Fwd: Monarch butterflies and the fossil fuel and mining world

USRS

4 cover

Banking, Financial, Petrochemical Political Economy, fracking

> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Margery Schab <mschab@aol.com>
> Subject: Monarch butterflies and the fossil fuel and mining world
> Date: May 15, 2016 at 10:39:41 PM EDT
> To: michael mcdonald <michael.d.mcdonald@mac.com>, Gina Angiola <gangiola11@gmail.com>, Kathy Gilbeaux <gilbojer@aol.com>
>
>
> Goldman Sachs emerges as vast natural gas player
>
> Gregory Meyer in New York
> 15 Hours AgoFinancial Times
> 28
> SHARES
> <http://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/15/financial-times-goldman-sachs-emerges-as-vast-natural-gas-player.html#>8
> COMMENTSJoin the Discussion <>
>
> Getty Images
> Goldman Sachs <http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/GS> has quietly overtaken Chevron  <http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/CVX>and ExxonMobil  <http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/XOM>to become one of the biggest natural gas merchants in North America, expanding in physical commodities trading even as other banks pull back.
>
> The Wall Street institution last year bought and sold 1.2tn cubic feet of physical gas in the US — equal to a quarter of the country's residential consumption and more than twice its volumes in 2013, a recent regulatory filing revealed. Goldman is now the seventh-largest gas marketer in North America, according to Natural Gas Intelligence.
>
> The gas utility serving households in Buffalo, New York last year purchased 11 per cent of its supply from Goldman, a securities filing showed. Power plants that produce electricity for copper mines in northern Mexico also buy gas from the bank, according to government reports and industry executives. Goldman's commodities division, known as J Aron, is listed as a shipper on huge pipelines including the Texas Eastern, which last month ruptured into a fireball that critically injured a man.
>
> Goldman has grown the business even as banks await fresh rules on handling physical commodities such as oil, gas and aluminium. The Federal Reserve has said lethal gas explosions illustrate the risks banks face.
>
> Dealing in physical commodities is exempt from the Volcker rule ban on banks' proprietary trading passed after the financial crisis. In a letter to the Fed in 2014, Goldman said the physical market, not financially settled derivatives, was the main way gas was traded at certain locations.
>
> While the bank has sold off infrastructure such as power plants and metals warehouses, its rise as a gas middleman highlights a commitment to commodities. Prominent Goldman leaders including Lloyd Blankfein, chief executive, are J Aron alumni.
>
> "The fact that J Aron's business is growing in the face of low volatility in physical natural gas markets is noteworthy. Many players have downsized," said Tom Russo, an energy consultant and former official at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Goldman declined to comment.
>
> Goldman moved into the gas merchant business when it acquired the North American natural gas marketing operations of Nexen, a Canadian oil company, in 2010. After dealing 3.42bn cu ft per day in 2011, its North American volumes rose 71 per cent to 5.86bn cu ft/d in 2015, according to NGI. The average US household that heats with natural gas uses 50,000 cu ft of gas in a year, according to the Energy Information Administration.
>
> "Historically, J Aron in natural gas was more of a financial player. The Nexen acquisition really allowed them to enter the physical space" by taking over supply contracts with customers, said a former Goldman commodities employee.
>
> The power and gas business is led by Owen West, a Goldman partner who has authored novels, served combat tours in Iraq as a US Marine and climbed 28,000 feet up the north face of Mount Everest.
>
> "I hate to use this word, but Owen is very 'Zen'," a colleague once told the New York Times. "When some traders start losing money they get nervous. Owen stays very relaxed."
>
> While Goldman's commodities business reported weaker results in the first quarter, the physical gas division has been lucrative. One deal involved supplying the plants powering mines owned by Grupo Mexico in the Mexican state of Sonora, two people familiar with the transaction said. Goldman exported 22bn cu ft of US gas to the operation in 2015, according to figures published Wednesday.
>
> The contract gave Goldman the option to sell gas to the plants at either the monthly average price or the price at the close of each month, to be decided at the end of the month, said people with knowledge of its terms. Given the extent to which gas prices move up and down, Goldman's option was worth $120m, they added.
>
> When a polar vortex ushered frigid air into the northern US two years ago, utilities scrambled to obtain gas. Goldman, which has storage contracts in states including Michigan, profited as regional gas prices soared, according to people familiar with the matter.
>
> In February the ANR Pipeline Company sought permission to allow Goldman to park more gas in its vast underground storage facilities. The proposed agreement deviated from the norm in that it required Goldman to keep gas stored for 12 months until March 2017, then withdraw it in April 2017.
>
> The FERC raised questions, saying the agreement "could create a substantial risk of undue discrimination" against other customers, and ordered the pipeline to offer the same terms to all. A person close to Goldman said the deal was structured at the pipeline company's request to allow it to satisfy obligations to customers.
>
> Other US banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, have sharply scaled back in physical gas. Only Australia-based Macquarie, which is not overseen by the Fed, maintains a bank-owned North American gas business bigger than Goldman's.
>
> Underscoring its commitment, Goldman recently completed a deal to deliver gas to a rural district of Alabama for the next 30 years.
>
> Sheldon Day, mayor of Thomasville, Alabama, said the transaction allowed municipal utilities to cut customers' gas prices.
>
> "We're very fortunate and glad that there are folks that want to do these deals because they're extremely important to us and the viability of our businesses," he said. "If an elderly lady sitting next to a gas heater in her house is in our district, her rate just went down by 8.5 per cent last month."
>
> Goldman Sachs <http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/GS> has quietly overtaken Chevron  <http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/CVX>and ExxonMobil  <http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/XOM>to become one of the biggest natural gas merchants in North America, expanding in physical commodities trading even as other banks pull back.
>
> The Wall Street institution last year bought and sold 1.2tn cubic feet of physical gas in the US — equal to a quarter of the country's residential consumption and more than twice its volumes in 2013, a recent regulatory filing revealed. Goldman is now the seventh-largest gas marketer in North America, according to Natural Gas Intelligence.
>
> The gas utility serving households in Buffalo, New York last year purchased 11 per cent of its supply from Goldman, a securities filing showed. Power plants that produce electricity for copper mines in northern Mexico also buy gas from the bank, according to government reports and industry executives. Goldman's commodities division, known as J Aron, is listed as a shipper on huge pipelines including the Texas Eastern, which last month ruptured into a fireball that critically injured a man.
>
> Goldman has grown the business even as banks await fresh rules on handling physical commodities such as oil, gas and aluminium. The Federal Reserve has said lethal gas explosions illustrate the risks banks face.
>
> Dealing in physical commodities is exempt from the Volcker rule ban on banks' proprietary trading passed after the financial crisis. In a letter to the Fed in 2014, Goldman said the physical market, not financially settled derivatives, was the main way gas was traded at certain locations.
>
> While the bank has sold off infrastructure such as power plants and metals warehouses, its rise as a gas middleman highlights a commitment to commodities. Prominent Goldman leaders including Lloyd Blankfein, chief executive, are J Aron alumni.
>
> "The fact that J Aron's business is growing in the face of low volatility in physical natural gas markets is noteworthy. Many players have downsized," said Tom Russo, an energy consultant and former official at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Goldman declined to comment.
>
> Goldman moved into the gas merchant business when it acquired the North American natural gas marketing operations of Nexen, a Canadian oil company, in 2010. After dealing 3.42bn cu ft per day in 2011, its North American volumes rose 71 per cent to 5.86bn cu ft/d in 2015, according to NGI. The average US household that heats with natural gas uses 50,000 cu ft of gas in a year, according to the Energy Information Administration.
>
> "Historically, J Aron in natural gas was more of a financial player. The Nexen acquisition really allowed them to enter the physical space" by taking over supply contracts with customers, said a former Goldman commodities employee.
>
> The power and gas business is led by Owen West, a Goldman partner who has authored novels, served combat tours in Iraq as a US Marine and climbed 28,000 feet up the north face of Mount Everest.
>
> "I hate to use this word, but Owen is very 'Zen'," a colleague once told the New York Times. "When some traders start losing money they get nervous. Owen stays very relaxed."
>
> While Goldman's commodities business reported weaker results in the first quarter, the physical gas division has been lucrative. One deal involved supplying the plants powering mines owned by Grupo Mexico in the Mexican state of Sonora, two people familiar with the transaction said. Goldman exported 22bn cu ft of US gas to the operation in 2015, according to figures published Wednesday.
>
> From Marge
>
> Grupo Mexico has also entered into a purchase deal in the area where the Monarch Butterflies migrate to. Here is the article on that.
> Endangered Monarch Butterflies Face Their Greatest Threat High in the Hills of Central Mexico
>
> 05/04/2016 12:40 pm ET | Updated May 05, 2016
> Homero Aridjis <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/homero-aridjis> Mexican poet and environmentalist
>
> Edgard Garrido / Reuters
> MEXICO CITY — The monarch butterfly is now facing a potentially lethal threat to its over-wintering habitat in Mexico’s oyamel fir forests.
>
> As if it weren’t enough for the migratory butterfly to contend with illegal logging in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, it is also facing severe depletion of the milkweed, which is indispensable for its development from egg into butterfly, caused by ever-increasing use of herbicides on genetically engineered corn and soybean crops in the American corn belt.
>
> There was no prior consultation with affected groups, no public diffusion of information, no evaluation of the hydrologic impacts of the mine and no risk analysis.
>
> Extreme weather events, including drought and storms, and the unpredictable consequences of climate change are also taking their toll. Now, Grupo Mexico, Mexico’s largest mining corporation, has been awarded a concession to reopen an old mine in Angangueo in the state of Michoacan, a town in the heart of the monarch reserve that was closed 25 years ago. The company intends to mine copper, zinc, lead, silver and gold.
> In April 2005, a subsidiary of Grupo Mexico filed an environmental impact assessment <http://sinat.semarnat.gob.mx/dgiraDocs/documentos/mich/estudios/2005/16MI2005M0004.pdf> for the mining project with the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources, also known as SEMARNAT. Michoacan’s secretary for urbanism and the environment declared <http://www.amazon.com/Noticias-Tierra-Spanish-Homero-Aridjis/dp/6073107900> that mining would have no impact on the monarch migration, and a former head of the monarch reserve insisted that development is compatible with conservation, that no one can prove monarch colonies over-wintered in the area when the mining concessions were granted at the end of the 19th century.The EIA was grossly inadequate. There was no prior consultation with affected groups, no public diffusion of information, no evaluation of the hydrologic impacts of the mine and no risk analysis or mention of risks for the human population. The EIA was only for a specific site and not regionally, as is required by law, since the reserve is part of the Lerma and Balsas Rivers watersheds and is defined as a priority hydrologic region. In order to extract the resources, mining will extract large volumes of water from the subsoil and expel it outside the area being worked — but there is no mention in the EIA of the substantial impacts of this process.
>
> In 2010, heavy rains lead to disastrous flooding in Angangueo, destroying houses and taking lives. The mine tailings left behind when the mine closed magnified the damage. Residues of arsenic, bromine, lead, barium, cadmium, chrome and mercury have been found in Angangueo’s water, and iron levels in the soil far exceed official norms. The EIA does not evaluate potential levels of toxicity from the production of sulfuric acid.
>
> The environmental impact assessment was grossly inadequate.
> A toxic spill <http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2014/08/27/politica/003n1pol> in August 2014 at a Grupo Mexico copper mine in the northwestern state of Sonora was labelled by the head of SEMARNAT as the Mexican mining sector’s worst environmental disaster in recent history. Nearly 11 million gallons of copper sulfate spewed <http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2014/08/27/actualidad/1409095702_528258.html> into the Bacanuchi and Sonora Rivers. Hundreds of miles of waterways and the water supply for 24,000 people were contaminated <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/opinion/sunday/in-a-poor-mexican-town-saving-butterflies-or-creating-jobs.html> with copper, arsenic, aluminum, cadmium, chromium, iron, manganese and lead.
>
> The National Water Commission blamed negligence on the part of the company, but Grupo Mexico falsely claimed the spill was caused by unexpected heavy rains that raised the level in a holding tank at the mine. It wasn’t Grupo Mexico’s only disaster. In February 2006, 65 workers were killed <http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/usw-mexican-miners-union-accuse-asarco-parent-firm-of-rights-violations-300222648.html> in an explosion at Grupo Mexico’s Pasta de Conchos mine in the state of Coahuila. Sixty-three bodies still remain underground, and the Mexican Attorney General’s office has stated that the statute of limitations for prosecuting those responsible has expired. Pasta de Conchos was run by Industrial Minera de México, the company that owns the Angangueo mine.
>
>
>
> The Sonora River near the town of Mazocahui on Aug. 24, 2014, contaminated by the spill from the Buenavista copper mine. (AP Photo/El Imparcial, Julian Ortega, File)
>
> In February, the governor of Michoacan met <http://www.michoacan.gob.mx/revisa-gobernador-proyecto-para-reactivar-mineria-en-angangueo/> with Grupo Mexico representatives to discuss the benefits the mining project would generate, like creating jobs and increasing tourism. Angangueo’s mayor <http://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/town-supports-mine-in-butterfly-reserve/> has said <http://www.cambiodemichoacan.com.mx/nota-273069> that Industria Minera de Mexico is already at work in town. The reserve’s management program allows for mining if all rules and regulations are complied with. However, as there is no precedent for exposing over-wintering monarch butterflies to a major mining operation, there are no studies to draw on, and so the EIA does not address the inevitable consequences to the butterflies. Water is vital for the monarch during its over-wintering in the reserve. If the mine is reopened, the impacts will become known but doubtless it will be too late for the monarchs.
>
> Last fall, frightened local residents called <http://cnsnews.com/news/article/report-mexicos-monarch-butterfly-reserve-lost-24-acres> me to denounce widespread illegal logging that went on unchecked from April through August 2015 on Sierra Chincua, one of the two main overwintering sites. I immediately notified Dr. Lincoln Brower, the world’s foremost monarch butterfly expert. Brower and other scientists have since written an important and conclusive report on illegal logging on 10 hectares of forest in the Sierra Chincua monarch butterfly over-wintering area that will be the feature article in the June 2016 issue of the journal American Entomologist <https://ae.oxfordjournals.org/>. They write:
>
> With satellite imagery and drone photographs, we documented the location and extent of illegal logging during 2015 in what should have been one of the most protected areas within the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Mexico. Severe logging of 10 hectares took place from April to August. This questions the effectiveness of current strategies to protect the already precarious overwintering habitat of the monarch butterfly in eastern North America.
>
> Curiously, the logging took place in a parcel of land belonging to the state of Michoacan, the only state-owned parcel in the entire reserve, and not in any of the neighboring communally owned ejidos.
>
> On March 10 and 11, heavy rain, wind and a severe snowstorm hit <http://www.conanp.gob.mx/difusion/comunicado.php?id_subcontenido=823> the reserve, knocking down trees and tearing off roofs in neighboring towns. Officials were quick to deny any substantial harm to the monarchs. Preliminary studies by Brower and others point to a mortality rate as high as 50 percent. The investigation has been hampered by limited access to the affected areas, especially at El Rosario.
>
>
>
> A recent photo showing illegal and/or salvage logging near El Rosario by a local resident who wishes to remain anonymous.
>
> About a week after the storm a fire was deliberately set near the El Rosario site to put pressure on the reserve’s acting director to authorize so-called salvage logging, presumably to remove trees after natural disturbances. Recent photos show that salvage logging has been taking place at the El Rosario site, where an alarming quantity of wood has been removed, with all the destructive impacts this process implies. There is no reliable way of telling which trees were “salvaged” and which were cut down illegally, as all the logging appears to have been done at once, a convenient scheme for tree laundering. There has also been salvage logging on Sierra Chincua.
>
> In March, the Center for Food Safety and the Center for Biological Diversity filed <http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/press-releases/4307/study-worlds-largest-monarch-population-could-disappear-in-20-years> a lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, charging the agency with failing to protect monarch butterflies under the Endangered Species Act. A recent scientific study <http://www.nature.com/articles/srep23265> predicts that the migratory monarch could become extinct within the next 20 years, largely due to the herbicide-resistant, genetically engineered corn and soybeans that make up 90 percent of these crops grown in the United States.
>
> If the mine is reopened, the impacts will become known but doubtless it will be too late for the monarchs.
>
> I grew up in Contepec, Michoacan, where millions of monarchs used to arrive every winter. But they no longer do. In 1986, I asked President Miguel de la Madrid to establish the Monarch Butterfly Special Biosphere Reserve, which he did. In 2008, as Mexico’s ambassador to UNESCO, I convinced the 21 members of the World Heritage Committee to declare the reserve a World Heritage site.
> But now I fear that the extraordinary monarch butterfly migration may not withstand the combined onslaughts of extreme weather, milkweed-killing herbicide use, illegal logging, mining and corruption.
>
>
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/homero-aridjis/endangered-monarchs-mexico_b_9832806.html <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/homero-aridjis/endangered-monarchs-mexico_b_9832806.html>
>
> Marge
>
>
>
> On May 15, 2016, at 9:59 PM, Alice Zinnes <azinnes@mindspring.com <mailto:azinnes@mindspring.com>> wrote:
>
>> Thanks Marge. Can I forward your comment to my email lists?
>>
>> -- Alice
>>
>> From: Margery Schab [mailto:mschab@aol.com <mailto:mschab@aol.com>]
>> Sent: Sunday, May 15, 2016 9:43 PM
>> To: Alice Zinnes <azinnes@mindspring.com <mailto:azinnes@mindspring.com>>
>> Subject: Re: Con Ed action in NYC on May 16
>>
>> Can’t go to con Ed on Monday but I did manage to send in a comment. So here it is. A bit of the sample and a bit of mine. Thanks for alerting your network about another assault on us the people by the fossil fuel industry and the transporters for that industry. Marge
>>
>> To: Kimberly D. Bose, Secretary
>>
>> Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
>>
>> Dear Ms. Bose,
>>
>> I am submitting this letter to request that FERC deny Arlington Storage Company LLC an extension for their methane storage expansion project.
>>
>> Arlington has had plenty of time to ensure that it could meet its deadline, but instead it sat on its rights. In the meantime, market conditions have changed, and we have a glut of gas. The project is no longer in the public convenience and necessity. Arlington is not entitled to keep the project in the pipeline in the hope that market conditions will change.
>>
>> The community in which this expansion would be housed does not want the project, as is evidenced by the 31 municipalities, representing 1.2 million New York residents, which have passed resolutions opposing hydrocarbon storage on the shores of Seneca Lake. Given both the community’s concerns, the project cannot be said to be in the public interest.
>>
>> How quickly we forget that recently there was a massive Natural Gas leak from a large Natural Gas Storage underground area close to Porter Ranch in Los Angeles County in January, 2016. "The Aliso gas leak carbon footprint is said to be larger than the Deepwater Horizon leak in the Gulf of Mexico."
>>
>> Many residents had to flee their homes and still the effects of that enormous leak remain. Just a few days ago now months after this leak was capped MYLA News reported the following:
>>
>> "Your kitchen sink could be dangerous: Warning to Porter Ranch gas-leak victims
>> Posted by Ken Stone on May 13, 2016 in Life
>>
>> Los Angeles County health officials Friday called for a thorough cleaning of household surfaces in Porter Ranch-area homes to rid them of metal contaminants that likely came from the Aliso Canyon gas leak and could cause minor health issues. Attorneys for Los Angeles County and the city argued that more thorough testing was needed to ensure residents will be safe when they return home. County health officials said earlier they had received about 300 complaints from Porter Ranch residents who returned to their homes and claimed to have developed more health problems. The complaints included nausea, stomach aches and respiratory irritation.""
>>
>> The Natural Gas Storage facility in Seneca Lake threatens the quality of the water for 100,000 people and the burgeoning wine district in the Finger Lakes region. This was not the case at Porter Ranch. Moreover the salt mine at Seneca Lake is aging and leakage is a real possibility. Our government agencies are there to protect the people. To approve an extension to build this facility to Arlington is not in the interest of small business or the health and welfare for its 100,000 inhabitants.
>>
>> If Arlington wants another two years in which to build the project, FERC should deny the extension, rescind the order authorizing construction, and start the application process over again. There’s a reason there’s a time limit on FERC’s orders.
>>
>>
>> Respectfully submitted
>> On May 15, 2016, at 9:19 AM, Alice Zinnes <azinnes@mindspring.com <mailto:azinnes@mindspring.com>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> From Ruth Hardinger. -- Alice
>>
>> This Monday, May 16, there will be an significant event - please see below:
>> This event is about protecting an important lake upstate.
>> Con Ed wants to store pressurized gas in a cavern under the Seneca Lake. Then that gas could be sent to NYC. This is the basis of the Monday activity.
>>
>> Yet, NYC needs to reduce natural gas use and to convert to renewable energy.
>> The more gas we receive for fuel, the less we will change to renewable energy.
>>
>> It will be important to support the work that the people are doing in Seneca. See the info below:
>>
>> All the best,
>> Ruth
>>
>>
>> Subject: Re: [sustainableotsego] Con Ed action in NYC on May 16
>>
>> Please share this invitation with your New York City friends and family.
>>
>> Wine, food and culture—not pipelines of fracked gas—should connect upstate to downstate. Con Ed ratepayers now need to object, loudly and clearly, to imperiling the people of Seneca Lake in order to deliver fracked gas to Westchester and NYC—especially when the governor has declared a goal of 50 percent renewable energy by 2030.
>>
>> This joint venture between Houston-based Crestwood and NYC-based Con Ed—the two Goliaths—must be now matched by a resolute alliance of upstate and downstate citizen groups—the two Davids-- devoted to a renewable energy revolution.
>>
>> unfractured,
>>
>> Sandra
>>
>> View this email in your browser <http://wearesenecalake.sitemandala.com/W7485AF12>
>>
>> GREEN LIGHT! PLEASE SHARE AND DISTRIBUTE THIS EMAIL WIDELY.
>> Dear friends of Seneca Lake -
>>
>> In one week, on Monday May 16, We Are Seneca Lake Defenders will be making a ruckus outside of Con Ed's shareholder meeting in NYC, since Con Ed just bought into the ill-planned gas storage operation at Seneca Lake. We have 30 people signed up to go, but we need more! This is a non-arrestable action. Join your WASL friends in NYC!
>>
>> Sign up for the NYC trip here! <http://wearesenecalake.sitemandala.com/A7485AF12A789FD35>
>> Share the Facebook page! <http://wearesenecalake.sitemandala.com/A7485AF12EED2881C>
>> Thanks to Irene Weiser, actor James Cromwell will be standing by our sides! We also have support from Sane Energy Project, NYC Environmental Justice Alliance, United for Action, NY Climate Action Group, Food & Water Watch, People Not Pipelines, Concerned Residents of Oxford, Deep Green Resistance NY, and Frack Free Genesee.
>>
>> Monday May 16 - Con Ed HQ - 4 Irving Pl., NYC
>>
>> 9 AM - coordinated flyering at entrances
>>
>> 9:30 AM - Protest begins at corner of 14th and Irving
>>
>> 10 AM - shareholder meeting starts inside. Keep protesting!
>>
>> 10:30 AM - if you're a busy NYC resident with only a little time to protest, this is when to show up!
>>
>> 11 AM - press conference
>>
>> Because we hail from far and wide, carpools are making more sense than a bus from Ithaca. Mariah Plumlee is helping coordinate carpools and places to stay in NYC for Sunday night for those who sign up through the form above. If you have friends in the city who are willing to put up some defenders, please let Mariah <mailto:mmplumlee@gmail.com> know!
>>
>> Why are we going to NYC?
>>
>> We are going to say:
>>
>> NO fracked gas infrastructure expansion!
>> NO underground gas storage at Seneca Lake!
>>
>> NO sacrifice zones - upstate or downstate!
>>
>> Con Ed: we want a renewable energy future!
>>
>> Gas infrastructure leaks are a significant contributor to climate change - and NYC is on the front lines!
>>
>> Background: Downstate energy giant Consolidated Edison has put almost a billion dollars on the table to join forces with Crestwood in a new joint venture. If this alliance goes forward uncontested, Con Ed will own 50% of the Seneca Lake salt caverns, providing financially troubled Crestwood a much needed blood transfusion.
>>
>> This new venture will deepen New York’s dependency on fossil fuels, contravene the goals of the Paris Climate Accord, make upstate the sacrifice zone for downstate, and undercut the steps our Governor has taken to stop the Constitution Pipeline and move us toward renewables.
>>
>> Now is the time to show firm, united, sustained citizen opposition to Seneca Lake gas storage and further gas build-out. Our actions take place during the week of May 4-15, when a global wave of resistance <http://wearesenecalake.sitemandala.com/A7485AF123F6A2362> to keep coal, oil, and gas in the ground will be taking place all around the world.
>>
>> “We take this Con Ed-Crestwood marriage announcement very seriously and urge you to do so as well. The time is NOW —as in RIGHT NOW — to recommit ourselves to the citizen fight against the Seneca Lake gas storage expansion plan, re-engage with We Are Seneca Lake, grow our ranks, and strengthen our movement.” --Sandra Steingraber
>> Justin Mikulka at DeSmogBlog gets it:
>>
>> "...things got a bit more complicated in April when Crestwood, the company applying for the permits for the gas storage, received an investment of$975 million from Con Edison <http://wearesenecalake.sitemandala.com/A7485AF12BEA51951>. While Texas-based Crestwood isn’t a political power in New York, the same can’t be said for Con Edison."- New York Serves as a Battleground for Oil and Gas Infrastructure Fights <http://wearesenecalake.sitemandala.com/A7485AF12598E851D>
>> They may have political power and financial clout, but we have PEOPLE POWER! So far, we have done the impossible - prevented them from even beginning construction at Seneca Lake. On May 15th, without an extension, FERC's approval of their project runs out. Submit comments to FERC <http://wearesenecalake.sitemandala.com/A7485AF123D4431A3> to tell them not to grant an extension! And join us in NYC on May 16 to tell Con Ed <http://wearesenecalake.sitemandala.com/A7485AF12EED2881C> they don't want our salt caverns! It's risky business not just for us, but for New York City too.
>>
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>>
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>>
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