To the editor:

I’ve lived in the Ohio River Valley for 70 years, in both Jefferson and Harrison Counties. For decades the residents of the Ohio Valley have been paying for the aftermath of extractive industries.

That “beautiful clean coal” Trump refers to took lives, and left a legacy of mine shafts and acid mine run-off. Taxpayers continue to foot the bills to plug orphan oil and gas wells, and clean-up un-reclaimed strip mined lands. Recently, the Ohio River Valley was targeted to become a Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) Hub.

This CCS Hub will consist of a series of pipelines and Class VI injection wells that will theoretically allow industrial facilities to store carbon dioxide (CO2) permanently underground. However, this technology has proven to be unsuccessful, expensive, and dangerous. As usual, this hub comes with promises of jobs and economic development. Tenaska, the company who has received $55 million from the US Department of Energy to help build this hub, held an open-house in Cadiz, Ohio in July. However, there was no formal presentation and attendees left with more questions than answers.

Proponents of carbon capture are reluctant to share details about this technology and instead claim the industry will bring “millions of jobs and billions of investment dollars.” A report by the Ohio River Valley Institute believes the number of jobs are being greatly exaggerated.

The hub is expected to “permanently employ a total of four people, according to an economic impact study commissioned and sponsored by Tenaska and prepared by West Virginia University’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research.”

Unlike enhanced oil recovery, an injection process that has been used for 40 years to recover residual oil in the western oil fields, carbon capture and sequestration is a relatively new process. Carbon dioxide will be captured from industrial sources, condensed to create a super critical fluid, and delivered by pipelines to Class VI injection wells.

Federal legislation for CCS Class VI wells was established in 2010 and since then less than 30 wells nationally have received permits, and only two wells are operational. There are 12 Class VI well applications for Ohio, but no wells are in operation in the state. Additionally, no industries or power plants in Ohio have been retrofitted to capture carbon dioxide from their emissions, and no super critical state CO2 pipelines have been laid.

Numerous peer-reviewed studies show there are safety hazards and environmental concerns to consider from the capture site (power plants, ethanol plants, ammonia plants, steel mills) to the Class VI injection wells. The toxic chemicals needed to sequester the CO2 gas include lye and ammonia, and these must be produced, transported, handled, and eventually disposed of in order to operate CCS at scale.

These compounds threaten frontline communities. Some estimates say at least 900 miles of pipelines would be required to carry CO2 across the state from sources to the injection wells in eastern Ohio. Revisions to federal safety rules for CO2 written by the Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety Administration are still in limbo. In Satartia, Mississippi, 45 people were injured from a pipeline rupture. Studies have shown that leaks in the Class VI wells will release the carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere, nullifying any potential gains in reducing carbon emissions.

Leaks can also threaten groundwater as was the case in recent accidents at Archer Daniel Midland in Illinois. Environmental groups and lawmakers were concerned that the Mahomet Aquifer, the sole source aquifer for the region and drinking water source for over 1 million people might become acidic and undrinkable. “Once CO2 dissolves in water, it forms carbonic acid, which lowers the pH of the water, eroding and corroding rock and well equipment, and mobilizing toxic metals such as lead, arsenic, and mercury.”

Ohio has over 36,000 orphan oil wells, which also adds to the risks of injecting high pressure CO2 into Ohio’s Appalachian counties. A recent explosion during an orphan well capping operation in the Wayne National Forest speaks to the inherit dangers of these old wells. Marietta College Professor Emeritus of Petroleum Engineering Ben Ebenhack said in a recent piece in the Marietta Times, “We don’t know where all these orphan wells are (some were plugged with wood) and believes they pose “safety hazards for new drilling operations.”

The Marietta area is also dealing with brine wastewater from Class II wells infiltrating vertical oil and gas wells, as well as water wells in the Washington County area. How safe will our communities be if we start injecting 1000psi super critical carbon dioxide, a known asphyxiant, under over 80,000 acres of our region where mines, vertical oil wells, brine injection wells, and fracking wells exist?

Seismicity within the proposed carbon dioxide storage space could be problematic. According to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Noble County in southeastern Ohio recorded over 70 earthquakes this year, second only to Washington County which recorded 76. “The presence of seismic activity, both natural and induced, is of great importance when evaluating CO2 sequestration potential. Extensive fault zones may provide leakage pathways along which CO2 could migrate,” according to a study published in Environmental Geosciences.

CCS retrofits on power plants need significant amounts of water for cooling the additional equipment required to capture the CO2. They also will require up to 30 percent more energy. Taxpayers will be picking up the tab for costly retrofits to gas and coal power plants in the form of increased electricity bills. Taxpayers will also pay for the 45Q tax credits for carbon dioxide captured. The Inflation Reduction Act established rates per ton of CO2 sequestered at $85 per ton and the One Big Beautiful Bill kept these credits; even increasing some credits for CO2 used for enhanced oil recovery.

The Trump administration is trying to roll back environmental regulations that address climate change at the same time they are pushing for tax credits to capture the same emissions causing climate change. According to the Geoengineering Monitor, after decades of research, “there is no evidence that CCS can address the causes of the climate crisis or significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions” but it can put our communities at risk, leave us with the externalities, and cost taxpayers billions of dollars.

Randi Pokladnik, PhD Environmental Studies,

Board Member of Ohio Valley Environmental Advocates,

Urichsville