Residents in Livingston, St. Helena continue pushback against carbon capture technology | News

Residents of several parishes continued their fight against carbon capture injection wells Thursday night, imposing two moratoriums intended to slow the technology's reach in their community. 

The Livingston Parish Council, which already passed a temporary, year-long moratorium on "Class VI" injection wells, which are used to store carbon, approved a similar pause for so-called "Class V wells" — wells used for injection of non-hazardous fluids. 

Although Class V wells have various purposes, the council opposes their specific use as test wells that explore geologic formations before CO2 is injected. That process — a data collection step for companies — takes place before the carbon capture well is permitted.

In nearby St. Helena, council members voted to pass a moratorium on carbon capture injection wells, just as Livingston Parish did in early September.

"I think it’s safer for our parish now to accept that we don’t know the damage it’ll do 5 years, 10 years from now, so I think the best thing is that it did pass,” St. Helena Parish acting police jury president Ryan Byrd said after the meeting.

He added that there aren’t any official carbon capture projects on the horizon in the parish, though rumors that companies were looking at St. Helena for future projects led them to pass the moratorium as a safety precaution.

Carbon capture and sequestration is the process by which an industrial plant traps its carbon dioxide emissions, then buries them deep underground in injection wells.

Two carbon capture projects are being considered for Livingston Parish.

Oxy Low Carbon Ventures, a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum, plans to build a carbon sequestration facility near the Holden area. Company officials have said they hope to have that facility online by 2025.

Air Products plans to build a blue hydrogen manufacturing plant near Ascension Parish's Burnside area that would extract methane from natural gas. The carbon dioxide produced in the process would be captured and put under pressure, turning it into a liquid. The liquid would be injected deep underground in wells across Livingston, St. James, St. John the Baptist and Tangipahoa parishes.

The state land in that project would include the Maurepas Swamp Wildlife Management Area and Lake Maurepas — a plan that has many Livingston and Tangipahoa parish residents in an uproar.

Kinion Bankston, a resident from the Albany area who has been a vocal opponent of carbon capture, implored the council to consider how the wells could negatively impact crabbers and fisherman on the lake who could lose their jobs, the property values of families in the area and the parish's tourism industry.

“Guys, this is not a great project for Lake Maurepas,” he said. “There’s nothing in it for Livingston Parish. We have everything to lose and nothing to gain from this project.”

Others echoed Bankston, expressing fears for their families and their safety, anxiety about the unknowns of the technology and worries that it will disrupt their way of life. 

“We as a community do not want our neighborhood turned into an industrial dump,” said Holden resident Duane Mitchell.

Permits for one Class V well have already been issued for the Holden facility, an Oxy representative said during the meeting. Two more are planned for Lake Maurepas, according a spokesperson for Air Products.

Andrew Connolly, who spoke for Air Products, reiteraed that carbon capture is safe and proven, and that his company "can do this safely and with continued transparency.”

“My commitment tonight for this project is to be open and transparent with you all,” he said. “We’ve been doing this in Louisiana since the mid 60s. We have 18 facilities up and down the river.”

Brian Landry, vice president of political affairs at the Louisiana Chemical Association, also spoke against the moratorium and said Louisiana could be a global leader in lowering emissions through the technology.

“We’re concerned any proposed delay, especially in Class V wells...will put a chilling effect,” he said.

Two council members, Garry "Frog" Talbert and Tracy Girlinghouse, voted against the moratorium. Talbert brought up a letter sent to the council by the parish attorney that suggested they could be sued for the language of the ordinance that seeks to regulate what happens on the bottom of Lake Maurepas, which is not under their jurisdiction. 

The moratorium covers wells that are specific to "geologic testing of rock formation, monitoring, drilling or injecting of CO2 for longterm storage." It also includes "detonation of charges for seismic testing, drilling or injecting of liquids into a Class V well."  

Under federal guidelines, CO2 cannot be injected into a Class V well unless it receives a Class VI permit.

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