HARTFORD, SD — For more than a decade, the Midwest has been the site of bitter conflict over plans for thousands of miles of pipelines meant to carry crude oil under cornfields and cattle ranches.
Now the high-dollar pipeline fights are happening again, but with a twist.
Instead of oil, these projects would transport millions of tons of carbon dioxide from ethanol plants to be injected into underground rock formations instead of being dispersed as pollutants into the air.
What's playing out is a very different kind of environmental battle, a huge test not just for farmers and landowners, but also for emerging technologies promoted as ways to safely store planet-warming carbon.
The technology has generated support from powerful politicians in both parties, as well as major farm organizations, ethanol producers and some environmental groups.
Supporters, including some farmers who have signed deals to bury a pipeline on their property, are framing the ideas proposed by two companies as a win for both the economy and the environment. They say the pipelines, boosted by federal tax credits, including the Inflation Reduction Act signed by President Biden last year, will reduce carbon emissions while helping the rural economy through continued ethanol production.
But opponents worry about property rights and safety and are unconvinced by the projects' claimed environmental benefits. They have forged unlikely alliances that have blurred the region's political lines, uniting conservative farmers with liberal urbanites, whites with Native Americans, small-government Republicans with climate-conscious Democrats.
The result, both sides agree, is a high-stakes economic and environmental fight pitting pipeline supporters against opponents who have honed their political and legal strategies over nearly 15 years of fighting the Dakota Access pipeline, which operates from in 2017 and The Keystone XL pipeline, which was never built.
There is no doubt that technology exists to remove carbon from industrial facilities and transport and store it underground. Less clear: Is carbon sequestration really an effective counterbalance to global warming? And, if so, at what cost?
“A very well thought out plan”
Orrin Geide, who raises corn, soybeans, cattle and bison near Hartford, SD, has fought a pipeline in the past.
Almost 10 years ago, Mr. Geide learned that his land was in the path of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which carries oil from North Dakota to Illinois. He appeared with his sister in local news articles and pleaded with state regulators to block construction. He said he agreed to let the pipeline cross his land only when construction was deemed unavoidable.
Now, Mr. Geide is along another pipeline route, this time for an unknown technology that he said feels even more dangerous than the oil flowing beneath his bison.
“If this goes through, I'm going to have to rethink what the future holds,” said Mr. Geide, whose farm is in the path of the roughly 2,000-mile pipeline proposed by Summit Carbon Solutions that would transport carbon dioxide to five states in underground storage in North Dakota. If built, proponents say, it would be the largest such pipeline in the world.
When Dakota Access and Keystone XL were proposed years ago, they brought together a politically mixed group of farmers, Native Americans and environmentalists who waged a two-front war against the pipelines through relentless court challenges and vigorous protests.
Despite the obvious differences from oil pipelines, proposals for new coal pipelines have mobilized some of the same activists and even some of the same acreage. While many landowners have signed easements for the coal pipelines — access to more than 63 percent of the land in the Summit route has been secured — others have balked.
This time, said Brian Jorde, an attorney who represented Keystone XL landowners and now represents many farmers in the coal routes, opponents have a playbook to guide them. Landowners tried to prevent pipeline companies from surveying their land, pressured county governments to enact moratoriums on coal pipelines, and signed up en masse to intervene in state permitting hearings.
“After an 11-year battle and all the twists and turns and hundreds of lawsuits” over Keystone XL, Mr. Jorde said, “we have a very well-laid plan.”
“For the greater good”
In a world already being reshaped by climate change, the promise of carbon sequestration is enticing. The reality is complicated.
The idea behind the Summit Pipeline is to take carbon dioxide from ethanol plants, where it's a byproduct of corn being turned into fuel, and transport it for underground storage. A similar project proposed by Navigator CO2 Ventures would keep some of its coal above ground for commercial use and store the rest underground in Illinois.
“It's not just about the landowner who owns the land today, it's very much about a generational transition,” said Lee Blank, Summit's chief executive. He said he argued to farmers that carbon sequestration had the potential “to be as important to the agricultural market as the ethanol space itself.”
The technology, if not the actual pipeline projects, has received support from several Republicans at the state level, along with votes of confidence in Washington, where both the Trump and Biden administrations have made pipeline construction more lucrative.
“It's just for the better of our climate,” said Ron Alverson, a retired South Dakota farmer who is on the board of Dakota Ethanol, which plans to use one of the pipelines to capture carbon from facilities, and the board of directors of the American Ethanol Coalition.
The projects, if built, would be a major expansion of the country's existing network of more than 5,300 miles of coal pipelines. Some along the routes question whether the technology is fully proven and safe, citing the explosion of a coal pipeline in Mississippi in 2020 that led to the hospitalization of 45 people and a federal review of safety standards.
“If one of these breaks, there's nothing I can do but turn around and run and hope to hell I don't die,” said Donald Johnson, chief of the volunteer fire department in Valley Springs, a small town about length of South Dakota. border with Minnesota, near where the Navigator pipeline would run.
There is a growing sense among landowners that leaders “of both our parties are hurting us with this deal and looking the other way,” said Chase Jensen, an organizer and lobbyist for Dakota Rural Action, an agriculture and conservation group. who opposed Keystone. XL and is against carbon pipes. Some landowners who supported oil pipelines, he said, are reconsidering those views in light of the coal projects.
“No matter what's in the works, they're suddenly confronted with the principle of it: that no one should be forced to accept a project if they don't want it, if it's not a public service,” Mr Jensen said.
The climate argument is a particularly hard sell among landowners. Some farmers interviewed for this article said they didn't believe the science behind climate change, while others acknowledged global warming but questioned whether coal pipelines would really make much of a difference.
“He's an absolute rediculous,” said Betty Strom, who owns farmland along Summit Drive in Lake County, SD.
Ms Strom, whose husband was a science teacher, said she was worried about the climate and believed “we are going to lose our planet” without urgent action. But he didn't think coal pipelines were part of the cure.
Environmental groups are also at odds, varying widely on whether coal pipelines could be part of a solution.
Some groups, including National Wildlife Federation, are at least somewhat supportive of the technology, calling for carbon sequestration as part of an “all of the above” approach to reducing emissions. Others, including Food and water watch and Sierra Clubthey dismiss the projects as blatant “greenwashing” that could lead to profits for energy companies that contribute to global warming without addressing the root causes of climate change.
“Why are they allowed in?”
Karla Lems is a rural landowner, a conservative Republican, and a newly elected member of the South Dakota House of Representatives. It is also a strong opponent of coal pipelines.
Ms. Lems, who owns land along the Navigator and Summit routes, said she doesn't see the merits of the projects and doesn't appreciate “private companies coming in and saying, 'Well, you know, if we get the permit,' you ask, we'll come through here whether you like it or not.”
It was this issue of property rights that resonated with opponents, including across political lines. Even some supporters of the projects said they share those concerns.
Although both Navigator and Summit have said they want to reach deals with landowners, providing cash and legal guarantees in exchange for the right to bury and maintain their pipelines, the companies have also made it clear they would be willing to use eminent domain if the state allows it were granted and the negotiations reached an impasse.
In a region dependent on agriculture, where farmers' ties to their land often span generations, the right to decide what goes into a field and what doesn't is sacrosanct.
However, farmers are not unanimous. Dozens of them have already signed jobs and some are actively cheering for the projects.
“We're moving all of our corn to ethanol plants and we need that market, so we want to secure it for the long term,” said Kelly Nieuwenhuis, a northwest Iowa farmer who signed deals with Summit and Navigator and who is also a director in an ethanol plant. While he said he understood the property rights arguments, Mr Nieuwenhuis said he was confident “they will get this project done right — the safety equipment will be there”.
As negotiations continue with individual landowners, discussions about the fate of the pipelines are shifting to state legislatures and permitting boards.
Bills that would make it more difficult to permit or build pipelines have been introduced this year in Iowa, South Dakota and North Dakota, all Republican-controlled states. One such bill is sponsored by Ms. Lems passed the South Dakota House but failed to advance in the Senate.
As with the oil pipelines, both sides have already shown they are willing to go to court to make their case.
“It's kind of David vs. Goliath, I feel like,” Ms. Lemmes said. “Because they have the money. They have the support. And it might be because we move it through the court system and see what the court would do with it.”
