A new facility, the Louisiana “Clean” Energy Project (Air Products’ blue hydrogen/carbon capture and sequestration plan), is being built within a half mile of a primary school in Sorrento. Yet nothing about this project is clean, and many residents were never consulted or informed about the project in advance.
On November 4th, a hearing was held by the Louisiana Department of Conservation and Energy (LDCE) and the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) on the joint coastal and 404 wetlands permit for an Ammonia Plant, pipeline, and injection field. For three hours, over 307 residents from parishes around the lake testified. John Hoover, a local crab fisherman, spoke on the inability of fishermen on the lake to be able to tell the difference between the seasonal fog and a carbon dioxide plume. Jo Banner, with the Descendants Project, spoke about protection for persons buried on the Burnside Plantation, for the sake of cultural values and economy. And Estefania Aultman, a parent of a Sorrento Primary School student, expressed concerns with the risks from carbon dioxide and pollution exposure to the 661 children at Sorrento Primary.
Healthy Gulf’s Community Science Director Scott Eustis testified on the long history of overexploitation of Louisiana’s resources. “Where we see neglect of our [orphaned] well population is in wells my grandfather drilled in Plaquemines Parish… on state leases in state waterbodies, we see this chronic neglect from wells that were drilled 40 years ago.”
“Moving forward with drilling in Lake Maurepaus, we expect neglect. Air Products has already cut and run and said they’re not going to operate the pipeline or the well… We were promised an Environmental Impact Statement and three years later, we’re still waiting. I urge you to reject the application.”
Carbon waste injection is a false solution. Waste injection fields like Bayou Corne damaged hundreds of acres of wetlands and impacted homes in Livingston and East Baton Rouge Parishes. Carbon Injection is not a practical way to solve the climate crisis. The Louisiana Department of Energy and Natural Resources and the US Army Corps of Engineers must consider well plugging as an alternative to this project. Plugging inactive oil wells is a cheaper, faster pollution solution that would avoid the destruction of our wetlands.
The Corps of Engineers is accepting public comments on the Air Products permit until Friday, November 14th.
Below: Air Products Safety Map by Healthy Gulf
