COTE BLANCHE ISLAND — A proposed $500 million natural gas storage facility is in its pre-planning stages here, and though completion is years away, residents and workers who could be affected by the site are raising a number of concerns.

Henry Gas Storage LLC, a subsidiary of Houston-based Ranger Gas, is in the federal pre-permitting process to construct four natural gas storage caverns, a 12-mile natural gas pipeline and a 26-mile brine disposal pipeline through Cote Blanche Bay.

The project could create 20 permanent jobs, 1,600 temporary construction jobs and millions of dollars in tax revenue and business sales. But the location of the facility also could jeopardize the jobs of more than 150 salt mine workers at the North American Salt Co. at Cote Blanche Island.

Workers for the North American Salt Co. enter an elevator recently, headed to begin their shift at the salt mine at Cote Blanche Island. The company is concerned about an underground natural gas storage site proposed near the mine. The storage site is sought by Henry Gas Storage LLC. Heather Miller / The Daily Iberian Advertisement

“Our concern is the obvious one,” said mine manager Gord Bull. “There are 150 full-time employees underground dealing with a large body of explosives. There’s a lot of unknowns with this (project).”

Nowhere in the country does a functioning salt mine co-exist with a natural gas storage facility, said Mark Migues, a salt mine employee and union president of United Steel Workers, the salt mine’s union.

“We will not be able to exist next to a storage facility of that nature,” Migues said.

But Henry Gas CEO Michael McCall said those kinds of operations exist side-by-side in Germany, and said there will be complex analysis on how far apart the two facilities need to be from each other before the gas storage construction begins.

“Issues related to safety, which is the single most important issue of all, will be fully documented in our final filing for federal permits,” McCall said.

Once the company gets a federal permit from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, McCall will still have to get permits from the Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as the state Department of Natural Resources.

North American Salt Co. has a 99-year lease on its salt mine operations at Cote Blanche Island that expires in 2061, said NASC employee and union Vice President Vincent Louviere. But the land next to the salt mines was set aside decades ago by the island owners to have a hydrocarbon storage site built — the same type of facility being proposed by Henry Gas.

Henry Gas has had two “scoping” meetings in Franklin to get input from the people who would be affected, but Migues and Louviere said many people were, and still are, unaware of the site proposal and the possible dangers associated with it.

“Because of the faults we have, hot ash, sandstone, all porous material, when they start pressuring up this gas, we don’t know what’s going to happen,” Louviere said. “It may leak into our work areas, which is not a good thing.”

The salt mine employees, 60 to 70 percent of whom reside in Iberia Parish, have been able to voice their concerns at the last meeting, but Migues said commercial fisherman, oyster fishers and others in the fishing industry have not been notified of the project.

The brine disposal pipeline, which in its current plans will fall a few miles inside of Iberia Parish waters, will be pumping 10,000 gallons per minute of pure salt solution into waters that are less than 10 miles southeast of Marsh Island and the Shell Keys National Wildlife Refuge. The brine will have little to no oxygen in it, which in turn could have a detrimental effect on the vegetation and marine life in those waters, Louviere said.

The amount of brine disposal planned is less than what some projects in the Gulf of Mexico have called for, McCall said, and said studies have shown brine can breed higher concentrations of shrimp.

Eric Richards, spokes-man for the Gulf Consevation Coalition, said the U.S. Department of Energy claims brine makes fish more prevalent, a claim that Richards called “hogwash.”

“You start tampering with the ecology and when you do that the balance changes,” Richards said. “Chances are you’re going to lose something of value.”

After Hurricane Katrina eroded a large part of one of Alabama’s barrier islands, Richards said Mobile Bay saw a higher level of salinity in its waters.

“They’ve lost virtually all their oyster beds this year,” Richards said.

Though oyster beds are not affected by higher salt levels, the higher salt concentration breeds more oyster drills, predatory snails that kill oysters, Richards said.

Tony Jurisich, vice president of Gulf Oysters IV Inc., spoke out publicly through the FERC Web site, and stated in a letter he is concerned about what the brine disposal will do to the oyster leases his company owns near the proposed pipeline.

“If this project causes the mortality that we think it will, our business will be greatly affected and it could cause many fisherman to be out of work,” Jurisich said in the letter.

Others, however, support the project and what it would do for energy independence and the local economy.

“I fully support the project ... I believe that with the technology available today, this project can be safely operated on the island along with the salt mine,” said Bill Sandefer, director of admissions for Tulane University’s business school.

Sandefer said he is not affiliated with the company, but has family in the New Iberia area and said the company would bring “much-needed industrial support to the area.”

The next step for the future project depends largely on whether the FERC will call for an environmental assessment, or an environmental impact statement.

An environmental assessment will review all elements of the environment for potential impact. If further study is called for, an environmental impact statement will be done, too, said a FERC spokeswoman Tamara Young-Allen.

“The whole point of natural gas storage is to help balance out natural gas production with the extreme swings in natural gas consumption,” McCall said. “It’s an exceptional location to connect with existing natural gas pipelines, and to provide a big boost in energy in the country.”

There is a public comment section on the FERC Web site, www.ferc.gov, which allows anyone with concerns to post their name and comment. The comments are located under the eLibrary, and the Henry Gas docket number to view the comments is PF08-28.

There will be several more public hearings advertised through the local media before the federal pre-filing process is complete, Young-Allen said.