SB 1289, the SAFE CCS Act forces One Earth to withdraw
One Earth Sequestration, LLC is the last company to seek a certificate of authority from the Illinois Commerce Commission.  In April 2023, it received its second recommendation of denial from the ICC. The following month, the Illinois General Assembly adopted SB 1289, Safety and Aid for the Environment in Carbon Capture and Sequestration Act. This bill dismisses all pending applications before the Illinois Commerce Commission.  Governor Pritzker is expected to sign the bill before the end of July.

It is expected that One Earth will return to the ICC once the bill is adopted and rule-making is complete. That could take as much as a year.  What is NOT known is how the company will respond to concerns raised by Mark Maple, engineer, ICC staff, and case manager for One Earth Sequestration LCC. He has recommended denial of One Earth's proposed CO2 pipeline twice. You can read his full rebuttal testimony here, as well as rebuttal testimonies by interveners in the Docket #23-0708, that are presented, below.  In sum:

Sequestration:

• OES has not demonstrated they have the landowner easements required to build the project.
• OES does not have permits from the EPA, nor have they addressed McLean County concerns raised by Mr. Maple.
• Lack of approval can affect routing of the pipeline (if it needs to be changed to address local and federal concerns). With the planned withdrawal of one of the wells, the endpoints of the pipeline, as may (or may not be approved by the U.S. EPA and McLean County) remain in flux.

Timeline – OES expressed concern that obtaining sequestration permits before coming to the ICC would delay their project. Mr. Maple simply points out that they could have started earlier, and review of their project should not be rushed.

Safety and emergency response - The OES rebuttal draft doesn't address the safety concerns previously raised by Mr. Maple:

• OES hasn’t agreed to purchasing 100% of the equipment required for local governmental units (e.g.Ford County and Saybrook-Arrowsmith Fire Department) to safely and successfully rescue residents.
• Decisions made regarding assisting with purchasing equipment required for a safe and successful rescue won’t be made until the ICC hearing is over. That means OES is asking the ICC to approve their project without knowing local governments will have the equipment and training they need to rescue people in the event of a CO2 pipeline leak or rupture.
• Also missing is information related to how OES will respond to a safety concern, including risks and procedures for responding to an accidental release of CO2.

Not waiting for PHMSA rules - Mr. Maple continues to say that OES should wait for PHMSA rules to be adopted:

"In my opinion, during the PHSMA rulemaking process, the safest option to protect the welfare of Illinois citizens is to prevent more pipelines from coming online that will perhaps be designed and constructed in a way that will be impossible to meet the new rules."

Pipeline easements:

• While OES has a higher percentage of easements obtained for its pipeline, they did so by eliminating a well and that portion of the pipeline that leads to that well “for now.”
• Also, OES has NOT demonstrated the need for eminent domain, given the progress they’ve made in obtaining easements.

Not in the public interest - The project continues to generate negative public sentiment, a point which Mr. Maple uses to address his concern that the project is not in the public interest or a benefit to residents of Illinois.

Does not meet criteria of CO2 Act - Mark Maple concludes that OES has failed to meet all the criteria of the CO2 Act, that his recommendations have not changed subsequent to reading all of the material.

But there is much more to read and understand  
One Earth's routing will expose people to potentially lethal concentrations of CO2. Their solution?  Provide oxygen tanks to those affected. This is an admission that their project is hazardous, and shouldn't be built as planned.  From Kathy Campbell, fact witness for Save Our Illinois Land:

In fact their air dispersion modeling confirms that in the event of a rupture that residents will be exposed to levels at or exceeding 50,000 ppm which is above the CDC 40,000 ppm level at which no exposure is allowed. Further their plume model does not provide the gradations within their 50,000 ppm designation thus avoiding providing us with the maximum CO2 concentration to which residents could be exposed. The 50,000 ppm border is apparently the boundary before it drops to lower levels.Their solution is to provide oxygen masks and supplies to the 5 houses within their 50,000 ppm and above area. That is not a solution.

Rebuttal Testimonies posted on ICC Docket for One Earth

ILLINOIS COMMERCE COMMISSION
Mark Maple, ICC Staff Engineer and Case Manager for One Earth Sequestration, LLC
Rebuttal Testimony of Mark Maple
Staff Exhibit 3.0, Attachment A
Staff Exhibit 3.0, Attachment B
Notice of Filing

SAVE OUR ILLINOIS LAND
Richard Kuprewicz
Rebuttal Testimony of Richard B. Kuprewicz
Exhibit 1.06 Part 1 of 2
Exhibit 1.06 Part 2 of 2

Kathleen Campbell
Rebuttal Testimony of Kathleen C.M. Campbell, PhD. .
SOIL Exhibit 4.17
SOIL Exhibit 4.18
SOIL Exhibit 4.19
SOIL Exhibit 4.20

Timothy Christensen, Jr.
Rebuttal Testimony of Timothy A. Christensen, Jr.

Sally Lasser
Rebuttal Testimony of Sally Lasser

PHMSA Failure Investigation Report - Denbury Gulf Coast Pipelines, LLC
SOIL Exhibit 4.21 (Part 1 of 4)