Stop hazardous CO2 pipelines!
In January 2022, Eco-Justice Collaborative called together organizations from downstate Illinois to form the Coalition to Stop CO2 Pipelines. Over the past years, this Coalition has grown to include 14 groups and thousands of landowners affected by CO2 pipelines and sequestration in central Illinois. EJC coordinates the work of this coalition, helping set strategy that has led to significant wins. This has included:
- Educating the public and elected officials through presentations and webinars.
- Attending township and county board meetings, encouraging them to adopt resolutions and moratoriums and become an intervening group in the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) review and approval process.
- Forming landowner groups who pooled their resources to hire an attorney to represent them as intervenors before the ICC.
- Hosting weekly meetings to share and engage landowners in winning strategies that have led to a temporary halt on the approval of CO2 pipelines in Illinois.
Big wins for the Coalition!
In a stunning set of victories and a tribute to the power of everyday people working together, three dangerous CO2 pipelines proposed for Illinois have been stopped, at least for now:
October 2023 - Navigator CO2 Ventures, LLC formally abandoned its plans to construct a 1,342 mile CO2 pipeline carrying high pressure CO2 from five states for underground injection in Christian and Montgomery Counties.
November 2023 - Wolf Carbon Solutions, LLC notified the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) that it was temporarily withdrawing its application to construct a 300-mile pipeline through nine Illinois counties. That pipeline would carry high pressure CO2 destined for underground storage in Macon County.
June 2024 - One Earth Sequestration, LLC withdrew its application for approval of its 7.34-mile long pipeline in Ford and McLean Counties, in anticipation of the signing of the SAFE CCS Act, which includes a two-year moratorium on CO2 pipelines.
Legislation signed into law
The Illinois General Assembly passed the SAFE CCS Act, which regulates CO2 pipelines. EJC participated in negotiations which led to a bill that:
- Requires funding for training and emergency equipment.
- Mandates a risk assessment of routing based on the most accurate modeling available.
- Requires pre-application public meetings in each county along a CO2 pipeline route, substantially improving transparency and public input.
- Establishes a moratorium until the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration completes its rules to improve safety and oversight of CO2 pipelines.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineer - Ongoing
EJC is part of a national working group challenging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ expedited permitting of the projects, circumventing the requirement for a full environmental impact assessment of pipeline infrastructure and meaningful public engagement in the decision-making process.
More pipelines on their way?
There are plans to construct over 96,000 miles of CO2 pipeline throughout the Midwest. Some of these will carry CO2 from the process of making blue hydrogen, now planned for Illinois. The fight is far from over!
