Green, OH Paying Lawyers $100K to Fund Stop NEXUS Crusade
The City of Green, Ohio, located in Summit County (south of Akron, north of Canton) seems to have no problems with spending boatloads of taxpayer money on anti-pipeline efforts. A few weeks ago Green City Council voted to give $10,000 to the anti-pipeline CORN–Coalition to Reroute Nexus. We call the group CORNballs and have written extensively about their supposed desire to just see the NEXUS pipeline routed around them, pretending to be NIMBYs (see our CORN stories here). In reality, CORN wants the pipeline stopped, period. Anti-fossil fuel nuttery. But $10K for the CORNballs is small potatoes for Green–almost a distraction. The city has just “upped the ante” by voting to spend $100,000 to hire a Cleveland law firm to file a lawsuit “aimed at stopping the pipeline from being built or stopping the project altogether.” Since when was it legal for a city like Green to squander taxpayers’ money on cockamamie anti-fossil fuel lawsuits against legal American businesses that build energy infrastructure? Will someone please investigate Green council members and their ties to Big Green groups (no pun intended)? Smells to us like somebody is getting paid off somewhere…
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As we do every month (and have for two years), MDN tracks how many rigs oilfield services company Patterson-UTI Energy reports operating–as a proxy for rig count health in the Marcellus/Utica. Patterson operates a number of rigs in the northeast, as well as other areas of the continental United States (and Canada). Patterson was our “canary down the mine shaft” for discerning when the deep, dark recession in drilling would turn around. It happened in June 2016–and every single month since that time, including the month of April. In March, Patterson’s rig count jumped up by 10, to an average of 88 active rigs operating in the U.S. That has been the biggest single monthly increase since they began adding rigs again last June–until April. Last month the Patterson rig count rocketed to 115, up an amazing 27 rigs in a single month. What in the world happened? We have an answer…
Earlier this week MDN brought you the latest quarterly update from Southwestern Energy (see 
In June 2014, MDN told you about the Dominion New Market Project–a project that will build two new compressor plants and upgrade one other compressor station in upstate New York–to help flow more abundant, cheap and clean-burning Marcellus Shale gas from Pennsylvania (and beyond) into the northeast (see 
Something has to be done about New York’s out-of-control governor (Andy Cuomo) and his opposition to natural gas pipelines. MDN’s beloved home state uses more and more natural gas each year–yet Cuomo refuses to allow new pipelines to be built allowing more gas supplies into the state. He is strangling the state economically–particularly Upstate. Two important pipeline projects have been rejected by Cuomo’s corrupt Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC)–Williams’ Constitution and NFG’s Northern Access Pipeline. Both companies have sued in federal court to force the state to back down (a years-long process). In the meantime, business, economic and o&g industry leaders have decided they need to do something. So a number of major organizations and businesses, including chambers of commerce, large midstream companies, labor unions and more have joined together to form a new coalition called 
For years we’ve followed the story of Range Resources and their (former) wastewater impoundments in Washington County, PA. The PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) fined Range a whopping $4.15 million for violations in September 2014 (see 
Westinghouse Electric tried “an ambitious new approach to building nuclear power plants” by building sections of the plants in one location before sending them to the construction site for assembly. They tried the process with two nuke plants–one in Georgia and the other in South Carolina. The process they “innovated” failed and took the company down–into bankruptcy. What does that have to do with the Mariner East 2 (ME2) Pipeline project? Westinghouse Electric is headquartered just outside of Pittsburgh and owns a fair amount of land. Mariner East 2 intends to cross a portion of that land. Sunoco Logistics Partners, builder of ME2, attempted to negotiate a payment for an easement to cross Westinghouse’s land–but Westinghouse wanted more than ME2 offered. So ME2 filed paperwork to use eminent domain and “condemn” the Westinghouse property. In other words, let a judge decide how much is fair. Westinghouse joined the chorus that “ME2 isn’t really a public utility”–sounding no different than the Sierra Club and others who oppose the project. That strategy went nowhere, so Westinghouse eventually came back to the bargaining table and this time, worked out a deal–to sell some of their land to ME2. Now Westinghouse is asking the bankruptcy judge in charge of their case to approve the land sale, ahead of the judge’s decision on other matters to do with the bankruptcy. Here’s an account of the high stakes of “chicken” between Westinghouse and ME2…
More than 300 people attended the West Virginia Manufacturers Association’s Marcellus and Manufacturing Development Conference in Morgantown yesterday. Among the topics discussed–the need for faster approvals of pipelines, and the positive economic of shale on the Mountain State. Among the speakers was new State Commerce Secretary Woody Thrasher–who spent most of his career in the private sector. According to Thrasher, “shale gas is the future of economic opportunity in West Virginia.” Thrasher said the industry with the biggest potential for growth in WV is shale energy–and it’s “only begun to emerge.” He urged audience members to get involved and make their voices heard–at the local, state and federal level. We think it’s a fair statement to say that Thrasher rallied the troops and is leading the charge to see more shale energy developed in WV… 
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: FERC to complete EA for Dominion’s Eastern Market Access by mid-June; Range recalls ‘incredibly creative solution’ for Marcellus/Utica ‘problem’; coal-fired plants in East threatened by gas-fired plants; LNG export terminal on the Chesapeake Bay; 9 permits issued in OH Utica last week; Thornbury stands by decision to issue ME2 permits; ME2 work begins in Lower Swatara; the uncivil story of how fracking opposition arises; snow in Cali suppresses gas prices in Texas; midstream organization asks EPA to withdraw TRI proposal; and more!