Temporary shutdown of proposed CO2 pipeline through Illinois | Granite City News

A proposed CO2 pipeline through parts of Illinois is on hold.

Texas-based pipeline company Navigator has withdrawn its application for a certificate of approval to build a pipeline to transport liquid carbon dioxide through 13 counties in Illinois.

Pam Richart, co-founder of the Coalition to Stop CO2 Pipelines, said Navigator was unable to persuade landowners in Christian and Montgomery counties that a large CO2 deposit could be safely stored. under their farms and lands.

“Eighty percent of Christian County landowners who are in the sequestration area have refused to sign leases,” Richart told The Center Square.

Opponents are working closely with Montgomery County to help people there understand the implications and potential risks of injecting and storing large amounts of CO2 in neighboring Montgomery County, Richart said.

The pipeline project’s goal is to transport CO2 from 32 different sites 1,300 miles to central Illinois, where the Cambrian Mount Simon Sandstone Formation overlies the Precambrian granite basement of the Illinois Basin. . Geologists believe the concentrated CO2 can be safely injected below the Mount Simon formation into a saline reservoir where it will take 100 years to calcify. If CO2 is stored deep under cap rock in central Illinois, geologists argue it will stay there. But there are no guarantees, said Richart.

“We’re concerned that they can’t guarantee that the CO2 will stay put and not move,” Richart said.

People fear that the CO2 will escape through the well itself. There could be fractures in the cap rock that are not mapped that will allow CO2 to escape.

“The cap rock can be damaged during the high-pressure CO2 injection process,” Richart said.

The CO2 leak has the potential to contaminate local drinking water, Richart said.

“When CO2 mixes with water, it creates carbonic acid. This releases heavy metals and subsoil toxins that can ruin local water,” she said.

If the leaking CO2 rises to the surface and changes CO2 levels in the soil, crop yields could be affected, Richart said.

“The roots of the plants wouldn’t be as strong or as deep or as dense,” she said.

In Oklahoma and Texas, injecting sewage into the ground caused earthquakes, Richart said. Earthquakes would release the CO2 they want to sequester, defeating the purpose of the effort.

“They say it won’t happen here, but why should we believe them,” Richard said. “It’s happening in places where they’re injecting less volumes of fluid at lower pressures than they intend to use here.”

And there’s the matter of neighbors’ rights, Richart said. A neighbor may accept CO2 being injected into their land, but the neighbor a mile or two away may not want to take the risk.

“The CO2 will move,” Richart said. “The neighbor will end up with CO2 under his property.”

Navigator said it intends to file a new pipeline application with the Illinois Commerce Commission this month that will specify the route the pipeline will take. Opponents are eager to see the proposed route, Richart said.

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