Bill that would ban carbon capture under Central Illinois aquifer receives first legislative hearing

SPRINGFIELD — A bill that would ban carbon sequestration activity within the footprint of the Mahomet Aquifer received its first legislative hearing on Wednesday but failed to advance as state lawmakers seek more input on an issue some view as existential.

"I think it's most important that we get this right," said Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, adding that he viewed the hour-long Senate Executive Committee hearing as "the beginning of a very critical conversation."

The legislation, filed earlier this fall by state Sen. Paul Faraci, D-Champaign, comes as lawmakers grapple with how to ensure the aquifer, the sole water source for more than 800,000 people across much of east-central Illinois, is protected while a nascent carbon capture and sequestration industry, eyeing Illinois due to favorable geology, gets off the ground.

Lawmakers passed and Gov. JB Pritzker signed legislation earlier this year that built upon, and filled gaps in, existing federal regulations to carbon capture and sequestration. This included key protections such as a two-year moratorium on pipeline construction, extra permitting requirements and safety provisions.

But left unaddressed was whether protections would be enacted to prevent carbon injections thousands of feet underneath sole source aquifers.

The designation is significant as it indicates an aquifer that supplies at least 50% of the drinking water for the region and that there is no reasonable alternative source should it become contaminated.

The Mahomet Aquifer is the only EPA-designated sole source aquifer in Illinois.

"The push for carbon capture and storage is an essential part of our broader strategy to combat climate change and move forward a sustainable future," Faraci said. "However, we must balance innovation and progress with vigilant protection of our natural resources."

Concerns grew a few months ago when Archer Daniels Midland Co. was cited by the U.S. EPA in August for injection activity not allowed under its federal carbon sequestration permit and for violating the Safe Drinking Water Act.

The agribusiness giant, which has been injecting carbon underneath its Decatur facility for more than a decade, discovered in March that injected carbon seeped from a corroded monitoring well pipe into the ground about 5,000 feet below the surface. Though thousands of feet below any drinking water sources, it was 500 feet above were ADM is permitted to inject carbon.

ADM later paused carbon injections at its Decatur site after tests revealed a seepage of fluids from a second monitoring well. That pause is still in effect.

The company holds the only permit to inject carbon in the entire state. And it is not within the footprint of the Mahomet Aquifer.

However, there are applications for 22 carbon injection well applications in Illinois that are in the pipeline, according to the U.S. EPA. And some of those are within the aquifer's footprint and could be approved as early as 2025.

Experts on carbon capture and sequestration who testified on Wednesday said that the risk of a carbon well leak impacting water wells, which are hundreds of feet deep compared to the thousands of feet for carbon storage sites, is "very, very low."

"To date, PRI has found no evidence of negative impacts of carbon storage to the groundwater supply," said Marc Miller, deputy director of the Prairie Research Institute and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

This, however, did not cut with lawmakers representing areas within the aquifer nor with environmental advocates and many residents within the footprint, who say that a very low risk is too much risk.

"The point here is we shouldn't have any risk," said state Sen. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet. "There's like no acceptable risk because this is the sole source."

Faraci said that the status of the aquifer as it relates to carbon sequestration is "probably the number one issue" he hears about from his constituents.

The bill is supported by environmental groups like the Illinois Environmental Council and Sierra Club. The Town of Normal and McLean County, through their contract lobbyists, also slipped in support. The Illinois Farm Bureau is neutral.

It is opposed by business groups, such as the Illinois Manufacturers Association and the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, as well as the Illinois Soybean Growers Association and the powerful Local 150 Operating Engineers union.

Donovan Griffith, the IMA's vice president of governmental affairs, encouraged lawmakers to "slow things down," noting that the carbon capture legislation that was approved earlier this year was the product of years of conversations and months of painstaking negotiations between a wide range of interest groups.

"There's no need to pass this today," Griffith said. "As has been described, there's no carbon sequestration happening under the Mahomet Aquifer; none is going to be happening tomorrow. I think we have some time to, again, do that due diligence, have those conversations."

Faraci said he plans to start those conversations this week.

"This is not an overnight kind of fix, and there are a lot of parties that are concerned and interested in getting this done right," Faraci said.

How the US government is incentivizing greener manufacturing