Ohio train wreck should be an Inergy wakeup call

COLUMBUS, Ohio -A freight train run by the Norfolk Southern Railroad derailed today, resulting in a huge fire here.

It also forced the evacuation of the area.

Norfolk Southern, by the way, is the railroad that will be running propane tankers daily - read that again, running propane tankers daily - across the Watkins Glen State Park gorge and up to the Town of Reading if the Missouri-based Inergy Corporation gets state Department of Environmental Conservation approval for a massive salt-cavern propane storage facilty.

So much for their much-touted safety record...

Tonight at 7 p.m., there will be a meeting at Damiani Wine Cellars on Route 414 to discuss strategies for keeping that storage from being approved.

By stopping the storage it will also keep train wrecks like these from potentially killing our friends and neighbors.

Here's a link to the full story:

Stop the propane trains, please!

Inergy preps U.S. Salt site for natural gas storage

TOWNSHIP OF READING, New York - The drill rigs can be seen from all the way across Seneca Lake. It's seems clear that Inergy Midstream - the Kansas City, Missouri mega-company that bought U.S. Salt - is most likely getting ready to store natural gas in the salt caverns below the lake - not just propane.

Right now Inergy is trying to get the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation to approve a plan to store a massive amount of propane in nearby caverns as well as build a rail-car terminal and construct huge brine ponds. That project has been held up by persistent local protests over the inherent dangers posed by the storage. People also are concerned it will negatively affect the tourist and wine industries.

Inergy's Moler

But in various documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Inergy has also referenced that it plans on storing natural gas on the same site.

So much for assurances from Inergy Midstream's president, Bill Moler of Kansas City, that his company has nothing to do with hydrofracking for natural gas.

In the video below, Moler speaks at an April 2011, Inergy-orchestrated community meeting in Watkins Glen, trying to sell the audience on the propane storage project. But there's not a peep about natural gas being stored on site, too. In fact, Moler denies that Inergy has anything do to with hydrofracking for natural gas. Technically, that might be true. Inergy doesn't frack. But it will store the natural gas, some of which is likely destined to be shipped to overseas markets via LNG ocean-going tankers.

Below the video is photo taken of the U.S. Salt site, just north of Watkins Glen, where a drill rig is boring down into a salt cavern.

Not exactly pretty like a winery...

'Living Downstream' a scary film worth watching

WATKINS GLEN, New York, USA - The film Living Downstream, based on the award-winning book by the same name, will be the feature attraction at the Glen Theater here Tuesday night. And like a Hollywood movie premiere (even though the film was released in 2010) there will be food and wine provided by Red Newt Winery and Glenora cellars.

I might have to drag out the tuxedo for this event. 

The movie starts at 7 p.m. and is sponsored by Gas Free Seneca, Finger Lakes Bioneers, and the Sierra Club (Finger Lakes Chapter).

Sandra Steingraber

The film is the story of Sandra Steingraber, a cancer survivor who is "working to break the silence about cancer and its environmental links."

It's an eloquent statement, according to every review I read.


And in the film, she makes a strong case that we all should become "cancer abolitionists."

Look for a full review here Wednesday.

In the meantime, here's the trailer for the film.

WARNING: Even the trailer can give you chills.

Inergy industrial expansion - not 'business as usual'

SENECA LAKE, New York, USA - A project to store propane (and eventually natural gas) in salt caverns alongside and below Seneca Lake is making an ugly industrial mess on the shore of the lake, just a few miles north of Watkins Glen in the Town of Reading.

The project is actively opposed by thousands of area people and businesses. An application is currently under consideration by the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation.

While the application works it way through the system, however, Inergy (and its wholly owned subsidiary U.S. Salt) have been busy, carving up a huge swath of the Seneca Lake shoreline and creating an industrial mess that looks more like something from a Mad Max movie (Mad Max's World of Industry) than the sylvan shores people expect to see in the beautiful Finger Lakes.

The four aerial photos below show how far along the project is. The Inergy company has gone to great lengths claiming this is just business as usual, similar to earlier local efforts to store lesser amounts of propane in the salt caverns.

It is not. This is a huge expansion as the photos show.

And the Quantitative Risk Assessment done last fall - paid for by Inergy - is being kept under wraps by the company. Inquiring minds would like to know what that risk assessment says.

If the project is approved by the DEC and the Town of Reading, people of the area will have to worry about possible propane explosions, fires, heavy truck traffic, railroad tanker car accidents, brine pond spills into the lake, possible earthquakes and a host of other pollution problems still under study.

And the Inergy firm has made it clear in various SEC filings that if it all goes sideways (as in some of the scenarios listed) it might not have the resources to pay for the devastation, cleanup and the various legal claims that would be forthcoming.

Here's a link to Gas Free Seneca, the local group coordinating efforts to keep Inergy - a Kansas City, Missouri company - from being allowed to continue: Gas Free Seneca website

These photos of the site on the west side of Seneca Lake were all taken by Gas Free Seneca.