Benton County Rallies Against BP’s Proposed CO2 Pipeline

Benton County, Indiana is home to some of the best land in the state with over 250,000 acres consisting of prime farmland. That land is a source of pride and income for the majority of the county’s residents with  76% of those 250,000 acres owned and/or operated by local farm families and landowners. Coincidently, Benton County is also home to some of the highest land values in the state. It’s also, unfortunately, the epicenter of what could quite possibly become one of the largest carbon dioxide (CO2) captures in the country.

 

 

“BP snuck a statute into a bill back in 2011 that we didn’t find out about until a few months ago,” Bryan Berry, Benton County Commissioners told Geswein Farm & Land. “That statute allows them to put in the carbon sequestration pipelines.”

 

 

Carbon capture and sequestration are a way for many industries to combat emissions from power plants or industrial facilities that use fossil fuels before it reaches the air. To do this, the gas is compressed into a liquid form and pumped underground for storage through a process known as sequestration. Recent cases of carbon pipelines malfunctioning, however, have changed how rural communities feel about allowing this level of gas and oil development onto their land. The February 2020 rupture of a pipeline carrying liquefied carbon dioxide near Satartia, Mississippi, is a perfect example. About 200 people became ill from what crews discovered was roughly 22,000 barrels of CO2 that breached the pipeline.

 

 

BP, a multinational oil and gas company, is targeting the area not only because of its proximity to the upcoming Midwest Hydrogen Hub, but also because of its vast salt-saturated geological reserves. These reserves have the ability to store 38 to 129 billion metric tons of CO2, according to the most recent estimates from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (2015). This matters because while other states affiliated with the hub (Illinois and Michigan) also have large underground storage abilities for CO2 capture, Indiana’s vast reserves equate to “hundreds of trillions of pounds” of CO2 storage, according to The Herald Bulletin.

 

 

The proposed pipeline would begin in Whiting, Indiana and carry CO2 under Benton County to the Mt. Simon sandstone layer, which is about 2,500 feet below the soil surface, according to Purdue University’s Agriculture and Natural Resources Extension. Based upon the composition of the Mt. Simon sandstone, which is a briny porous space, it is believed that over time, “some of the CO2 will become a constituent of the brine, some will be trapped in the rock’s pores, and some will mineralize and become rock” – essentially, it would be able to be able to permanently store CO2 beneath the surface.

 

 

 

In October of 2022, BP began performing seismic tests in Benton County “to inventory the characteristics and carbon dioxide (CO2) storage capacity of the Mt. Simon sandstone layer,” according to Purdue University’s Agriculture and Natural Resources Extension. Testing was completed in September 2023 and Berry says, since then, BP hasn’t reapproached county officials, which he finds disconcerting.

 

“We’re really concerned because they’ve been very quiet,” says Berry, noting that the last public meetings were held in September and police had to be called in because of the crowds waiting for them, causing BP to cancel the following meetings.

 

This is because Benton County farmers aren’t sitting back and letting this pipeline infiltrate their communities without vocalizing their distrust of what could be both damaging and hazardous to an area where families have farmed for generations and generations.

 

 

 

“It feels like [BP’s] really pushing the agenda forward without a consensus of the people and the landowners,” says Joanne Mosher, livestock farmer of Holy Cow Farm Fresh in Monon, Indiana, told Geswein Farm & Land.

 

 

Mosher points out that any issue with a break or collapse in a pipeline with the level of CO2 that will be pumped through is scary for those who live in the area.

 

 

“Further, these parts are coming into and going through our aquifer, through our water sources, down into the soils, the rocks,” says Mosher, who has a background in soil science. “There are a lot of unknowns of what they’re pumping in there to start with and where they’re putting it, which could lead to some long-term issues that we’re not even sure or aware of yet…what that could do for our water sources, what that could do to the purity of our water source and the availability of our water source and how far that spreads.”

 

 

Another thing on the line (without focusing on the bevy of environmental implications) are the property rights associated with a project of this caliber with a company like BP at its helm. While the Indiana Farm Bureau assisted with language in House Bill 1209, which now gives landowners the rights over their land “from the earth to the heavens,” says Berry, that might do little if lawmakers get enough of a nudge from BP to move forward anyway.

 

“They need 70% of the landowners to be on board for the project to go through,” says Mosher. “Once they have that, then they can use the Indiana Department of Natural Resources to give them other land for the project, essentially making up that other 30% needed.”

 

The fear is real. Berry says that his worry is that they’ll get a 60% buy-in from landowners who may not live in the area or care deeply about the land like those who farm it. If that’s the case, gaining that extra ground could be as easy as swaying a few lawmakers. This is why he – and many others within the community – are working hard to inform landowners about the dangers and ramifications of BP’s proposed pipeline through open, education sessions, additional reach-out and articles like this one.

 

 

“BP tried to sneak in the back door to get this done,” says Berry. “But we don’t need to be a solution to BP’s pollution.”