ADM Suspends CO2 Injections Following Second Leak
The company announced the temporary suspension in a statement to WCIA, explaining that they identified brine movement to different underground layers 5,000 feet deep.
ADM has halted carbon dioxide (CO2) injections at its Decatur carbon capture facility after discovering a second leak.
Inside Climate News is reporting that on Sept. 13, Decatur, Illinois, city councilperson David Horn found out a monitoring well at a carbon capture and storage site in his community was leaking. He did not find out through an internal council meeting, nor an emergency phone call from the city manager or an alert from environmental regulators. He found out like most other people did, through an article in E&E News.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) wells are a relatively new addition to the American carbon storage gamut. The well that leaked in Decatur was located at a plant owned by Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM), a massive grain processing corporation, where wells store carbon dioxide emissions from the ADM ethanol plant deep underground.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, these projects, known as Class VI wells, involve companies injecting CO2, in the form of a supercritical fluid, into bedrock for “long-term storage.”
In August, the EPA issued ADM a notice of violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act. They noted that ADM “failed to meet the requirements of the Permit and the [Underground Injection Control] regulations” due to the movement of “formation fluids into unauthorized zones,” a failure to follow their emergency plan and a failure to monitor the well.
On Sept. 27, ADM notified EPA that they would be temporarily pausing CO2 injections after discovering a potential brine fluid leak in their second monitoring well.
The company announced the temporary suspension in a statement to WCIA, explaining that they identified brine movement to different underground layers 5,000 feet deep.
This incident follows a previous leak that prompted the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to issue a proposed enforcement order accusing ADM of violating federal regulations.
In response to the latest leak, ADM informed the EPA of their decision to pause CO2 injections and outlined plans for further diagnostic testing over the next two weeks.
The EPA concurred with ADM’s decision and requested additional information about the leak and the company’s operational resumption plans.
The leaks have raised significant concerns among lawmakers and environmental groups about the safety of the Mahomet aquifer, a sole-source aquifer that would be irreplaceable if contaminated.
Critics, like Andrew Rehn of Prairie Rivers Network, have argued that the ADM incidents highlight the risks associated with carbon sequestration projects, particularly those located near vital water sources.
“If this happens at ADM, a company with years of CCS experience, what will happen when more projects are launched? The Mahomet Aquifer is simply too important to gamble with, and we need an immediate ban on carbon sequestration projects beneath it,” Rehn said.
Governor J.B. Pritzker echoed ADM’s decision to halt operations for investigation, emphasizing the importance of the state’s regulations governing carbon capture processes.
While ADM officials have assured that the latest leak poses no threat to surface or groundwater sources, the incidents raise questions about the long-term viability and safety of carbon capture technology.
“One of the biggest problems with [CCS wells] is that they are very hard to pull back from if we’re wrong,” said Carolyn Raffensperger, executive director of the Science & Environmental Health Network, a nonprofit advocacy organization. “If a Class VI well cannot contain the CO2 indefinitely, these are experiments that are not safe to fail. If they fail, the risk to future generations is substantial.”
The risk of high-volume CO2 exposure—seen when a CCS pipeline ruptured in Satartia, Mississippi, in 2020—is CO2 poisoning, which can lead to everything from temporary unconsciousness to, in some cases, death.
Furthermore, taxpayer subsidies and public private partnerships have greased government handouts more than ever. The Biden administration has doubled-down on funding for CCS projects through the Inflation Reduction Act to make inroads on his administration’s goal for a “net-zero emissions economy by 2050.”
This corporate carbon cocktail of has created new issues of transparency, corporatism, nepotism and an increasing amount of public-private corruption.
An ADM official noted in a statement to E&E News, the issue with their monitoring well has to do with corrosion. Ted Schettler, SEHN’s science director, explained that corrosion is a significant concern with Class VI wells.
“Over time, a steel pipe is going to corrode from the carbon dioxide, and the concrete casing is going to corrode as well,” he said. “Now you have a situation where you’ve got a wellbore carrying the carbon dioxide down deeply, but over time, that wellbore could corrode and provide a direct path back toward the surface and back up into drinking water aquifers.”
In a statement to Reuters, ADM maintained that it plugged the leaking well and that there was no threat to public health. The ramifications of CO2 entering drinking water are immense.
“If CO2 gets into water, it forms carbonic acid, and that would tend to cause leaching of heavy metals and radioactive materials out of the surrounding rocks, which could then get into drinking water that’s being used by a community,” Schettler said.
According to Decatur communications director Ryan Huffer, the city is required to test their water for heavy metals annually. In a statement to Inside Climate News, he wrote that “heavy metals have not been an issue for the City of Decatur.” If the city does detect heavy metals in the water supply, they must notify residents within 30 days of learning of the violation in accordance with Illinois EPA guidelines.
Across the country, CCS projects are being proposed in primarily agricultural communities to capture CO2 emitted from agribusiness plants.
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Thanks for the info on this situation and keep up the good work!