Seneca in the Balance — Live Stream Archive – YouTube
March 12, 2014
Local Leaders Concerned Over Brine Facilty and Fracking Link – Genesee Sun
September 18, 2013
Local Leaders Concerned Over Brine Facilty and Fracking Link – Genesee Sun.
AVON — The Town of Avon passed a resolution Thursday evening to resume action on a 12-month moratorium on natural gas exploration and extraction, or hydrofracking. The development came after representatives from the New York State Attorney General’s Office and the New York State Department of Conservation office (DEC) approached local leaders with a proposal to shut down the brine processing plant currently operating in Leicester.The Leicester brine processing plant exists to treat brine that is being pumped from the Azko salt mine, which collapsed in 1994. According to officials, the plant operates at a cost of $200,000 per month, currently being paid by Azko’s insurance company, Zurich.A number of local Town Board officials were present at earlier meetings, including Supervisors from the Towns of Avon, Geneseo, Leicester, Mount Morris and York. At those meetings they were reportedly asked by Tim Hoffman, from the State Attorney General’s Office, and by other state officials, to keep the matter private. However, citing concerns for public safety, the issue was brought to the public’s attention this week in the Avon, Leicester and York Town Board meetings.According to Town of Avon Supervisor David LeFeber, the old salt mine is still producing 15 gallons of brine, or water with very high concentrations of salt, per minute. The plant treats the brine and releases the treated water into Little Beards Creek. Without the processing plant, brine may spill into natural water sources in the region, contaminating natural water sources and potentially impacting drinking water and agriculture.“Since we talked about this operation [hydrofracking], we thought the State was going to issue permits, the State was going to monitor things, the State was going to make sure that our resources are protected.” said Avon Town Supervisor David Lefeber. “Businesses come and go, but our ability to produce food and have fresh water is a huge thing and somebody’s got to protect that.”The Town of Avon passed a resolution 3-2 Thursday to have Town Lawyer James Campbell begin drafting a new moratorium on hydrofracking. Board members Dick Steen and Bob Ayers voted against the resolution; David LeFeber, Tom Maiers, and Jim Blye voted for the motion.A source with close knowledge of the situation, speaking on condition of anonymity, told theGeneseeSun.com that the DEC was recently involved in a temporary shut down of the brine processing plant, during which tests were conducted to process fracking fluid trucked up from Pennsylvania. According to the source, if successful, the plant could serve as a potential future site for processing fracking fluids.The plant was built in 2005 and cost $8.2 million, which was paid for by Zurich, presumably as part of Akzo’s mitigation requirements.At a Town of York Board meeting held later Thursday after the Avon meeting, the same concerns were raised. Board members expressed strong interest in obtaining independent geological and scientific surveys before even considering a shut down of the brine processing facility.“Our job is to protect our community,” said York Deputy Supervisor Lynn Parnell.“These towns are justifiably concerned that the State and the DEC are attempting to delay this information from being made available to the public,” said Attorney Jim Campbell, who represents the Towns of Avon, Leicester and York. “Our concern is that the ink might already be dry on a deal between the New York State Attorney General, the DEC, and Zurich. Such a deal could have profound impacts for Livingston County and should only be considered after adequate dissemination of the facts and an opportunity for public input.”
U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY SUBSIDENCE INTEREST GROUP CONFERENCE, EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, ANTELOPE VALLEY, CALIFORNIA, NOVEMBER 18-19, 1992: ABSTRACTS AND SUMMARY
August 16, 2013
pubs.usgs.gov/of/1994/ofr94-532/.
U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY SUBSIDENCE INTEREST GROUP CONFERENCE, EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, ANTELOPE VALLEY, CALIFORNIA, NOVEMBER 18-19, 1992: ABSTRACTS AND SUMMARY
By Keith R. Prince, Devin L. Galloway, and Stanley A. Leake, editors
U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OPEN-FILE REPORT 94-532 Sacramento, California
1995
SUMMARY OF TALKS, DISCUSSIONS, FIELD TRIP, AND OUTSTANDING ISSUES
Land subsidence, the loss of surface elevation as a result of the removal of subsurface support, affects every state in the United States. More than 17,000 mi2 of land in the United States has been lowered by the various processes that produce land subsidence with annual costs from resulting flooding and structural damage that exceed $125 million. It is estimated that an additional $400 million is spent nationwide in attempts to control subsidence. Common causes of land subsidence include the removal of oil, gas, and water from underground reservoirs; dissolution of limestone aquifers (sinkholes); underground mining activities; drainage of organic soils; and hydrocompaction (the initial wetting of dry soils). Overdrafting of aquifers is the major cause of areally extensive land subsidence, and as ground-water pumping increases, land subsidence also will increase.
Land subsidence and its effects on engineering structures have been recognized for centuries, but it was not until this century that the processes that produce land subsidence were identified and understood. In 1928, while working with field data from a test of the Dakota Sandstone aquifer, O.E. Meinzer of the U.S. Geological Survey recognized the compressibility of aquifers. Around the same time, Karl Terzaghi, a soil scientist working at Harvard University, developed the one-dimensional consolidation theory that provided a quantitative means of predicting soil compaction resulting from the drainage of compressible soils. Thus, with the recognition of the compressibility of aquifers (Meinzer), and the development of a quantitative means of predicting soil compaction as a consequence of the reduction of intergranular pore pressure (Terzaghi), the theory of aquifer-system compaction was formed.
With the widespread availability of electric power in rural areas, and the advent of the deep turbine pump, ground-water withdrawals increased dramatically throughout the country in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Along with this unprecedented increase in pumpage, substantial amounts of land subsidence were observed in several areas of the United States, most notably in Arizona, California, and Texas. Beginning in 1955, under the direction of Joseph Poland, the Geological Survey began the “Mechanics of Aquifers Project,” which focused largely on the processes that resulted in land subsidence due to the withdrawal of ground water. This research team gained international renown as they advanced the scientific understanding of aquifer mechanics and land-subsidence theory. The results of field studies by members of this research group not only verified the validity of the application of Terzaghi’s consolidation theory to compressible aquifers, but they also provided definitions, methods of quantification, and confirmation of the interrelation among hydraulic head declines, aquifer-system compaction, and land subsidence. In addition to conducting pioneering research, this group also formed a “center of expertise,” providing a focal point within the Geological Survey for the dissemination of technology and scientific understanding in aquifer mechanics. However, when the “Mechanics of Aquifers Project” was phased out in 1984, the focal point for technology transfer no longer existed.
Interest among various state and local agencies in land subsidence has persisted, and the Geological Survey has continued to participate in a broad spectrum of cooperative and Federally funded projects in aquifer mechanics and land subsidence. These projects are designed to identify and monitor areas with the potential for land subsidence, to conduct basic research in the processes that control land subsidence and the development of earth fissures, as well as to develop new quantitative tools to predict aquifer-system deformation. In 1989 an ad hoc “Aquifer Mechanics and Subsidence Interest Group” (referred to herein as the “Subsidence Interest Group”) was formed to facilitate technology transfer and to provide a forum for the exchange of information and ideas among scientists actively working in subsidence and aquifermechanics- related projects. The Subsidence Interest Group is not focused solely on land subsidence resulting from ground-water withdrawals, although this is one of the primary areas of study for many of the group’s members. Subsidence Interest Group members are also actively involved in studies of subsidence due to sinkhole collapse (karst), drainage of organic soils, geothermal development, and hydrocompaction. The group also is seeking to expand its expertise to include subsidence resulting from subsurface mining activities.
The first technical meeting of the Subsidence Interest Group was held at Phoenix, Arizona, in December 1989 and included formal presentations on the history of land subsidence studies as well as ongoing studies being done by the Geological Survey. As a result of this initial meeting, several new collaborative research efforts were begun. The second meeting of the group was held at Edwards Air Force Base, California, in November 1992, and included technical presentations of ongoing research and a field trip to view subsidence features and monitoring equipment installations in the surrounding Antelope Valley area. This report includes extended abstracts of the oral presentations summarizing the results of ongoing research that were given at that second meeting.
The report includes case studies of land subsidence and aquifer-system deformation resulting from karst processes, fluid withdrawal, and geothermal development. Several of the abstracts deal with various aspects of land subsidence and earth fissuring at Edwards Air Force Base that are resulting in extensive damage to runways used by military aircraft and the NASA Space Shuttle. Methods for monitoring land subsidence are described, including the application of two different techniques for using Global Positioning System technology for the rapid and accurate measurement of changes in land-surface altitude. Measurement techniques and theories describing the processes governing the formation of earth fissures are presented. Ongoing research into the development of numerical techniques for simulation and quantification of 3-dimensional aquifer-system deformation are also presented. Recently developed analytical and numerical techniques for the simulation of aquifer-system compaction due to fluid withdrawal are summarized.
The information presented in this report should help expand the scientific basis for management decisions to mitigate or control the effects of land subsidence. The papers describing the results of these studies provide an excellent cross section of ongoing research in aquifer mechanics and land subsidence and also form an assessment of the current technology and “state of the science.” The analytical and interpretive methods described in this report will be useful to scientists involved in studies of ground-water hydraulics and aquifer-system deformation.
CONTENTS
Summary of talks, discussions, field trip, and outstanding issues
Subsidence interest group conference agenda
Extended abstracts:
Case studies-National:
Mudboils in the Tully Valley, Onondaga County, New York
William M. Kappel
Incidents and causes of land subsidence in the karst of Florida
Craig B. Hutchinson
Monitoring aquifer compaction and land subsidence due to ground-water
withdrawal in the El Paso, Texas-Juarez, Chihuahua, area
Charles E. Heywood
Land subsidence and earth-fissure hazards near Luke Air Force Base, Arizona
Herbert H. Schumann
Simulation of transient ground-water flow and land subsidence in the Picacho Basin, central Arizona
Donald R. Pool
Deformation in the Casa Diablo geothermal well field, Long Valley Caldera, eastern California
Christopher D. Farrar, Michael L. Sorey, Grant A. Marshall, James F.
Howle, and Marti E. Ikehara
Subsidence and ground fissures in the San Jacinto Basin Area, southern California
Douglas M. Morton
Land Subsidence in the Oxnard Plain of the Santa Clara-Calleguas Basin,
Ventura County, California
Randall T. Hanson
Geologic setting of East Antelope Basin, with emphasis on fissuring on Rogers Lake, Edwards Air Force Base, Mojave Desert, California
A. Wesley Ward, Gary L. Dixon, and Robert C. Jachens
Case studies-Antelope Valley, California:
Hydrogeology and land subsidence, Antelope Valley, California
Clark J. Londquist
Land subsidence and problems affecting land use at Edwards Air Force Base and vicinity, California, 1990
James C. Blodgett
Land subsidence as a resource management objective in Antelope Valley, California
Steven R. Phillips
Monitoring and measurement techniques:
Description of Global Positioning System networks surveyed in California, 1992
Marti E. Ikehara
Static Global Positioning System survey design and sources of error in subsidence investigations
Marti E. Ikehara
Kinematic Global Positioning System surveys in southern Arizona
Donald R. Pool
Deformation across and near earth fissures: measurement techniques and results
Michael C. Carpenter
Tilt and aquifer hydraulic-head changes near an earth fissure in the subsiding Mimbres Basin, New Mexico
William C. Haneberg and Robert L. Friesen
Analytical techniques:
Continuum solutions for draping and differential compaction of compressible
elastic layers-implications for the origin and growth of earth fissures
William C. Haneberg
Hydraulic forces that play a role in generating fissures at depth
Donald C. Helm
Simulation of three-dimensional granular displacement in unconsolidated aquifers
Thomas J. Burbey
Status of computer programs for simulating land subsidence with the modular
finite-difference ground-water flow model
Stanley A. Leake
The frequency dependence of aquifer-system elastic storage coefficients: implications for estimates of aquifer hydraulic properties and aquifer system compaction
Devin L. Galloway
Acknowledgments
References cited
This report is available online in Portable Document Format (PDF). If you do not have the Adobe Acrobat PDF Reader, it is available for free download from Adobe Systems Incorporated.
Download the Report (PDF, 2.8 MB).
Document Accessibility: Adobe Systems Incorporated has information about PDFs and the visually impaired. This information provides tools to help make PDF files accessible. These tools convert Adobe PDF documents into HTML or ASCII text, which then can be read by a number of common screen-reading programs that synthesize text as audible speech. In addition, an accessible version of Acrobat Reader 5.0 for Windows (English only), which contains support for screen readers, is available. These tools and the accessible reader may be obtained free from Adobe at Adobe Access.
| AccessibilityFOIAPrivacyPolicies and Notices | |
| U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey Persistent URL: http://pubs.water.usgs.gov/ofr94532 Page Contact Information: GS Pubs Web Contact Last modified: Friday, January 11 2013, 04:13:50 AM |
|
Salt Production in Syracuse, New York (“The Salt City”) and the Hydrogeology of the Onondaga Creek Valley The Salt Industry, Tully Farms, N
July 23, 2013
pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2000/0139/report.pdf.
Prepared in cooperation with Onondaga Lake Cleanup Corporation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-Region 2,
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
Salt Production in Syracuse, New York (“The Salt City”)
and the Hydrogeology of the Onondaga Creek Valley
The Salt Industry, Tully Farms, N
Brine from springs in and around the southern end of Onondaga Lake, from former brine wells dug
or drilled at the lakes’ edge, and from wells that tapped halite (common salt) beds near Tully, N.Y., 15
miles south of Syracuse, were used commercially from the late 1700’s through the early 1900’s for salt
production. The rapid development of this industry in tie 18th and 19th centuries led to the nicknaming
of Syracuse as “The Salt City.”
The brine originates from halite bed
Solution Salt Mining in New York, with Emphasis on Operational, Regulatory and Plugging Innovations in the Tully Valley Brine Field Kathleen F. Sanford Division of Mineral Resources New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
July 23, 2013
www.dec.ny.gov/docs/materials_minerals_pdf/tullyvalley96.pdf.
Solution Salt Mining in New York,
with Emphasis on Operational,
Regulatory and Plugging Innovations
in the Tully Valley Brine Field
Kathleen F. Sanford
Division of Mineral Resources
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
50 Wolf Road, Room 290
Albany, New York 12233-6500
USA
Seneca Lake Methane Storage Project 31097521420002
May 23, 2012
Inergy has applied for permits for stratigraphic test wells. What they’re doing is opening and preparing depleted salt caverns for Natural Gas Liquid storage (aka fracked gas and fracked gas derivatives like Liquefied Petroleum). Their plan is to be ready to store the glut of gas being produced from fracking as soon as the DEC accepts the EIS as final. This decision could come down any day now and we could become the fracked gas storage and transport capital of the USA.
More Commentary on the project
You can call up the DEC permit record by visiting this URL
http://www.dec.ny.gov/cfmx/extapps/GasOil/search/wells/index.cfm
And entering either the API Well Number Equals (or Like) 31097521420002
or Operator Like Inergy
| API Well Number | Production Information | Formation Tops | Casing and Cementing | Hole Number | Well Name | Company Name | Well Type | Well Status | Objective Formation | Producing Formation | County | Town | Map Quadrangle | Quad Section Code |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31097521420002 View Map |
N/A | N/A | N/A | 52142 | Well 17 | Inergy Midstream, LLC | Confidential | Confidential | Confidential | Syracuse | Schuyler | Reading | Reading Center | F |
| Quad Section Code | Field | Status Date | Permit Application Date | Permit Issued Date | Spud/Start Drilling Date | Total Depth Date | Well Completion Date | Plugging & Abandonment Date | Confidential Expiration Date | Confid. Period Type | Subject to Financial Security | Well Orientation | NYSDEC Region | State Lease | Proposed Total Depth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F | Confidential | 3/29/201 | 3/29/201 | 4/10/2012 | 10/12/2012 | Yes | 1 | Vertical | 8 | NA | 2800 |
| Proposed Total Depth | Surface Longitude | Surface Latitude | Bottom Hole Longitude | Bottom Hole Latitude | True Vertical Depth | Bottom Hole Total Measured Depth | Kickoff Depth | Drilled Depth | Proposed Well Type | Spacing | Spacing Acres | Integration | Hearing Date | Last Modified Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2800 | -76.896659 | 42.424476 | -76.896659 | 42.424476 | 2800 | 2800 | 0 | 2800 | Stratigraphic | Exempt – not an oil or gas well | 4/18/2012 |
We need help raising money for the legal battle that could stop this!!!! Make your tax deductible donation out to “Sustainable Markets Foundation” and put “Gas Free Seneca” in the memo line, mail to: Gas Free Seneca
P.O. Box 333
Watkins Glen NY 14891
or donate online at: www.gasfreeseneca.com
Yvonne Taylor
Co-Founder, Gas Free Seneca
GDACC 
