Seneca Lake LPG facility – click for larger version
MDN has extensively covered the fight to get the Seneca Lake Storage Project permissioned. In 2009 Inergy filed a request to convert a depleted salt cavern along the shore of Seneca Lake (in Schuyler County, NY, near Watkins Glen) into a propane/natural gas storage facility. Inergy was later bought by and merged into Crestwood Midstream, and Crestwood Midstream later became Crestwood Equity. The New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has been sitting on its hands from the beginning, refusing to grant the necessary permits to allow the facility to open. Sound familiar? Same old delay and later deny strategy from man-child Andrew Cuomo. The plan, from the beginning, is to store both natural gas and LPG–or liquefied petroleum gas, commonly known as propane. Due to the ongoing delay from the NY DEC, last May the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which would oversee construction of the project, granted a two-year extension for the project to be completed (see Stalled Seneca Lake Propane Storage Project Gets FERC Extension). In a regular report filed with FERC on May 9, Crestwood’s Arlington Storage subsidiary (the company on paper attempting to build the facility) withdrew its request to build the portion of the project that would store natural gas–the “Gallery 2” project. However, Crestwood/Arlington Storage is still pushing forward with LPG (propane) storage at the Seneca Lake facility. A small-but-dedicated group of nutjob antis are heralding this as some sort of “tremendous victory.” It is nothing of the sort. The main part of the project has always been about storing propane, not natural gas…
