Unrest and Environmentalism at Seneca Lake

(woman's voice) Their plan is just a recipe for disaster.

(police officer) You're all under arrest for trespassing.

(man's voice) There will be jobs. It will be safe,

it'll be good for the community.

(woman's voice) Well, at stake in general

is your life.

(man's voice) There's no 100% guarantees.

(serene piano music)

Well, the lake itself is unique because of its depth.

And its deepest point is over 600 feet deep.

I believe the native people had a name for it

that meant restless lake.

Since I was a young kid, I was into stories of

Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, and cryptozoology

and those kind of mysterious things when I found out

there was a lake monster right here

in the lake where I lived.

I was like, now I gotta know more.

The stories go back to the native people

who lived in the area.

These mysteries come from down inside of the lake,

the lake monster comes up and surfaces.

And now, this plan is to take something

that isn't naturally there, and place it down

at the bottom of the lake.

There's basically two types of mine, to mine this salt,

one is to actually excavate through tunnels

and bringing that up to land surface through a shaft.

Then the other type of mining is called solution mining,

you drill a well down to the salt formation,

and then they would inject freshwater into there.

Dissolving the salt, and then pumping the brine back up.

And so what you end up with is a void,

so the idea is to use that to store either

a natural gas methane or propane.

Every morning from our farm,

we can see what we call the dragon.

The mist that is on the lake, it gradually rises up,

and it looks like, because of the shape of the lake

which is long, it rises up and it looks like

a big white dragon hovering up over the landscape.

That one here, it doesn't seem very different

from 20 years ago.

This whole area is unique

because it's still very rural.

One of the things that I think we were most attracted to

in farming, is the idea of being able

to take care of this place,

that feels like a good legacy to leave

for our little piece of the world.

And so, any threat to that is

a threat to the life we have.

Crestwood is the company that has been

wanting to store propane liquid under pressure.

And that feels like a very risky thing to do.

Biggest concern, I guess, is

the salinization of Seneca Lake.

The cavern would break, in some way, under pressure.

And allow salt to start leaking into the lake,

and once it's leaking in, that would change

the whole ecosystem, everything, everything from bottom-up.

It would be a dead lake is basically what you'd end up with.

(crowd in unison) One nation, under God, indivisible,

with liberty and justice for all.

This is a public meeting venue.

The supervisor is an elected employee of the people.

So, he can't tell his boss that they can't bring up issues.

And Crestwood owns the salt plant.

Right.

And so I think they got basic constituents

who are advocating for this project.

You know, the salt plant's a hundred year old business.

And a lot of inter-generational families have worked there,

and there's a lot of loyalty in this community

to the salt plant. You know?

But it's gonna be too late when something happens.

And this is an existential threat to our way of life.

Lost my job back in 2001.

My dad worked at the plant, so I said, why not?

You know, so I went down, fill out an application.

You know, I've got my community now at work.

It definitely brings us together,

because we're there for so much with each other.

It's deep-rooted without a question, I mean,

a lot of people have worked there or know somebody

that works there, have relatives that work there.

It's definitely a community-driven plant.

We're a union shop.

So, the United Steelworkers.

I was president from 2012 to 2015.

If the Steelworkers had a problem,

they would never put their name on it.

They pride themselves on

sending their people home safe every night.

People don't see it that way, though.

They always look for the worst.

Just because they tell me something doesn't mean it's true.

You know, there's a monster under my bed.

Well, no, there's not.

There are about a hundred caverns that

could be developed for gas storage,

if they really tried to do it.

And none of them are wholly within salt,

so they are somewhat leaky almost by definition

because they're embedded salt.

You know, we put it on our food,

and it's used for medical purposes, et cetera.

But, this lake is presently at 80 parts per million sodium,

four times more concentrated with sodium than what

newborns and people with high blood pressure

should be drinking.

So, there're already some adverse affects for

the 100,000 or more people who live around this lake

who are drinking lake water.

[Interviewer] What's the worst case

that their brine pond ruptures?

[Dr. Warren] Personally, I think

it could be quite catastrophic.

All aquatic life within two or three kilometers

would be killed.

To have a dead zone in a lake measured in kilometers,

you know, is it seems unprecedented.

(telephone calling tone)

[man on phone] I can't emphasize enough

that the storage facility will not hurt the lake.

These caverns proposed for OPG storage

are holding brine today.

We know they do not leak.

You know, we have years of testing and monitoring that

repeatedly show these particular caverns have integrity.

Embedded salt is one type of salt formation.

Here, it's something that we're readily familiar with

because we've been in that part of New York for a while.

There's no evidence that this project will impact

Seneca Lake, and this adds, you know,

88 plus million gallons of propane to a market that,

every winter, you tend to find a situation where

you can't get the propane to where it's needed the most,

when it's needed the most.

[Barbara] There are some rural areas

where everyone's leaving.

But that's not true here.

A lot of people lived here all their lives,

and it's not disposable.

(cow moos)

You know, I live right here on this lake

and I couldn't stand by without doing something.

So, tomorrow there's at least 25 signed up to be arrested.

They put banners, and then we stand behind the banners

and beyond the no trespassing signs.

I think I didn't start out strong,

I started out adventurous.

And then that leads you into a lot of trouble.

Then you gain strength from all that. (laughs)

I want my children to learn that you can do this,

and it's a, it feels like an example

to them and to the grandchildren.

This is what you all are gonna have to do.

Welcome everyone!

When you arrive at the north gate,

look for a row of trespass signs.

Anyone who steps over that line, toward the lake,

is risking arrest.

(all chant in unison) We are Seneca Lake!

We are Seneca Lake!

We are Seneca Lake!

[Police Officer] Start the disperse!

Go. Start to disperse.

Come on.

(indistinct talking on megaphone)

You're all under arrest for trespassing.

I don't have time for that, let's go.

[Mike] Why wouldn't you support it if you're gonna bring

a few more people to work, you know, to actually get jobs?

It's not even here yet, and this is a lot of what-if,

the things that they bring up are, well,

this might happen, what if this, what if that.

The way I look at it is, what will happen?

There will be jobs, it will be safe,

it'll be good for the community.

Maybe.

Might work.

Seneca Nessie, they call it.

Oh, there's like a huge story about it, it's funny.

From back in uh...

The early, yeah, in the late 1800s.

Captain Henry said that he would ram the creature

and take it alive if possible, otherwise he would kill it.

Either take it aboard or tow it to Geneva.

Soon as the body of the monster struck the water,

it began to sink and disappeared.

I don't disagree with it,

I just don't believe it until I actually see it.

[Barbara] There are myths that are very common,

like, when I talk to people about, you know,

what I'm doing, one myth is everything's fine,

there is no problem.

And since we are lucky enough in this area to have

a source of clean water, it's just unthinkable

that we would put that at risk in any way.

[Jim] This is from the story of The Lake Gun

by James Fenimore Cooper.

The lake seems to be speaking to the surrounding hills,

which send back the echoes of its voice in accurate reply.

Seneca was the simple answer.

The word was uttered in a tone so low, and melancholy

that it sounded like saddened music.

Nothing that Fuller had ever before heard

conveyed so much meaning so simply,

and in so few syllables.

It illuminated the long vista of the past,

and cast a gloomy shadow into that of the future.

(water quietly splashes)