Carbon capture pipelines threaten Iowa’s water security

The water in our rivers, streams, lakes, and aquifers, Iowa law says, is “public water and public wealth of the people of the state.” Water is for all of us—it is our public wealth—because water is life.

And that life is in abundance in Iowa. We are a state whose history and economy has been defined by the plants, the animals, and the families who flourish here—all drawing upon the gift of waters we thought could never dry up.

But now Summit Carbon Solutions wants the “public wealth” of our waters. A report by landowners and the Iowa Sierra Club released June 6 found this one company’s project would increase water consumption across the state of Iowa by over 3 billion gallons per year.

The Iowa DNR already granted one of Summit’s permits—at Lawlor—without even knowing how much water is available in Iowa’s bedrock aquifers. That’s like distributing our public wealth—writing a check—without knowing how much balance is in the account! What we do know, from research conducted under the auspices of the Iowa Geological Survey, is that water levels in bedrock aquifers are declining (for example, in the Jordan Aquifer—precisely where Wolf Carbon, too, wants to build their capture equipment). And this water cannot easily be recharged; this water has been found to be between tens-of-thousands to a hundred-thousand-years old. To draw upon the waters of bedrock aquifers is to draw upon a resource formed at the very basement of time—we will never see the replenishment of such aquifers in our own era.

The Sierra Club’s report aligns with what independent academic researchers have been saying for years.

According to a peer-reviewed, scientific article in the journal, “Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews,” from March of 2021, “Large-scale deployment of carbon capture and storage could double the water footprint of humanity.” And, with relevance to Iowa’s proposed carbon pipelines for BECCS (Bioenergy with CCS), the authors tell us, “Bioenergy with CCS is the technology that has the highest water footprint per tonne CO2 captured.” CCS stands for Carbon Capture and Sequestration and Bioenergy refers, in our case, to ethanol.

Indeed, in an article from the previous year titled, “Can bioenergy carbon capture and storage aggravate global water crisis?” the authors conduct a systematic review of dozens of peer-reviewed, scientific articles that analyze the technology and its water requirements. They write, “It has already become a consensus that BECCS imperils available water.” They conclude that, “A conflict between increased BECCS application and water security is inevitable.”

That is why it is imperative that we investigate, locally, the water woes that the broader scientific community has warned us about as “inevitable.” Our waters belong to everyone in this state. Let us work together to protect them for the generations to come.

Jessica Wiskus lives in rural Lisbon and has been active in the effort to halt the construction of carbon capture and sequestration pipelines.