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Disaster at NY DEC: Cuomo Nominates Anti-Driller to Helm Agency

Basil Seggos
Basil Seggos – Nominated by Cuomo to head the DEC

It appears that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is attempting to shove the teetering oil and gas industry in the state over a metaphorical cliff and put it completely out of business. Last Friday Cuomo nominated an anti-driller, Basil Seggos, to be the next Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC)–the organization that oversees oil and gas drilling in the state. Seggos will replace another anti-driller, Joe Martens, complicit in Cuomo’s decision to ban fracking. Seggos will continue and likely expand the same policies begun by Martens. Seggos previously worked for seven years as the chief investigator and lawyer (chief litigator) for the radical environmental organization Riverkeeper. That alone should disqualify him from serving in such an important position–but in New York, the inmates run the asylum. You can tell Seggos will be a disaster (for the oil and gas industry) in his new position by the list of anti-drilling organizations falling all over themselves to congratulate Cuomo on the appointment. Seggos’ appointment is another in a string of disastrous decisions by the corrupt Andrew Cuomo administration…
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GreenHunter Brings Final 2 Injection Wells Online in Meigs, OH

finallyIn July MDN reported that GreenHunter Resources–the water resource, waste management, and environmental services subsidiary of Magnum Hunter Resources in the Marcellus/Utica–had brought two new wastewater injection wells online at their Mills Hunter facility in Meigs County, OH (see GreenHunter Brings 2 New Injection Wells Online in Meigs County, OH). At that time GreenHunter had four injection wells operating at the facility, with two final wells awaiting regulatory approval from the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR). From a press release issued yesterday by GreenHunter, it appears the final two wells at the Mills Hunter facility are now online and operating. The only problem is with reduced drilling in the region, there’s not enough wastewater to keep them all as busy as they’d like…
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Make or Break Week for PA Gov Wolf’s High Severance Tax

make or breakThis week should tell us a lot about the future of a severance tax in Pennsylvania–at least the near-term (this year) future. PA Gov. Tom Wolf, a failed governor who’s only been in office for 10 months, is demanding a high severance tax on top of an already high impact fee (the equivalent of a severance tax) in order to pay back teachers’ unions for voting him into office. He’s playing a dangerous game of chicken–dangerous for education, dangerous for all of the agencies without money to operate, dangerous for every citizen in the Commonwealth. Today Wolf will float yet another budget calling for a high severance tax and it will get voted on tomorrow. Prospects for Wolf passing his budget, even though he’s been lobbying RINOs in the House and Senate (bribing them with political promises), don’t look good. In an act of supreme hubris, Wolf says if he loses this vote, Pennsylvania loses. We say it’s the opposite…
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PA Acid Mine Water Bill Passes, Waiting for Gov. Wolf’s Signature

acid mine waterIn June MDN told you about an idea “whose time has come”–legislation in Pennsylvania that will allow drillers to use acid mine water (AMW) from abandoned coal mines as fracking fluid, reducing the need for using fresh water sources (see New Bill Allows Drillers to Use Acid Mine Water for Fracking in PA). The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Camera Bartolotta (Republican), would let drillers use AMW without fear that they will be sued from sun-up to sundown by radical environmentalists. The current laws on the books say “if you touch it, you own it” and drillers are afraid if they begin using AMW, litigious lawyers for Big Green groups like Food & Water Watch, Delaware Riverkeeper, Sierra Club, National Resources Defense Council and others will take them to court and try to bankrupt them–claiming the AMW, even if treated, is causing negative environmental and health issues. Senate Bill (SB) 875 would fix that problem. VERY good news: SB875 was passed by both the Senate and House last week and sent to Gov. Tom Wolf’s desk for his signature. Since Wolf plays dirty and uses political blackmail (holding up the state budget over a Marcellus severance tax), there’s no telling when, or if, he’ll sign SB875 since it “benefits” the Marcellus industry…
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Did US Army Corps of Engineers Just Make it Harder for O&G in PA?

what just happenedIt appears to us that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has just made it harder for drillers and pipeline companies operating in Pennsylvania to do their job–although we’re not 100% sure. Last week the USACE issued a public notice about revisions to the Pennsylvania State Programmatic General Permit – 4 (PASPGP-4). According to the legal beagles at Babst Calland, “PASPGP-4 authorizes the discharge of dredged or fill materials and the placement of temporary or permanent structures that result in impacts to one acre or less of waters of the United States, including jurisdictional wetlands.” The USACE has added more threatened and endangered species, as listed on the Pennsylvania Natural Diversity Inventory (PNDI), to the PASPGP-4, meaning there’s more bats and bugs and other critters drillers and pipeliners must avoid when moving earth and cutting down trees. At least that’s what we think is happening. The USACE says it’s “streamlining” the review process. Looks to us like what they’re doing is adding more hoops the oil and gas industry must jump through…
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Wheeling Area 5th Fastest Growing Economy in US – Thanks to Shale

tell me againHey anti-drillers who like to lie about the benefits of fracking: Tell us again how there’s no positive economic impact from the shale industry. It’s all just smoke and mirrors and the only ones who make money are Big Oil & Gas. Tell us how the jobs are “temporary” and the money from the industry illusory. Then we’ll tell you about the Wheeling Metropolitan Statistical Area, comprised of Belmont County, OH along with Marshall and Ohio counties in WV. The Wheeling MSA’s gross domestic product grew by 9.5% from 2013 to 2014, according to data provided by the U.S. Department of Commerce. That’s the fifth fastest growing MSA in the country–out of 381 MSAs. Oh, and the reason it’s growing so fast? Yep–the Marcellus and Utica Shale boom happening in the region…
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Crestwood Using New GE Software to Tweak Compressor Stations

world class nonsenseMDN’s Jim Willis comes from the marketing world having held marketing positions at various publishing companies over the past 25 years or so. Sometimes (like you) Jim wants to pull his remaining hair out when reading press releases larded up with tech and marketing speak. Just say it in plain English, please! We came across such a press release from GE–as in General Electric. We waded through a tangle of “optimized compression” and “asset level” and “condition-based” phraseology to bring you this news: Crestwood Midstream is using new software from GE that will improve the compressor stations they operate in WV, allowing Crestwood to move more gas using the same equipment. There, that wasn’t so hard, was it? Why can’t marketing types learn the lesson that simple language is better!…
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Anti-Fossil Fuelers Disrupt Shale Event, Won’t Listen to Science

fingers in earsWhat is it about some anti-drillers (actually, anti-fossil fuelers) that makes them closed-minded and unreasonable? A Colorado research chemist and two technology students from Singapore set out to answer the question of whether or not shale oil should be produced. All three attended a 10-week intensive course focusing on Utah’s vast oil reserves (no, this story is not about the Marcellus/Utica per se, but it is illustrative nonetheless). Although the three had intended on submitting a research paper at the 35th Annual Oil Shale Symposium being held yesterday and today in Salt Lake City, the research paper ended up being a 116-page e-book they’re selling on Amazon, called “Oil Shale: Treasure Trove or Pandora’s Box.” The authors, with no preconceived outcome before taking the 10-week course, objectively conclude that extracting shale oil in Utah or other locations “is not going to be some sort of environmental Armageddon. That is not true.” Protesters at the event, however, don’t want to hear reasonable talk. A group of anti-fossil fuelers, rather than sit and listen to the evidence and keep and open mind, rose during the event–a private (not public) event–and illegally disrupted the event with chanting and singing. Yep, stick you fingers in your ears and holler “la la la la, I can’t hear you!” instead of open your mind and use your little gray cells to try and comprehend the miracle that is fracking and the miracle that is fossil fuel energy…
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Obama Admin $730K Grant to Convert Tugboat from Diesel to ?

tugboatGet this: The Obama administration has made a $730,000 grant to the Pittsburgh Region Clean Cities (PRCC) organization to study how to convert boats to operate more efficiently and pollute the environment less. Most boats today burn a nasty, filthy, rotten fossil fuel called diesel. Belches out all sorts of “pollutants” including carbon dioxide. Obamadroids want to clean up Mother Earth and need to figure out ways to do it. But sticking a windmill or a solar panel on a boat doesn’t work very well (Obama’s already tried it). So for the administration that’s given us the Clean Power Plan that tries to eliminate both coal and natural gas, we have a grant to convert a tugboat from burning diesel to…burning natural gas. Yep. Even Obamadroids have to admit you can power boats with solar and wind–so they’ve given $730,000 to the PRCC to run an experiment in converting a tugboat burning diesel into burning clean, abundant and cheap natural gas. Perhaps the smartest thing Obama has ever done!…
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Syracuse U Prof to Discuss Fracking Research on Sun, Oct 18

on the airThe Joint Landowners Coalition of New York (JLCNY) and JLC United will air another live session of the Good News Table Talk Radio Show on Sunday, Oct. 18 from 7-8 pm on WNBF Radio 1290 in Binghamton (listen online at: www.wnbf.com). Bob Williams, JLCNY Vice President and an environmental consultant with over 40 years experience, along with JLCNY board member Rob Rano, will interview and chat with acclaimed Syracuse University Earth Science professor, Dr. Donald I. Siegel. Dr. Siegel is the lead author of a Syracuse University study published earlier this year that found, after evaluating data from over 11,000 well water tests (34,000 samples) in Pennsylvania, that a water well’s proximity to fracking operations has no bearing on whether or not methane is found in that water well. In other words, fracking does not cause methane migration into water wells (see Syracuse U Study: Fracking Doesn’t Cause Methane in PA Water Wells). Radicalized environmentalists immediately launched a smear campaign and personal attack against Dr. Siegel (see Syracuse Prof Targeted in Effort to Discredit Drilling Research). Dr. Siegel has just published a second study based on a huge dataset that covers not only PA, but OH and WV. This new study finds in comparing pre- and post-drilling samples that the quality of water in private wells is the same after shale wells are drilled nearby as it was before the drilling began. Tune in to hear Dr. Siegel discuss real science and the proposed Crestwood propane/methane storage facility at Seneca Lake, water quality, methane migration, fracking fluids, and Dimock, PA…
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