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A bill that would have cleared the way for a Houston company to open up a huge underground cavern to store natural gas near Eloy died in the Legislature's closing days.

The bill passed the House but failed to get a vote in the Senate. It would have granted a statewide exemption to companies wishing to create such cavernous storage facilities. Houston-based Multifuels LP would have been the immediate beneficiary of the bill because it had specifically proposed to store natural gas in Pinal County salt beds up to 3,600 feet underground in the Picacho Valley.

Multifuels' $220 million proposal needed an exemption from state rules because the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality declined to issue a permit to inject brine wastewater into groundwater — an essential part of the process for creating the gas-storage cavern.

The bill drew fierce opposition from environmentalists and some Democratic legislators who feared such an operation could contaminate groundwater, although supporters said the saltwater the company planned to inject wasn't as salty as what already lies underground there.

"More and more people were recognizing this bill had some serious problems," said Daniel Patterson, a Tucson Democrat who opposed the bill. "This was a significant victory in trying to protect Arizona's groundwater from these exemptions. But the issue will not go away. We will have to remain vigilant."

Randall Gibbs, president of Multifuels, had a different take on the death of HB2352, attributing it to the "frenzied" final session of the Senate.

"It is unfortunate that this very important piece of legislation stalled due to a lack of time rather than a lack of support," he said in a statement.