Concerned Ohio River Residents' virtual community meeting, held on 1/21/21, detailed the threats posed by the Mountaineer facility and provided information on how to submit concerns to ODNR prior to the public comment deadline of February 6, 2020.
Powhatan Salt Company LLC has applied through the Ohio Department of Natural Resources for three solution mining well permits to begin creating storage caverns in the Salina salt formation, just 2.5 miles north of Clarington, OH along the Ohio River in Monroe County, so that its sister company, Mountaineer NGL Storage LLC, can store natural gas liquids (NGL) next to and potentially beneath the Ohio River. The Mountaineer NGL storage facility would store up to 3.25 million barrels of highly flammable, explosive natural gas liquids (NGLs) in underground caverns adjacent to and potentially beneath the Ohio River and just one mile from Clarington’s drinking water wells, posing a significant threat to our region’s public health and natural resources. To create these storage caverns, Powhatan Salt Company would inject millions of gallons of fresh water underground at high pressures to carve out salt cavities. Powhatan would withdraw approximately 1,928,000 gallons of fresh water each day from the Ohio River to carve out the first storage cavern. More caverns could be constructed to increase storage capacity, each of which would require approximately 380,200,000 gallons of freshwater.
We recommend sending via email to ensure it gets to them on time. Feel free to use the template linked above when crafting your comments. Be sure to use the description of the projects from the beginning of the template so the ODNR has the reference numbers. We do encourage folks to include additional, unique comments and concerns and personal testimonies because that strengthens the comment, but it is not absolutely necessary. If you have special knowledge on local geography, water use, surface structures and uses, or historical and present day practices, please be sure to include that as the ODNR may not have that information. We want the comments to be clearly relevant to issues of public health and safety and substantive, but please write anything you feel called to write. Please also be sure to request the items of the ODNR listed in the last paragraph of the template. The community has many questions and must be granted a hearing, 60-day comment period extension, and a fact sheet in order to fully understand the project implications and potential impacts. Reach out to CORR with any questions you might have!
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