State and local lawmakers joined clean water advocates today in a virtual press conference to urge Gov. Kathy Hochul to protect Cayuga Lake by blocking any sudden “secret” sale of Cargill Inc.’s giant salt mine in Lansing.
“Cargill can’t skip town and leave Finger Lakes communities holding the bag,” said Assemblymember Anna Kelles (D-Ithaca). “…Billions of dollars need to be set aside by whatever company owns it. Right now it’s Cargill.”
Cargill officials have neither confirmed nor denied a media report this summer that said the company had hired Deutsche Bank to help it find a buyer.
But that news prompted concern that the mine, which extends for many hundreds of acres beneath the state-owned lake, might be sold to a buyer that fails guard against risks of a catastrophic mine failure.
In recent days more than 1,500 people have signed a petition calling for the governor to require a “full and independent environmental review” of safety issues at the mine as well as a $10 billion environmental bond.
“An independent review will shed critical light on the on-going risks of mine collapse, lake salinization and other damage to surrounding land,” said the petition drafted by Stephanie Redmond of the group CLEAN (Cayuga Lake Environmental Action Now).
State Sen. Lea Webb (D-Binghamton) concurred in a statement — read at the press conference — that calls for Hochul to “stop the sale of the mine and require a full independent environmental review before it can be sold. Any potential sale of the mine must be done transparently and with public oversight.”
Cargill, the nation’s largest private company with annual sales of $177 billion, has operated the mine for decades with lax regulatory oversight from the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
As its mining activities have gradually moved to the north, the bedrock separating the mine from the lake gradually thins, raising risks of flooding or a roof collapse. Scientists —…
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