The Energy Information Agency is in the U. S. Department of Energy

From an Article by David Bradley, Natural Gas Intelligence, October 17, 2017

Henry Hub natural gas spot prices this year and next will be lower than previously forecast, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), which now predicting an average of $3.03/MMBtu for 2017 and $3.19/MMBtu next year.

Those price forecasts, included in EIA’s latest Short-Term Energy and Winter Fuels Outlook, are both down from last month, when EIA was forecasting prices would average $3.05/MMBtu this year and $3.29/MMBtu in 2018.

Expected growth in natural gas exports and domestic consumption next year contribute to the forecast increase between 2017 and 2018 Henry Hub natural gas spot prices, EIA said.

In September, the average Henry Hub natural gas spot price was $2.98/MMBtu, up 8 cents/MMBtu from the August level.

New York Mercantile Exchange contract values for January 2018 delivery traded during the five-day period ending Oct. 6 suggest a price range of $2.28-4.63/MMBtu, encompassing the market expectation of Henry Hub prices in January at the 95% confidence level, EIA said.

“Futures prices declined in early September, largely because of reduced demand related to Hurricane Irma in Florida,” EIA said. “Most electricity generation in Florida is natural gas-fired, and electricity generation in Florida on Sept. 11 was 41% lower than the average of the first seven days of September.

“Injections of working natural gas into underground storage exceeded market expectations and historical averages for the first three weeks in September, which further contributed to lower prices.”

EIA expects domestic dry natural gas production to average 73.6 Bcf/d this year, a 0.8 Bcf/d increase from 2016, and is forecasting 2018 production to reach a record 78.5 Bcf/d.

“As rising natural gas production keeps pace with increasing consumption and demand for exports — particularly for liquefied natural gas (LNG) — EIA projects a balanced market from the last quarter of 2017 through 2018,” the agency said. “LNG export capacity is expected to increase, with LNG exports projected to exceed 3 Bcf/d in 2018, 66% higher than in 2017. Increased takeaway capacity out of the Marcellus and Utica shale plays is expected to help boost production.

The United States was a net importer of natural gas last year, averaging 0.6 Bcf/d, but it is expected to be a net importer this winter.

Increased pipeline capacity to Mexico and LNG export capacity on the Gulf Coast will help push net exports to an average 1.4 Bcf/d through the winter, EIA said.

Earlier this month, the EIA released its Natural Gas Monthly report that revealed that U.S. dry natural gas production increased year/year in July to 2.28 Tcf, a 0.5% increase from July 2016.

The July data also revealed that the largest importer of natural gas from the United States was Mexico via vessel at 14.4 Bcf.

Turning to storage, the government agency said inventories should total 3.8 Tcf at the end of October.

“During the first three months of the 2017 injection season, which starts in April, the rate of natural gas inventory builds was lower than the five-year average,” the agency said. “However, cooler-than-average temperatures in August reduced the use of natural gas for electricity generation, which contributed to builds that were above the five-year average during August 2017 and September 2017.”

Chestnut Ridge map shows Cheat Lake in lower left corner, Lake O' Woods at lower center

Underground Natural Gas Storage Services Proposed for Summit Gas Field in Fayette Co., PA, Monongalia & Preston Co., WV

From an Article of PRNewswire, Houston, TX, July 31, 2015

Interstate Natural Gas Storage Services – Chestnut Ridge Storage, LLC, owned by affiliates of eCORP International, LLC and financial partners, is conducting a non-binding Open Season for natural gas storage capacity and deliverability that will be offered at the Junction Natural Gas Storage Facility that is currently under development.

The Open Season for the initial 15 BCF of working gas capacity will begin on August 3, 2015 and will end at 5:00 pm CDT September 15^th, 2015. After evaluating open season submissions, Chestnut Ridge will seek to execute definitive precedent storage service agreements with successful bidders.

The proposed facility is to be constructed within the West Summit Field that is located in Fayette County, PA and the counties of Monongalia and Preston in West Virginia.

Junction Storage will be a multi-cycle, high deliverability facility with up to 25 BCF of working gas capacity and 500,000 dth/day of peak injection and withdrawal capabilities.

The project scope includes interconnects with the Columbia Gas Transmission, Dominion Transmission, Equitrans and Texas Eastern pipeline systems near the town of Waynesburg, PA.

Chestnut Ridge will seek authorization to construct the project from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and will request market-based rate treatment for this new interstate storage facility. The proposed in service date for this facility is the 2^nd Quarter of 2018, with the potential for limited commercial operations in the 4^th quarter of 2017.

The Junction Natural Gas Storage Facility will be strategically located to provide service to the expanding pipeline networks that are being built to transport the Marcellus and Utica natural gas production to the most valuable markets in the United States. Because of the facility’s design it will be unnecessary to impose restrictions that typically limit the use of conventional gas storage in the region.

Junction Storage will provide highly flexible services that can be specifically tailored to each customer’s needs. This flexibility will provide customers with a valuable new “on-demand” asset to help manage strategic and operational gas requirements, including supply, demand and transportation imbalances, basis, and seasonal price spreads. These services can be particularly useful when the requirements are the result of unplanned circumstances.

About eCORP International, LLC – eCORP International, LLC is a Houston, Texas, based privately held energy company, that is engaged in the development of natural gas storage facilities, natural gas pipelines and unconventional resource plays through its subsidiaries and affiliates.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Some 13 Arrested at Crestwood Blockade While Reading Pope Francis’ Encyclical on Climate Change

From a Report by Sandra Steingraber, EcoWatch, August 4, 2015

Early this morning, in a peaceful civil disobedience action against gas storage in Seneca Lake salt caverns, which took place the day after President Obama announced the Clean Power Plan to move the nation away from fossil fuels, 13 people from six New York counties were arrested while reading verses from Pope Francis’ recent encyclical letter on climate change.

Just after dawn, the 13 formed a human blockade at the north and south entrances of Crestwood Midstream’s gas storage facility on Route 14, preventing all traffic from entering or leaving and began their reading. Joining the pontifical read-aloud was the Rev. John D. Elder, former pastor of the historic First Church in Oberlin, Ohio and present part-time resident of Schuyler County. Rev. Elder was not arrested.

Large trucks attempting to leave the facility were blocked at both the north and south gates of the Crestwood property shortly after 7 a.m.

The words on the banners carried by today’s protesters—“Love the Common Good,” “And Care for This World”—were lines from the prayer that closes the encyclical.

Large trucks attempting to leave the facility were blocked at both the north and south gates of the Crestwood property shortly after 7 a.m. Schuyler County deputies arrested the blockaders at about 7:30 a.m. The 13 were taken into custody, charged with both trespassing and disorderly conduct and released. None of the 13 blockaders this morning had been previously arrested as part of the We Are Seneca Lake movement, which opposes Crestwood’s plans for methane and LPG storage in lakeside salt caverns.

Two other individuals on the media team were inadvertently arrested and charged with trespassing (one was the videographer and the other one was me).

Dan Taylor, 64, of Oxford in Chenango County said, “Yesterday, President Obama released the Clean Power Plan and put the nation on the path to renewable energy. Today, we are standing at the gates of dirty energy to say that Crestwood’s plan for the Finger Lakes is not a clean power plan. I am here to help impede the build-out of fossil fuel infrastructure.”

This morning’s recitation continued the read-aloud from the Pontifical document, Laudato Si! On Care for Our Common Home, that began during a blockade on June 30 and that continued during blockades on July 7 and July 20. All together, 44 people have been arrested as part of encyclical-themed blockades at Crestwood.

One of today’s arrestees, Faith Muirhead, 45, of Beaver Dams in Steuben County, grew up in the town of Reading near the salt caverns. She said, “We are all of us stewards of the earth. I am a native of Reading and know that this area and Seneca Lake are gifts to be cherished and protected. I feel a responsibility to do what I can to protect these waters and this land. So I pray, I walk, I send letters, I call my state representatives and today, I stand at the gates of Crestwood to demonstrate my resolve. I am a teacher and a teacher of teachers. Today, I teach by putting my freedom in jeopardy in order to bring attention to the potential risks inherent in Crestwood’s plans.”

The total number of civil disobedience arrests in the eight-month-old campaign against gas storage now stands at 332.

Crestwood’s methane gas storage expansion project was approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last October in the face of broad public opposition and unresolved questions about geological instabilities, fault lines and possible salinization of Seneca Lake, which serves as a source of drinking water for 100,000 people.

Clean Power Plan Paves Way Toward a Carbon-Free Economy

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

High Risk Project Opposed on NY Seneca Lake

Seneca Lake gas storage project: all the risks, none of the rewards

From a Letter by Edgar Brown, Seneca Lake Defenders, South Bristol, NY, May 16, 2015

The New York state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) recently filed a brief as part of an issues conference proceeding to determine if permits should be granted to expand gas storage in crumbling salt caverns along the shores of Seneca Lake. The DEC said that the region has a long history of gas storage without major incident and that opponents have not produced adequate evidence to support their claims that the project should not be permitted.

Seneca Lake is the source of drinking water for 100,000 people, including the cities of Geneva and Watkins Glen. Many studies have been done and information exists that says Seneca Lake is already the saltiest of the Finger Lakes, that a fault line runs right through the proposed storage caverns, and that the shale inter-bedded in those caverns have already produced a massive cavern collapse in the past.

The expanded storage projects for methane, butane, and propane from other Marcellus shale states are not on the same scale as gas storage in the past and the increased amount of pressurized storage cannot be compared with methods and amounts in the past.

These projects are not consistent with the natural character of the Finger Lakes and the region’s growing wine and tourism industry.

There are 327 members in Gas Free Seneca’s wine and business coalition opposed to gas storage, as well as 24 municipalities, including some in Monroe County, that have issued resolutions in opposition.

The DEC does not have the best interests of its Finger Lakes constituents in mind. The DEC seems to be in collusion with Houston-based Crestwood Midstream, which wants to turn Seneca Lake into, in its own words, “the gas storage and transportation hub of the Northeast.” Finger Lakes residents will assume all of the risk and none of the reward as gas is shipped out to the most lucrative markets.

I would like New York State and the DEC to use the same health and science standards used to ban fracking to examine the impact of the massive gas infrastructure build-out currently happening across the state.

If you love the Finger Lakes region and want to see it preserved from the fossil fuel industry greed, please write or call Gov. Andrew Cuomo and all the other elected officials.

See also: We Are Seneca Lake

Santa's assistant Sandra Steingraber (elf)

‘Santa’s crew arrested at Schuyler County NY gas protest

From an Article by Bob Jamieson, Elmira Star Gazette, December 23, 2014

Nine protesters dressed as Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus and seven elves were arrested Monday for blocking the gates to the Crestwood Midstream gas storage facility in Schuyler County, New York.  Watkins Glen is at the base of Seneca Lake.

The environmental group We Are Seneca Lake, which is organizing the ongoing protest and blockade, said there have been 170 arrests in two months in what they call their civil disobedience campaign.

The protest group, in a news release, said those arrested Monday carried banners that read “Christmas Against Crestwood” and “Methane in Your Stocking is Worse Than Coal.”

The group said the nine were charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct at Texas-based Crestwood Midstream’s gas storage facility gates on the shore of Seneca Lake.

Those arrested Monday according to We Are Seneca Lake included: Stefan Senders, 55, (as Santa Claus), Schuyler County; Charlotte Senders, 18, Schuyler County; Kim Cunningham, 58, Heron Hill Winery; Ilona Marmer, 68, Montour Falls; Jean Olivett, 68, Ithaca; Hope Rainbow, 24, Ithaca; Gabriel Shapiro, 18, Ithaca; Bill Carini, 53, Newfield; Chrys Gardener, 53, Newfield.

Protesters began blocking the Crestwood gas storage facility gates on October 23, leading to many arrests for trespassing at the Town of Reading facility on state Route 14. Protests have been ongoing since federal approval was received in October to expand its methane storage in former salt caverns along (and under) Seneca Lake.

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Check out this video from Watkins Glen, NY, on YouTube:

Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus and 7 Elves Arrested on December 22^nd while Blocking Crestwood Gas Storage Facility, Marking 170 Arrests in Two-Month-Old Civil Disobedience Campaign at Watkins Glen, NY.

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Gas Pipeline Explosion & Fire near Houston, PA

Breaking News: “Fire caused by pipeline explosion at Washington County PA gas plant under control.”  See the Pittsburgh Post Gazette article here.

Protest of Plans for Unsafe Storage of Natural Gas under Seneca Lake

Some 10 Arrested as Human Blockade Continues Protesting Methane Gas Storage Facility on Seneca Lake in NY State

From an Article by Stefanie Spear, EcoWatch.com, October 29, 2014

UPDATE: Ten people were arrested on October 29th blockading the two gates at Crestwood, on Seneca Lake. Seven were arrested at the north gate, blockading a truck, and charged with disorderly conduct and trespassing. Three were arrested at the south gate and charged with trespassing. All have been released and have a November 5th court date.

After blockading the gates of Texas-based Crestwood methane gas storage facility on the shore of New York’s Seneca Lake for two days last week, including a rally with more than 200 people, the human blockade continues.

For the second morning in a row this week, the “We Are Seneca Lake” protesters are blocking the Crestwood gate with protesters expanding the blockade to include a second driveway. With last Friday marking the day that the construction project on this huge gas storage facility was authorized by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to begin, community members, after pursuing every other avenue to stop this project, are participating in ongoing nonviolent civil disobedience as a last resort.

“We are not going away,” said renowned biologist and author Sandra Steingraber, PhD. “The campaign against dangerous gas storage in abandoned salt caverns near our beloved lake will continue with political pressure on our elected officials—who should be protecting our drinking water, our health and our wine, and tourism-based economy—and nonviolent acts of civil disobedience.”

These community protestors are not the only ones against this project. Last week, the Tompkins County legislature approved a resolution that opposes gas storage on the lakeshore, while the Yates County legislature passed a similar resolution the prior week. These counties now join the Board of Supervisors of both Ontario and Seneca counties, which previously passed motions opposing gas storage, along with the Geneva City Council and the Watkins Glen Village Board that oppose this project.

“As a registered nurse, I know that we need clean drinking water, and it’s important to protect people from all of the insidious byproducts of petrochemical companies,” said Coby Schultz a resident of Springwater in Livingston County. “This area is too precious and water is too valuable of resource to exploit so recklessly.”

On Monday, Steingraber joined Thom Hartmann on The Big Picture sharing her reasons why this project must be stopped. Watch here:

Barbara Schiessher of Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association agrees with Steingraber: “The expansion of the Crestwood facility will affect everyone who lives, works or plays on the lake, or consumes agricultural products from the region, including its award winning wines. It will affect the 100,000 residents who get drinking water from the Lake. It increases the likelihood of contamination of our air, soil and water, plus the always present risk of gas leakage, unpredictable explosions and sink holes such as have occurred in a number of salt cavern storage facilities of natural gas and LPG.”

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Some 64 Arrested at Vermont Governor’s Office Demanding End to Gas Pipeline

Source: Rising Tide Vermont, Will Bennington, October 28, 2014

MONTPELIER, Vt. – Sixty-four people were arrested last night, after occupying Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin’s office for over six hours, demanding a ban on new fossil fuel infrastructure and that the governor stop supporting a fracked gas pipeline in the western part of the state.

Half the group occupied the governor’s office, while the other half stayed in the main lobby of the building. 500 people attended a rally outside of the building, supporting the sit-in.

“We are fed up with a broken, unaccountable, and biased process that is ignoring the clear and present danger of expanding fossil fuel infrastructure so that Gaz Metro and International Paper can increase their profit margins,” said Jane Palmer, a landowner in Monkton along the Phase 1 pipeline route. “The Shumlin administration is ignoring the thousands of Vermonters, including impacted landowners and over 500 ratepayers, who know we can’t afford this project.”

Demonstrators from across the state are concerned that the Shumlin administration, including the Public Service Department, are promoting dirty fracked gas as a climate solution, despite the well known climate impacts of extracting and burning fracked gas.

Dr. Maeve McBride, coordinator of 350 Vermont, said, “Today, hundreds of grassroots Vermonters are sitting in to call for a ban on new fossil fuel infrastructure, including Vermont Gas/Gaz-Metro’s proposed fracked gas pipeline, and to demand energy and climate solutions that are transparent, accountable to our communities and put people and the planet first. As the Governor said himself, these solutions need to come from the grassroots, not from the top down.” McBride was among those arrested.

Supporting arguments made before the Public Service Board over the past two years, the demonstration focused on how, despite industry rhetoric, fracked gas may actually be worse for the climate than other fossil fuels.

“The science is clear – whether the goal is avoiding CO2 emissions or sparking a transition to an emissions-free energy system, the fracked gas boom and this pipeline are no substitute for ambitious energy and climate policies, weatherization, efficiency and decreased consumption,” said Dr. Rachel Smolker, a Hinesburg resident. “Once the gas bubble pops, ratepayers are going to be stuck with higher bills, paying the cost of this pipeline for years to come and still struggling to heat their homes.”

After police issued a final dispersal order, sixty-four people stayed in the building. All were removed from the building by Vermont State Police, and cited with criminal trespassing.

The coalition planning the event is also calling for a blockade at the Vermont Gas Pipeyard in Williston, Vt., this coming Saturday at 9 am.

SENECA LAKE -- The deepest Finger Lake averages 290 feet and is 40 miles long from Watkins Glen up to Geneva, NY

FERC Approves NY Methane Storage Project at Seneca Lake

From a News Article by Peter Mantius, Natural Resources News Service, October 3, 2014

Brushing aside warnings of dangerous geological risk, federal regulators say construction can start immediately on a methane gas storage project next to Seneca Lake that has galvanized opposition from wine and tourism businesses across the Finger Lakes in upstate New York.

The  decision by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission represents a major breakthrough for Houston-based Crestwood Midstream. The company has been waging a five-year campaign for permission to convert long-abandoned lakeside salt caverns into a regional storage hub for both methane gas and liquid petroleum gas, or LPG, from fracking operations in Pennsylvania.

FERC has jurisdiction over the methane gas storage portion of the project, while the state Department of Environmental Conservation has the final say over the storage of LPG, mostly propane and butane. The company has been trying to persuade both agencies that the old caverns are ideal storage sites for highly-pressurized, volatile hydrocarbons. Scientists who are not paid by the company disagree and have warned of the caverns’ unstable geology.

In May, after 14 months of review, FERC granted conditional approval of Crestwood’s request to expand its existing methane storage into a cavern that has a history of instability. Meanwhile, the NY-DEC has been evaluating the LPG portion of the project since 2009. It announced in August plans to hold an “issues conference” to further weigh the evidence before ruling.

Crestwood’s storage hub would be located in a cluster of several dozen salt caverns on the west shore of Seneca Lake less than three miles north of the village of Watkins Glen, population 1,859. The company continues to mine salt at the site, and it already uses a former salt cavern to store methane gas. FERC has allowed it to expand its working gas capacity from 1.45 billion cubic feet to 2.0 bcf.

Typically, methane gas is transported to the caverns by pipeline, while LPG storage would require truck and rail transport. If Crestwood wins DEC approval, it would store LPG in two other caverns less than a quarter mile away from the compressed methane.

The company has asserted that the history of the storage caverns, including details of their flaws, is a trade secret. And state and federal regulators have complied with the company’s requests to keep most cavern information out of the public eye. But reports dating back decades by engineers employed by the caverns’ owners — tracked down in Internet searches — candidly spell out their defects.

Opponents of Crestwood’s proposed storage hub have expressed alarm over FERC’s brisk dismissal of potential risks, but safety issues are not their only concern. They also fear increased air and noise pollution, a steep increase in LPG truck traffic through the village of Watkins Glen and new LPG rail traffic over a spindly 80-year-old trestle that spans the Watkins Glen gorge, one of the state’s Top 10 tourist destinations.

In March, two internationally renowned vintners who recently purchased 65 acres directly across Seneca Lake from Crestwood’s property wrote Gov. Andrew Cuomo to urge him to block the LPG portion of the plan.

“The potential for accidents, the threat to fresh water quality and the visual impact of a 60-foot flare stack with massive compressors is not compatible with developing the tremendous potential of the region,” wrote Paul Hobbs, owner of the Paul Hobbs Winery in Sonoma County, California, and Johannes Selbach of the Selbach-Oster estate in Germany’s Mosel Valley.

“For the past several years we have explored the vineyards and wineries of the Finger Lakes in search of an ideal parcel for growing world class Riesling,” Hobbs and Selbach wrote the governor. The site chosen on the east side of Seneca Lake just outside Watkins Glen, which features steep slopes, low-PH scale shale and slate soils and a cool growing season, “is unquestionably one of the premier places in the world for high quality winegrowing,” they added.

The Seneca Lake Wine Trail already has about three dozen member wineries. Michael Warren Thomas, who helped recruit Hobbs and Selbach to join them, recently met with a top aide to Cuomo to point out that their arrival could easily stimulate significant new investment in the Finger Lakes wine industry. Already, Thomas noted, Louis Barruol of Chateau St. Cosme and Master Sommelier Christopher Bates have floated the idea of building a visitor center near Watkins Glen in a bid to draw from around the world.

“These are not bulk wine producers,” Thomas said of Hobbs and Selbach. “They are people looking to make the best wine in the world in small quantities. We ought to pay attention when we have the best in the world deciding to make wine in our backyard.”

While Hobbs and Selbach arrived without invitation, hoopla, political backing or government incentives, Crestwood has been backed — both overtly and quietly — by a coalition of politicians

More than 400 people participated in a mass protest at a legislative hearing.

FERC’s decision to grant a green light for construction on the methane storage cavern preceded any public announcements of approval from the state. By law, the DEC must agree to modify Crestwood’s current underground storage permit for methane gas, and the state geologist must certify that the storage cavern is safe. However, as a practical matter, the state does not have the legal authority to block the methane storage project, if legal precedents involving federal-state jurisdiction are any gauge.

The best the public can hope for in the future is diligent monitoring of the methane storage facility for leaks and roof and wall collapses, said H.C. Clark, a Houston geologist who has sharply criticized FERC’s analysis of the cavern.

Clark pointed out in January that FERC had neglected to assess the safety implications of a massive roof collapse in the cavern. He learned about the event in a detailed report written in the late 1960s by Charles Jacoby, an engineer who worked for the cavern’s owner at the time.

During its analysis of the project, FERC had pointedly asked Crestwood if it knew of any cavern roof or wall collapses anywhere within its Seneca Lake cavern field. The company issued a qualified denial. If fact, a 400,000-ton chunk of rock — roughly the size of an aircraft carrier — had given way in the very cavern that the company proposed to use for methane storage.

After Clark disclosed the roof collapse to the public and DCBureau.org and other media outlets publicized it, FERC addressed the issue. It attributed the roof collapse to the fact that LPG and brine had been cycled in and out of the cavern at the time, eating away at its salt walls and weakening its structure. LPG has not been stored in the cavern since 1984, and it is now mostly filled with brine.

In its May 15 order conditionally approving the reopening of the cavern for methane storage, FERC concluded that after all brine has been removed and methane gas is added, “dissolution of the salt in the gallery will not occur.”

But Clark, who holds a Ph.D. in geophysics from Stanford and taught the subject for many years at Rice University, said in an interview October 1 that it would be “absurd” for FERC to imply that removing brine from the cavern removes all risk of further collapse. “This is an old — ancient by now — cavern sitting there with a broad, flat rock top, which is not what salt cavern folks want to hear,” he added. “The compressed natural gas will work its way up through any kind of abnormality.”

In August, Dr. Rob Mackenzie, a retired CEO of the Cayuga Medical Center, a hospital about 20 miles east of Watkins Glen, sought to quantify the safety risk of Crestwood’s methane gas storage operation to Schuyler County residents. An experienced risk analyst, Mackenzie prepared a formal quantitative risk analysis of the Crestwood methane gas proposal.

Mackenzie analyzed accident events — major fires, explosions, collapses, catastrophic loss of product, evacuations — at salt cavern storage facilities in the United States dating back to 1972. He concluded that the risk of an “extremely serious” salt cavern event within Schuyler County over the next 25 years is more than 35%.

Citing data from the Energy Information Administration, Mackenzie noted that in 2012 there were 414 underground gas storage facilities in the United States, including 40 in salt caverns. Aquifers and depleted oil and gas reservoirs are much more commonly used for hydrocarbon storage, and they have dramatically better safety records than salt caverns. “Worldwide, the percentage of incidents involving casualties at salt cavern facilities as a percentage of facilities in operation in 2005 was 13.6%, compared to 0.63% for depleted reservoirs and 2.5% for aquifers,” Mackenzie reported, citing a 2008 study by British health officials.

Between 1972 and 2012, there have been 18 “serious or extremely serious incidents” at U.S. salt cavern storage facilities, Mackenzie wrote, citing EIA data. “With the average number of (salt cavern) facilities in operation through most of the last two decades at close to 30, the U.S. incidence is about 60% (compared to 40% worldwide), and the frequency is about 1.4% per year,” he said. “Most other regulated industry sub-segments with a persistent serious to extremely serious facility incident rate of over 30% would be shut down or else voluntarily discontinued, except in wartime.”

Mackenzie also found that nine of the 18 salt cavern incidents involved large fires and/or explosions; six involved loss of life or serious injury; eight involved evacuations of between 30 and 2,000 residents; and 13 involved extremely serious property losses.

FERC, the regulatory agency, saw no need to further question the suitability of Crestwood’s salt cavern storage.