More Signs of the Times

Will Eminent Domain Energize the 4th District Race?

Another week, another sign of the times along the backroads of Iowa. This 4-foot-high campaign billboard is in Boone County. But another one can be found in western Iowa's Crawford County, where Republicans greatly outnumber Democrats. Why??

Iowans Want No Eminent Domain for Private Gain

The issue of eminent domain is re-opening a deep wound inflicted by the Iowa Utility Board's approval of the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016. And it's exposing the collective scab on the unhealed landscape. Paid for by Iowa Senate Democrats, this sign is a reminder to voters to hold incumbent lawmakers accountable for their culpability.

Senate Democratic candidate Ryan Melton is making this issue his own. Melton, an insurance manager from Nevada, is running in Iowa's 4th Congressional District against incumbent Randy Feenstra. The district includes northwestern and far southwestern Iowa, and extends to Fort Dodge, Ames, and Marshalltown.

Melton alleges that Republican leaders have sold out property owners to corporate donors, namely native son Bruce Rastetter, the founder of Summit Carbon. In a recent appearance on the Iowa PBS Iowa Press program, Melton said, "I've talked to so many Republicans, I've been in plenty of rooms full of Republicans on the campaign trail who are ready to make a protest vote." Feenstra declined the invitation to appear on the program.

It's a rematch of two years ago. Although Melton lost by a wide margin, these billboards in conservative counties are one sign he may be gaining some ground this time.

Iowa Public Radio reporter Sheila Brummer led with this observation in her recent story spotlighting the Iowans Want No Eminent Domain for Private Gain sign mounted on Highway 59, between Denison and Schleswig. Lance Kleckner, a Republican, is hosting a billboard promoting Melton. He and his mother, Sharen, operate Bigfoot Willow, a tree farm.

Lance told Brummer he plans to vote for Melton this time. Sharen isn't so sure. But she said, "You can't plant trees over the pipe."

Melton also has received unexpected support from the endorsement of Republican Kevin Virgil, who lost to Feenstra by an unexpectedly close margin in the June primary. Virgil, like many other conservative Republicans in northwestern Iowa, opposes the use of eminent domain for the carbon capture pipeline.

"Eminent domain is the issue that drives me and 440 other Iowa landowners with 859 unsigned parcels," says Bonnie Ewoldt, Milford, Iowa. "We're fighting for our constitutional right to protection from eminent domain." She says Summit doesn't meet Iowa's legal test of "public convenience or necessity".

Surprisingly, a group of 40 Iowa legislators agree. Calling themselves the Republican Legislative Intervenors for Justice, they filed a state and federal lawsuit last month against IUC. Rep. Charley Thomson, R-Charles City, the group's leader, says they'll also introduce new legislation to target the pipeline and the IUC. A few days following the legislators' lawsuit, a group of Iowa landowners, nine counties and the Sierra Club filed suit against the IUC.

But here’s my question: We're Iowans. Don't we all know the time to close the barn door is before the cows get out? Is it too late?

Raising the Ire of Iowans

It's not the first time this issue has reared its ugly head here. In 2015, the Dakota Access LLC Pipeline carrying Bakken shale oil from North Dakota across Iowa into Illinois, was shoved down the throats of Iowans. Owned by Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners, it's not a public utility, and provided few permanent jobs to Iowans. Yet the Iowa Utilities Board (IUB) allowed it to use eminent domain as a cudgel against landowners who resisted. The Iowa House scrambled to pass a bill to uphold property owners' rights. The Senate leadership, cowering beneath the Governor's velvet-gloved iron fist, declined to follow suit.

This protest has remained along Highway 30 between Ames and Boone since 2015.

The Dakota Access LLC Pipeline runs within a quarter mile of my home. If you drive east from here, you'll see the scar, where a swath of trees on the hilltop towering above the Des Moines River valley was cleared as workers trenched their way toward laying pipeline beneath the river.

Our good friend and neighbor, LaVerne Johnson, along with eight other Iowa landowners, appealed the IUB eminent domain decision to the Iowa Supreme Court in 2019, where they lost. This time around, LaVerne isn't here to fight the Summit Carbon Solutions, a privately-owned "clean energy" company with deep ties to the ethanol industry. He died from a massive heart attack six weeks prior to the Iowa Supreme Court's ruling.

In March, House legislators once again passed legislation to make it easier for farmers and landowners to challenge eminent domain earlier in the permit process. Once again, Gov. Reynolds gave her tacit approval to Senate leaders who failed to act. Former Gov. Branstad, a senior policy advisor to Summit, along with hefty campaign contributions, greased the skids. The IUB, which changed its name to the Iowa Utilities Commission this summer, granted Summit Carbon the powers of eminent domain on the condition of its approval by North and South Dakota regulators.

Carbon capture pipelines are driven by the 2022 climate law increasing tax credits to $85 from $50 per metric ton stored underground. The cost of carbon sequestration to ethanol producers is $16 to $41 per metric ton, making it an attractive venture. Many farmers who sell corn to nearby ethanol plants feel it's in their best interest to support the pipeline.

Stuck with Known Unknowns

Granted, Iowa already has about 41,410 miles of hazardous liquid and natural gas pipelines operated by public utilities. A Northern Natural Gas pipeline was laid beneath land back in the 1930s, long before my husband's family owned it. It was abandoned within the last decade, and most farmers and landowners in its path assumed the pipeline would remain beneath their fields in perpetuity.

However, the pipeline and the easements were sold to another company that contacted us last year. This company worked its way the length of the pipeline from Texas to Minnesota, digging up the steel pipe along the way, with the goal of re-purposing it for its residual value.

After a decade, this abandoned pipeline was dug out of nearby fields by a new owner of the original easement.

Recently Northern Natural Gas informed us that a different field was being surveyed for additional work on the pipeline beneath it next spring. It will be the second, consecutive year that the same field has been torn up, delaying planting, compacting soils, and reducing yields. Once a company acquires the right to lay a pipeline and gains a permanent easement, landowners have no control over what happens in the future.

Yes, there's some initial compensation for digging beneath the soil, and destroying the growing crop. But during this process, the field's pattern tiling can easily be cut, disrupting the entire drainage system. Soils don't recover overnight, and the scars will linger for some time.

Violation of Fifth Amendment

Earlier this week, the Iowa Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the constitutionality of Summit Carbon's preliminary survey of land owned by Kent Kasischke in Hardin County. Kasischke was sued by Summit Carbon in 2019 for refusing access to his land, and an Iowa District Court ruled in favor of Summit in 2023.

People line up at the Capitol to hear last week’s oral arguments befoe the Iowa Supreme Court on a Hardin County landowner’s refusal to allow Carbon Summit to survey his property prior to obtaining eminent domain rights.

It sounds all too familiar. LaVerne Johnson unsuccessfully challenged Iowa law in 2015 to prevent Dakota Access LLC Pipeline from surveying his farm.

This fall LaVerne's son is harvesting once again without his dad by his side. I asked him what his dad would think of a private company being awarded eminent domain for a second time in less than a decade.

"It was a Constitutional issue for him," he replied. "He wouldn't have felt it was right. As a landowner, I don't, either. If legislators are serious about wanting to change the eminent domain law, they should do it."

But will Iowa voters send this message at the voting booth in a few weeks? Will Melton's long-shot bid break through the partisan divide?

For Iowans like Kleckner, Ewoldt, Kasischke, and many others, the power of eminent domain isn't an abstract concept. It's a gut-wrenching reality, and they're on the front lines of Iowa's political power struggle over energy infrastructure

Site of the 2015 Dakota Access LLC Pipeline through the Des Moines River Valley near Pilot Mound.The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative