Stockbridge — Before a packed town hall on November 9, the Select Board unanimously voted down a measure that would have expanded the use and storage capacity of a propane facility at 9 Lee Road.
Representing Superior Plus Energy Services that functions at the site, Jason Wild asked board members for additional capacity in the form of a license application to include the storage of 600 gallons of methanol, a chemical he said was needed to prevent propane from freezing during the winter months; five 3,200-gallon delivery trucks; and 72 120-gallon vertical tanks. The proposal adds 24,640 gallons of propane in above-ground containers, plus 600 gallons of methane to the facility’s existing permit, a license that allows only 90,000 gallons of propane storage in three equal underground tanks.
Background
Berkshire Gas Company was the first applicant for a license and permit on the tract. That was in 1973 when the request for one 30,000-gallon tank was approved, with the property serving as bulk storage for propane and a substation, or standby use, for natural gas. In 1981, Berkshire Gas received a special permit for two additional 30,000-gallon tanks, bringing the total storage allowable at the facility to 90,000 gallons of propane in three 30,000-gallon tanks. Fast forward to 2005 when Osterman Propane took over the license and conducted propane distribution, leasing the property from Berkshire Gas but owning the tanks in the ground, Wild said. In 2018, Superior bought Osterman and assumed control of the tanks on the site, using it as Osterman did for loading, unloading, and parking trucks for gas transport to customers. In 2021, a third-party inspection company found the tanks to be in good working order and in compliance with pertinent regulations.
Violations found by chance
A few months ago, Stockbridge Fire Chief Vincent Jan Garofoli, along with state compliance officer John Wood III, found the facility—now operated by Superior—to be in violation of its permit. The chief had been on site to inspect repairs and maintenance performed by Berkshire Gas. Although the permit allowed for only 90,000 gallons of storage, he found the facility was running trucks in excess of what was allowable in the permit, as well as storing methanol and tanks that could be filled with gas or left empty.
“Once [Wood and Garofoli] came on the property, they looked at it and said, ‘Oh my gosh, why are all of these tanks here,’” Wild said of their recent visit to Superior.
At the meeting, he said that the activity outside of the business’s permit “was an oversight on Superior Plus’s part” and that the company didn’t have permission to store the extra tanks on the property or the delivery trucks. Garofoli and the town’s fire marshal told Wild what needed to be done to bring the facility up to compliance and how to move forward. Wild said he found out about the violations when Garofoli brought the issue to his attention.
According to Wild, the request for 72 120-gallon tanks to be stored on site is needed because that number, 72 tanks, reflects the capacity of a tractor trailer to take the tanks off site to be refurbished. So, the tanks need to be stored at 9 Lee Road until 72 tanks are accumulated to make the trek to the refurbish facility, he said.
Residents speak out
With no attendees speaking in favor of the permit, Stockbridge Conservation Commission Clerk Sally Underwood-Miller was among a handful of speakers who addressed the environmental and health issues that may have resulted from the facility over the years. Board Chair Ernest J. Cardillo cautioned that those concerns aren’t part of the permit application and therefore not before the dais, with the option that the discussion be taken up at another session.
The most damaging arguments against the permit approval came from David and Stephanie Adler, whose longtime homestead abuts the facility. Screened with shrubs and trees, the couple said they raised their children in the house adjacent to the Lee Road site and had no idea that unpermitted activity was going on. According to David Adler, the original main purpose of the facility was to be a standby for the natural gas and used only 24 days a year, adding that the site was important to Berkshire Gas due to its proximity to the Tenneco (Tennessee) Gas Pipeline, now owned by Kinder Morgan.
Today, the screening behind the Adlers’ property has been substantially diminished, David Adler said, with an estimated cost of “tens of thousands of dollars” to replace the vegetative screen removed by Superior, he said.
“But our concerns, the abutters’ concerns in this room, the neighborhood’s concerns are less about the screening and more about our safety,” David Adler said. “While the applicant [said] they’d be more than willing to pay for the screening while not telling us how much they’d pay, our safety is not for sale at any price.”
He said that Berkshire Gas guaranteed, via the original 1973 permit, monitoring tests such as flame, odor, vapor, and vandalism detection would be performed, as well as fire drills. According to Adler, however, between 1973 and 2003, the tanks were only registered for one year: that is, for 1981, when Berkshire Gas requested and received approval by the Select Board for a permit for two additional tanks, amounting to 90,000 gallons total in three tanks, the permit that exists today. At no time was a request to store methanol on the property made, he said.
“The rest of the 30 years [from 1973 to 2003], the tanks were behind my property; [Berkshire Gas] chose not to register the tanks with the town,” David Adler said. “And, because there was no registration, there was also no fire department inspections as the gas company was supposed to request them annually and failed to do so.”
During that span, no state or local inspections of the three 30,000-gallon tanks occurred, he said.
Adler and his family purchased the property in the mid-1990s, on the heels of the MacDonald family buying their tract that also abuts the facility. “Our families raised our children in Stockbridge, and, all the time, we thought that what was going on at 9 Lee Road was permitted, being inspected and was safe,” David Adler said.
Berkshire Gas registered their tanks with the town in 2003 and 2004, but, in 2005, the natural gas line was either disconnected or shut off, with the company leasing the tanks and property while putting Osterman in control of the site, he said. The function of the facility changed from using natural gas as a supplement to propane to using entirely propane, David Adler said, substantially altering the type of business conducted at 9 Lee Road. Although a new permit was granted to Osterman for the three existing 30,000-gallon tanks, the permit didn’t include methanol storage, delivery trucks, or vertical storage tanks. With the new tenant in place, the traffic to and from the facility sharply increased, David Adler said, as 18-wheeler tanker trucks worked deliveries “at all hours of the day and night.” This continued for the next six years, again with no registration of tanks or inspections, he said.
In the fall of 2021, the tank piping was replaced, a project that removed the propane and burned the gas off, with a flame projecting 50 feet into the air, David Adler said.
During Garofoli’s recent visit to the facility, hundreds of unpermitted tanks were stored on the property “stacked on top of each other, rusting out, and had been for many, many years,” he said, showing a photograph taken by local officials of the scene (see attached). No barriers existed between the trucks and driveway and the tanks, with water allowed to run off onto neighboring properties, he said.
Garofoli confirmed that there are no records of a fire drill at 9 Lee since 1973.
Adler requested that, following 50 years of “dangerous” unpermitted activity on the site, the board not only deny Superior’s permit request but immediately perform an environmental study and remove an additional 800-gallon tank recently found at the property.
James “Jim” MacDonald admitted that, 39 years ago, his family chose to buy their property, a tract with an easement to the gas company traversing the grounds. “I’m not coming in here tonight like somebody that bought next to an airport and is complaining about the noise,” he said. “But the people that buy next to an airport would expect that the airplanes are inspected, the pilots are licensed and they’re safe.”
Citing more trucks carrying propane in the area and the unpermitted circumstances of the facility, MacDonald called the situation “dangerous.” “It’s just very disappointing to stand up here tonight and realize just how unsafe we’ve really been for so many years,” he said.
The vote and beyond
During deliberations, board members said that the 2005 permit allowing 90,000 gallons of propane in three in-ground tanks at the facility was not before them and, therefore, could not be ruled on or revoked. Although the vote denied an expansion, the business can still operate, but those operations are limited to the provisions of its 2005 permit.
Member Jamie Minacci said she based her denial on the testimony of the neighbors, the abutters, and that “it’s too hard to inherit someone else’s lack of oversight.”
For Wild, the decision was surprising and will force him to rethink his business, at least for now. “There’s 2,500 customers in South County that rely on us to supply them propane, and the board just made it much more difficult to make timely deliveries to our customers,” he said. “And, at a terrible time: November when it’s freezing temperatures. We’ll figure it out, we always do. We’ll have a plan, and we’ll have our people work extra hard to make sure our people are taken care of. That’s the priority.”
