At dawn in the Maurepas Swamp, you can see 11 pink Roseate spoonbills rise into daybreak, off to feast on a lavish buffet of Louisiana shrimp and crabs. The swamp is one of the last wild places left in south Louisiana. It’s a place that still remembers what this land once was and still is — a living, breathing estuary.
But this quiet sanctuary could soon be spoiled by injection wells, pipelines and industrial noise. That’s the future that Air Products, the giant industrial gas corporation, has planned for Lake Maurepas.
Within this area, one of the most conservative in the state, the opposition to the project is high. But there’s still a possibility that the governor may approve permits for it. That’s why it’s important to understand what’s behind the scenes, in Air Products board rooms and on the ground in Louisiana community meetings.
In November, hundreds of people packed into a church in St. John the Baptist Parish for a public hearing on the company’s massive “blue hydrogen” and carbon capture scheme.
Air Products calls it clean energy. But there’s nothing clean about building a hydrogen and ammonia plant in Ascension Parish, capturing some CO₂, and piping it 38 miles for injection beneath Lake Maurepas. It was once touted as the world’s largest carbon-storage project.
Here’s the kicker: now, even Air Products doesn’t seem to want the carbon capture part of the project anymore.
Last spring, the company’s CEO told investors that Air Products was “actively working to de-risk” its Louisiana project and was in “ongoing discussions to divest the carbon sequestration and ammonia production elements.”
Let us translate that for you: Air Products wants to offload the liability for its company but has no problem leaving it with Louisiana’s people and wetlands.
If it’s too risky for Air Products, we’re going to venture to say it’s too damn risky for Louisiana.
Air Products is still barreling forward to secure permits for the full project — including carbon capture and storage. But from what the company told its investors, once those permits are issued, the project becomes a hot potato — so dangerous, expensive, and politically toxic that Air Products plans to sell the carbon-capture portion of the project. And with billions in federal tax breaks for so-called “clean energy” on the table, another company might take the bait.
Meanwhile, communities across the five-parish footprint are united in opposition to the entire project.
At a hearing attended by nearly 300 residents, everyone was opposed to the proposed plant, pipeline, and carbon capture scheme except for two paid representatives from economic development groups.
The proposed CO₂ pipeline could run just half a mile from Sorrento Primary School, a mother told the crowd, describing her fears. “Imagine your child playing on the playground within feet of that [CO2] pipeline, with flares from the facility in the background,” she said. “No child deserves poison in their playground.”
She’s right to worry! If this pipeline were to rupture so close to her son’s elementary school, 660 students could be enveloped by CO2 in minutes, according to a recent report.
In 2020, a CO₂ pipeline ruptured near Satartia, Mississippi, sending a suffocating cloud of CO2 through the community. Forty-five people were hospitalized; some were found unconscious more than a mile away. People gasped for air on the side of the road after their cars stalled — CO₂ had displaced oxygen in their lungs and their combustion engines.
When Yazoo County emergency director Jack Willingham arrived, he was stunned: “It looked like you were going through the zombie apocalypse,” he said.
We’ll say it again: it’s too damn risky for Louisiana.
At least six elected officials — a mayor, two parish councilors, two state representatives and a state senator — spoke against Air Products’ plan to invade Lake Maurepas and the surrounding swamp. Because they have watched industry in Louisiana, they know how this story ends: once one company drills, others follow. Soon, the serene waters could echo with compressors, barges and drilling rigs — all in the name of “clean energy.”
Carbon capture and storage is being sold as a climate solution. But the reality is clear to climate groups across Louisiana: this new technology is a costly distraction that prolongs pollution rather than stopping it.
Public opposition to carbon capture is spreading fast from Republicans and Democrats alike, driven by communities who refuse to be sacrificed for a corporate experiment. And leaders are listening.
In October, Councilman Coates proposed a resolution opposing carbon sequestration wells and pipelines in Livingston Parish and the Council passed it unanimously. Altogether, the Council represents more than 152,000 people!
On October 15th, Gov. Jeff Landry — no stranger to siding with industry — showed that he, too, is feeling the political pressure, as he declared a temporary moratorium on new carbon capture injection well applications.
Gov. Landry’s moratorium was lifted last Sunday, but the fate of Air Product’s project still rests with the Governor and state agencies. Our experience tells us that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will likely follow the state’s lead in deciding whether Air Products gets the green light to break ground in our quiet swamp.
Since he’s taken office, Gov. Landry often talks about protecting Louisiana’s way of life. Well, this is his chance to protect this part of Louisiana, by denying the permits for this project.
In this matter, the governor has a choice: side with the people of Louisiana, or with corporate interests trying to bury their waste beneath our land and public waters.
Instead of energy that relies on hydrogen and ammonia and requires a PR campaign and dozens of lobbyists to hide its true impacts, Louisiana deserves real clean energy — solar, wind and efficient power.
Louisiana can’t afford to get stuck on stupid again, as Gen. Honoré often says.
Air Products’ carbon capture project is a bad deal for Louisiana. Now Air Products — the company that dreamed it up — wants to walk away. Doesn’t that tell us everything we need to know?
Nobody wants carbon capture. Not the public. Not the parishes. Not even Air Products itself.
Lt. Gen. Honoré (retired) leads The Green Army, which seeks to find solutions to pollution.
Dean Coates is a parish councilman for Livingston Parish, where he proposed and passed a resolution against carbon sequestration wells and pipelines in the parish with unanimous support from the council.
