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Jul 14, 2023

A Tangipahoa groundwater well imploded. Some blame testing for a carbon capture project.

Officials from the Tangipahoa Parish Water District and Air Products are butting heads over whether the company’s seismic testing for a proposed carbon-capture injection well in Lake Maurepas caused a

Officials from the Tangipahoa Parish Water District and Air Products are butting heads over whether the company’s seismic testing for a proposed carbon-capture injection well in Lake Maurepas caused a parish groundwater well to implode.

The Water District’s board voted Monday to let its in-house lawyer seek outside counsel for possible litigation against Air Products to recoup roughly $686,000 worth of damage to the Dutch Lane well, board member Don Marshall said. The well is near the intersection of La. 22 and Dutch Lane, a few miles west of Ponchatoula.

The two sides are fighting over the possibility that thousands of “shots” — or subsurface seismic tests involving 5½-pound explosive charges — performed by Air Products in Lake Maurepas over several months induced the implosion.

Marshall has laid the blame squarely on Air Products and cast doubt on the company’s explanations for a cause, including possible saltwater corrosion from the well’s exterior. Company officials countered that the closest explosion was miles away from Dutch Lane and couldn’t have been detected at the well.

The explosions are part of Air Products’ testing to determine whether the Lake Maurepas geology can handle carbon dioxide sequestration. Those subsurface tests began in late 2022 and ended in July.

Tied to the company’s “blue” hydrogen complex in Ascension Parish, the Air Products injection well would take about 5 million tons of carbon dioxide from the plant each year and shove them about a mile into the ground below Lake Maurepas.

Though carbon capture is backed by Gov. John Bel Edwards and industry leaders as a tool to curb greenhouse gas emissions, residents have packed Livingston Parish Council meetings to protest the Air Products project amid fears that it could ruin the surrounding environment. Air Products officials have repeatedly sought to assuage those worries.

The Dutch Lane well first encountered problems in January, around the same time the seismic testing began, Marshall said.

Officials believe the implosion happened in mid-April, according to a report from a hydrogeologist hired by Air Products that was provided to The Advocate. Marshall said some kind of outside force blew through a 3-inch concrete exterior and a half-inch steel pipe on the inside.

The well was taken offline immediately and won’t be back in use for about two more weeks, Marshall said. He emphasized that water for the district’s roughly 25,000 customers is still safe to drink because the parish has enough wells to maintain supply and pressure.

Concerned that the seismic testing could have been the culprit, Tangipahoa Parish Water District officials contacted Air Products to investigate, according to minutes from the district’s July 17 board meeting.

The Air Products hydrogeologist report determined that corrosion from the outside of the well’s casing likely caused it to thin out over time. Air Products officials added that the nearest seismic test was roughly 10 miles away from the Dutch Lane well and that another nearby parish well was unaffected.

However, Marshall questioned whether the high volume of “shots” wore down the Dutch Lane well over time. A report from an Air Products-enlisted geophysicist noted that 9,433 “shots” were conducted in Lake Maurepas from January to mid-April.

In an interview, Marshall said Air Products’ explanation “didn’t seem to pass muster,” particularly the corrosion explanation. He said the parish’s wells haven’t tested positive for saltwater.

Marshall found it “absurd” that saltwater corrosion could have weakened the well’s steel casing so much. He said a parish drilling contractor failed to remove the well’s blown-out steel even after applying 17,000 pounds of pressure to it.

“There were 17,000 pounds of pressure put on this thing, and it didn’t budge,” Marshall said. “It yielded zero results. If something’s corroded, 17,000 pounds is not what’s going to be needed.”

In a statement, Air Products officials said their outside experts determined it is “not just highly unlikely, but virtually impossible” that the “shots” caused the damage.

Those experts determined the seismic “shots” would not have been detectable at the Dutch Lane well. In addition, Lake Maurepas is more than 10 miles from the well, and the implosion happened more than 1,700 feet underground. The seismic charges were set off about 60 feet underground.

Air Products said it shared its findings with the Tangipahoa Parish Water District this summer. The firm’s legal team has also requested parish maintenance records for Dutch Lane but has yet to receive them.

“We are committed to being a good neighbor in Louisiana and will continue to go above and beyond regulatory requirements to safely operate our project,” Air Products spokeswoman Christina Stephens said in a statement. “There is no reasonable scientific basis for statements that Air Products’ activities had any effect on the Dutch Lane Well.”

Marshall wants Air Products to work with the district to further investigate the well implosion so they can protect their injection well from possible damage or corrosion. He added that he’s in favor of carbon capture when done correctly.

“It does no good to do carbon capture to save the air and poison the water,” he said.

Email Robert Stewart at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter, @ByRobertStewart.