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13 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Nov 22-28

It seems as if Pennsylvania has been on a yo-yo lately. Three weeks ago PA issued just two permits to drill new shale wells. Two weeks ago PA issued 15 permits! And now, for last week (Nov. 22-28), PA flipped back to just two new permits again. What’s going on? Did the DEP take most of last week off for the Thanksgiving holiday? Perhaps. Ohio pulled our region’s bacon out of the fire by issuing 11 new permits last week for Utica shale wells. West Virginia drillers got skunked with zero new permits last week. All totaled there were just 13 new permits issued last week in the M-U, down from 32 the week before.
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PA Approves Another $4.4M in Grants for Local NatGas Pipelines

Pennsylvania’s Pipeline Investment Program (or PIPE) issues grants covering part of the cost for building new natural gas pipelines to connect homes and businesses, typically in rural parts of the state, to homegrown Marcellus Shale gas supplies. We’ve written about many of the PIPE grant projects in the past (see our PIPE stories here). Five more PIPE grants totaling $4.4 million have just been awarded–in Adams, Indiana, Lebanon, Lycoming, and Northampton counties. That makes 35 total PIPE grants thus far.
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Are Some PA Repubs Like Rep. Struzzi Warming Up to Carbon Tax?

Danger, Will Robinson! One of the leading lights in the Pennsylvania legislature against Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf’s idiotic (and dangerous) carbon tax plan, called RGGI (Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative), has been Republican House Rep. Jim Struzzi (from Indiana County). Struzzi sponsored House Bill (HB) 2025 last year giving PA residents a say in whether or not the state should join RGGI (see PA Senate Passes Bill Giving Legislators Say in RGGI Carbon Tax). Wolf subsequently vetoed the bill because he doesn’t want the general public to have a say.
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Grant Twp, PA Sued 2nd Time for Illegal Law Banning Injection Well

Unfortunately, Pennsylvania General Energy (PGE) had to file a second federal lawsuit against Grant Township, PA (located in Indiana County) to overturn the town’s patently illegal regulations that prevent PGE from establishing and using a safe wastewater injection well in a rural part of the town.
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Grant Twp, PA Files to Dismiss Lawsuit re Injection Well Ban

Unrepentant. That’s the best single word we can think of describing the attitude of “leaders” in Grant Township (Indiana County, PA) who illegally passed their own set of environmental laws, violating the PA state constitution, in a bid to prevent a safe saltwater injection well from being built in a rural location in the town. Grant continues to use radicalized lawyers in their lawbreaking bid to prevent the well.
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EQT Provides More Details on DGO Asset Sale, 1.4 Bcf/d Curtailment

EQT announced yesterday it has closed on a deal to sell “certain non-strategic assets” to Diversified Gas & Oil (DGO) for $125 million, plus another potential $20 million later on. MDN first told you about this deal on May 13 (see Diversified Buys 900 EQT Wells (67 Shale Wells) for $125M). This is the first time EQT has commented publicly on the DGO deal. EQT’s statement differs from previous news accounts about the deal.
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PA DEP Caves to Radicals, Revokes PGE Injection Well Permit

This is truly disappointing. A few weeks ago we told you that Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ruled a long-running lawsuit involving Grant Township (Indiana County, PA) will continue on through the court system (see Grant Lawsuit Using ERA Threatens PA Injection Wells & Fracking). Grant, a town that passed an ordinance cooked up by the extreme radical Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) to try and block a state-approved injection well, is attempting to use the state’s so-called Environmental Rights Act to justify its illegal ordinance. The court gave its blessing to that effort. And because the court is sending the signal it’s OK to invoke the ERA to justify just about anything, the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) is now going along by revoking a permit issued to Pennsylvania General Energy (PGE) to build an injection well in Grant.
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Grant Lawsuit Using ERA Threatens PA Injection Wells & Fracking

In a disappointing decision, Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court recently ruled a long-running lawsuit filed against Grant Township (Indiana County, PA) will continue on through the court system. For the past several years we’ve reported on the case of Grant Township, a town that passed an ordinance cooked up by the radical Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) to try and block a state-approved injection well. Part of the ordinance was tossed. However, Commonwealth Court has decided the town can continue to try and make a case that it should be able to override state law with its home-cooked regulations because by doing so they will somehow protect citizens’ health, which the town says is allowed under PA’s poorly-written Environmental Rights Amendment (ERA).
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The Real Costs of PA Gov. Wolf’s Carbon Tax by Joining RGGI

Opposition to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s plan to have PA join with northeastern states in the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) continues. Big opposition. Earlier this month Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf went completely off his rocker with a power-grab to force PA into a regional alliance to tax natural gas-fired electric plants out of existence (see Gov. Wolf Goes Bonkers: EO Destroying Gas-Fired Elec, Carbon Tax). The reaction was swift–on both sides of the issue (see Reaction to Gov. Wolf’s Bonkers Plan to Strangle NatGas Elec Plants). Reaction against the plan continues. The Indiana County, PA Board of Commissioners recently adopted a unanimous resolution against Wolf’s foolish plan, laying out in dollars and cents the very high cost such a plan will have on the county (in lost taxes and lost jobs).
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Grant Twp, PA Continues Legal Battle Against PGE Injection Well

For the past several years we’ve reported on the case of Grant Township, PA, a town that passed an ordinance cooked up by the radical Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) to try and block a state-approved injection well. Part of the ordinance was tossed, and earlier this year a judge ordered the town to pay $102,000 in legal fees incurred by the operator the town has harmed by its action (see Judge Orders Grant Twp to Pay PGE $102K in Legal Fees). Grant appealed the fine to federal court. In the meantime, Grant Twp continues to burn through taxpayer money by appealing the poorly-written ordinance that bans injection wells. Grant was in court again on Friday paying lawyers to defend the indefensible.
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Judge Orders Grant Twp to Pay PGE $102K in Legal Fees

Pennsylvania towns that pass sketchy local ordinances that skirt state laws are on notice: It’s going to cost you. Big. For the past several years we’ve reported on the case of Grant Township, PA that passed an ordinance cooked up by the radical Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) to try and block a state-approved injection well. The ordinance was tossed by a judge, and now the town will have to pay $102,000 in legal fees incurred by the operator.
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Contractor Sues EQT $1.9M for Refusing to Pay for Spill Cleanup

Yet more intra-industry snipping to report (o&g companies suing o&g companies), this time between EQT and a contractor the company hired to clean up a spill (for $1.9 million) who says EQT never paid. EQT Gathering hired InterCon Construction to drill and install replacement pipeline in Indiana County, PA. InterCon did the work. During construction, InterCon experienced an “inadvertent return” (drilling mud leaking out on the surface where it’s not supposed to). InterCon fixed the issue, finished their work, and left. Triad Engineering was also involved in the project. The leak later returned. EQT asked InterCon to return and clean it up, which they did (for a price). According to court documents, EQT sued Triad for not properly sealing a bore hole, leading to the “new” leak. Yet EQT is refusing to pay InterCon for the cleanup, inferring they were to blame.
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CNX Resources Fined $250K for PA Pipe Construction Violation

UPDATE 7/19/18: Aside from stiff fine for letting some muddy water get into a nearby creek, there is a second aspect to this story uncovered by ace reporter Jamison Cocklin at NGI’s Shale Daily: the local gathering pipeline CNX was building (and has now abandoned) in Indiana County was supposed to connect to a test Utica well they are/were drilling there. Abandoning that pipeline puts the future of CNX’s Utica drilling in the area in doubt. See NGI’s story: CNX Cancels Plans for Pipeline to Gather Natural Gas from Deep Utica Test Pad.

CNX Resources was installing a pipeline in Indiana County, PA and apparently didn’t, according to the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), properly construct erosion barriers for the project. It rained, hard, and sediment-laden water went over the erosion barriers and got into an unnamed stream, which empties into Mudlick Run, a “high quality water” creek. In other words, a tiny creek got muddy, and some of that muddy water *may have* entered a slightly bigger creek. And for that violation, CNX is going to pay a whopping $250,000 fine. The DEP says following an inspection in March, the DEP ordered CNX to fix the problem by April 3, but as of May 16 the problem had still not been fixed. CNX disputes that they violated their permits and has told the DEP they’ve quit building that particular pipeline. In order to make it all go away, CNX is paying the DEP a $250K negotiated shakedown, PLUS pay to fix the “problem”…
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Attorney for Anti Group CELDF Fined $52K for “Bad Faith”

Tom Linzey, the attorney who founded and runs the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), has just been sanctioned by Federal Judge Susan Paradise Baxter and ordered to pay $52,000 to Pennsylvania General Energy (PGE) for his “bad faith” in continuing to press legal arguments on behalf of Grant Township (Indiana County, PA)–legal arguments that say the people of Grant have rights they actually don’t have. Linzey has continued to claim rights for the citizens of Grant that have no legal basis and have been discredited in court. Not only that, but Judge Baxter also referred the matter to the Disciplinary Board of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court with a request that they review Linzey’s actions with an eye to imposing more punishments against him. We’ve previously reported on the story of two Pennsylvania towns that were either hoodwinked, or perhaps willing led astray, by the radical CELDF into passing (now overturned) bans on fracking and injection wells in their towns–Highland Twp (Elk County) and Grant Twp (Indiana County). The two townships thought they would do an end-run around the state’s authority to issue permits for two injection wells–one in each township, by re-incorporating under so-called home rule charters. The towns essentially declared themselves independent of the state for a variety of matters, including oil and gas permits, which PA state law clearly says is a function of ONLY the state Dept. of Environmental Protection. In March, the DEP issued final permits for the injection wells AND sued each town to get those portions of their home rule charters, dealing with oil and gas, overturned (see PA DEP Issues 2 Wastewater Injection Well Permits, Sues 2 Towns). Both towns eventually backed down (see 2 PA Townships Won’t Enforce “Home Rule” Against Injection Wells). However, in May, Grant’s attorneys (i.e. Linzey) filed a counter-claim against PA asking Commonwealth Court to recognize a sort-of extra-judicial set of rights the town can exercise over top of, or in addition to, state laws–instead of their previous position of trying to replace state laws (see CELDF Continues to Agitate Against Indiana, PA Injection Well). The company building the injection wells, PGE, has been economically harmed by the actions of the towns and attorney Linzey, and sued to recoup costs. This decision in part satisfies that lawsuit. The judge, in very strong language, is punishing Linzey for his continued, intentional abuse of the legal system. We note she is not punishing the towns but rather Linzey…
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CELDF Continues to Agitate Against Indiana, PA Injection Well

We previously reported on the story of two Pennsylvania towns that were either hoodwinked, or perhaps willing led astray, by the radical Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) into passing (now overturned) bans on fracking and injection wells in their towns–Highland Twp (Elk County) and Grant Twp (Indiana County). The two townships thought they would do an end-run around the state’s authority to issue permits for two injection wells, one in each township, by re-incorporating under so-called home rule charters. The towns essentially declared themselves independent of the state for a variety of matters, including oil and gas permits, which the PA state constitution clearly says is a function of ONLY the state Dept. of Environmental Protection. In March, the DEP issued final permits to each town, and at the same time sued each town to get those portions of their home rule charters, dealing with oil and gas, overturned (see PA DEP Issues 2 Wastewater Injection Well Permits, Sues 2 Towns). The towns agreed to “stand down” and, during their lawsuits, not oppose the DEP’s permits for the injection wells (see 2 PA Townships Won’t Enforce “Home Rule” Against Injection Wells). We thought that would be the end of it. But no, it seems in Grant Township the so-called leaders of the town continue to be brainwashed by the CELDF. In May, Grant’s attorneys filed a counter-claim against PA asking Commonwealth Court to recognize a sort-of extra-judicial set of rights the town can exercise over top of, or in addition to, state laws (instead of their previous position of trying to replace state laws). Unfortunately the judge is willing to give them some rope. Here’s an update on the CELDF anarchist-backed challenge happening in Grant–a threat to our very Constitutional form of self-government…
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Northeast Energy Management Goes Bankrupt; Auctioning Rigs, Assets

It’s always sad when we have to report that a Marcellus/Utica-focused company goes out of existence. Northeast Energy Management, which operated under the name Northeast Energy with headquarters in Indiana, PA, claimed to be “a leader in tophole drilling in the Marcellus/Utica shale” and “a preferred contractor for many of the largest oil and natural gas exploration and production companies.” Perhaps it was, but it is no more. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in U.S. Bankruptcy Court – Western District of Pennsylvania back in January of this year. As of yesterday the court ordered the company’s assets to be liquidated at auction. A live and online auction will take place next week, on Sept. 27, featuring two Schramm drilling rigs, Detroit Diesel engines with pipe handlers, trailer mounted and skid mounted air compressors, boosters, generators, accumulators, trailers and a variety of tractors, pick-up trucks, construction equipment and other drill site related equipment. Here’s the the details about the auction and how you can participate…
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