Air Products to drill injection well in Lake Maurepas

Crew members from Air Products wait for the detonation on Lake Maurepas from test the company hosted to demonstrate to locals on Monday, December 5, 2022 in Akers, Louisiana.

Drilling will begin this month in Lake Maurepas to conduct geological tests for the site where millions of tons of carbon produced by a proposed hydrogen manufacturing complex would be stored deep underground.

Meanwhile, local residents and government leaders continue to protest the project, fearing it could damage the environment and harm local residents' livelihoods.

Air Products, a global gas company, plans to open the complex in Ascension Parish in 2026 and send its carbon emissions down a 37-mile pipeline to Lake Maurepas, where waste will be injected into the earth about a mile below the lake’s bottom rather than emitted into the atmosphere.

Company leaders say the project will sequester about 95% of its carbon emissions below the ground, totaling over five million tons per year, and will be the largest carbon capture operation in the world.

In order to obtain the necessary permits from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to build carbon injection wells in the lake, Air Products must first conduct geological testing — including drilling non-carbon injection wells and performing seismic tests — to ensure the ground can handle carbon injections.

The company completed seismic testing in July, and a temporary rig was deployed on the Southern side of Lake Maurepas over the weekend. Drilling will begin in mid-August, and is expected to be completed by the end of October if weather permits, the company said.

A second injection well on the Northern side of Lake Maurepas is pending permit approval from the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources.

“Safety is at the heart of everything we do at Air Products, and this next phase of pore space assessment is critical to ensuring it’s suitable before any CO2 is permanently stored,” Andrew Connolly, Air Products’ vice president and general manager of low-carbon hydrogen projects, said in a statement.

The company will surround the rig with an orange buoy line to protect boaters, located 500 feet from the rig itself, along with signage around the lake about the project. Air Products officials also post regular project updates on the company website and social media.

However, local officials and residents haven’t stopped protesting the project since they began showing in droves last year at parish council meetings and state permit hearings to ask Air Products to leave the lake alone.

On Wednesday, a group of Louisianans from Livingston, Tangipahoa and other surrounding parishes trekked to downtown Baton Rouge to speak against the construction of the second injection well at a permit hearing for the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources.

It’s the second hearing of its kind that residents from the area drove to to protest the project, the first hearing taking place last December for the Southern injection well’s permit.

Much of the sentiment expressed at Wednesday’s meeting echoed what was said back in December: That the project has moved too fast, lacked transparency and hasn’t taken into account the potential risks to natural wildlife and recreational boaters in the area.

“What’s very frustrating is that we are citizens trying to fight for our lake, and you feel like it’s on deaf ears,” said Laurie Sagnibene, a Baton Rouge resident with a home on the Tickfaw River. “We don’t have 25 lobbyist groups that are being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight on your behalf. We have us, and us should be enough.”

A spokesperson for Air Products said that, after the seismic study, an independent environmental monitor surveyed the lake’s wildlife and found a fish mortality rate of .229 ounces per acre — a very small amount, according to the company. Air Products is working with the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries for a plan on how to restock the lake, as required by law.

Air Products has made other attempts to alleviate local concerns since the project’s announcement, including informational meetings and a seismic test demonstration, though the efforts have failed to assuage frustrations.

“We need to save this natural resource,” said Tangipahoa Parish Councilwoman Kim Coates at Wednesday’s hearing. “It provides businesses, it provides part of the economy already, and we cannot lose that.”

In addition to speaking out against Air Products, Livingston Parish attempted to thwart the project with a moratorium on non-carbon Class V injection wells passed last year, which would have halted the injection well slated for the lake’s north side. Air Products sued the parish the following month, and the parish government eventually dropped the moratorium.

Carbon capture has become a hotly debated topic in Louisiana's political sphere. Environmental advocates and concerned locals detest the technology, saying it's a dangerous means of perpetuating Louisiana’s dependence on fossil fuels, but Gov. John Bel Edwards and pro-industry leaders alike continue to consider carbon capture a necessity to meet net-zero carbon emissions goals.

Air Products’ project in particular splintered the Republican Party during this year’s legislative session, as Republican legislators from the area fought against carbon capture while the remainder of the party aligned themselves with industry interests.

Several bills by Republican legislators seeking to restrict carbon capture laws or protect Lake Maurepas were shot down during this year’s legislative session.

“In no one’s wildest dream did we think that the state would purchase the land, industrialize it to the extent that we’re now seeing and put in jeopardy the things we have come to love and enjoy as we’ve grown up around this particular area,” said Rep. Bill Wheat, R-Ponchatoula, at Wednesday’s DNR hearing.

Wheat proposed a moratorium on all carbon capture projects in Lake Maurepas during the most recent session, which failed on the House floor by a 75-26 vote.

Email Lara Nicholson at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @LaraNicholson_.