The Illinois Senate just passed a bill to protect the Mahomet Aquifer from CO2 pollution!
We need your help to pass it in the Illinois House
The Mahomet Aquifer is Illinois' only sole source aquifer that provides fresh water to nearly one million people in Central Illinois. The aquifer is threatened by CO2 pollution from three planned carbon capture and storage projects, and we expect more will be proposed. The Aquifer's U.S. EPA's 2015 designation as sole source means that there is no economically-feasible alternative water supply, should the aquifer become contaminated.

We know leaks are inevitable. Archer Daniel Midland's Decatur sequestration project is the ONLY operating U.S EPA-approved storage project in the country, and it leaked TWICE.

On April 10, the Illinois Senate voted 55 to 0 to pass SB 1723, a bipartisan bill that would prevent injection of CO2 through and storage of it under this aquifer.

The original bill was negotiated and amended during the April senate proceedings. While it now excludes three external upstream areas illustrated on the Mahomet Aquifer's Project Review Area Map that help recharge (replenish groundwater) the aquifer, it bans sequestration activities in the designated sole-source aquifer. The amendment also creates a study of carbon sequestration in the Mahomet Aquifer and the three recharge areas now excluded from the bill.

This is an incredible victory for Central Illinois! Now we need to pass it in the House of Representatives.

Will you send a letter that asks your Illinois state representative to co-sponsor and support SB 1723?  It is likely to be heard in the House Environment and Conservation Committee on April 29.

While you may not depend on the Mahomet for your drinking water, more than 100 communities do, as well as Central Illinois hospitals, businesses, industries, and farmers who rely on the aquifer for irrigation. Please read, edit, and send the letter below.  But do it today!