|
Piling on
Kinder Morgan seeks to triple coal import capacity to 10 million tons
By Dan McCue
Staff Writer
Kinder Morgan Inc., the energy transportation, storage and distribution giant, has asked federal regulators for permission to redevelop its Charleston facility and nearly triple its capacity to handle imported coal.
The project, as detailed in filings with the Charleston office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is intended to increase and improve conveyance and storage of material at Kinder Morgan’s 148-acre Shipyard Creek terminal and complete the integration of adjacent facilities on 154 acres the company bought from the Salmons Dredging Corp. in November 2005.
After the work is completed, Kinder Morgan told the corps it wants to increase the volume of imported coal handled at the facility from approximately 3.5 million tons a year to 10 million tons a year.
Company spokeswoman Emily Mir Thompson said the expansion will better position Kinder Morgan to meet the growing demand for electricity in the Southeast. The coal is being imported primarily for use by electricity-generating plants in South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia.
The plant’s manager could not be reached for comment on the project, but as detailed in successive filings with the corps, Kinder Morgan predicts that when the project is completed, the coal pile on the site at 1801 Milford St. will weigh nearly 600,000 tons and cover approximately 20 acres. The average height of the pile will be 40 feet, with a maximum height of 80 feet, the company said.
In order to minimize dust levels at and around the facility, Kinder Morgan plans to telescope product chutes on the site, which will reduce the distance coal has to travel before reaching the ground. The company also will use covered conveyer systems to transport the coal to storage and will use water suppression systems.
The company told the corps that it will maintain current volumes for other operations at its site, including the transportation and storage of liquid petroleum products and other bulk cargo.
Currently, Kinder Morgan maintains 16 tanks on the site with a total capacity of 1.2 million gallons of petroleum products.
Coal ships to triple
While volumes of these materials are expected to stay the same in the foreseeable future, Kinder Morgan has indicated the locations within the overall site where some of the materials are loaded, offloaded and conveyed will change under the proposed redevelopment.
Another thing that will change is the number of coal ships that will call on the Shipyard Creek facility. In 2005, according to company records, 33 of the 190 vessels that called on the facility carried coal. Once the project is completed, something that depends on the corps’ permitting process, it is estimated that 92 coal vessels will call on the facility each year, with a total of 249 ships calling on the terminal annually.
Ships will be at the dock on average for 72 hours per call, a Kinder Morgan representative said.
Robin Socha, a biologist with the corps’ Charleston office, said she and her staff are currently in the midst of an environmental assessment of the Kinder Morgan property and proposal that will determine what level of permitting and mitigation will be required for the project.
Given the property’s long history as an industrial site, the Kinder Morgan project might qualify for a “finding of no significant impact,” or “FONSI,” and be given its permits rather quickly, she said.
On the other hand, it’s still quite possible that the corps will determine a more in-depth assessment will be required, resulting in Kinder Morgan being the subject of the development of a full environmental impact statement—the same kind of massive review required of the S.C. State Ports Authority for its proposed Navy base terminal.
That terminal will also abut Shipyard Creek.
“We’re right in the middle of the process right now, so I can’t say what our conclusion will be,” Socha said. “Every case is different and every site comes with its own specific concerns. Obviously, we’ll be looking at wetland impacts, the impact of dredging, as well as the impact of endangered species.”
Diesel particulates a concern
As in the case of the port terminal, one of the species whose fate the corps will be considering closely is that of the endangered Northern right whale, which migrates past Charleston as it moves between seasonal habitats off Cape Cod and the Florida coast.
“You look for the same things no matter what the project is,” Socha said. “And it doesn’t necessarily follow that just because the port was asked to do something that Kinder Morgan is going to be as well. Every mitigation plan is going to be a little bit different depending of the quality of the impact.”
As currently proposed, the project will impact 11.15 acres of U.S. waters, including 0.13 acres of tidal wetlands.
The project also will increase the amount of diesel particulates that are released into the air in North Charleston, but that’s something Kinder Morgan is already taking steps to address.
According to the plans provided to the corps, ships arriving at Kinder Morgan’s terminal currently shut down their main diesel engines and rely on onboard generators to provide power to drive cranes aboard the ship and for all other berth operations.
However, even the generators require some diesel combustion, a figure Kinder Morgan put at 20 gallons an hour.
Once the project is completed, Kinder Morgan said use of the shipboard cranes will be replaced by larger, electric dock cranes. The proposed improvement will result in a net decrease of approximately 80,000 gallons of marine diesel combustion a year.
Increase in train traffic
Aside from the purely environmental impacts of the project, there will also be new rail impacts associated with the project.
Currently Kinder Morgan uses two small locomotives on site. An average of one train of 100 cars per day leaves the site via tracks belonging to either the Norfolk Southern or CSX railroads.
Trains loaded with coal on the site are broken into sections, loaded and rehooked in a process that typically takes about 12 hours. During that time each locomotive burns about 10 gallons of diesel fuel per hour.
After construction, Kinder Morgan expects to use one large locomotive and will load and release an average of 2.6 100-car trains of coal per day.
The process of breaking, loading and rehooking 260 cars with a new rail layout on the property is expected to take 16 hours, with one large locomotive burning approximately 20 gallons of diesel fuel per hour.
As a result, trains on the site would burn 112,000 gallons of diesel fuel per year as opposed to the 84,000 gallons of fuel they burn currently.
Prior to seeking corps approval for its plan, Kinder Morgan also conducted a survey of its existing operations and an assessment of the anticipated change in crossing time for trains leaving the facility.
According to Kinder Morgan, the delay at Meeting Street will be increased from 48 minutes per day to 52 minutes per day. For the purpose of the study, trains at the Meeting Street crossing were assumed to travel at 6 mph.
After trains leave the yard and accelerate to posted speeds—up to a 20 mph limit in urban areas—Kinder Morgan estimates that it will take the trains approximately 7.5 minutes to clear crossings at Cherry Hill, Misroon, Accabee, Dorchester Road, Montague Avenue, Taylor Street and Remount Avenue.
A unit train like the one serving the Kinder Morgan facility is roughly one mile long. The company based its estimate on crossing clearance on the assumption the trains will be moving at 10 mph. At such a speed, it would take about 6 minutes for a coal train to pass each at-grade rail crossing, the company said.
The company tacked on an additional 90 seconds to account for signal activation and deactivation.
Socha said the corps’ review also will look at uplands impacts, including those related to transporting coal from the site to inland destinations by rail, and air quality.
Dan McCue is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dmccue@charlestonbusiness.com.
|
E-Mail This Article
Printer-Friendly Version