Decatur was initially selected in October 2009 for the DOE Phase 1 research and development grants. Phase 1 timing: Drilling began in February 2009 and a successful injection with a rate of 1000 tons per day was achieved in September 2009. 3D seismic surveys of the injection zone were completed in March 2010 in preparation for Phase 2.

Construction activities began at Decatur on August 26, 2011 with injection commencing in November 2011. As of April 2012, the project had successfully stored over 110,000 tons of CO2. In September 2012, the DOE marked 2 major milestones for the Decatur CCS project: The construction on the project’s storage facility, as well as the public opening of the National Sequestration Education Center. In November 2012 Decatur project completed its first year of CO2 injection operations with a total of 317,000 tons injected at a rate of 1,100 tons/day. The project began with four years of pre injection monitoring (2007–2011), injection monitoring (2011–2014), and post-injection monitoring (2014–2021).

The second part of the project is the Illinois Industrial Carbon Capture and Storage (IL-CCS). The IL-CCS project has received a draft Class VI UIC permit in April 2014, and approved the full Class VI well in September 2014.