The community held an open house to discuss Vinton’s carbon capture project

LAKE CHARLES, La. (KPLC) – Concerns about carbon capture projects in southwest Louisiana continue to grow. SOWELA hosted an open house meeting this evening to inform the community about the Cypress Southwest project.

“Our project is located two miles near the southern boundary of the town of Vinton. We propose to own, build and operate a direct air capture facility,” said Leslie Matthews, senior manager of stakeholder engagement. “This is a facility that captures CO2 from the atmosphere, we process it and work with another company to send it through a pipeline to permanent underground storage in Vernon and Rapides parishes.”

Many residents share concerns about increased traffic and chemicals in the air, among other concerns, but Project Cypress Southwest is reassuring residents.

“We’re doing a traffic impact assessment to understand what different traffic control measures would be important to reduce any impact on this community,” Matthews said. “We do a noise exposure assessment so we look at what the noise levels will be in addition to the noise they’re already experiencing and reduce it as much as possible. We want to make sure people can still enjoy their country lifestyle while we continue to develop our site.”

The Cypress Project Community Engagement Council, formed by community representatives, said they are excited about the project’s future.

“This project was conceived and designed from the ground up to be environmentally friendly and help create jobs throughout the region. I think the company is making every effort to be open and transparent about the project,” said Ernest Broussard, a participating member of the Community Engagement Council.

Some residents, who declined to go on camera, said they were excited about the prospect of new jobs in Vinton. However, the Mossville resident said he is concerned about the future of air in their area. The Cypress Southwest project reassures all residents of their concerns.

“This is not something new or untested and if people have questions please contact us. We would like to answer questions and talk to people one-on-one,” Matthews said.

Project Cypress Southwest wants the community to know if they have any questions about the future of this project and to reach out to them. You can do this by clicking HERE.