Bill banning carbon sequestration near Mahomet Aquifer clears General
Assembly
[May 21, 2025]
By Jade Aubrey and UIS Public Affairs Reporting (PAR)
SPRINGFIELD — A bill that bans carbon sequestration over, under or
through portions of the Mahomet Aquifer passed out of the Illinois
General Assembly on Tuesday.
The bill has been a point of contention in the Statehouse during this
year’s legislative session, after it was found that a leak occurred
during carbon injections carried out by ADM, a Decatur-based agriculture
giant.
Carbon sequestration is a relatively new technological process that
pumps liquified carbon dioxide deep underground for long-term storage.
Proponents say it could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions for
high-emissions industries like ethanol production.
The ADM injection site, which opened in 2011, received the first federal
permit for “geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide” in 2017. Since
then, the project has stored more than 4.5 million tons of carbon
dioxide more than a mile underground.
Although the leak did not take place in the Mahomet Aquifer area,
roughly 8,000 metric tons of liquid carbon dioxide and other ground
fluid escaped the area it was permitted to be in. ADM temporarily paused
carbon injections in October after another issue with a well was
identified.
The Mahomet Aquifer supplies water to hundreds of thousands of people in
central Illinois. Estimates for the number of Illinois residents served
daily by the aquifer range from 500,000 to 1 million people.
In 2015, portions of the aquifer in 14 Illinois counties were designated
as a sole source aquifer by the EPA, since contamination of the aquifer
could cause significant public health risk. That EPA designation also
indicates that there are no “reasonably available alternative drinking
water sources” that could be used if the water in the aquifer were
contaminated.
Senate Bill 1723 passed on Tuesday with bipartisan support. The bill was
spearheaded by Sen. Paul Faraci, D-Champaign, and Sen. Chapin Rose,
R-Mahomet. It comes after Illinois lawmakers passed a law last year
allowing carbon sequestration anywhere in Illinois.
“Proposals under consideration by the U.S. EPA today would store 50
times the amount of carbon that has been stored at the ADM facility
under the Mahomet Aquifer,” Andrew Rehn, the climate policy director of
Prairie Rivers Network, said during a Senate committee hearing on the
bill in March. “Last year’s bill leaves a critical gap. It says you have
to replace drinking water if you damage it through your carbon
sequestration activity, and the sole source designation means that there
is no alternative.”
Charles Harvey, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, spoke on the dangers of carbon sequestration in the wake of
the recent ADM leak during the committee hearing. He called the ADM
injection facility an “experiment,” as the injection of carbon at such a
depth had never been done before.
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State Rep. Carol Ammons, D-Urbana, watches as her bill to ban carbon
sequestration under, above or through the Mahomet Aquifer, is voted
on. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Jerry Nowicki)
He said the pressure and depth of the injections led to fissures in both
the injection pipes and the levels of rock the carbon was being pumped
into and stored under. Since carbon dioxide is a gas, he said it began
to seep through the cracks and the fissures and rise back to the
surface, which began the leak.
“To do this, it had to move at an alarming velocity of at least three
meters a day to have reached it in the four months that after injections
for when the seismic inference was made,” Harvey said. “Now, the
original report predicted that with 90% confidence this would not
happen.”
Due to the aquifer’s sole source designation, bill proponents also
argued that central Illinois residents can’t afford the water to be at
risk.
“Eighty-five percent of the geographic land mass in the state of
Illinois can be used for carbon sequestration. The aquifer is a very
small piece of that, it’s just kind of the width of Central Illinois,”
Rose said. “You can sequester north or south of this without putting
anybody’s water in jeopardy.”
Opponents of the bill argued that since the Mahomet Aquifer sits at
roughly 200 feet under the surface, it isn’t at risk to leaks, as carbon
injections pump the gas thousands of feet underground.
“The geology under and around the Mahomet Aquifer is the best geology to
ensure that thousands of feet below the aquifer — we’re not talking
immediately under the aquifer, we’re talking thousands of feet, up to a
mile below — is the best geology to ensure that the carbon capturing is
taking place,” Donovan Griffith, the vice president of the Illinois
Manufacturers’ Association, said during the committee. “It’s the best in
the state.”
The bill passed out of the Senate in April 55-0. It now awaits approval
from the governor after passing out of the House on Tuesday with a vote
of 91-19.
IMA released a statement on X following the passage of SB1723 urging
Gov. JB Pritzker to veto the bill.
“Carbon capture and sequestration is a safe and proven technology that
is key to maintaining economic growth and advancing our state’s
decarbonization goals. We urge Gov. JB Pritzker to veto this
legislation, which discourages investment in clean energy projects
including sustainable aviation fuel,” said Mark Denzler, President and
CEO of the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association.
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