The bitter fight to stop a 2,000-mile carbon pipeline

Three pipeline projects are in early stages of planning in Iowa. An alliance of farmers, Indigenous groups and environmentalists wants to stop them

In August 2021, Sherri Webb found a letter in her mailbox about a new pipeline project. It would be a climate solution, the letter from Summit Carbon Solutions read, capturing planet-warming carbon dioxide and pumping it out of the state to be stored deep underground.

The letter included an aerial map of Webb's property and a word that immediately alarmed her: easement". To install the pipeline, planned to run underneath close to 2,000 miles of Iowa land, Summit wanted permission to dig underneath her farm, an 80-acre property near Shelby that has been in Webb's family for over 100 years.