Nick Reynolds

The City of Ithaca’s future might be bright, but this month city officials were served with two stark reminders that it’s far from leaving behind its toxic past.

Long the subject of scrutiny by the local scientific community, the Cargill Salt Mine in Lansing has attracted the attention of Tompkins County’s voice on the New York State Assembly, Barbara Lifton, who has joined the group of those opposed to further salt mining under Cayuga Lake.

Photo: Walter Hang

After a small victory for activists railing against upgrades to a natural gas compressor station in Ellis Hollow, it appears Dominion Energy – the national energy company whose New Market Project runs through the Town of Dryden – has found a way to continue building what activists now say is a pipeline to sell fracked gas from Pennsylvania to Canadian customers.

Photo: Nick Reynolds

For the better part of a year, anti-natural gas activists and neighbors to a natural gas compression station up near Ellis Hollow have vocally opposed an expansion to the project intended to accommodate a greater amount of natural gas flowing through their community.

Route of the Dominion gas pipeline south from Ellis Hollow Creek Road.
(Photo: Bill Chaisson)




With the state-spanning New Market Pipeline recently receiving the rubber stamps from the state necessary for it to move further ahead in the approval process, a local activist said he believes he has proof that contamination along the pipeline’s alignment in several locations – including in Tompkins County – could potentially derail the project.