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US Supremes Reject Dela. Riverkeeper Lawsuit re Atlantic Sunrise
THE Delaware Riverkeeper, Maya van Rossum, along with a couple of radicals from Lancaster County flying under the name Lancaster Against Pipelines (the Clatterbucks), hoped they could convince the U.S. Supreme Court to consider a case that a series of lower courts dismissed–a case that would shut down the now-operating Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline (see Riverkeeper Appeals Atlantic Sunrise Lawsuit to US Supreme Court). Miss Maya and the Clatterbucks have stuck out. On Monday, the Supremes told them they don’t have a case.
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The anti-drilling zealots that populate the levers of power in New Jersey, along with their colluding Big Green compatriots, continue a holy mission to block PennEast Pipeline, a pipeline the majority of which will get built in Pennsylvania. Anti-pipeline nutters are attacking the project on several fronts, including in the courts, and by claiming the pipeline would affect nine “potential” historic sites along its path through NJ. Will federal courts and regulators fall for the ruse?
Yesterday the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) voted 5-0 to deny Sunoco Logistics Partners permission to restart construction of Mariner East 2 pipeline in West Whiteland Township in Chester County. Why? Because construction at that location (Shoen Road), along with three other locations, is currently under review in Commonwealth Court. In other words, for the time being (until the court rules), the PUC’s hands are tied.
Last we had heard, the official word coming from Equitrans, builder of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), is that the project will be done and online by the end of this year. However, a partner in the project, NextEra Energy, is now saying otherwise.
Good news for residents and politicians in Westchester County, NY! (Yes, we’re being facetious.) Consolidated Edison, the local electric and gas utility for parts of New York City and its suburbs, says they’ve cut a deal with Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) to get more gas supplies flowing to Westchester County (northern suburb of NYC) and they will potentially lift their moratorium on new natgas customer hookups…four years from now in 2023.
In March a group of Pennsylvania landowners from Lancaster County asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a case in which they say they’ve been screwed over by Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline, that the pipeline should not have had the right to use eminent domain to build the pipeline before the matter of compensation was fully adjudicated (see 
Middletown, NJ officials recently passed, unanimously, a resolution opposing the proposed construction of the Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) pipeline, part of the Transco pipeline system. There are a number of components to NESE, but the key component, the heart of the project, is a new 23-mile pipeline from the shore of New Jersey into (on the bottom of) the Raritan Bay–running parallel to the existing Transco pipeline–before connecting to the Transco offshore. Comments by Middletown Mayor Tony Perry are instructive and provide us with a teachable moment.
Are underground shale wastewater pipelines the “next big thing” for the Pennsylvania midstream (i.e. pipeline) industry? According to Thomas Karam, CEO of Equitrans Midstream Corp. (formerly EQT Midstream), they just may be. Most of Equitrans’ pipeline business is flowing natural gas. A little bit of their business is dedicated to flowing wastewater. Karam wants to grow that little bit into a much bigger bit.
Williams is planning to build two new compressor stations in eastern Pennsylvania as part of its Leidy South Project (see 
Since January 20, all of Sunoco Logistics’ Mariner East 1 (ME1) pipeline has been shut down on the orders of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (see 
This stuff continues to make us angry. In March we told you that MacAllister Machinery Co. Inc. of Michigan used lawyers to serve landowners in Lancaster County, PA with “mechanic’s liens” making the landowners liable to pay money to MacAllister for work done on the Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project (see 
Last Thursday, “more than 300” anti-fossil fuel nutters protested to “demand” that Gov. Cuomo block Williams’ proposed Northeast Supply Expansion (NESE) pipeline project. We have extensively covered NESE and the coming decision by Cuomo’s lapdogs at the Dept. of Environmental Conservation.