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Toxics Targeting says state records reveal problems at LPG storage site in Bath
WATKINS GLEN — Toxics Targeting Inc., an environmental database firm in Ithaca, announced this week that previously unreleased state reports reveal a fire, explosion and illegal wastewater discharges at a Liquefied Petroleum Gas storage facility in Bath, Steuben County.
Walter Hang of Toxics Targeting said the LPG storage is similar to the one proposed for the town of Reading north of Watkins Glen in Schuyler County on the western shore of Seneca Lake.
At a Wednesday press conference, Hang said he posted the reports on his website for public review. The incidents occurred in 2009 and 2012 at a facility owned by Inergy Midstream, the precursor to Crestwood Midstream LLC, which owns the Reading facility.
“This information further documents that New York authorities have long failed to prevent or clean up on a comprehensive basis, environmental and public health hazards at LPG and natural gas storage sites, as well as compressed gas truck and rail transfer facilities in the state,” Hang said. “We are again documenting the state’s shocking inability to prevent massive fossil fuel storage facilities from contaminating the environment or threatening public health.”
He said the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s own documents reveal the agency has repeatedly failed to prevent major pollution hazards at LPG sites in the state or to clean them up to state standards.
Hang said the reports support arguments by opponents of the Crestwood Midstream LLC proposal to store LPG in abandoned underground salt caverns at a 576-acre site in Reading.
“It would be irresponsible of Governor Cuomo to authorize additional massive fossil fuel storage and transfer facilities in New York, given the state’s deplorable record of regulatory non-compliance,” Hang said.
He said LPG storage in Reading would imperil Seneca Lake “for decades to come.”
Crestwood officials claim their plans would allow for the safe storage of the LPG.
Environmentalists Across New York are Asking Cuomo for a Moratorium on Fossil Fuel Projects
BROOME COUNTY, N.Y. -
Environmentalists from all across New York are urging Governor Andrew Cuomo to issue a moratorium on all fossil fuel projects after newly released data shows that state officials fail to regulate and clean up after them.
"It would be irresponsible to continue to permit these giant storage and transport facilities to be built and operated given the state of New York's absolutely shockingly inadequate record of regulatory control," said Walter Hang, Toxics Targeting President.
His company, an environmental database firm out of Ithaca, released previously undisclosed documents (Information Request and Spill Compilation) on Wednesday which show that fires, explosions, and illegal wastewater discharge were all found at a Liquefied Petroleum Gas storage facility in Bath.
"The Department of Environmental Conservation's own data reveals that the agency has repeatedly failed to prevent major pollution hazards at Liquefied Petroleum Gas and natural gas storage sites in our state or to clean them up to state standards," said Hang.
The Coalition Letter states that "the proposed moratorium is critical in transitioning New York to a less polluting energy future." Nearly 1,400 people have already signed the letter including 22 state Legislators.
In addition to requesting that Cuomo not grant a gas storage permit for a proposed LPG facility in Reading, the opposition is also asking for a temporary end to "virtual pipeline" projects like the proposed Compressed Natural Gas Trucking Transfer Station in Fenton.
"Under no circumstances should the Governor permit Liquefied Petroleum Gas storage in Reading, NY that would imperil Seneca Lake for decades to come or any compressed gas truck transfer facilities that would perpetuate New York's addiction to polluting fracked gas," said Hang.
Plans to frack by liquid gas, not water, still alive in NY in Tioga County
ALBANY - Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his top commissioners braced for lawsuits when they announced plans to ban large-scale hydraulic fracturing in late 2014. lohud.com
A once highly-touted plan to frack a gas well in Tioga County using propane rather than water remains a non-starter after two and a half years, although supporters have not given up.
A group of landowners, Tioga Energy Partners, have been pursuing a permit since July 2015 to develop shale gas wells on their properties in the Town of Barton. The state’s ban on high volume hydraulic fracking does not apply to propane fracks, according to the group.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation has not disagreed with that premise, although the agency’s demand for more information has effectively stalled the project.
Just south of the intersection of Halsey Valley and South Hill roads, the Snyder well would use a liquid propane system instead of a water-based chemical solution to generate hydraulic pressure to fracture the shale and release gas. Both systems use sand as a “proppant” to hold open minute fissures in the bedrock.
A portion of land in the Town of Barton, near Tyler Hollow Road, sits near the site of the proposed natural gas well. The gas collection will take place beneath a 53-acre plot. This photo was taken in August 2016.
(Photo: KELLY GAMPEL / Staff Photo)
Due to explosion risks, propane fracks — also known as “gas fracks” — typically use robotics to keep workers out of the “hot zone” during operations. The technology is still developing and has not been widely used, especially in places where water is available.
Linda Collart, DEC’s regional mineral resources supervisor, stated the agency needs more details to determine “if this relatively unique fracturing technology that has not heretofore been subject to a full environmental analysis has the potential to cause significant adverse environmental impacts.”
In a Notice of Incomplete Application on April 15, 2016, Collart requested information on safety and emergency protocols, truck traffic, storage, equipment specifications, waste controls, emissions and many other aspects of the project.
The group has yet to satisfy the requirements, said Kevin Frisbie, president of the Tioga County Farm Bureau and one of the landowners. Even if the permit is completed to the state’s satisfaction, the project may require an independent environmental review.
“It’s time consuming and very technical,” Frisbie said about the permit process. “In a perfect world, there’s no reason it couldn’t happen. But it’s so political and there are so many players involved, there’s no telling.”
Frisbie’s idea of a perfect world is vastly different than those who oppose shale gas development due to environmental and public health concerns.
In their view, using propane is even more reckless than using water to frack wells because it adds the risk of fire and explosion to other health and environmental issues at the root of New York’s fracking ban. These range from risks to drinking water supplies to ongoing emissions from gas production.
“We are against fossil fuel development for many reasons,” said Walter Hang, an activist from Ithaca who participated in the landmark fight for New York’s fracking ban. Hang agrees that the propane frack would likely fall outside the ban, which was enacted three years ago on December 17.
“The governor’s so-called fracking ban turns out to be incredibly limited,” Hang said. “It needs a clearer definition of fracking.”
When the Barton project was announced in the summer of 2016, drilling proponents were keen on proving the viability of the Utica and Marcellus shales in New York. Since then, a prolonged gas glut in Pennsylvania has suppressed prices and made the viability of any new drilling questionable.
Economics aside, however, the Tioga proposal could present a legal and regulatory test for alternative methods to tap the Marcellus and Utica shales that become relevant in the future.
Adam Schultz, attorney for the Tioga landowners, said the application review has taken “a long time, but [is]not necessarily out of the ordinary.”
Despite a century of salt mining, Cargill getting local pushback on environmental issues
Assemblywoman Barbara LIfton wrote a second letter to the NYSDEC Commissioner pushing against Cargill, Inc.'s salt mining under Cayuga Lake. Sarah Mearhoff
Cayuga Lake may not be seeing much activity on its surface lately as Ithaca’s temperatures continue to fall, but deep under the lake's shore more than 200 employees continue to operate a 13,000-acre salt mine.
And, in the courtroom, things are only heating up: Environmental action group Cayuga Lake Environmental Action Now (CLEAN) — with four Tompkins County municipalities — filed an Article 78 Wednesday opposing the state Department of Environmental Conservation's decision to allow the construction of a new mine access shaft.
Ithaca's Common Council voted in October to sign the petition, and was joined by the towns of Ithaca, Ulysses and Union Springs in a push for further environmental review of the project and the mine.
The Cayuga Salt Mine, in operation since 1915, was acquired by Minnesota-based Cargill Inc. in 1970. Hundreds of local employees haul over 2 million tons of road salt from its Lansing location every year, providing the salt for about 1,500 locations throughout New York and the Northeast.
Stretching seven miles long and running 2,300 feet deep, the salt mine is the largest of its kind in the Western hemisphere.
But despite Cayuga's century of operation in Tompkins County, recent developments have brought public attention to the mine and its potential environmental impacts.
Cargill has permission from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to construct mine shaft 4 at Cayuga Salt Mine.
Matt Steecker / Staff video
Cargill was granted a permit by the DEC in August to construct a $42 million access shaft farther north up the mine to enhance air quality and improve miners’ safety.
Today it takes miners about 50 minutes to travel from the shaft to the current mining location – cutting it relatively close to the state mandate that miners be able to reach above-ground within an hour from their mining location.
The second-to-last set of the 17 Cargill salt miners emerged Thursday, Jan. 7, 2016 after being rescued from an elevator stuck 900 feet below the surface. The elevator was the only exit and Cargill now wants to add a second elevator. (Photo: Simon Wheeler / Staff Photo)
The sole exit of the mine is also the site where 17 miners were trapped for 10 hours 900 feet underground when the shaft elevator malfunctioned in January 2016. The mine closed for nearly two months after the incident, and reopened after the elevator was repaired and inspected.
Cargill site manager Shawn Wilczynski said the Shaft 4 construction project is purely an effort to protect the health and safety of the mine’s employees, but state Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton (D-District 125) said at an October news conference she is not so sure these are Cargill’s motivations.
By constructing a new shaft farther up the lake, Lifton noted that Cargill could potentially expand mining in the future.
A low-profile front-end loader dumps salt onto a conveyor belt in Cargill's Lansing salt mine in 2002.
(Photo: File Photo)
Lifton announced she and state Assemblyman Steve Englebright (D-District 4) wrote a second letter to the DEC requesting a denial of Cargill’s mining permit renewal, which expired November 1. They also urged the state to issue a moratorium on salt mining until a review of salt mining’s potential environmental impacts is conducted.
On Thursday, Lifton's office said they have not yet received a response from Commissioner Seggos to Lifton and Englebright's second letter .
Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton and environmental activist Walter Hang urge the New York Department of Environmental Conservation to enforce a moratorium against salt mining permit renewals in a news conference in Lifton's Ithaca regional office in October.
(Photo: Sarah Mearhoff / staff photo)
Although Cargill’s mining permit expired in November, the company still is able to operate under their existing permit until the DEC makes a decision on Cargill's permit renewal. Cargill applied for a permit renewal in August.
As Lifton and Englebright noted in their letters, the DEC has not conducted an environmental review of the Cayuga Salt Mine since 2003. Fresh research has emerged in the past 14 years, they said, including that done by SUNY Geneseo Professor of Geology Richard Young that suggested horizontal forces in the Earth could put at risk land destabilized by mining.
Walter Hang discusses the Retsof mine collapse that occurred in Livingston County in 1994 and compares the catastrophe to what he says could happen to Cayuga Lake.
Matt Steecker / Staff video
In response to Lifton and Englebright’s first letter from July, however, DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos said Young’s plate tectonics theory is nothing new, and does not constitute a new environmental review.
“The crux of Dr. Young’s presentation is that horizontal forces generated by plate tectonics have not been considered in the design of the mine and constitute new information that needs to be evaluated by DEC,” Seggos wrote. “Plate tectonics theory is now decades old.”
At her October press conference, Lifton pushed back, saying the DEC “says, ‘we’ve got the science down,’ but we show that they don’t.”
Lifton recalled the Retsof, Livingston County, mine collapse of 1994, saying: “The collapse says no, we don’t fully understand this science and we’re better off not taking these risks. This [moratorium] is talking about not taking those risks.”
Salt is stored on the surface of the Cargill salt mine in Lansing in August 2002.
(Photo: File Photo).
A lot would be at risk in the case of Cayuga Salt Mine’s collapse, Lifton said: Ithaca’s tourism economy – largely fueled by the freshwater lake and gorges – and the city’s drinking water supply.
“We all have to be thinking 10 to 20 years ahead,” Lifton said in an interview with The Ithaca Journal. “People need to understand how important fresh water is. We have got to operating on precautionary principle. We just don’t take risks with such previous resources.”
After the October press conference, Tompkins County District 6 Legislator Mike Sigler, who represents Lansing, challenged Lifton’s statements, saying that even if Cargill wanted to expand mining in the future, it would require a new mining permit and a new environmental review.
“They’re not even asking for a review,” Sigler said of the two state legislators in October. “They just want this mine closed, and they don’t care about the 200 people that work there.”
The elevator that carries workers into the Cargill salt mine.
(Photo: SIMON WHEELER / Staff Photo)
Sigler is not the only one to highlight the mine's economic benefits: In October 2016, Tompkins County Industrial Agency approved a $640,000 tax abatement to Cargill to assist in the Shaft 4 construction, and a $2 million grant was allotted to the project in December 2016 at the Regional Economic Development Council awards.
Cargill, Inc. reported that its fiscal 2016 net earnings totalled $2.38 billion.
Throughout all of this – the letters to the DEC, Article 78s filed, passionate public comments made at Ithaca city meetings – Wilczynski said he has rarely been asked to voice his own perspective as an employee with the mine.
“We ultimately have the same goals in mind: to protect the lake,” Wilczynski said. “Cargill has strived for decades to be responsible company. I’m quite proud of our work.”
