Before turning on the spigot to pipe carbon dioxide to Illinois, safety concerns must be thoroughly addressed.
Two pipeline companies are seeking approval from the Illinois Commerce Commission to transport carbon dioxide generated by burning fossil fuels or producing biofuels to underground storage in Illinois.
Stakeholders, including environmentalists, unions and industry, have been meeting in hopes of coming up with a bill they can agree on for a vote in the Legislature’s fall veto session to regulate such pipelines. The next discussion is expected to take place on Monday.
But as this editorial board wrote in May, Illinois should put strong safeguards in place to protect residents, landowners, taxpayers, drinking water and the climate before allowing the pipelines to proceed.
A geologic formation called the Illinois Basin has attracted the attention of companies that would like to capture carbon dioxide and pipe it to Illinois, where it could be sequestered underground instead of being released into the atmosphere, where it would contribute to climate change.
Navigator CO2’s Heartland Greenway pipeline would bring carbon dioxide from four other states to Illinois. Wolf Carbon Solutions’ pipeline would cross Iowa into northwestern Illinois. Besides getting ICC approval, the pipeline companies would have to get U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approval each time a pipeline would cross a federal waterway, such as a river or wetland.
Navigator has reportedly been able to secure only 13% of the right of way it needs for the pipeline, and opponents fear the pipeline company would turn to eminent domain to secure control of the rest.
Sen. Steve McClure (R-Springfield) is calling for a moratorium until the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration updates federal safety standards for transporting carbon dioxide. Right now, there are no federal standards on how close carbon dioxide pipelines can be placed to a home, school or hospital, or whether a substance people can smell must be added to the gas to alert them of danger. Carbon dioxide is an asphyxiant that can harm or kill people, livestock and wildlife. In 2020, 46 people were hospitalized when a pipeline carrying carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide ruptured near a small Mississippi village.
Sequestering and transporting carbon dioxide could be a tool to help fight climate change, but only if it is done safely and doesn’t encourage the burning of fossil fuels.
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