The Current Class VI Hazardous CO2 High-Pressure Deep Injection Well Is Only the Beginning

Opinion, By Joyce Blumenshine

Is anyone wondering if the Putnam County Draft Zoning Ordinance was the proverbial “bait and switch” because most members of the public were hit with the changes in the ordinance presented for vote at the County Zoning meeting the Tuesday before Thanksgiving 2025?

The comment by a Putnam County Zoning Board of Appeals member saying, "it was a work in progress" and hearing the attorney hired by the county explain that the company was consulted on the draft ordinance, did not ease the stunned members of the public at the zoning meeting where a vote on the final wording was held. After numerous public comments with many concerns, there was essentially silence from the majority of board members and no questions regarding public concerns before the vote approved the wording as presented.

A similar situation, with lack of discussion and questions, was repeated at the December 8th Putnam County Board meeting, when they voted to approve the ordinance. This was the ‘green light’ enabling Marquis Energy LLC to proceed with county approval and few requirements of substance to protect the public, the local environment and water resources from this new Class VI deep CO2 injection well.

Clearly this is just the beginning for a major expansion at the Marquis ethanol plant, as they begin to rake in millions upon millions of our tax dollars with the $85 per ton federal government payment for CO2 captured and sequestered. And this is just the beginning of what will very likely be a series of hazardous high-pressure Class VI deep injection wells for Marquis. It is very likely their CO2 will need to go under the Illinois River and will go under the thousands of acres of dedicated wildlife protection areas, wetlands, hunting clubs, and public and private properties to the west and other directions.

What happens if the CO2 and the underground pressure front it causes goes east far enough to the known areas of risk? Only time will tell if the old, closed J&L Steel deep injection well containing hazardous chemicals will be disrupted by the Marquis underground CO2 pressure plume. It could take a lot of time for that to happen but the U.S. EPA plans only include 12 years post-well-closure monitoring. Many citizens tried to raise concerns about that short monitoring time. The U.S. EPA is expected to approve their part of the Marquis Class VI permitting in early 2026. That means if problems develop in later years, the local area, County, State, or whatever is left of federal potential intervention, will have to get action done for whatever goes wrong. Even garbage landfills in Illinois require decades more post closure monitoring than that.