Parish President Matthew Jewell said he decided to make a public Facebook post detailing his support for carbon capture and sequestration after misinformation about a local project circulated online.
“It was alarming people,” Jewell said of the misinformation. “I was starting to get messages from residents, so it felt like my responsibility, having met with the company and knowing about the project, to at least talk about the things that I know are true.”
Lapis Carbon Solutions, a CCS developer and operator, is planning a 14,000-acre carbon storage site in the parish. It has recently filed permits with state agencies that, if approved, would help pave the way for access roads, well pads and a 16-inch pipeline to receive, inject and store carbon dioxide on private property six miles away from Lake Salvador.
Jewell said in his Facebook post that online claims about the Lapis project, including that the company had no emergency response plans and that its project is in Lake Salvador, were false. Emergency response plans are required for Class VI Injection Well permits. The project is also not in Lake Salvador.
“Folks are playing off of people’s lack of knowledge about this,” Jewell said. “We don’t expect the average resident to know the requirements for a Class VI Well.”
He blamed who he called “radical environmentalists” for the misinformation and stressed that efforts to tie CCS projects to liberal politics is misleading.
“These [environmentalists] are the ones who are supporters of the Green New Deal,” he said. “It’s important to know why they don’t want carbon capture. It’s not because they think it’s unsafe. It’s because, at the end of the day, they don’t want oil and gas to exist. It just comes down to these people are anti-industry, anti-jobs.”
Jewell said that CCS technology would help to extend the life of the oil and gas industry and keep companies competitive on the global market. But he said even industries unrelated to oil and gas are incorporating CCS technology.
“There is a demand for [CCS],” Jewell said. “I met with a company who wants to do business in St. Charles Parish that is not related to chemicals or oil and gas. It would be a totally new manufacturing facility. And they talked about doing carbon capture as part of it because it allows them to bring their product to market in Europe. And Europe has set a minimum standard on carbon emissions.”
He said states like Texas, California, North Dakota, West Virginia and Mississippi are also pursuing CCS projects.
“We are not in a bubble,” he said. “And, as a state, we need more jobs here. We’re losing our people to other states like Texas.”
Jewell said he felt a responsibility, as parish president, to stand up for the major contributors to the state’s economy – oil and gas and petrochemical companies. He also noted that President Donald Trump’s administration supports CCS and that it expanded tax credits that incentivize CCS projects.
But Jewell acknowledged that parish residents may have legitimate questions about the safety of CCS technology. He did too.
“Just like every resident, I do want to make sure it’s absolutely safe,” he said. “I have been doing a lot of learning myself. And I think that there’s a lot of very intelligent people who are putting all of this together.”
He said that, in listening to experts like geologists and geophysicists on this topic, he has come to see carbon capture as low risk compared to other types of heavy industry.
Carbon dioxide sequestration involves storing carbon dioxide permanently in porous rock about a mile or more below the surface. The carbon dioxide is pushed into tiny spaces between sand grains, replacing the water that is naturally there. Shale, or impermeable rock, acts as a seal to prevent the upward movement of carbon dioxide.
Lapis said that its Libra project in St. Charles Parish involves multiple layers of thick shale, and that the thickest of these layers is between 300 and 400 feet.
But carbon dioxide would travel to the storage site through pipelines, and some residents have voiced concerns about how eminent domain, which gives governments the power to use private property for public use, could be used to lay new pipelines for CCS projects.
Jewell said he has encouraged Lapis to use existing pipeline rights-of-way.
“I believe in private property rights,” Jewell said. “The state would be the ones to work with them on eminent domain issues. But there’s a whole bunch of factors that play into that. And there’s an entire judicial process that is involved as well.”
The idea of more heavy industry moving into the area, however, has fueled a backlash among some residents, who say industry is not always a good neighbor.
Becca Hillburn and her husband Joseph Coco purchased their home in Destrehan in 2021, hoping to make the parish their forever home. Now, Coco runs a website called Bayou Blockade that tracks the Libra project, detailing Lapis’ permitting process and encouraging residents to submit public comments through the state and federal regulatory agencies. He has highlighted what he considers inadequacies or deficiencies in the company’s permits.
“We feel that citizens should have the right to decide what kind of heavy industry is their new neighbor – or opt instead for markets and cabinet makers and piano teachers,” Hillburn said. “I want this to be a parish where young people – of all stripes – can thrive and find meaningful employment and entertainment in, and I do not see how the current push towards heavy, out-of-state and out-of-country industry supports that goal.”
Hillburn said she thinks much of the opposition to new industry in the parish, including CCS projects, is fueled by residents’ health concerns.
“I have no issue with industry when it follows the law and respects the community,” she said. “I have personally seen how our industry neighbors break their promises to neighboring communities to turn a profit – at the expense of our health and wildlife.”
Jewell stressed that Lapis is not projected to sequester any carbon dioxide until 2027 and that residents would have many opportunities to voice their concerns and get more information.
“Everybody deserves to say their side of it,” he said. “But everything should be based off factual information. I don’t want residents getting information from people who are obviously biased.”
