Meet the Iowans gearing up for fight over Summit carbon pipeline plan - Des Moines Register

Meet the Iowans gearing up for fight over Summit carbon pipeline plan

Meet the Iowans battling over carbon capture pipeline plans as permit hearing is set to begin
Donnelle Eller

Thousands of Iowans have flooded the Iowa Utilities Board with messages expressing their concerns and opinions about Summit Carbon Solutions' much-disputed proposal to build a $5.5 billion carbon capture pipeline across a 700-mile swath of Iowa.

On Tuesday, t he Ames company goes before the board to launch a months-long hearing on its request for a permit to build the Iowa portion of the hazardous liquid pipeline. It's also seeking eminent domain powers to force about 480 landowners to sell access to their property for the project, which would capture carbon dioxide emissions from ethanol and other agriculture plants across Iowa and four other states, liquefy it under pressure and transport it via the pipeline to North Dakota for sequestration deep underground.

Already, the initial pipeline proposal has been rejected in North Dakota, where it encountered landowner opposition, and the company is working on a revised plan to resubmit to regulators there. Iowa's consideration of the pipeline promises to be no less contentious. Here are some of the Iowans behind the battle.

More: Presidential candidate Doug Burgum defends eminent domain to build carbon capture pipelines

OPPONENT: 'It’s not right to take our property and give it to someone else'

Austin Hayek, 37, believes it’s fundamentally wrong for Iowa farmers and landowners to be forced to give a corporation access to their land.

Summit says it’s gained voluntary agreements with about 70% of the landowners along the 700-mile section of the pipeline through Iowa. But Hayek and his father, Allen, are among the 480 holdouts whose property Summit wants to gain access to through eminent domain.

“We don’t see the value. We don’t want it,” says Hayek, a manufacturing safety manager in Fort Dodge who farms with his father and lives on the family farmstead with his wife and five children. “It’s not right to take our property and give it to someone else.”

Last November, Hayek won a seat on the Webster County Board of Supervisors, running in part because of his concern about the proposed use of eminent domain by Summit and another pipeline company, Navigator CO2 Ventures. Webster County filed an objection to the pipeline with the Iowa Utilities Board before Hayek joined the supervisors.

More: Judge rules against rural Iowa county trying to restrict carbon capture pipeline location

“We should find an alternative to just putting the carbon in a hole,” he says, pointing to other companies that are combining ethanol plants’ carbon dioxide with green hydrogen to make methanol, a low-carbon fuel used to power large freight ships. “Eminent domain should be a last resort.”

He says he's also worried about his family’s safety. Carbon dioxide, an asphyxiant, is heavier than air. In a pipeline leak like one that occurred in Mississippi in 2020, the odorless, colorless gas sinks, displacing oxygen. Depending on concentration levels, exposure can cause everything from headaches and drowsiness to confusion and death.

The Hayek family farm also has natural gas lines running through it. "There's the potential for a lot of issues," Hayek says.

The two-year fight with Summit has been exhausting, he says. “My dad, it’s just wearing him out,” says Hayek, who along with his 67-year-old father denied Summit land agents access to survey the property.

Summit sued a neighbor for a similar refusal of access. Summit withdrew its complaint after gaining access to the neighbor's land.

The Hayeks also quit trying to stop Summit surveyors. It became too time-consuming.

“They shouldn’t have to go through this,” Hayek said of property owners having to hire lawyers to protect their land. “It takes a toll.”

OPPONENT: 'Every morning I’ll wake up, wondering if this is the day the pipeline ruptures'

A fen, among the rarest kinds of wetlands in Iowa, covers a portion of the Emmet County farm that Dennis Valen, 69, says his family has owned for five generations.

It shakes like Jell-O when he walks across it, Valen says.

An Iowa Department of Natural Resources report says fens are formed "under unique geological settings... fed by groundwater that slowly seeps out of the soil."

Valen worries that Summit’s proposed pipeline, running about a quarter mile from the fen, will disrupt the year-round groundwater that feeds it. “It’s pretty fragile,” says Valen, who also owns about 15 acres of an undisturbed native prairie.

Thomas Rosburg, a Drake University biology professor, says Valen is right to be concerned. A nearby pipeline “could interfere with that hydrology and cause harm to the fen,” he says in an email.

“Fens are one of the rarest habitats we have in Iowa,” Rosburg says. “Even on the native landscape they were rare, and now since many have been destroyed, they are even more rare. They support many unusual and rare plants.”

Valen says his family didn’t always understand what they had on their land. But about two decades ago, a Canadian soil scientist visited the fen during a trip to Iowa and “was like a kid in the candy store."

“He was amazed. We found out it was something special,” Valen says.

Many fens in Iowa have been “drained for row crops, heavily grazed or simply excavated into ponds," the Iowa DNR report says. “Only a handful of undisturbed, high-quality fens are known to remain in Iowa.”

Protecting the fen is just one of Valen's concerns. Like Hayek and others, he worries about the pipeline’s safety. If the project goes through, “Every morning I’ll wake up, wondering if this is the day the pipeline ruptures,” he says.

More: Iowa official asks Summit Carbon Solutions for more information about possible pipeline leaks, dangers

He’s also angry about what he sees as potential further encroachment on his property rights. Citing Summit’s restrictions on using the land for purposes beyond farming once the pipeline is built, Valen asks if he’ll need Summit’s permission if he wants to expand the deck on his house, or “what if I need to drill a new well?”

And Valen finds it ironic that Summit wants to build the pipeline to reduce ethanol’s impact on the environment, “but the company is fine destroying my farm to do it.”

Iowa farmers have complained that previous pipeline projects have left their soil compacted and damaged their drainage tile networks. Summit says it will restore farmland to its original productivity. But Valen says he has difficulty believing the corporation will follow through on its promises, especially several decades down the road.

Landowners are “getting big money now, but will it feel like big money in 20 years?” he asks.

SUPPORTER: 'We’ll have an opportunity to give farmers a higher price for corn that has a lower carbon intensity'

Chris Boshart, the 43-year-old CEO of Corn LP, an ethanol plant in north central Iowa, has looked hard at ways the operation can cut its carbon dioxide emissions.

He's investigated capturing it and sequestering it at the Goldfield plant but found Iowa’s geology isn’t well-suited for that use. And compressing the gas and sending it via rail to North Dakota for sequestration isn't feasible.

Boshart worked with two companies to explore combining the carbon dioxide with hydrogen to make green methanol to power large container ships. He found it would require 110 wind turbines to generate the renewable energy needed to power the process.

“That’s a big deal,” Boshart says. “It’s extremely capital intensive.”

The right answer for Corn LP, and a sister operation, Gold Eagle Cooperative, a grain and livestock feed business in Goldfield that Boshart also heads, is working with a carbon capture pipeline developer, he says.

Summit Carbon Solutions best fits the companies' needs.

Boshart says Corn LP needs to lower its carbon intensity to compete. “We've had some concern about the long-term viability of ethanol,” given federal policies and tax incentives to manufacture, buy and power electric vehicles, he says.

That concern intensified with car and truck manufacturers outlining long-term plans to stop producing internal combustion engines, Boshart says.

“That’s not good news for ethanol producers," he says. "We need a gasoline tank.”

At the same time, companies, states and nations around the globe say they want to reduce or eliminate their carbon footprint and want low-carbon fuel. Partnering with Summit will lower Corn LP’s carbon intensity by about 60%, Boshart says.

The fuel can become carbon neutral or negative with Gold Eagle’s 2,500 growers increasing conservation and other practices, lowering the carbon footprint of the corn that is the raw material for Corn LP's ethanol. “We’ll have an opportunity to give farmers a higher price for corn that has a lower carbon intensity,” Boshart says.

Getting there, though, starts with a carbon capture pipeline, he says. “The ethanol that we’re making today won’t have a customer 18 years from now that we can sell to above our cost of production.”

SUPPORTER: 'I don't know if I would be farming today if it weren't for the ethanol industry'

Kelly Nieuwenhuis, 64, says he and other Iowa farmers were largely dependent on federal subsidies before they started making ethanol, absorbing an oversupply of corn.

“We’re good at producing a lot of corn,” says Nieuwenhuis, who farms with two of his brothers in northwest Iowa. “When the ethanol industry got started, we actually had a market for what we produced.

“I don't know if I would be farming today if it weren't for the ethanol industry,” says the former Siouxland Energy Cooperative board member.

Now, about half of Iowa’s 2.5 billion-bushel corn crop is used to make ethanol. The state is the nation’s largest corn and ethanol producer.

Siouxland is one of about 30 ethanol plants across five states partnering with Summit Carbon Solutions on its pipeline. One of three carbon pipelines under development in Iowa, it promises “long-term viability” for the industry, giving future generations a better opportunity to be profitable, says Nieuwenhuis, who farms near Primghar.

“Carbon intensity scores are going to be critical, and that's why I'm supportive of the CO2 carbon capture and sequestration,” says Nieuwenhuis, who's agreed to allow about 3½ miles of Summit’s pipeline ― and a small piece of Navigator CO2 Ventures’ project ― to run through the family’s 2,300-acre farm.

Despite other farmers' concerns about Summit's ability to restore their soil after construction, Nieuwenhuis expects his yields will return to historic levels. That’s what he saw with Dakota Access’ crude oil pipeline crossing his land and underground electrical transmission lines that connect to wind turbines on his property.

More: Carbon pipelines could extend ethanol’s viability, but some Iowa farmers say they’re not worth the tradeoffs

An Iowa State University study showed that farmers lost up to 25% of their yields the first two years following the 2017 construction of the Dakota Access. And yields are still recovering, the study says.

Summit and other pipeline developers plan to compensate farmers for three years of lost yields.

“I recognize that everybody’s property is different, but looking at our yield maps, you can't see it. It's not obvious,” Nieuwenhuis says, adding that Summit won't need to dig as deep for its pipeline as Dakota Access did.

More: Some Iowa farmers who fought Dakota Access are in the path of world's largest carbon capture pipeline

The pipeline project isn’t Siouxland's first effort to cut its carbon emissions, he says. The cooperative has invested $40 million to $45 million over about a decade to slash its carbon footprint, including installing a combined heat and power system that captures and uses heat that would otherwise be wasted. The ethanol operation now sells electricity back to the grid.

Because of those measures, “We’ve been selling close to 100% of our fuel to California,” which pays a premium to producers that meet the state’s low-carbon fuel standard, Nieuwenhuis says.

Other states and countries are following suit. “It’s worldwide,” says Nieuwenhuis, chairman of the Iowa Corn Promotion Board. “Every place I've talked with about biofuels asks about carbon intensity. It's an important part of the energy industry moving forward.”

Northwest Iowa farmers like Nieuwenhuis will be able to help ethanol plants lower their carbon score with improved fertilizer use, cover crops and other management and conservation practices.

“Farmers will see a per-bushel premium” for low-carbon corn, he says. “It definitely will trickle down to the farmers.”

Donnelle Eller covers agriculture, the environment and energy for the Register. Reach her at deller@registermedia.com or 515-284-8457.