Tell your elected officials to support a Mahomet Aquifer CCS Ban!

In March of this year, during negotiations of SB1289, the SAFE CCS Act, Archer Daniels Midland's active sequestration project in Decatur leaked carbon dioxide from its containment area into an unauthorized zone above the cap rock. The U.S. EPA has issued a notice of violation to ADM for failing to comply with its permit. The EPA is also asking the company to confirm that CO2 no longer is leaking through its corroded, and now plugged, monitoring well.

The 2016 Peoples Gas leak near the Village of Mahomet demonstrates the difficulty of cleaning up leaks. After a methane leak occurred and contaminated the Mahomet Aquifer, impacted community members still rely on bottled water years later.

Leaks are inevitable, only a ban provides certain protection. That's why we, the undersigned, demand a ban on CO2 injection through and storage under the Mahomet Aquifer and its recharge areas to protect the Mahomet Aquifer from the dangers of carbon sequestration. The Mahomet Aquifer provides drinking water to nearly 1 million people in Central Illinois. More than 100 communities and rural homeowners in 15 counties rely on this water everyday. 

Large carbon sequestration projects like those being proposed in Central Illinois risk permanently changing the water. CO2 that leaks into the Mahomet Aquifer would form carbonic acid, changing the water chemistry. This could mobilize unknown contaminants that are present but currently non-reactive in the aquifer, including heavy metals like arsenic. These heavy metals risk acute and chronic toxicity, liver, kidney, and intestinal damage, anemia, and cancer.

The Mahomet Aquifer was designated a sole source aquifer by the EPA in 2015, which means that “contamination of the aquifer would create a significant hazard to public health and there are no physically available or economically feasible alternative sources of drinking water to serve the population that relies on the aquifer.”

The SAFE CCS Act allows sequestration of CO2 with the requirement that the developer/operator provides an alternate source of drinking water if the sequestration activity contaminates a drinking water source. The bill assumes that an alternate source exists and requires the companies to provide access to the alternate source. However, the sole-source designation means that there is no reasonably available alternative drinking water source for users of the Mahomet Aquifer. Therefore, no company would be able to provide an alternate source. 

Let's not wait until we have a contaminated aquifer to be surprised by this gap in the law. 

Please pass a ban on CO2 injection through and storage under the Mahomet Aquifer and its recharge areas to protect our water and health today!