I first read about this underground 'warehouse' in my copy of Looking Back on Lorain County (1978) by Ernie Henes. In an article entitled, "Ready-Made Warehouses," Henes writes, "Nature has been kind to Southern Lorain County by providing just the right underground rock formations for storing tremendous volumes of natural gas needed to heat homes, commercial buildings, and for industrial purposes.
"When Mother Nature formed this earth, she buried layer upon layer of rock underground. Far under Lorain County she placed several layers of sponge-like rock. When combined with decaying organic material, these porous rocks soaked up natural gas produced by natural chemical reactions. The gas was there for man to drill and release.
"Gas became so popular that it took relatively few years before these reservoirs were emptied, at which point they were used for storage. Today, practically all of the gas used in Lorain and adjoining counties is brought in through large pipe lines from rich fields in the south and southwest.
"Wellington's field has 243 wells into which about 22 billion cubic feet of gas are stored The compressor station on West Road pumps the year around. In cold weather, not enough gas can be brought in to meet the demand, and storage gas is used to augment the pumped flow."
I remember reading this story and being somewhat confused as it was hard to visualize. Thus I was happy to see the article and photo below about the Wellington underground storage field. It ran in the Lorain Journal back on Feb. 4, 1955 – 70 years ago today.
TC Energy acquired Columbia Gas Transmission in 2016. Here's the link to its website about the underground storage.
