The Quality Of Life Initiative-A Flawed Project

The fact that southern Kings County contains a geologically layered deposit of salt does not automatically mean that the Cassidy Lake area is suitable for underground salt cavern storage.

Salt caverns are the most dangerous of all storage methods, even though they make up only 11% of all underground storage facilities. They account for 41.5% of all serious ‘incidents’¹ (leaks, fires, explosions).

According to the most comprehensive study of underground gas storage to date (British Geological Survey, 2008 ²), 41% of all underground salt cavern storage facilities operational in 2005 had experienced serious incidents. One third of all these incidents resulted in casualties or evacuations.

John Hopper says that catastrophic losses in salt caverns occur because of “single point

failure.” ³ He is in a position to know. As vice- president of TPC Corporation, Hopper helped design the Moss Bluff Gas Storage Facility near Houston, Texas, for Duke Energy ⁴.

Beginning on August 19, 2004, explosions and fires rocked the Moss Bluff facility doing $20 million worth of damage, releasing more than $36 million worth of natural gas into the air, and causing the evacuation of some 360 people, up to 5 km away. Moss Bluff is now synonymous with disaster in the underground gas storage industry. Hopper, writing for Energy Markets in 2004, attributes the catastrophe to the single point failure of a valve. He recommends redundant systems to prevent future failures.

The British Geological Survey report⁵ concluded that at Moss Bluff a major underground pipe broke, allowed high pressure natural gas to rush to the surface through a brine pipe, rupturing the Emergency Shutdown System with a ‘water hammer’ phenomenon, and igniting the natural gas. The extreme heat of the fire blew off the entire wellhead assembly. This failure occurred at a location in the pipework that had suffered a general loss of wall thickness due to internal corrosion – in a pipe only four years old. (Little surprise – what is more corrosive than salt water?)

Single point failure? Moss Bluff was one single point failure after another. The British Geological Survey report, in its risk assessment considerations, lists 3 general causes of salt cavern failure, 18 potential sites for failure, and over 100 vulnerable, specific failure sites. Duplication of virtually the entire facility would be required to insure safety from known hazards alone.

Consider also: If a multi-billion dollar corporation like Duke Energy could not avert the Moss Bluff disaster, who could?

¹Depleted aquifers had an incidence rate of only 21%; depleted gas and oil fields only 3%.

²British Geological Survey, “An appraisal of underground gas storage technologies and incidents, for the development of risk assessment methodology.” Research Report RR605.2008

³John M. Hopper. “Gas Storage and Single-Point Failure Risk” Energy Markets, Natural Gas. 2004.

⁴Duke Energy, through its subsidiary, Spectra Energy, owns 75% of the Maritimes and Northeast Pipeline here in New Brunswick. Though its subsidiary, Market Hub Partners (Canada) LP, Duke Energy is a major partner in Corridor Resources bid to build underground salt cavern storage at Cassidy Lake.

Corridor’s preferred site is only 1.5 km from the flooded tunnels of the abandoned PCS⁶ Cassidy Lake Potash Mine. This mine opened in 1985, experienced flooding almost immediately, and had to be abandoned by 1998 due to the flooding. During the short life of the mine, household water supplies up to 5 km away from the mine were affected⁷ by the pumping of water draining into the mine.

Twenty-five km to the northeast there is a geological structure nearly identical to that in the Cassidy Lake area. This is home to the now-flooding PCS Penobsquis potash mine, due to be abandoned in 2012 because of its flooding. PCS is spending $1 million per month to pump out and dispose of the incoming water. Household water supplies in Penobsquis area have been disrupted as far away as 3.5 km from the centre of the affected area. Ground subsidence is also a serious concern in Penobsquis.

A major geological fault (Clover Hill) runs 300 meters to the north of the Corridor site; a second fault runs through the salt deposit itself, 1.4 km to the south⁸.

⁵British Geological Survey, “An appraisal of underground gas storage technologies and incidents, for the development of risk assessment methodology”. Research Report RR605.2008

⁷Source: March 21, 2005, letter from Tania Noble Sharp, Project Manager, Jacques Whitford Consultants (to J. Redford, Market Hub Partners Canada L.P., and Colonel McLeod, Duke Energy.)

⁸Dickie, Webb, Kingston. 1978. New Brunswick DNR Report. Also Anderle, Crosby, Waugh. 1979.

In order to excavate its salt cavern, Corridor Resources is demanding 10,000,000 litres of water per day for over a year per cavern. This is more than twice the daily fresh water needs of Sussex, Sussex Corner and Hampton combined.

Since pumping water from the Cassidy Lake potash mine affected drinking water supplies 5 km away, it is completely reasonable to assume that household water supplies will be undermined for at least 5 km in all directions by the removal of 10 million litres of water daily from the local water supply.

Corridor Resources currently has no means of disposing of the 10,000,000 litres of brine it intends to produce. Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan is on record as saying that it will not be partnering with Corridor Resources to dispose of this brine.

Even if Corridor Resources finds a way to overcome this obstacle, the effect of pumping this amount of brine into the sensitive marine ecosystems of the Bay of Fundy has never been studied. The cumulative effect of brine dumping by Corridor Resources and PCS has also not been studied by any body independent of these corporations.

That southern Kings County, New Brunswick, should be the site of underground salt cavern storage of natural gas, LNG, or crude oil (or become the site of a carbon dioxide dump) is a deeply flawed and ill-considered idea. Underground salt cavern storage in an inhabited area is dangerous. The threat, known and documented, which such projects offer to the safety and security of the local populace is simply unacceptable. This particular scheme in the Cassidy Lake area is structurally unsound geologically, as well as mechanically. The damage which will almost certainly be wrought upon the local water supply is without parallel in the province of New Brunswick.

Only the wildest flight of fancy could seriously suggest that the Corridor Resources proposed salt cavern storage project is suitable to the Cassidy Lake area. It would be reckless for Corridor Resources to pursue this project any further.

It would be irresponsible for the government of New Brunswick, or for any political party, to allow this project to proceed any further.

The Quality of Life Initiative requests the Minister of Natural Resources to declare the southern Kings County area unsuitable for the purpose of underground salt cavern storage.