By JEFF LAMPE
For The Weekly Post
Landowners between Oak Hill and Hanna City have been contacted by Lapis Carbon Solutions regarding a possible carbon dioxide injection well on Texas Road.
Lapis met with landowners earlier this month to provide an overview of its plans, which are still in their infancy.
Based on literature shown to landowners, the proposal is to inject CO2 underground using a well located east of Texas Road. Land on which the well and monitoring stations would be located is owned by Roger and Debra Windish under the name of Windish Farms LLC and by the Michael L. Windish Living Trust.
Lapis has not yet applied for a Class VI underground permit, which is required from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Lapis does have a permit from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources to drill a test well, according to Ellen Schultz, Lapis director of communications and external affairs.
Schultz said other various permits are still needed for the test well, which will determine whether the Texas Road site is suitable for carbon storage.
“For the test-well drilling, we’re targeting that to be complete around the beginning of 2027,” Schultz said. “We will reach out to landowners assuming the geology is what we anticipate it to be.”
Under the proposal, an estimated 50-60 semi-trucks per day would bring CO2 along Illinois Route 8 to a location where it would be stored, heated and then injected more than 3,000 feet into the earth.
Expectations are most of the CO2 would be trucked from the BioUrja Renewables ethanol plant in Peoria.
Schultz said the combination of geology and proximity of an emitter, BioUrja, were factors in focusing on a Peoria County site.
If all goes well, plans call for 425,000 metric tons of CO2 to be injected annually for 12 years.
Two options were presented for a receiving terminal. One would be on the Windish farm on Texas Road. Another option is to build a terminal at one of two possible locations along Illinois Route 8 – one owned by Matt Windish, the other by Paula Windish – and then convey the CO2 via a 1.3-mile pipeline to the injection well.
A proposed timeline stretches nearly four years before a project could be operational, with 10 months of development and evaluation, 20 months for permitting and hearings and 6-12 months of site prep and equipment installation.
Reaction to a proposed Lapis CO2 injection site near Galva grew heated earlier this year. Residents showed up en masse at Galva City Council meetings citing concerns over public health and safety risks, potential leakage of stored CO2, emergency response preparedness and impacts on groundwater. After months of discussion, the Henry County Board in July approved a one-year moratorium on CO2 sequestration projects.
There were also strong responses in 2023 when Wolf Carbon Solutions U.S. LLC announced plans to build a CO2 pipeline across part of the state. That included a petition to intervene filed by Peoria County. At the time, Peoria County State’s Attorney Jodi Hoos said: “The proposed pipeline impacts all parts of Peoria County – our citizens, our infrastructure and our public safety. I filed to make certain we have a voice on what that impact will be.”
Illinois later passed the SAFE CCS Act, halting pipeline construction and approval until July 1, 2026, and Wolf Carbon Solutions withdrew its plan.
Hoos was not aware of the Texas Road proposal last week.
Under the Lapis plan, CO2 would be injected into a layer of Mount Simon Sandstone. The company said CO2 will be contained from above by a layer of Eau Claire Shale.
A similar well site operates in Macon County, where Archer-Daniels-Midland injects CO2 collected from its Decatur plants underground into Mount Simon Sandstone.
In March 2024, ADM discovered corrosion in a monitoring well allowed salty water and CO2 to move into an unauthorized rock formation. A second leak was suspected in September 2024, causing ADM to pause injections until August 2025. Since then, the U.S. EPA has approved a Class VI permit for one other injection well, at Hennepin for Marquis Carbon Injection, LLC.
Other proposals are in the planning phase. One Earth Energy is pursuing a CO2 pipeline near Gibson City and Heartway Greenway Carbon Storage, LLC has proposed wells in Christian, McLean and DeWitt counties.
