Our fight against Wolf’s pipeline left us with a gift

The withdrawal of Wolf Carbon’s application before the Iowa Utilities Commission is celebrated as a “win” for all those in our community who, like me, have opposed the build-out of CO 2 pipeline infrastructure across our state. It is not often — indeed, does any other example come to mind? — that a group of rural neighbors defeats the aims of a multinational, multibillion-dollar corporation. Hundreds of us landowners stood together in publicly refusing to sign Wolf’s easements. There was no contiguous path by means of which a pipeline could be forced through our blockade.

Yet this week’s victory comes after a long fight: three years — almost three years to the day (the first local meeting I organized against the pipelines took place on Dec. 4, 2021).

Why did Wolf pull the plug now?

In its filing with the IUC, they gave no explanation of the timing. But their withdrawal comes only weeks after news broke that, back in March of 2024, ADM’s carbon capture and sequestration facility in Decatur, Illinois — the ultimate destination of Wolf’s proposed pipeline — had leaked. Perhaps just as troubling as the leak itself, an EPA Administrative Order filed in mid-September of this year found that ADM had violated federal safe drinking water rules by failing to follow the provisions of their sequestration well permit. By the end of that month (and following yet another leak), ADM had halted their CCS operations altogether. The technology failed.

Until investigative journalists released an article in early September, the public knew nothing about the problems at the Decatur sequestration site. Yet we should not have been surprised by the news. ADM’s own ”Carbon Reduction Feasibility Study” of 2020 concluded that carbon capture and sequestration was their worst possible option for carbon reduction, “due to the technology and energy needed.”

Hindsight, as we know, offers a powerful critique. It seems, in retrospect, a shame that ADM did not uphold the findings of its own feasibility study, choosing instead to watch first Navigator and then Wolf move forward with their doomed proposals. Interestingly, it was back in 2020 — the same year as the “Carbon Reduction” report — that ADM’s monitoring well first began to malfunction, a malfunction that ultimately led to the leaks and then the order by the EPA.

Hindsight can leave us feeling frustrated, even demoralized.

It turns out that we landowners devoted the last three years of our lives to stopping a project that the executives who promoted it must have known was a false “solution.” They knew it from the first malfunctioning of the monitoring well in Decatur.

And so, even as we celebrate our joy at Wolf’s defeat, nevertheless, unspoken among us is the somewhat bitter realization that we paid a high price only to speak, speak, and speak again a truth that ought to have guided the actions of industry and political leadership all along. Three years of our lives. Some of my neighbors passed away during the course of those three years, never to know that, ultimately, we would prevail. It is impossible to assign a measure to such costs that our community endured. And Wolf will never be held accountable for this.

And yet … when I look back upon what we experienced during these past years (hindsight, again), I cannot help but have before my mind’s eye the memories of so many people whom I have come to cherish — listening to them, learning from them, and trying to find a common, community voice that would carry their concerns forward with all the dignity and generosity of spirit with which they were shared with me. There was, present in our endeavor, the quiet courage of neighbors — the steadfast, roll-up-your-sleeves willingness to complete the unglamorous work that fell upon our shoulders — the meetings, the letters, the yard signs, parades, videos and presentations and protests — the “cookies made with love,” the “cows against eminent domain” — the heartfelt speeches and occasional flourishes of feistiness — the shared wisdom, the vulnerability, and even the laughter and joy. All this.

It is impossible to describe to you, what this — now after three years — means to me.

It seems, after all, that Wolf’s project gave us a gift.

There are moments in life, I believe, that are like remarkable and clearly-mirrored waters — moments that display, for all to see, a true reflection of who we are in the world.

This pipeline fight has been one of those moments. And who are we? Who are we, in Iowa?

We are a people of fortitude, whose strength is to be found through a quiet but unfailingly generous love — love of land, love of community, love of faith — that surpasses the limits of each individual heart, leading us, uniting us, and making us free.

Jessica Wiskus lives in rural Lisbon.