High Risk Project Opposed on NY Seneca Lake
Seneca Lake gas storage project: all the risks, none of the rewards
From a Letter by Edgar Brown, Seneca Lake Defenders, South Bristol, NY, May 16, 2015
The New York state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) recently filed a brief as part of an issues conference proceeding to determine if permits should be granted to expand gas storage in crumbling salt caverns along the shores of Seneca Lake. The DEC said that the region has a long history of gas storage without major incident and that opponents have not produced adequate evidence to support their claims that the project should not be permitted.
Seneca Lake is the source of drinking water for 100,000 people, including the cities of Geneva and Watkins Glen. Many studies have been done and information exists that says Seneca Lake is already the saltiest of the Finger Lakes, that a fault line runs right through the proposed storage caverns, and that the shale inter-bedded in those caverns have already produced a massive cavern collapse in the past.
The expanded storage projects for methane, butane, and propane from other Marcellus shale states are not on the same scale as gas storage in the past and the increased amount of pressurized storage cannot be compared with methods and amounts in the past.
These projects are not consistent with the natural character of the Finger Lakes and the region’s growing wine and tourism industry.
There are 327 members in Gas Free Seneca’s wine and business coalition opposed to gas storage, as well as 24 municipalities, including some in Monroe County, that have issued resolutions in opposition.
The DEC does not have the best interests of its Finger Lakes constituents in mind. The DEC seems to be in collusion with Houston-based Crestwood Midstream, which wants to turn Seneca Lake into, in its own words, “the gas storage and transportation hub of the Northeast.” Finger Lakes residents will assume all of the risk and none of the reward as gas is shipped out to the most lucrative markets.
I would like New York State and the DEC to use the same health and science standards used to ban fracking to examine the impact of the massive gas infrastructure build-out currently happening across the state.
If you love the Finger Lakes region and want to see it preserved from the fossil fuel industry greed, please write or call Gov. Andrew Cuomo and all the other elected officials.
See also: We Are Seneca Lake
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