Farmers Fight Dangerous Carbon Capture Pipeline in Rural Midwest

This story was originally published by The New Lede.

Kathy Stockdale and her husband have worked the land in central Iowa for nearly 50 years. As a family farmer growing corn and soybeans, Stockdale knows how to deal with bad weather, poor crop prices and a host of other challenges that come with making a living in agriculture.

But the company she’s run her entire life now faces a threat Stockdale has never encountered before: Developers plan to dig a pipeline through her property that will carry dangerous carbon dioxide from ethanol plants, and there’s little she can do to stop them.

The pipeline would run just 700 feet from Stockdale’s front door, creating a barrier between the home she shares with her husband and the nearby home where her son lives. The farm’s soil and wetlands would be permanently altered by the pipeline breach, and if the pipeline were to rupture, the damage could be catastrophic, Stockdale fears.

“It takes up your mind. You don’t sleep. Ask the landowners who are fighting this, it’s been tough, it’s been stressful,” she said.

Multi-State Opposition

The Stockdales are among dozens of farming families in Iowa and four other Midwestern states fighting to stop the pipeline, which was pitched three years ago by Summit Carbon Solutions (SCS) as the “world’s largest carbon capture and storage project.” SCS had originally planned to begin operating the 2,500-mile pipeline network, dubbed the Midwest Carbon Express, this year. Opposition in the rural Midwest has delayed the project, but approval by Iowa regulators late last month has given the venture new life.

SCS says the pipeline project could eliminate 10 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, roughly equivalent to taking two million cars off the road each year. In addition to Iowa, the proposed route would pass through South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota and North Dakota, transporting carbon dioxide generated at more than 50 ethanol plants. The captured carbon dioxide would be “permanently and safely stored deep underground” at a site in North Dakota, SCS said.

The $5.5 billion project is “the most impactful development for the Midwest biofuels industry and agriculture in decades,” according to a press release from Bruce Rastetter, CEO of SCS parent company Summit Agricultural Solutions.

Financing for the project is being provided by agricultural machinery manufacturer John Deere, ethanol plants and other private investors. Generous federal tax breaks and subsidies have spurred growth in corn ethanol production and business interest in the pipelines.

Along with Iowa’s green light, a measure that could speed approval of the pipeline in South Dakota will go on the ballot in the Nov. 5 general election. In North Dakota, where Gov. Doug Burgum has announced his support for the project, he and two other members of a state commission will vote on the project this fall. Minnesota officials continue to analyze the proposed project and seek public input, while Nebraska officials also continue to wrestle with the company’s plan amid opposition.

Opponents say they are unconvinced by SCS’s promises and the strong political and industry support attached to the project, as they fight to quash or block state approvals. They also want to shine a spotlight on what they see as a fundamental problem with U.S. policy that promotes the expansion of the ethanol industry as an environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels.

Mounting evidence suggests that ethanol expansion could indeed be a success. worse to the environment than gasoline, in part because the industry relies heavily on corn production, a crop that depletes the environment, critics say. The pipelines themselves pose their own risks to the environment and public safety, they say. Even small holes can slowly release colorless, odorless CO2 into the environment.

Four years ago, a ruptured CO2 pipeline in Mississippi left 45 people hospitalized and 200 people evacuated. Four years later, residents are still suffering from health issues.

“(Pipelines) are essentially the life support for the ethanol industry,” said John Gilbert, an Iowa farmer who grows corn, soybeans, oats and hogs on 800 acres in the central part of the state. “Ethanol should never have been portrayed as a more environmentally friendly fuel. By subsidizing ethanol, you may get more ethanol, but it comes at the expense of better agricultural practices.”

A red herring”

The fight is particularly fierce in Iowa, the largest U.S. corn-producing state. An estimated 62 percent of the state’s corn production goes to make ethanol, up from 2010 when the amount of Iowa corn used for ethanol hovered around 10 percent. The state’s corn production now accounts for nearly 30 percent of all U.S. ethanol, according to an Iowa corn growers’ association.

The growth in corn use for ethanol has been driven largely by an update to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) in the 2007 energy law, which mandated an increase in ethanol, said Silvia Secchi, a professor of geographic and sustainability sciences at the University of Iowa. This demand for ethanol also increased corn production — by more than 8 percent, researchers said.

In addition to ethanol, corn is used in animal feed and in countless products sold on grocery store shelves. But regardless of how the crop is ultimately used, growing corn is an environmentally intensive practice. Corn typically requires a lot of water and fertilizer, and growing the same fields year after year can damage soil and plant health and disrupt biodiversity. Runoff from chemicals and other pollutants from corn fields is a major factor in polluting waterways in the Midwest and waters flowing into the Gulf.

In 2022, researchers at the University of Minnesota found that land-use changes implemented in response to government calls for more ethanol use led to increased annual fertilizer use across the country and more water quality problems.

CO2 pipelines require large amounts of water to cool the carbon and keep it in liquid form. The SCS is expected to draw 90 percent of the water needed for the pipeline from Iowa’s already overstressed aquifers.

“We’re essentially creating a huge infrastructure across the region without really understanding the impact,” Secchi said. “You can tell the story that corn ethanol is better for the climate, but there’s no way that corn ethanol is better for our water quality and our water quantity. This focus on carbon is kind of a red herring in a way.”

The big picture”

Critics suspect that political support for the project depends mainly on money. Rastetter has donated more than $2 million to candidates for public office in Iowa and other states. In 2010, he donated $162,172 to Terry Branstad’s re-election campaign for governor. Rastetter was then CEO of Hawkeye Energy Holdings, one of the nation’s largest ethanol companies. Rastetter also ran a trade group that supported the use of ethanol as fuel and pushed for tariffs on international ethanol imports. A few months after Branstad was elected governor, he introduced liberal tax credit policies for retailers who sold ethanol.

In 1990, Rastetter founded Summit Agricultural Group on his corn and soybean farm in Hardin County, Iowa. Since then, the umbrella group has expanded into a number of profitable agribusiness entities, and has enjoyed the support of powerful agribusiness players and political heavyweights. Jess Vilsack, son of U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, is SCS’s general counsel, and former Iowa Gov. Branstad serves as a senior policy advisor.