Pipelines, Promises, and Protests: Louisiana’s Carbon Capture Battle Heats Up

Editor’s Note / Disclosure :

This report is a follow-up to a February 2025 feature originally published by KALB on community concerns surrounding carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects in Vernon Parish. It includes updated information through October 2025 on the current status of CCS activity, legislation, and public response across Allen, Beauregard, Vernon, and Calcasieu Parishes.

VERNON PARISH, La. – The rollout of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects across Louisiana has entered a new chapter in late 2025, marked by deepening community concerns, statehouse battles, and the milestone approval of the state’s first CO₂ injection well. While industry proponents tout economic benefits, many local residents and officials remain uneasy about potential threats to property rights and the environment.

Local Landowners Fear Eminent Domain and Water Contamination

Pitkin resident Mike Nichols speaks at a community meeting on carbon capture and sequestration in Allen Parish on Feb. 24, 2025, voicing community concerns.

In rural communities like Pitkin – straddling Vernon and Allen parishes – landowners have voiced alarm about CCS pipelines and injection wells encroaching on their properties. Mike Snell, a Pitkin landowner, said he felt he had “no choice” but to lease a right-of-way on his land for a CO₂ pipeline after hearing implicit threats of expropriation. Snell had attempted to buy a neighboring tract, but once it was optioned for a CCS project, “they don’t want to sell me the land,” he recounted, suggesting eminent domain would have been used had he refused the leasekalb.comkalb.com. Like many in his area, Snell’s household relies on a private well for drinking water – not a city supply – heightening his worries about groundwater contamination if stored CO₂ were ever to leak. Carbonic acid, formed when CO₂ mixes with water, is corrosive and “could cause traditional steel casings to corrode and become brittle,” according to the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources (LDNR)kalb.com. “I’m not on city water, so what’s gonna happen to my drinking water right here in my own home?” Snell asked, pointing to the well in his yardkalb.com.

Snell’s neighbor, Michael Nichols, shares these fears. He argues that CCS projects put entire communities at risk, not just those along the pipeline route. To reach deep geologic storage zones, CO₂ pipelines must be drilled through local aquifers, raising the specter of contaminated drinking water for everyone abovekalb.com. “Don’t bring it amongst people and risk it destroying our communities and risk damaging our water. Let’s not take that risk,” Nichols urgedkalb.com. These sentiments were echoed at a packed public meeting in Allen Parish in February, where residents and officials from a multi-parish coalition called Louisiana CO₂ Alliance lambasted the projects. “We don’t want eminent domain on these CO₂ pipelines. Nor do we want this poison potentially falling into our water,” said Roland Hollins, an Allen Parish police juror, drawing loud applauselailluminator.com.

Local opponents also cite health and safety concerns. Dr. Cade Burns, a family physician who spoke at the Allen Parish forum, warned that a CO₂ leak from a pipeline or storage site could displace oxygen in the air. Even at relatively low concentrations, elevated CO₂ can cause headaches, nausea and confusion, and prolonged exposure can lead to unconsciousness or death due to lack of oxygenlailluminator.com. These warnings carry fresh relevance – a 2020 pipeline rupture in Satartia, Mississippi released a cloud of CO₂ that hospitalized dozens, and just this year a federal agency fined Denbury $2.4 million for obstructing inspectors investigating that incidentlailluminator.com. The specter of such accidents has rural Louisianans on edge. Below is a summary of key risks repeatedly raised by concerned residents:

• Property Rights: Fear of land expropriation through eminent domain for CO₂ pipelines, undermining generational property ownershipcom.
• Groundwater Safety: Potential for aquifer contamination if injected CO₂ migrates upward, forming carbonic acid that could corrode well casings and leach metalscom. (Many rural homes depend on private wells, so any pollution could directly impact drinking water.)
• Public Health: CO₂ leaks can create asphyxiating conditions. Exposure symptoms range from headaches and disorientation to anoxic injury or even death with prolonged high concentrationscom. (Residents note that CO₂ is odorless and colorless, making large leaks especially insidious.)

Legislative Efforts to Curb CCS Largely Fail

In early 2025, as public outcry grew, several state lawmakers from central Louisiana moved to rein in the nascent CCS industry. State Rep. Rodney Schamerhorn (R-Hornbeck) spearheaded a bill to strip CO₂ pipeline companies of eminent domain powers, insisting they should be required to purchase or lease 100% of any pipeline route – not force holdouts to yield via court orderkalb.com. “If you want to run your pipeline through, you’re going to need to buy and get approval to do it…you’re not going to be able to do the 75%-25%” deal that current law allows, Schamerhorn said, referring to Louisiana’s rule that pipeline operators can expropriate remaining tracts once 75% of a route is secured voluntarilykalb.com. Another Cenla lawmaker, Rep. Charles “Chuck” Owen (R-Rosepine), introduced a proposal to give parishes veto power over CCS sites – effectively requiring local voter or official approval before any underground carbon storage could proceedlailluminator.comlailluminator.com. “It won’t do any good,” Owen said of the state’s rush into carbon capture. “I do not believe we should surrender our personal property rights and potentially damage the environment over something that is not settled”kalb.com.

However, these legislative pushback efforts met stiff resistance at the Capitol. In a dramatic committee hearing on April 29, 2025, lawmakers rejected seven bills that opponents said would have “greatly hindered” carbon capture developmentpipelinefighters.org. Schamerhorn’s eminent-domain bills (House Bills 380 and 553) were among those voted downlailluminator.com, as was Owen’s parish referendum billlailluminator.comlailluminator.com. In the end, only one CCS-related measure survived: Senate Bill 73 by Sen. Mike Reese (R-Leesville), which passed without objectionpipelinefighters.org. Act 414 (SB 73) now requires the state Commissioner of Conservation to give “significant weight” to local government input when deciding permits for CO₂ storage projects that go through public hearingspipelinefighters.org. While SB 73 modestly amplifies local voices in the process, it stopped far short of granting any outright veto power to parishes.

“Legislators rejected seven bills…a major blow to constituents concerned about eminent domain and CO₂ leaks.” – Leesville Leader report on the 2025 legislative sessionpipelinefighters.org

Crucially, the failure of most bills means Louisiana’s existing CCS laws remain in place, still favoring a centralized, industry-friendly approach. As District Attorney Joe Green bluntly told residents in Allen Parish, current law “does not give local governments authority over CCS” – no new legislation passed to change that in 2025kalb.com. This reality hit home in July when ExxonMobil sued the Allen Parish Police Jury, challenging a new parish ordinance that attempted to require local permits for carbon injection wellskalb.com. “There’s been no action in the legislature that gives local bodies the ability to do that,” Green explained, after the court fight forced parish officials to back downkalb.com. Allen Police Juror Joe Perkins vented frustration at state leaders for leaving parishes powerless: “I blame the representatives and the governor for…putting us where we’re at,” he said, after the ordinance was suspendedkalb.com.

Parishes Fight – and Fold – for Local Control

Spurred by their constituents’ worries, a number of parish governments have tried to assert local control over carbon storage projects – only to encounter legal and economic pressures. In Allen Parish, police jurors (equivalent to county commissioners) unanimously adopted Ordinance 6656 in June, requiring that any Class VI injection well obtain a parish permit in addition to state approvalkalb.com. ExxonMobil, which plans a major sequestration hub in Allen and neighboring parishes, swiftly filed suit in federal court to overturn the ordinancekalb.com. At a packed meeting on July 7 in Oberlin, hundreds of residents cheered as officials defiantly defended the measure – but after two hours of heated public comment, the Police Jury voted to suspend enforcement of the new rules pending the lawsuitkalb.com. “They already drilled a Class V test well in this parish with no stakeholder or public meetings. We’ve had it,” fumed Juror Roland Hollins, criticizing Exxon for forging ahead without local inputkalb.com. Nonetheless, parish attorneys warned that state law clearly preempts such ordinances. Facing costly litigation, Allen Parish repealed its CCS ordinance entirely by Augustamericanpress.com. Instead, officials planned to pass a non-binding resolution on Oct. 6 simply declaring the parish’s opposition to any Class V or Class VI carbon storage project within its bordersamericanpress.comthreads.com. (That resolution, aimed at “let[ting] it be known” Allen Parish doesn’t welcome carbon sites, carries no legal force but sends a political message to Baton Rouge and industry.)

In neighboring Vernon Parish, the Police Jury initially took a hard stand against CCS but later reversed course under economic pressure. Back in November 2024, Vernon officials had passed a resolution objecting to carbon sequestration until more was understood about the riskskalb.com. That pause effectively stalled any permits in Vernon through early 2025. Yet by September 2025, with no state ban in place and companies scouting locations, Vernon’s leaders abruptly rescinded their moratorium. In a contentious meeting on Sept. 15, the Vernon Parish Police Jury voted to withdraw two resolutions that had opposed CCS and had hindered permit activity, while simultaneously adopting a new resolution of support for “industries that provide economic development to Vernon Parish, whether or not they require CCS in their operations.”kalb.comkalb.com This policy U-turn was met with “fierce opposition from locals in attendance, citing eminent domain and safety concerns”, according to meeting coveragekalb.com. “We knew a lot of our people…fear carbon sequestration,” acknowledged Jury President Jim Tuck, who said officials spent months seeking answers on safetykalb.com. Ultimately, however, parish leaders felt Vernon could not afford to turn away big employers. At that meeting, representatives of Highland Pellets, an Arkansas wood-pellet manufacturer, told the Jury they are considering a new facility in Vernon – one that depends on CCS to capture emissions and qualify for federal incentiveskalb.com. The company claimed its project would bring 100–200 high-paying jobs, a lifeline in a parish struggling with a declining timber industry and looming troop reductions at Fort Polkkalb.com. “Vernon is an economically dying parish,” Tuck lamented as he urged an open mind to such opportunitieskalb.com. In the end, the Jury voted to support welcoming carbon capture projects, with Tuck casting the swing vote amid shouts from upset residents. The about-face in Vernon illustrates the tough choice many Louisiana communities face: weighing environmental and property fears against promises of jobs and investment.

Not every project is steamrolling ahead, however. Public pushback has prompted at least one company to retreat. In September, Low Carbon Logistics CCS Transport LLC – which had proposed a CO₂ pipeline in Calcasieu Parish (west of Lake Charles) to carry captured carbon from a new methanol plant – withdrew its applications just days before a scheduled state hearing, according to the Louisiana Department of Conservation & Energy. The agency said the withdrawal came “in recognition of the high level of public interest” from Southwest Louisiana residents. The pipeline would have required servitudes across many private properties and was intended to connect to a Denbury line leading into Texas.

A spokesperson for ExxonMobil, which owns Low Carbon Logistics, later said the company requested the cancellation “to allow more time to review the route with potential stakeholders.” While the applications remain withdrawn as of October 2025, company representatives have not ruled out refiling them in the future after further route adjustments and public outreach. The pause is still seen by landowners as a rare victory for grassroots opposition — at least for now.

First Carbon Storage Well Wins Approval

Even as debates rage, industry momentum in Louisiana has continued, backed by supportive state officials. In fact, Louisiana’s regulatory authorities have now green-lit the first-ever Class VI carbon sequestration well in the state. In late September 2025, LDNR (recently rebranded as the Department of Conservation & Energy) issued a landmark permit to Hackberry Carbon Sequestration LLC, a Sempra Infrastructure affiliatekplctv.com. This Class VI permit allows Sempra to inject up to 2 million metric tons of CO₂ per year into a geological formation nearly two miles beneath Black Lake in Cameron Parishkplctv.comkplctv.com. The approved storage reservoir spans roughly 8,000 acres under and around the lake, with one injection well and multiple monitoring wells planned to track the underground CO₂ plumekplctv.comkplctv.com. “This is the first Class VI permit ever approved in the state,” noted Patrick Courreges, communications director for LDNR, calling it a milestone that came after extensive technical reviewkplctv.com. The well will be drilled to about 10,100 feet deep, injecting compressed carbon between 4,000 and 10,000 feet below ground – safely beneath any freshwater aquiferskplctv.com. Engineers will use a network of sensors to ensure the CO₂ remains trapped in the intended rock layer over timekplctv.com. If all goes as planned, the project will start by storing CO₂ from Sempra’s Cameron LNG export terminal, reducing the facility’s emissions footprintkplctv.com.

The Hackberry project is just the vanguard. Dozens of other carbon storage applications are pending in Louisiana’s pipeline. As of early 2025, there were 58 Class VI well applications across 18 parishes awaiting approvallailluminator.com – a number that has likely grown. The EPA formally granted Louisiana primacy (permitting authority) over Class VI wells in late 2024, and a legal challenge by environmental groups to revoke that authority was dismissed by a federal appeals court in May 2025hunton.comtheenergylawblog.com. With the state now firmly in charge of carbon well permitting, officials expect to issue “dozens of permits” in the coming yearlailluminator.com. Major players like ExxonMobil are lining up multi-well sequestration hubs: Exxon’s Low Carbon Solutions division, after acquiring Texas-based Denbury Inc. for $4.9 billion in 2023, inherited a flagship project dubbed “Project Draco.” This proposed CO₂ storage complex would drill six injection wells across Allen, Beauregard, and Vernon Parisheskalb.com. Project Draco was filed with the EPA just days before the Denbury acquisition and remains under review as one of the largest carbon storage efforts in Louisianakalb.comkalb.com. Local residents are well aware of Draco – it was Exxon’s plans for Allen and Vernon that first ignited much of the rural backlash. (“It’s unbelievable how terribly their pipelines are maintained,” Allen resident Frances Cannon said of Denbury’s record, citing the 2020 blowout in Mississippilailluminator.com.) Exxon has also been drilling preliminary Class V test wells in the area (with bird-themed code names like “Mockingbird IZM” and “Hummingbird IZM”) to assess the geology for Project Dracokalb.comkalb.com. The company held a public hearing in Oberlin on April 30, 2025 to discuss those test wells – one of the few chances locals have had to directly question regulators and the company about the endeavorkalb.comkalb.com.

Meanwhile, carbon capture is increasingly embedded in Louisiana’s economic development strategy. State leaders view CCS as a way to sustain traditional industries (like natural gas, refining, and chemicals) in a carbon-constrained future, and to attract new investments that prefer a lower-carbon profile. Louisiana Economic Development (LED) officials say carbon capture and similar emissions-reduction projects “serve as a catalyst for long-term economic development” in the statekalb.com. By making Louisiana’s LNG and manufacturing products greener, CCS can “strengthen and expand” those sectors for decades to come, according to industry groupspipelinefighters.org. LED’s own estimates project roughly 4,500 new jobs stemming from carbon capture projects and over $60 billion in capital pouring into Louisiana as a resultkalb.comkalb.com. Among the marquee projects frequently cited is Meta’s planned $10+ billion AI data center in Richland Parish – announced in 2023 – which Governor Jeff Landry hailed as “one of Louisiana’s largest private capital investments” everkalb.com. The Meta facility will be a massive power consumer and is expected to incorporate carbon-reducing measures; its go-ahead was seen as a vote of confidence in Louisiana’s commitment to new energy infrastructure opportunitylouisiana.govnesfircroft.com.

Local entrepreneurs are also positioning themselves. CapturePoint LLC, a company with Class VI injection projects proposed in Vernon Parish, agrees with LED’s rosy outlook. “There are several industries…moving on CO₂ sequestration projects – ammonia, natural gas processing, power generation, and others,” said CapturePoint COO Kris Robersonkalb.com. Each project, he noted, needs a whole support ecosystem of workers and suppliers, potentially creating new supply-chain jobs across the regionkalb.com. Roberson also stressed that companies like his want to give back to the community. CapturePoint has inked a partnership with the Vernon Parish School Board, pledging to channel a portion of CCS project revenues into local education programskalb.com. “We would like to see a portion of the revenue generated each year go directly into these schools [so they] benefit,” Roberson said, framing it as a win-win for economic and human capital developmentkalb.com.

Still, the divide between state/industry optimism and local skepticism remains wide. As Louisiana moves forward, it must balance its role as a pioneer in carbon capture with the genuine concerns of its citizens. The coming months promise more public hearings, regulatory decisions, and likely new legislation in 2026 – all against the backdrop of a global push to reduce carbon emissions. Can Louisiana safely seize this “$60 billion” CCS opportunity without sacrificing the rights and safety of its people? As one Vernon resident implored officials during a heated meeting: “Either we let them do that, or we stand against them…Louisiana has to come together, one parish after another”kalb.comkalb.com. The ultimate verdict on carbon capture in the Bayou State will depend on how – and if – those competing interests can be reconciled in the years ahead.

More source links:

• Elise Plunk & Shannon Heckt. “Local say-so for carbon storage projects in Louisiana takes a blow.” Louisiana Illuminator, April 29, 2025compipelinefighters.org.
• Jay McCully. “ExxonMobil lawsuit pushes Allen Parish to pause local CCS rules.” KALB (Gray Media), July 8, 2025comkalb.com.
• Rob LaPerle. “Vernon Parish Police Jury reverses ‘outdated’ resolutions; supports industries regardless of ties to carbon capture.” KALB, Sep. 15, 2025comkalb.com.
• Brendan Brown. “Louisiana approves first carbon capture storage well near Hackberry.” KPLC, Sep. 22, 2025comkplctv.com.
• Natalie McLendon. “Local opposition mounts to carbon capture projects in Louisiana.” Louisiana Illuminator, Feb. 26, 2025comlailluminator.com.
• KALB Staff. “Is CCS an asset or a liability? Officials, residents & economists weigh in.” KALB, Mar. 21, 2025comkalb.com.
• Louisiana Department of Energy & Natural Resources – Press Release. “Low Carbon Logistics Withdraws Pipeline Applications.” 5, 2025dce.louisiana.govdce.louisiana.gov.