Des Moines, Iowa — A coalition of environmentalists and land owners is seeking a meeting with Governor Kim Reynolds, hoping she’ll intervene and block the Iowa Utilities Board from granting eminent domain so carbon pipeline developers can acquire land from reluctant property owners.
Judy Sebern Beachy and her sister inherited a farm in Floyd County that’s been owned by her family for four generations. One of the three pipelines would either run through the farm or be next to it.
Emma Schmit, an Iowa based organizer for Food and Water Watch, says the pipelines are a carbon con job, being proposed to ensure the oil and gas industry lasts longer.
Schmit was among a small group that rallied at the statehouse Thursday afternoon after a bill that would have prohibited the use of eminent domain for pipelines was tabled in a senate committee. Bruce Rastetter owns Summit Carbon Solutions, one of the companies seeking landowner easements for a carbon pipeline. He says the project will be transformational for the ethanol industry and, by extension, the agriculture industry and hundreds of farmers have already signed voluntary easements to have the pipeline run through their property.
