Investigate the Crestwood gas-storage expansion on Seneca Lake

Crestwood Midstream, a Houston-based company, is seeking to expand gas-storage operations in Reading, NY Salt Caverns on Seneca Lake. They plan on storing both fracked "natural" gas and LP gas.

Salt-cavern gas storage is the most dangerous form of gas storage and is responsible for most of the catastrophic gas-storage accidents over the past thirty years. These particular salt-caverns were years ago rejected by the Department of Energy for the storage of nuclear waste, because the DOE found them too geologically unstable. Fault lines run through them, and there is evidence that the roof has collapsed in one of the storage chambers. If this expansion takes place, we will also face dangers from the transport of gas by pipeline, rail and truck, and the possible contamination of Seneca Lake, the drinking water source for more than 100,000 people.

There are many aspects of this plan that should be investigated, among them, a county legislative chair with gas-industry ties who pushed through an endorsement of this project; and a local fire department that, on the one hand, publicly claims it can handle potential Crestwood-related emergencies when it can't, and on the other hand, takes money from Crestwood.

We hear stories that employees at Crestwood subsidiary US Salt were threatened with job loss if they didn't support the project. We have questions about why the Reading town board approved this project while nearby towns oppose it. And we have serious concerns as to why the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation is keeping the most important documents related to safety (e.g. revised geological reports) secret from the public at the request of Crestwood.