Louisiana
‘How are you going to stop that?’ Inside the rush for carbon capture in rural Louisiana
Keith Payne bought the perfect home for an avid hunter more than two decades ago, located in an isolated spot in the piney woods in this corner of Louisiana.
But the retired state highway supervisor began receiving calls about a year ago from a company prospecting for sites to store millions of tons of carbon dioxide permanently underground. They wanted a deal to access thousands of feet underneath his small spread in northeastern St. Helena Parish.
“What am I going to do, you know? Because I called (my neighbors) before I signed,” said the 63-year-old, whose house is surrounded by land owned by timber company Soterra.
“Everybody’s answer the same as mine: ‘Well, it’s going to be on Soterra property. How are you going to stop that?’”
The dilemma was a window on the emerging carbon capture and sequestration technology that Louisiana has embraced, opening the possibility of a major new industry while also addressing climate change. Companies have been looking throughout the cane fields and woods of rural Louisiana for storage sites, leaving residents with uncertainty and uneasy choices.
Payne said he knew Soterra had already cut a deal with Denbury Carbon Solutions for nearly 8,500 acres surrounding him, so he signed an agreement for a small upfront payment because he figured the project was coming whether he wanted it or not.
Denbury, owned by ExxonMobil, is one of three oil majors quietly looking at sites in St. Helena and northern Livingston parishes without the high-profile controversy that greeted Air Products’ plans to store CO2 under Lake Maurepas a couple years ago.
The other two are Shell and an Occidental Petroleum Corp. subsidiary, 1PointFive, according to the state Department of Energy and Natural Resources and company statements.
Carbon capture and sequestration, or CCS, compresses carbon dioxide nearly into a liquid and injects it thousands of feet down into formations that experts say can hold it permanently, keeping those heat-trapping emissions out of the atmosphere.
Advocates and industry officials point out that companies have been pumping CO2 underground for decades to push up oil from depleted fields. They say they know how to do it safely.
“We are confident in our ability to permanently sequester CO2 and adhere to the stringent regulations designed to prevent any leaks or impacts to drinking water,” said Margot Armentor, an ExxonMobil spokeswoman.
Soterra didn’t respond to a request for comment.
‘What is the future for that?’
One issue that concerns residents is the potential for underground leaks, particularly into shallower aquifers, where water can turn carbon dioxide into corrosive carbonic acid. For the northern Florida Parishes proposals, carbon would be stored thousands of feet under the region’s primary drinking water source, the Southern Hills Aquifer.
Industry officials say leaks are highly unlikely, especially those that could reach shallow aquifers, but some residents are skeptical.
Deb and Tim Leonard moved to Pine Grove in southern St. Helena Parish about 13 years ago and are about a mile from one of two Shell test wells also on Soterra land, records show.
Deb Leonard, 59, doesn’t trust that companies and state government can know what will happen in the decades ahead. She worries that future water well problems could affect their home’s long-term value.
“What is the future for that? Not just for my generation but for generations to come,” Leonard asked.
Cody and Chasity McCalmon with their five boys outside their home south of the site of a carbon sequestration test well for an Occidental Petroleum subsidiary on Thursday, October 31, 2024 in Holden, Louisiana. The young girl in the photo is a neighbor who was with the McCalmons as they prepared for Halloween. The subsidiary, 1PointFive, is proposing an underground storage hub in timberland owned by Weyerhaeuser off La. 442 and north of the McCalmons. Cody and Chasity said they weren’t sure what to make of the Occidental’s plans yet but called the idea of CO2 under the ground “eye-opening.”
Shell officials said they have a methodical process to look for safe sites to store CO2 and haven’t decided on St. Helena.
“The project will only move forward if we — and regulators — are convinced that the area is suitable for safe, permanent carbon storage, and pending a final investment decision by Shell,” spokeswoman Natalie Gunnell said.
Enticed by lucrative federal tax credits and facing pressure to lower their carbon footprint, oil, gas and petrochemical companies have been rushing to lock up storage sites.
Louisiana is primed for CCS. It has long expertise in oil and gas drilling, high demand from its industrial base, pipeline networks and suitable geology.
Susan Hovorka, a University of Texas at Austin professor who has spent 25 years working on Gulf Coast CCS, said Louisiana’s impermeable shale and porous sandstone can keep carbon dioxide sealed far underneath aquifers.
“In Louisiana, what you’ve got is almost all good,” she said.
Companies behind the three projects in the Florida Parishes have put or plan to put test wells on thousands of acres owned by timber companies, according to records and company statements.
‘What went wrong’
For Denbury, its St. Helena site not only offers the capacity to store 110 million tons of carbon dioxide, but also is near its CO2 line. The Green Line runs south near the Mississippi River industrial corridor, an area with high demand for CCS storage.
Industry officials and experts add that tax credits expanded under the Biden administration — known as “45Q” — have unlocked momentum, with the hope that the economics will improve before the credit program and its 12-year tax credits end. The program won’t offer credits for projects started after Dec. 31, 2032.
“There is no economics in this other than 45Q,” said Tracy Evans, chief executive officer of CapturePoint.
Livestock graze in a field on the McMorris farm near the site of a carbon sequestration test well on Thursday, October 31, 2024 in Holden, Louisiana. a carbon sequestration test well, as seen on Thursday, October 31, 2024 in Holden, Louisiana. An Occidental Petroleum subsidiary, 1PointFive, is proposing an underground storage hub in timberland owned by Weyerhaeuser off La. 442 west and north of the McMorris farm. Some family member says they might be fine with the project if there is testing for possible CO2 leaks on their property but don’t feel they know enough yet.
CapturePoint is planning the $750 million Cenla Hub sequestration pipeline and storage facility in rural Vernon and Rapides parishes.
The proposed line will run northwest, serving Haynesville Shale gas processing plants and a $1.2 billion methanol plant and direct air capture plants proposed in the Shreveport area. Eight-five percent of the more than 20,000-acre storage area is held by three timber companies and can contain more than 2 billion tons of CO2, Evans said.
But environmental groups question if CCS is ready for large-scale use.
In mid-September, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ordered agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland, owner of a model sequestration project in Decatur, Illinois, to remediate underground leaks.
Carbon dioxide escaped upward into an unauthorized layer 5,000 feet deep, but didn’t reach shallower drinking water aquifers, the EPA says.
Pam Richart, who leads the Eco-Justice Collaborative in Champagne, Illinois, said regulators are considering more than a dozen other Illinois wells when they should be slowing things down.
“It’s happening, I think, without a real hard look at what went wrong and what we need to do,” she said.
On Nov. 1, the EPA received modeling from ADM about the extent of the leak and is reviewing it, an agency spokeswoman said.
‘Highly improbable’
Given authority by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate the industry, Louisiana’s DENR and its Office of Conservation have not yet authorized any carbon injection, though test wells are being allowed.
Louisiana officials say they are focused on ensuring CO2 injection is well away from aquifers and separated from them by “sufficient confining layers.”
Patrick Courreges, DENR spokesman, said the state’s underground injection program aims to “minimize the chances for leaks and maximize the ability to take corrective action if necessary.”
The general location, top right, of a proposed St. Charles Parish ammonia plant near the International-Matex Tank Terminals in St. Rose on Thursday, August 29, 2024. It is located next to the Davis Heights neighborhood, bottom. The new plant would rely on carbon sequestration to control its carbon emissions. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
The leaking well in Illinois had an impermeable layer around 500 feet thick and no major faults or fractures, according to an EPA filing. A corroded monitoring well drilled through that layer leaked after exposure to CO2 and brine, the EPA says.
The well had a metal casing made of a corrosion-resistant alloy that includes chrome, the EPA says. In a monitoring plan submitted last year, ADM told the EPA a leak from the monitoring well would be “highly improbable.”
Courreges said Louisiana is examining what happened in Illinois and is aware that the EPA is discussing more corrosion-resistant well casings.
It’s not clear to what degree injected CO2 will end up beneath homes, farms and woods in St. Helena and northern Livingston. State officials say the area can vary from a mile to several square miles, but actual distances are not yet public under EPA confidentiality rules.
They won’t be until a later public comment period, Courreges said.
Denbury offered a sense of the sweep of its plans in St. Helena land records. Though Denbury is seeking state permission just to test geology, the company reached nearly 60 underground injection deals by early October with landowners like Payne.
No residents interviewed near the Shell and Occidental wells said they had signed injection deals. Records searches didn’t turn up any either. Under state law, landowners own the minute spaces in deep sedimentary rock where CO2 is injected.
Carla Arnold, 49, remembers seeing the trucks and hearing the operations in the woods east of her house off La. 442, where Occidental’s test well was drilled north of Holden.
She suspected the activity might be similar to what happened in Lake Maurepas, but had “no idea” until she spoke to a reporter last month.
“I would just like to be informed,” she said.
Occidental officials say they are committed to transparency and have had community meetings about their carbon sequestration hub planned for 30,000 acres of Weyerhaeuser timber land. Weyerhaeuser did not respond to a request for comment.
“Our goal is to be a good long-term partner in Livingston Parish,” William Fitzgerald, an Occidental spokesman, said.
Darlene Hoover, 64, whose family has the 80-acre McMorris cattle ranch along La. 422, has been to the meetings but said she doesn’t have the full picture.
Hoover said she might be fine with CO2 storage as long as her family land is tested, but didn’t like the impression that the project was “a done deal.”
“They kept it hush-hush. They were already starting on this when we heard about it,” she said.
Occidental’s underground storage would have 1,000 feet of impermeable shale capping it and start more than 2,000 feet below the lowest drinking water aquifer, the company says.
Cody McCalmon, 33, remembers being curious about what was happening in the woods north of his Holden-area home and figuring it had to do with CO2. But he and his wife, Chasity, 32, who are raising five young boys, said they weren’t sure what to make of it.
“I don’t think they’re going to do something that’s going to kill us, but, I guess, you know, a harmful gas going down around us. … It’s eye-opening,” Cody said.
Louisiana
A select few hunters get permits for first Louisiana black bear season in decades • Louisiana Illuminator
Saturday marked the beginning of Louisiana’s new black bear hunting season, but it will probably be a while before the sport is accessible to more than a select few hunters and landowners.
Gov. Jeff Landry announced the opening of the season, which will last through Dec. 22, at a press conference Monday alongside hunting enthusiasts and Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) officials. The governor pointed to the recovering population of black bears in the state, estimated at nearly 1,500, as a sign of successful conservation efforts.
“We now have so many that they’re getting in the way of deer hunting,” Landry said, alluding to claims that bears are displacing deer and competing with them for food.
The Louisiana black bear, the official state mammal, came under the protection of the Endangered Species Act in 1992. Its population had dwindled to near extinction, primarily the result of deforestation and habitat destruction. The governor also cited overhunting as a factor.
Conservation efforts, including an LSU AgCenter program to reintroduce the animal in certain areas of the state, eventually increased the bear’s numbers. Their rebound prompted federal regulators to remove the Louisiana black bear from the endangered list in 2016.
Still, some conservationists and residents remain opposed to killing the bears for sport. In an effort to stop the creation of a bear hunting season, Humane Society of Louisiana executive director Jeff Dorson started a petition last year that garnered more than 38,000 signatures.
But state lawmakers continued to press the idea. Last spring, the Louisiana Legislature passed a resolution by Rep. C. Travis Johnson, D-Vidalia, to have Wildlife and Fisheries study the viability of a black bear hunting season. He introduced the proposal to help manage an uptick in reported bear encounters, particularly in the Mississippi Delta region of rural northeast Louisiana.
The Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission then issued a notice of intent to open the black bear hunting season with 10 permit tags for hunters. Each tag allows for the killing of one bear. The first tag went to an organization that takes military veterans hunting.
Back in January, Johnson said he expected LDWF would offer 10 tags to the public through a lottery system. On Monday, however, LDWF Secretary Madison Sheahan said seven of those tags went to the private landowners who allowed the agency to use their land for the repopulation of the bears.
Among the remaining tags, only one was issued via a public lottery for hunting on state land, and another was issued through a similar lottery for hunting on private property in designated areas with the owner’s permission.
Hunters with tags are permitted to kill only adult male bears in certain parts of northeast Louisiana, including Tensas, Madison, East Carroll and West Carroll parishes and portions of Richland, Franklin and Catahoula parishes.
According to the LSU AgCenter, additional Louisiana black bear populations exist in the Morganza floodway just west of Baton Rouge and in the region stretching from the lower Atchafalaya Basin near Morgan City to the Houma area. However, those areas are not open for bear hunting.
Sheahan said the agency will continue to monitor the black bear populations and, if necessary, adjust the number of hunting tags for future seasons.
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Louisiana
Edwards budget chief Jay Dardenne to pay $3,000 fine for late campaign finance reports • Louisiana Illuminator
The Louisiana Board of Ethics assessed Jay Dardenne, a longtime elected official who was also Gov. John Bel Edwards’ commissioner of administration, a $3,000 fine for filing four campaign finance reports months after their deadlines passed.
Dardenne, who also served as Louisiana’s lieutenant governor and secretary of state, initially faced a much larger fine. The penalty for his four tardy reports was $12,000, but the board voted to reduce it to $3,000 after Dardenne personally apologized at its Friday meeting.
“I do not have any excuse I can make for failing to timely file those reports,” he told board members. “In those previous years that I filed, I had gotten in the habit only annually.”
The four reports in question were connected to Dardenne’s political action committee, JAY PAC, and should have been submitted during the fall and winter of 2023. He made a few small campaign contributions out of that account for state elections at the time.
Dardenne, who is a Republican, donated between $250 and $500 to a small group of candidates, including Baton Rouge state Reps. Dixon McMakin and Barbara Freiberg, Secretary of State Nancy Landry and former state Rep. John Stefanski, who ran for attorney general last year.
The fine for missing a PAC campaign reporting deadline was $200 per day for up to 15 days, at which point it reached a maximum of $3,000. Dardenne’s four reports were between 75 and 162 days late, according to information the ethics board provided.
Dardenne set up JAY PAC during his unsuccessful bid for governor in 2015 and said Friday he hasn’t used it much in recent years. It contained no more than $7,600 total last year, according to publicly available campaign finance reports.
He said he recently drained the PAC by making a few charitable donations with its remaining funds and intends to close out the account by the end of the year.
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The ethics board also assessed two state senators fines for failing to submit their own PAC campaign finance reports on time.
Sen. Kirk Talbot, R-River Ridge, was assessed a $1,000 fine for failing to file a campaign finance report for Kirk PAC 33 days late in 2019.
The board chose to reduce Talbot’s penalty from $3,000 to $1,000 after Talbot’s former accountant told the board Friday he was responsible for the overdue submission. Phillip Rebowe said he was locked out of his files, including the PAC’s paperwork, when he left an accounting firm and wasn’t able to file the paperwork by the deadline.
Sen. Jay Luneau, D-Alexandria, was assessed a $500 fine for filing his LA PAC campaign finance report 15 days late in the fall of 2023.
The board voted to cut Luneau’s fine from $3,000 to $500 after Luneau appeared Friday and said his accountant had only recently taken over the PAC’s paperwork from the accountant’s dying father. Steven McKay didn’t file the report on time because he was newly assigned to Luneau’s accounts and not familiar with PAC deadlines yet. Plus McKay was caring for a sick parent who was also his business partner, the senator said.
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Louisiana Champions Day Fields Set for Saturday, Dec. 14 at Fair Grounds
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Touchuponastar, Free Like a Girl, and Smoken Wicked Likely Heavy Favorites in Respective Divisions
New Orleans, La (Dec. 9, 2024) – Fields have been drawn for the 34th annual Louisiana Champions Day on Saturday, Dec. 14 at Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots, which features seven stakes offering $750,000 in combined purses. With an average field size of 10 across the 10-race program, the Champions Day card attracted the best Louisiana-breds from across the state, including Touchuponastar, Free Like a Girl, and Smoken Wicked, each likely heavy favorites in their respective divisions.
First post on Saturday is 12:45 p.m. CT and the added money events will go as Race 3 and Races 5 – 10, covering the $1 Pick 6 and 50-cent Late Pick 5.
Set-Hut’s Touchuponastar returns to Fair Grounds gunning for a record-tying third $150,000 Louisiana Champions Day Classic title. Through 33 editions only his sire, Star Guitar, has won three Classic crowns. Owned by Jake Delhomme and trained by his brother Jeff Delhomme, the 2023 Louisiana-bred Horse of the Year drew to the outside of four older males. Beyond his dominance against his statebred peers, the 12-time winning 5-year-old has finished second in three graded stakes, including last year’s New Orleans Classic Presented by Relyne GI By Hagyard (G2). Written for 1 1/8 miles across the main track, the Classic will go as Race 3.
An all-stakes $1 Pick 6 kicks off with two of Champions Day’s most intriguing races. All signs point to this year’s crop of Louisiana-bred 2-year-olds being one of the strongest to date from top-to-bottom and the cream of the crop will knock heads in both the $100,000 Lassie (Race 5) and $100,000 Juvenile (Race 6), both written at 6 furlongs across the main track.
Norman Stable’s Secret Faith has been a standout in her five races, winning each and doing so overcoming adversity. Trained By Jayde Gelner, Secret Faith fought gamely for daylight when pinned in down the stretch of the Donovan L. Ferguson. The 4-time stakes winner will have her toughest test to date as two new maiden-breakers enter the added money scene, led by Stonestreet Stables and Peter Leidel’s Blue Fire. Over opening weekend, no 2-year-old, male or female, ran faster than Blue Fire, who earned a 90 Brisnet Speed figure in her dominant wire-to-wire maiden-breaking score. The daughter of Aurelius Maximus is trained by Steve Asmussen and will see Jose Ortiz return to the irons.
Since breaking his maiden on debut in June, Valene Farms’ Smoken Wicked has only faced the creme de la creme of the sport’s freshman crop, and has $174,960 to show for it. The Dallas Stewart trainee earned 2 points on the Road to the Kentucky Derby when finishing fourth to Chancer McPatrick in the Champagne (G1) at Saratoga, one of four open company stakes tries. Smoken Wicked racked up his second win last out against allowance company at Churchill Downs.
Smoken Wicked could mark a major milestone for Stewart, who currently sits at 999 career wins and has no other entries this week.
Standing in Smoken Wicked’s way on Saturday will be Maggi Moss’ Peluso Memorial winner Hay Jude. In just his second outing, the Tom Amoss trainee overcame a nightmare trip to narrowly defeat Voila Magic and Louisiana Jess, both of whom will look for revenge in Saturday’s Juvenile, which attracted seven runners.
Gerald Bruno Jr., Chasey Deville Pomier, and Jerry Caroom’s multi-millionaire Free Like a Girl took the 2023 Louisiana Champions Day Distaff, which was run on the dirt, but with the 2024 edition of the Distaff being written as the Ladies Turf, the 5-year-old mare has been entered along with eight other older fillies and mares in the $100,000 Ladies Sprint.
Exiting her latest stakes score going two turns in the local Valene Memorial, the 2022 Louisiana-bred Horse of the Year returns to six panels, a distance at which she has a 9-4-2-2 record. Five of Free Like a Girl’s six graded stakes placings have come going two turns, including finishing second to Idiomatic in the La Troienne (G1), but when going 7 furlongs in 2022 Charles Towns Oaks, Free Like a Girl ran second to Society.
Led by trainer Ronnie Ward’s Noneya, the Delmar R. Caldwell trifecta have all entered the Ladies Sprint for a shot to take on the all-time top earning Louisiana-bread, who has banked just shy of $2.1 million.
A perfect three-for-three as a 4-year-old, Allied Racing Stables’ Jack Hammer will return in the $100,000 Sprint not having raced since winning the local Eddie Johnston Memorial last March. Trainer Bret Calhoun tapped the current meet’s leading rider Jose Ortiz to pilot Jack Hammer, who will have his work cut out for him facing from top-to-bottom the most accomplished field on the card, including the trifecta from last year’s edition in Mangum, Bron and Brow, and Mike J. All but one of the thirteen entered in the Sprint can point to a stakes win on their resume. The Sprint serves as the Louisiana Champions Day finale.
Two 1 1/16 miles grass stakes have been carded for Louisiana Champions Day this year, and with the portable rail set at 24 feet on the Stall-Wilson turf course, both added money affairs attracted full fields of 11. The $100,000 Louisiana Champions Day Turf will go as Race 7, and the female counterpart, as Race 9.
Winner of last year’s $100,000 Turf, Brittlyn Stable’s Behemah Star returns to rack up another for trainer Shane Wilson. Coming up 3/4 lengths short last out in the Morreale Memorial, the 6-year-old son of Star Guitar who hadn’t started since August might have needed that race.
Chief among Behemah Star’s competition is Allied Racing Stable’s 2021 and 2022 winner, Who Took the Money, the last horse who was able to repeat in the Turf. The Bret Calhoun trainee showed a strong effort in his prep, a local allowance where he ran a close fourth to Verstappen.
Oversubscribed at 12, the $100,000 Ladies Turf is slated as the penultimate race on the card. After finishing a game second last out in the Valene to Free Like a Girl, Brittlyn Stable’s 3-year-old filly Clearly a Test will make her first start on the sod for trainer Shane Wilson. Fellow 3-year-old Eye of the Pharaoh, a Coteau Grove Farm homebred trained by Steve Asmussen, has only raced twice but has been dominant in both two-turn turf races, winning by open lengths last out over local allowance company.
Full fields for all seven Louisiana Champions Day stakes can be found on Equibase: https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/FG121424USA-EQB.html.
Entries for the Dec. 21 Road to the Derby Kickoff Day will be drawn Saturday, Dec. 14. Led by the Gun Runner and Untapable, the final 2-year-old preps for the 151st Running of the Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks, eight stakes will be carded worth a combined $800,000 in added money purses.
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About Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots
Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots, one of the nation’s oldest racetracks, has been in operation since 1872. Located in New Orleans, La, Fair Grounds, which is owned by Churchill Downs Incorporated (NASDAQ Global Select Market: CHDN), also operates a slot-machine gaming facility and 15 off-track betting parlors throughout Southeast Louisiana. The 153rd Thoroughbred Racing Season–highlighted by the 112th running of the Louisiana Derby–will run from Nov. 22, 2024 through March 23, 2025. More information is available online at www.fgno.com.
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