SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — The Sangamon County Farm Bureau will be at the table for a July 17 public forum involving stakeholders, landowners, environmentalists and Texas-based Navigator Co2 Ventures, the company behind a proposed carbon sequestration pipeline that would bisect the county. 

According to a June progress report from Navigator, the company had secured just 13.4 percent of the necessary easements it needs across its 291-mile route, known as the Heartland Greenway. A pipeline map released by Navigator includes a proposed lateral from Sangamon County south and through Montgomery County, crisscrossing farm fields and rural properties. Rural landowners in these areas have been largely unreceptive to allowing the company to purchase an easement to their property, and are worried about potential eminent domain land grabs allowed by the Illinois Commerce Commission.

This is according to Pam Richart, co-chair of the grassroots Coalition to Stop Co2 Pipelines and Citizens Against Heartland Greenway. Richart has been coordinating with stakeholders along the proposed pipeline route through weekly Zoom meetings and emails. 

“The meeting will be attended by a lot of rural landowners who have been receiving letters from Navigator about their proposed project. They’ve been receiving letters from us as well, so we expect the meeting to generate a lot of interest,” she said. 

Richart expects to hear from representatives of Navigator, local government officials, farmers, the legal community and others at the forum, which will commence at 5pm on Monday, July 17 at the Bank of Springfield Center (lower level) in Springfield, Illinois. She’s especially looking forward to hearing the comments of farm bureau members and rural landowners, some of whom have been rallying their county farm bureaus to speak up in opposition of the project.

“County farm bureaus are beginning to speak out in opposition of the pipeline, and we’re hoping to have more of those local voices come out and speak to their concerns that relate to impacts on farmland,” said Richart. “This is a pipeline that doesn’t carry a source of energy but rather a waste product, so they don’t believe this is a project that should be going forward. They’re concerned about the severing of field tiles and the impacting of soils. They’re mostly concerned about eminent domain and the fact that the Illinois Farm Bureau has rather walked back its position on eminent domain as it relates to this particular pipeline project.”

Richart worries that a county-by-county patchwork of eminent domain property seizure could occur if the ICC doesn’t shut down the pipeline plans, resulting in years of costly litigation and uncertainty for property owners. She’s calling on the Illinois Farm Bureau to come out against the proposed project.

“The farm bureau, in our view, should be taking a hard look at the landscape and the opposition that is there, which they perhaps didn’t expect,” she said. “(Navigator) is a private company whose primary interest has been in oil, but has converted to Co2 pipelines without any experience to capitalize on tax credits. They’re rushing this project through before the federal government can finish its rulemaking on safety and oversight, which they are doing because the government realizes (the Co2 emission capture industry is) under-regulated. The local farmers are saying they don’t want it.” 

Leaders of the Coalition to Stop Co2 Pipelines are currently urging those who are considering offering easements or entering into contracts with Navigator or Wolf Carbon Solutions (another Co2 pipeline company that is proposing a route through Illinois) to ask for an agricultural impact mitigation agreement (AIMA) in writing.  A copy of the executed AIMA between the Illinois Department of Agriculture and the pipeline developer should be provided to landowners to assist them in their negotiations on their individual easement agreements. Richart is urging landowners to ensure there is an opt-out clause within the structure of the AIMA. 

“The AIMA should give landowners the assurance that the kinds of things they care about with respect to restoration will take place. It’s constructed in accordance with best practices, so I would expect the AIMA to address issues such as impacts to drainage in fields and the way you separate soils so they are not being mixed on-site. 

“It might exclude companies from working in your field in wet weather. If there is a problem, then the landowner would be able to turn to that AIMA, which is enforceable,” Richart said.

Heartland Greenway, which would stretch through parts of five states, is one of the largest in-development CCUS (carbon capture, utilization and storage) projects in North America. It will have the capacity to permanently sequester up to 15 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year once fully operational, according to the company. This would represent a volume equivalent to the annual emissions of over three million cars.

In February of 2022 the Biden administration issued new guidelines for how federal agencies assess proposals to capture and sequester carbon dioxide pollution. The new guidance encourages “widespread deployment” of a network of pipelines and carbon capture infrastructure, according to online energy, science and climate blog The Verge.

The bipartisan infrastructure law passed in 2021 included more than $12 billion for CCUS projects. The new guidelines indicate the US will likely need such technologies to reach Biden’s climate goals, The Verge reported.

Those interested in learning more about the Coalition to Stop Co2 Pipelines or Citizens Against Heartland Greenway can contact them at (773) 556-3418 or coalition@noillinoisco2pipelines.org.