EPA has issued a violation notice to the operator of the country’s first carbon dioxide injection wells for permanent storage, alleging that the company hasn’t complied with its federal permit.
Agribusiness company Archer-Daniels-Midland — also known as ADM — operates a facility in Decatur, Illinois, that injects CO2 into deep rock formations for geologic storage. In a three-page notice, EPA said the company conducted activity that allowed injection and formation fluids into “unauthorized zones,” failed to follow an emergency response and remediation plan and did not “monitor the well in accordance with the Permit.”
EPA declined to go into detail about the violation notice, citing it as an “active enforcement matter.” But ADM said it relates to the corrosion of a monitoring well and not its CO2 injection well, which is still operating.
In March, “we detected some corrosion in a section of one of two deep monitoring wells at approximately 5,000 feet and below,” ADM spokesperson Jackie Anderson told POLITICO’s E&E News in a statement. That corrosion allowed CO2 and formation fluid to migrate into a formation where those liquids weren’t permitted to go, she said.
