Congrats on Another Glorious Day in New York Without Shale Fracking/More News Coverage for our Dominion New Market Pipeline and Crestwood Gas Storage Campaign Efforts

Please Keep Calling Governor Cuomo During Business Hours at 518 474 8390:

A. Tell the Governor to kill the Dominion New Market Pipeline Expansion Project because he cannot be considered a climate change leader if he approves pipelines and other infrastructure projects that would perpetuate New York's addiction to fossil fuels for decades to come.

B. Require the Governor to DENY the Section 401 Water Quality Certification required by the proposed project because DEC's own spill data document Dominion's existing pipeline and compressor stations caused extensive water pollution hazards that often were not cleaned up to state standards.

Use this self-explanatory letter to require Governor Cuomo to DENY the Section 401 Water Quality Certifications required for the proposed Dominion New Market Pipeline and other fossil fuel infrastructure projects to be built.

Greetings,

Our Dominion New Market Pipeline and Crestwood Gas Storage research and organizing efforts just received more extensive news coverage. See links below. I write to update you on where we stand.

First, I would like to suggest that on this splendid late summer day in historic New York, we should all pause for a moment to give thanks that our seven-year campaign has been instrumental in making sure that not even one shale gas production well has ever being fracked in our state.

Your tireless efforts played an equally important role in killing $4.0 Billion worth of proposed natural gas pipeline projects (Constitution/NED) in a single historic week in April. We also stopped "gelled" propane dead in its tracks the same month.

Fossil Fuel Infrastructure Campaign Update

Those hard-fought victories are helping make sure that Governor Cuomo cannot get away with being a climate change hypocrite by promising a bright renewable energy future while approving huge infrastructure projects that would keep New York enslaved to fossil fuels for decades to come.

Since July, thousands of Fractivists have hammered the Governor to DENY approvals required for the proposed Dominion New Market Pipeline Project as well as Crestwood's proposed natural gas and Liquefied Petroleum Gas storage facilities in Reading, NY.

The Governor has not provided a favorable reply to our respectful requests and could approve those projects any day. That is why we must keep cranking up the pressure in order to win these extremely challenging fights.

Dominion New Market Pipeline Expansion Project Status Report

This fight is our most pressing immediate challenge.

Last January, the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) secretly agreed to Dominion's request for a totally inappropriate "blanket authorization" Section 401 Water Quality Certification for its 200-mile pipeline expansion project. This is essentially a rubber stamp approval that is only allowed to be used for projects that will not cause "environmentally deleterious" pollution releases.

DEC granted Dominion's "blanket authorization" request immediately after we documented the agency cannot enforce Section 401 of the U. S. Clean Water Act due to a long history of major pipeline explosions, fires, ruptures and toxic charges that often were never remediated to state standards.

We subsequently documented extensive pollution problems involving Dominion's existing pipeline.

For all these reasons, we are now working systematically to require Governor Cuomo, the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to rescind Dominion's bogus "blanket approval" because it violates numerous state and federal regulatory requirements.

Thank you, Karen Dewitt, for yet another lucid and informative piece that aired on NPR stations all over New York.

See: Environmentalists 'hammering away,' opposing fuel pipelines through New York state

Even More Crestwood Pollution Concerns Documented in Reading, NY

Toxics Targeting recently gained widespread news coverage for disclosing massive brine and petroleum spills at Crestwood's Reading, NY facility where solution salt mining and natural gas storage activities have repeatedly polluted Seneca Lake, one of New York's incomparable Finger Lakes.

Crestwood soon wrote me a letter which inadvertently documented an outmoded practice called "oil padding" that involves injecting huge quantifies of oil into brine wells in order to prevent roof collapses. I knew this practice had previously been used at New York solution salt mines, but I did not know where.

I immediately submitted a Freedom of Information Law request to obtain more data. I was shocked to learn that International Salt, an earlier owner of the mining operation now run by Crestwood/US Salt, had pumped 30,000 gallons of toxic fuel oil into a brine well (#49) that leaked 1,500 gallons of oil into Seneca Lake.

I just publicly disclosed this "oil padding" concern and wrote Governor Cuomo to request that he investigate the problem because fuel oil is virtually impossible to remove from subsurface environments. I also requested that he withhold all Crestwood gas storage permits.

See our TV news coverage and documents:

Possible Soil Contamination At Old Salt Mine Site

DEC Documents Reveal Undisclosed Oil Leaks Into Seneca Lake in 1975

Oil Padding Press Conference Picture

Letter to Gov. Cuomo Re: Oil Padding

International Salt Company Fuel Oil "Padding" Spill Reading, NY

Wells in the Vicinity of Crestwood Facility - Map

Conclusion

We have generated a simply staggering amount of media coverage and grassroots activism in the last couple of months. Keep going. Pour it on. Everything is on the line.

Our campaign to make New York the first state in the nation to adopt a moratorium on all fossil fuel infrastructure project approvals is getting help from Fractivists from coast to coast as well as important elected officials across New York. Go Hard. Every day is an eternity in politics.

Thank you so much for all your focused hard work. Congrats.

More news shortly.

Cheers,

Walter