constitutional rights and put an end to these ludicrous pipeline proposals.”

Lisa Ritzert, Mitchell County landowner:

“The proposed carbon pipelines are a farce. The pipeline approval process makes our nation’s assertion of “justice for all” a rather dubious claim. First, landowners were coerced and intimidated into signing over their land to a carbon capture corporation – corporations that have no value beyond the empty promises they make. Now, these nonviable entities are selling private property easements to each other on a corporate whim. Iowa land is being passed around like candy with no regard for the negative impact such action has on the wellbeing of affected landowners. 

Summit is seeking a permit to operate 686 miles of hazardous carbon pipeline across Iowa. However, the application they put forth for approval hardly resembles the final project Summit is proposing. Not included in the current permit application is over 300 miles of pipeline that they intend to include in the project – nearly doubling the capacity of the operation in doing so.

Iowa Summit route

They did not include the full scope of the project in their initial permit application because, simply put, they want to get a bird in hand to justify, and force by precedent, the approval of additional lines. Summit is manipulating and undermining the process by utilizing this piecemeal approach.

Neither Summit or Wolf have secured a sequestration site. They have not obtained all the necessary federal and state permits. They have not proven the long term viability of carbon capture and storage. And yet, we are expected to give up our land, our water, our livelihoods, and our safety for these groundless, theoretical pipelines? Absurd!”

Janet Miller, Hardin County landowner:

“I have a mile long list of concerns about carbon pipelines, but safety is at the top of the list. Summit wants to put a carbon pipeline 800 feet from my house. This would pose a severe danger to anyone, but because I am disabled and have mobility issues I feel that a hazardous carbon pipeline merely hundreds of feet from my home would make me a sitting duck. I am always at home, and with the CO2 pipeline in close proximity, I would have to live with a constant reminder of the danger I am in at all times. My safety and well-being should not be sacrificed for the profit of a private corporation.

Local EMS has confirmed that they are ill-equipped to handle a CO2 pipeline rupture. Our Emergency Manager compared the response to a house fire saying, “You go to a house fire, and the house is completely engulfed. Fire has blown out all the windows.There may be somebody in there, but by the time we get there and we see that person inside, they’re no longer considered salvageable. You don’t risk live bodies and firefighters for that victim because it’s already killed them. Dead is dead.”

I would be unsalvageable. I would be left to “shelter-in-place” 800 feet away from a ruptured pipeline. My house was constructed in 1958, with original single-pane windows and insulation which would allow CO2 to effortlessly penetrate into the home. How can Iowa support this? Summit has never before built or operated a pipeline, let alone a hazardous carbon pipeline of this magnitude. We cannot entrust our lives to an inexperienced corporation that has repeatedly shown their only concern is profiting from our land and tax dollars. I urge Iowa’s leaders to do the right thing and stop this money grab before it’s too late.” 

Bonnie Ewoldt, Crawford County landowner:

“Summit Carbon Solutions cannot be trusted. That’s all we needed to know to decide that we would not sign an easement. We don’t do business with crooks, and we certainly don’t give them permission to use our land for their own private gain. 

Land agents were unrelenting with calls and messages asking to meet with us, sometimes several calls a day. In early 2022, we got a call from land agent warning us that the proposed pipeline project was going to eminent domain. At that time, eminent domain was nothing more than a threat, a pressure tactic to get us to sign an easement.

But a year later, as eminent domain became a real possibility, we arranged to meet a land agent at our local bank to hear out their easement offer. We arrived shortly before the scheduled meeting, only to wait thirty minutes for the land agent to show up. He was a no-show. As is their custom, Summit had once again wasted our time and money.

Summit was required to file contact records listing each time they communicated with a landowner to prove they had attempted to negotiate an easement in good faith. Funny enough, they don’t have any record of standing us up. In fact, according to Summit, we met with a land agent at 8:30 PM that day. They manufactured the contact record to appear as if they tried to negotiate an easement. In reality, negotiations never happened – Summit hounded us, they intimidated us, but they never bothered to negotiate with us. Such dishonest, unscrupulous business practices should not be rewarded by the state of Iowa. Our leaders must hold Summit accountable.”

Lisa Stuck, Wright County landowner:

“Iowa’s proposed carbon pipelines are nothing more than a money grab. Unless you’re a wealthy investor or a c-suite executive for Summit or Wolf, these pipeline schemes offer nothing but risk. We are small, family farmers. Our survival depends on the productivity of our land. The pipeline would destroy the health of our soil and irreparably damage our clay tile. What makes our livelihood less important than the profits of out-of-state corporations?

Summit has been blinded by their greed and the potential to rake in hundreds of billions of dollars from our public tax dollars. They repeatedly crossed the line in our interactions with them. From the start, Summit told us they would take our land one way or another. Such an ultimatum was hardly a welcoming approach to the negotiation process. The land agents were shameless – spying into our windows and attempting to manipulate our sons into supporting the project.

The entire proposal is a blatant scam. They claim they want to reduce carbon emissions to combat climate change. If they are so concerned about protecting the environment, why do they want to hack down countless trees, upend protected wildlife areas, and ravage conservation land? If they want to improve the environment, there are options that don’t involve stealing land from hundreds of Iowans. Summit’s founder, Bruce Rastetter, owns over 20,000 acres of land. Before he takes over 1,000 miles of Iowa land for an unsafe pipeline, he ought to consider investing in legitimate carbon capture equipment – trees. Rastetter has plenty of his own land that could be converted to timber to reduce carbon emissions if he truly cared about improving the environment. But, that won’t ever happen because this isn’t about “going green”. The only “green” part of the proposed pipelines is the dollar bills these corporations are hoping to rake in. The Legislature needs to act now to stop this corrupt pipeline.”

Don Johannsen, Cherokee County landowner:

“There are many good reasons to be against carbon pipelines, but perhaps the most noteworthy issue that applies to all proposed carbon capture projects is that carbon sequestration is a flawed concept and will not make any significant or measurable difference in global climate.

Summit has published a long term goal of sequestering 18 million metric tonnes of CO2 per year. This is a very large value but when compared to the global amount of CO2 produced per year of 34,825 million metric tonnes (2020 data) it represents only 0.052% of the global value. It is such a small contributor that it will be dwarfed and overwhelmed by other factors. It is like being on a 3,000 calorie per day diet and thinking that if you only eat 2998.4 calories per day you will lose weight. It’s just not significant.

The 18 million metric tonnes Summit proposes to sequester in a year is equal to only 4.5 hours of global CO2 production and only 13.5 hours of China’s production. Summit will be paid $85 per tonne to sequester the CO2 which would result in a yearly payment to Summit of $1.53 billion dollars per year. Would you pay $1.53 billion dollars for a 0.052% change or to offset only a few hours of global production?

Summit has been touting their pipeline as the largest sequestration project in the world – a rather lofty plan for a company that has never built a carbon capture pipeline, or any kind of pipeline, before now. And they propose to construct it in record time by laying eight miles of pipeline each day. Rushing unprecedented technology poses an unnecessary risk, even moreso when said technology is flawed and unsound.

The hard truth is that you cannot physically sequester enough CO2 to be significant and even if you could, you couldn’t afford to do it. There are much better ways to spend this money that would result in real change. The Summit carbon pipeline is an assault on logic and common sense, it is a waste of time and money. There is no reason the State should support such a boondoggle.”

Buddy, Sioux County landowner, anti-pipeline pup, and very good boy: