On 9/10/13 a 2.0 Earthquake struck the west shore of Seneca Lake. Earthquakes occur on fault lines and are a sign of geological instability and stress. Inergy wants to store billions of gallons of combustible gas in salt caverns in the same location as where the earthquake occurred. Sound OK to you?
New information regarding the history of the salt caverns.
A Kansas City energy company is urging New York and federal regulators to disregard explicit warnings about the structural integrity of two salt caverns that it plans to use to store millions of barrels of highly-pressurized liquid propane and butane.
One cavern was plugged and abandoned 10 years ago after a consulting engineer from Louisiana concluded that its roof had collapsed in a minor earthquake. He deemed the rubble-filled cavity “unusable” for storage. It is now scheduled to hold 600,000 barrels of liquid butane.
The other cavern sits directly below a rock formation weakened by faults and characterized by “rock movement” and “intermittent collapse,” according to a 40-year-old academic study that cautioned that the cavern might be plagued by “difficulties in production arising from the geological environment.” That cavern is scheduled to hold 1.5 million barrels of liquid propane.
Reading Center, N.Y. – Members of the group Gas Free Seneca say their concerns about a possible liquid petroleum gas storage facility, near Seneca Lake, aren’t being heard.
The underground storage facility would be built in the Town of Reading, by the Missouri based Inergy Corporation.
Wednesday, at the Reading Town Board Meeting members of Gas Free Seneca were planning to voice their concerns about this possible facility to the board. But they weren’t allowed.
The board refused to hear any public opinion about the possible liquid petroleum gas storage facility. This caused members of Gas Free Seneca to walk out on Wednesday’s board meeting. Gas Free Seneca members we spoke with say they’re very disappointed.
Article about the hiring of Richard Lippes
A newly formed business alliance – opposing the proposed Kansas City, Mo.-based Inergy Corporation project to store liquid propane gas in salt caverns three miles north of Watkins Glen – announced this week it has hired a well-known attorney to look into ways to stop the project.
Attorney Richard Lippes of Buffalo, best-known for his successful litigation on behalf of homeowners in the Love Canal case, has been hired and is reviewing documents.
“This is an investment to protect our assets,” Lou Damiani, owner of Damiani Wine Cellars said. “We don’t want them (Inergy) to make this the hub of northeast gas distribution.”
When Inergy speaks to Wall Street they say one thing, when they speak to us they say another.
In this first video, Inergy CEO John Sherman talks to Wall Street about “Making Marcellus Happen”
In this video, William R. Moler, Senior Vice President, Natural Gas Mid Stream Operations says the following:
“This thing is getting tangled-up with the whole Marcellus drilling debate… this has nothing to do with Marcellus drilling”
One of them is telling the truth. Which one do you believe?
Inergy, LP (Finger Lakes LPG Storage, LLC) based in Kansas City is a pipeline and natural gas storage company with approximately 3,000 employees and annual sales of about $1.8 billion.
In 2008, Inergy purchased the U.S. Salt plant on the west side of Seneca Lake approximately 2 miles north of Watkins Glen to “build an integrated gas storage and transportation hub in the Northeast.”
Details of the Inergy proposal include:
Please refer to the “Resources” page for more detailed information on the project and its potentially devastating environmental consequences.
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