94-9 Issues in Writing an Ordinance Protecting Groundwater and Controversial CO2 Sequestration

Session: Geoscience and Water: How Geoscience Affects Water-Related Public Policy–Past, Present, and Future

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County ordinances regulate activities which might conflict with established land use zoning. In Illinois, the ordinances must align with surrounding land uses and adhere to LaSalle and Sinclair Criteria to withstand legal challenges and also require approval by multiple units of government. Advocates and opponents of Carbon Capture and Storage [CCS] also called Carbon Dioxide [CO2] Sequestration are reasonably concerned about elevated atmospheric CO2 and its impact on climate change as well as the security of indefinite subsurface storage of the fluid. Typically, such matters are considered by state and federal legislatures. However, local government regulates surface facilities and activities beyond state and municipal jurisdiction by means of county zoning regulations.

CCS is controversial at the local level in East Central Illinois because of a 2016 natural gas leak from subsurface storage that continues to affect rural water wells, a 2020 CO2 pipeline leak in Mississippi which hospitalized several people, and recent injection well leaks at a CCS demonstration project in Decatur, IL. Proponents who want federal incentives and jobs for CCS are opposed by those who are concerned for personal health and safety in addition to potential impacts on sole sources of potable water for the region. Perception of risks by residents who are not scientists but will suffer risks long term differs from those of working scientific professionals.

At issue is not that the CCS activities will be prohibited above, beneath or through the Mahomet Aquifer, a federally designated “Sole Source Aquifer”, but whether such activities can be safely conducted outside of the federally-designated sole-source aquifer area, where rural residents rely upon low-yield glacial meltwater aquifers as a ‘sole-source’.

Past bad practices interfere with adopting new technology and have sometimes resulted in the siting of hazardous facilities in less than ideal locations. The balance between waste isolation and its potential impact on water resources, public health and safety is familiar to those who work in waste management particularly siting of landfills. Inadequate 3D geologic mapping contributes to uncertainty that can be a basis for advocates to fill the scientific uncertainty with presumptions supporting their position.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 57, No. 6, 2025

doi: 10.1130/abs/2025AM-8338

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