By Randy Agness
First Hydro Fracturing, now LP Gas Storage in the Finger Lakes present a long-term high risk situations to the environment and presents issues for potential investments and land development for vineyards to consider. This type of statement is making headlines across New York State when actually noting “One of the most important aspects to growing premium wine grapes to produce superior Rieslings is the unique soil, climate in the Finger Lakes region,” as commented by Paul Hobbs – California Winemaker, is the concern.
What’s at stake? Paul Hobbs is the latest in a series of exceptional winemakers purchasing acreage in the Finger Lakes, and partnered with Johannes Selbach famed German Riesling producer. While planting had begun this week in a new section of their 45 acre Finger Lakes Riesling vineyard and winery project directly across Seneca Lake from the salt caverns for the proposed liquid petroleum gas storage, Paul Hobbs provided his insight on reasoning behind his opposition. While the final decision concern the permit approval is pending in the New York State Dept of Environmental Conservation, for Hobbs it’s simply “a benefit versus risk” situation. “The bottom line is this industrial accidents do happen despite the many safe guards put into place to prevent leaks, catastrophic spills, contamination and explosions,” commented Hobbs, “and having vineyards in California, I have a deep appreciation for pure water as it’s becoming a luxury” (speaking about the water restriction in California). Continuing Hobbs stated, “In the Finger Lakes where fresh water supply serves hundreds of thousands of people as the main source of drink water, the permit proposal if accepted by the DEC, then it will put this abundant treasured resource at risk unnecessarily.”
Crestwood Midstream, an $8 billion oil-and-gas services holding company with operations throughout the U.S. has submitted a permit and plans to store of two billion cubic feet of methane, with plans to expand capacity to ten billion in the caverns extending below the Seneca Lake near Watkins Glen. Additionally, the production operation involves transportation through a series of pipelines into and out of the salt caverns to tanker trucks along with a rail yard. The tanker cars will be carrying the LP gas with an NFPA rate of 4 (severe fire hazard) across the Watkin Glen gorge. In 2007, near Oneida, NY, a derailment led to the explosion with at least one tank car which was carrying propane (LP gas). New York train accidents are more common than one would think. According to the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) database, CSX has been involved in more than 80 accidents since 2008 most commonly as switches. Also, the potential associated with the daily tanker truck convoys to and from the site on county routes has ignited non-violent protests at the proposed site where now on a routine basis human chains are formed at the entrance gates. Including in this protest have been many of the Finger Lakes winemakers and vineyard owners which have been arrested for blocking traffic. A growing number of groups with acronyms like SLPWA, SLC, GFS, and FLWBC have joined together and presented a series of arguments to counter the plan to store LP gas in the salt caverns which as they say, “poses threats over a wide range of concerns.”
In the initial post issue conference brief, the NYS DEC indicated the project is consistent with the existing community character and that all issues raised against the permit are not substantive and significant. “In reality, the project is inconsistent with current environment where 85% of all wine is produced in New York originates in the Finger Lakes,” mentioned Hobbs, “and as the frequency of possible incidents increase so does the overall risk potential.” For decades, New York State has been encouraging entrepreneurial land development in the rural counties targeting the wine and grape industry. “The spectacular vistas around the Finger Lakes attract tourism whereas brine lakes and industrial sites only act to diminish the experience,” stated Hobbs. According to the DEC briefing notes a significant proposed issue must meet a threshold level of importance and that each of the concerns raised lacked “factual foundation.”
First some history – “The salt deposits around the Finger Lakes were (at least originally) planar layers within the Silurian Salina formation. Because of the ductility of salt and the past tectonic history of the area, these layers have been sheared and warped to greater and lesser degrees. These past collisions bent the rocks into larger and smaller folds and created some deep faults,” stated David Kenrick – Dept. of Geoscience Hobart & William Smith Colleges. The salt deposits lie as parallel beds within a thicker package of rocks which includes silty shales, carbonates (limestones or equivalents), and evaporites. (See photo) “Due to its impermeable nature, the salt caverns seem to be a key part of the argument for the safety of the proposal, so it seems likely either in the caverns or above and below must lay other layers they’re relying on to halt motion of materials,” noted Kenrick.
In 1882, the massive underground salt bed was discovered below Watkins Glen, NY. By using the process of solution mining, the salt was brought to the surface by drilling wells and pumping hot water into the hole to bring the resulting brine (concentrated salt water) solution to the surface. Once evaporated the brine forms into rock salt. “Over time, each hole bored would become enlarged into the size of a cavern and over 600 brine solution wells have been drilled throughout New York State,” according to Karen Edelstein – New York State FracTracker Liaison.
In and around Watkins Glen, there are several salt mining operations, all of which are removing salt as brine. The combined layers of nearly pure salt beneath Watkins Glen are about 450 feet thick at the south end of the lake, and occur between 1500 and 1900 feet below the surface. The large plant at the south end of Seneca Lake is owned by Cargill. Further up the west side of the lake is the US Salt facility. Along this part of the Seneca Lake shore there are 62 brine wells, all but 6 of which are plugged and abandoned. Some of these abandoned wells date from prior to 1900.
“Any place in the world is susceptible to earthquakes,” explained Kenrick, and “the most active seismic area, at least at the frequency and magnitude that we notice in the Finger Lakes originates in the Western Quebec Seismic Zone where locally earthquakes have reached 4.5 on the Richter scale. Structurally, there are faults in the crust in this area. Indeed, there are some longer faults mapped along and around Seneca Lake.”
According to Kenrick, “something that could happen without reintroducing support once the caverns are evacuated of the original salt filling.” Over pressurizing the caverns would likely not cause a catastrophic failure. Kenrick noted, “Is it possible and could it drive materials out of the cavern and into the lake or into water supplies?” It would depend on a variety of things, including, but not limited to, the mechanical properties of the surrounding rock with potential areas of contamination, and where pre-existing fractures or weaknesses in the area. “With respect to fluids pumped into these caverns to support against collapse, I’m assuming the mining engineers calculate the pressures required to prevent collapse,” commented Kenrick.
The storage of pressurized gas in other salt caverns has had a history of leaks and occasional explosions. In 2001, natural gas migrated eight miles from a salt-cavern storage facility in Kansas, punched into several abandoned wells and exploded, destroying businesses in downtown Hutchinson and killing two people in a nearby home. The salt caverns Crestwood is targeting for the project are a few miles from the village of Watkins Glen. In New York, two salt mine collapses occurred including one at the south end of Cayuga Lakes and another at an abandoned salt mine site in the upstate region. In 1994, part of a salt mine in upstate New York collapsed. Officials thought an earthquake had taken place. Parts of the Genesee Valley caved in and surrounding homes and farms were swallowed. The mine had to be abandoned.
Rock salt (the mineral halite) has two unique properties with a density that is much lower than most other sedimentary rocks and salt has the ability to deform and flow like a high-viscosity fluid when it is under pressure. Salt movement can be triggered if the rock sequence (containing a variety of separate strata deposits) is subjected to tectonic forces. Compression shear can produce folding and faults or weaknesses from thinning that will be exploited by the unstable salt. Salt Miner Shawn Wilczynski explains, “Salt always has a small amount of movement (creep) and it’s almost impossible to stop, due to this elastic type of rock whereas others will fail quickly being more brittle.” As the salt layer too thin, it causes new faults to develop.
That unstable situation is created where a lower specific gravity material that is capable of behaving like a fluid is overlain by materials with a higher specific gravity. When a layer of salt is deposited on the floor of an evaporating body of water as in a reseeding glacier, it has a specific gravity of about 2.2. Other sedimentary rocks like shale and limestone have lower specific gravities when they are deposited because the mud that they form from contains a significant amount of water.
In addition, there’re clearly concerns about catastrophic failures of both the brine lake impoundments, and the stability of the pressurized cavern itself. If the permit application for LP gas storage is approved, then the NYS DEC stated it would only require pressure monitoring in the salt cavern, but is not required reporting of the results. Validation and verification of the calibration and test results must be available on request.
None of these pressure measures for any given storage facility are fixed or absolute. The rates of LP gas injection and withdrawal will vary considerably as the level of gas varies within the salt cavern. Additionally, in practice a storage facility may be able to exceed certificated total capacity in some circumstances by exceeding certain operational parameters defined in the permit. But the facility’s total capacity can also vary, temporarily or permanently, as its defining parameters vary. Further, the measures of base gas, working gas, and working gas capacity can also change from time to time. Also, storage facilities can withdraw base gas for supply to market during times of particularly heavy demand. By contrast, the injection rate varies inversely with the total amount of gas in storage: it is at its lowest when the reservoir is most full and increases as working gas is withdrawn. With the multitude of these environmental conditions, loosely monitoring pressure seems to be risky.
Additionally, the planned 92-million-gallon storage lakes to contain the brine (1000 feet long, 382-608 feet wide and 32 feet deep) will be located on a steep slope above Seneca Lake on the downward sloping (8-12% grade). Depending on demand, brine in the well will be drawn down to make room for the additional storage need, and pumped back down during the months of less demand.
Onondaga Lake, near Syracuse considered by many as part of the Finger Lakes, banned ice harvesting as early as 1901 due to unsafe levels of pollution. In 1940, swimming was banned, and in 1970 fishing was banned due to mercury contamination which still a problem for the lake today even after closing the major industrial polluter in 1986. Now, Onondaga Lake is considered one of the most polluted lakes in the United States.
“Whether the pressures will drive LP gas or brine into the lake is the million dollar question,” stated John Halfman – Dept. of Geoscience Hobart & William Smith Colleges. State Assembly member Robert Oaks understands the concerns about the watershed environmental issues surrounding the Finger Lakes region. “We can’t encourage land development in counties where jobs are critical when policies allowing gas storage facilities have the opposite effect,” commented Oaks.
