Futuregen Compiled Responsiveness Summary
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Response to Comments on Draft Class VI Permits Issued to the FutureGen Industrial Alliance United States Environmental Protection Agency Region V 77 West Jackson Boulevard Chicago, Illinois 60604 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................................. i SECTION 1. GENERAL AND OUT OF SCOPE COMMENTS............................................................................... 1 SECTION 2. GENERAL COMMENTS .............................................................................................................. 22 SECTION 3. AREA OF REVIEW (AOR) AND CORRECTIVE ACTION COMMENTS............................................ 52 SECTION 4. FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY COMMENTS ............................................................................... 105 SECTION 5. CONSTRUCTION AND PRE-INJECTION TESTING COMMENTS ................................................ 136 SECTION 6. OPERATIONS COMMENTS ...................................................................................................... 148 SECTION 7. TESTING AND MONITORING COMMENTS ............................................................................. 160 SECTION 8. PLUGGING AND POST-INJECTION SITE CARE COMMENTS .................................................... 197 SECTION 9. EMERGENCY AND REMEDIAL RESPONSE COMMENTS .......................................................... 213 INTRODUCTION On March 31, 2014, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued draft Class VI permits to inject carbon dioxide for the purpose of geologic sequestration (permit numbers IL-137-6A- 0001, IL-137-6A-0002, IL-137-6A-0003, and IL-137-6A-0004) to the FutureGen Industrial Alliance, Inc. (FutureGen), and invited public comment. Twenty-nine (29) parties submitted comments to EPA, either in writing or during a public hearing held on May 7, 2014 (or both). These commenters are presented in Table 1. This document categorizes the public comments submitted on the draft Class VI permits and includes EPA’s responses to those comments, although there is some overlap between the categories and the responses. This document is organized as follows. Section 1: General and Out of Scope Comments: comments including general introductory statements and comments that are “out of scope” for these permitting actions. Section 2: General Comments: comments generally supporting or opposing the draft permit actions or about the permitting process; geologic sequestration; the geology of the FutureGen site; and general permit conditions. Section 3: Area of Review (AoR) and Corrective Action Comments: comments on the size of the AoR and the modeling approach used to delineate the AoR; AoR reevaluations; wells in the AoR; Part G of the draft permit; and Attachment B. Section 4: Financial Responsibility Comments: comments on cost estimates for the covered activities; the financial instruments used; Part H of the draft permit; and Attachment H. Section 5: Construction and Pre-Injection Testing Comments: comments on the injection well components (e.g., casing/cement and tubing/packer); pre-injection logs and tests to be performed; Parts I and J of the draft permit; and Attachment G. Section 6: Operations Comments: comments on Part K of the draft permit (e.g., injection pressure limitations); and Attachment A. Section 7: Testing and Monitoring Comments: comments on the testing and monitoring activities (e.g., mechanical integrity testing, ground water monitoring, and plume and pressure front tracking) in Part M of the draft permit; Attachment C; and the quality assurance and surveillance plan for testing and monitoring activities. Section 8: Plugging and Post-Injection Site Care Comments: comments on post-injection monitoring; the post-injection site care timeframe; the non-endangerment demonstration; site closure activities; Part O of the draft permit; and Attachments D and E. Section 9: Emergency and Remedial Response Comments: comments on Part P of the draft permit; Attachment F; and induced seismicity. i Table 1: Commenters on the FutureGen draft Class VI permits American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, Coal Utilization Research Council, Edison Electric Institute, Illinois Coal Association, National Mining Association (NMA), National Rural Electric Cooperative Association Betty Niemann Bradley Zeller Carl Hankel Central Iowa Building & Construction Trades Council (CIBCTC) ClearStack Combustion Corporation Danny Little Ed Shaw Elizabeth Rigor FutureGen Industrial Alliance, Inc. (FutureGen) Global Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Institute ILL Coal Association Illinois Chamber of Commerce Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) International Brotherhood of Boilermakers Local 363 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 193 Jacksonville Regional Economic Development Corporation (EDC) Karen Shaw Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA) Leinberger & Critchelow families Lillian Korous Marc Landers Mick Mcintyre Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Clean Air Task Force, and Sierra Club Pipefitters Local 137 Robert J. Finley U.S. Carbon Sequestration Council (CSC) US Fish and Wildlife Service Wilmot McCutchen ii SECTION 1. GENERAL AND OUT OF SCOPE COMMENTS EPA regulations at 40 C.F.R. Parts 144 and 146 state the requirements and standards that a permit applicant must meet to have an Underground Injection Control (UIC) permit application approved. Those regulations define the general scope of EPA’s authority and review process. Federal regulations require EPA to briefly describe and respond to significant comments received on UIC permits. EPA received numerous general comments and comments directed at matters outside the scope of the UIC Program’s purview. EPA acknowledges the submittal of these comments and clarifies that because they raise matters that are not addressed by the UIC regulations and are outside the scope of the UIC permit process, EPA does not respond to them specifically in this document. The comments falling into the “out of scope” category focus on topics including: job creation and economic benefits of the project; cost of the project; general support for or non-specific opposition to the project; the Department of Energy’s process, decisions and Environmental Impact Assessment; approvals and processes of other regulatory programs; climate change; the power plant; the pipeline; other Carbon Capture and Storage projects; other Geologic Sequestration projects (e.g., the Archer Daniels Midland project); neutral statements of fact; background information on the commenters or the project; pore space ownership; mineral rights; eminent domain; takings; land owner compensation; natural gas storage operations; and general introductory statements to specific concerns. These general comments are listed below without response. Specific comments that address topics that are relevant to this permitting decision, with responses, follow in subsequent sections. Although EPA is not responding to general statements of support and opposition to the permit individually, it did consider them in making the decision to issue final permits. 1 # Commenter Comment Text 1 Boilermakers I'm here to speak in favor of the permits on behalf of myself and our members. Local 363 Our primary work is in power plants and power generation facilities and we believe not only the jobs that will be created during construction and the direct and indirect jobs that will be created will be more permanent jobs after construction are important, but also the ramifications of this power plant and the carbon capture technology that could spread to other plants and keep our industry viable for many years. And I think it should also be noted when talking about the jobs that a lot of our living is made during, what we refer to as the outage season. When we do periodic maintenance on these power plants. And so there will be -- I think the job numbers are low because we will be back to service the facility on a fairly regular basis. And those are jobs that haven't been talked about today, but they're very important to myself and our members because that's how we make our living. We, you know, we aren't scientists. We have read, we're well-read on the carbon capture and we do believe that the Environmental Protection Agency and FutureGen Alliance has our -- has protected us and looked out for our best interest. So, again, we're in favor of moving this forward. 2 Bradley I'm here to briefly discuss the economic and environmental impact of the FutureGen 2.0 project. Specifically, the Zeller sequestration site and it's what we're here for today and the ground water. But economically the project itself is a 1.6 billion dollar impact for our economy. That's the actual construction cost. To put that in layman's terms, we are a board of review for the county. I'm looking back. I should be -- but anyway, to put this in perspective the County of Morgan has a 500-million dollar EAV. That's our total tax base that we base all of our taxes. For our school district, the county, all the taxing body which is equivalent to a 1.5-billion dollar value. 500 million is one-third of our fair market value. Now, there's roads and hospitals and things out of that EAV, but that's 1.5 billion total value of Morgan County. This is bringing in 1.6 billion dollars to the county, which is more than the county is worth in total. An independent study by the University