Local officials were among the crowd at the well-attended meeting last night in Ponchatoula regarding the controversial Carbon Capture and Storage project under Lake Maurepas.
Parish President Robby Miller called it a state project and suggested that many people are still trying to understand what it means locally. He said he was glad that citizens would get to ask questions themselves. And he said he wanted to better understand implications for local governments and businesses.
Representative Sherman Mack said he was there to voice his opposition to the project.
Other Tangipahoa Parish residents said they fear for Lake Maurepas, as an industrial gas supplier looks to store carbon dioxide from its clean energy plant underneath the body of water, through a project those on hand feel is moving too fast while their questions aren’t getting answered.
The Air Products company said Lake Maurepas was offered up for bid by the state for carbon capturing and sequestration. The company’s blue hydrogen clean energy plant will be built in Ascension Parish, but officials said nearby old oil wells and salt domes pose too much of a hazard to inject the CO2 byproduct under that property.
The plan is part of the state’s efforts to give off zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
