FERC Clears TGP Orion Expansion to Begin Service to New England
In October 2015, Kinder Morgan’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) filed their official, full application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) seeking approval for their Orion Project (see Tennessee Gas Pipeline Files PA Orion Project with FERC). The $109 million project consists of 13 miles of new “looping” pipeline in Pike and Wayne counties, Pennsylvania. The project will boost capacity on the TGP by another 135 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d), allowing TGP to pump more yummy Marcellus Shale gas to Mid-Atlantic and New England states. FERC gave final approval for the project in February of this year (see TGP Orion Project in NEPA Gets Final Approval by FERC). In March, Big Green group THE Delaware Riverkeeper filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third District requesting the court overturn a Clean Water Act permit granted to the project by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In August, the Third Circuit rejected Riverkeeper’s request in a humiliating defeat (see Dela. Riverkeeper Loses Fed. Court Case Against NEPA Pipeline). According to the original plan, the TGP Orion upgrade will be complete and in-service by June 2018. December 2017 is certainly “by June 2018” and that’s a good thing, because Orion is now done and FERC has just given TGP the green light to start it up…
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Lancaster Farmland Trust, a leftist group that seeks to stop all development of land in and around Lancaster County, PA, sued a farmer and Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline after the Lancaster farmer signed an easement on a piddly 1.5 acres of land. The Trust claimed according to the terms of the deed the landowner didn’t have the right to sign the easement (see 
Iroquois Gas Transmission System is a natural gas pipeline that brings gas from eastern Canada to the New York City area. It is owned by TransCanada Corporation, Dominion Resources, KeySpan Corporation, New Jersey Resources Corporation, and Energy East Corporation. There have been plans, for years, to connect the Constitution Pipeline to the Iroquois and flow Marcellus/Utica gas to Canada by converting Iroquois to be bidirectional. As we all know, the Constitution has been stalled since 2014 because of the corrupt State of New York blocking it. There’s still hope that Constitution will get built. In October they asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to override the New York and allow the project to proceed (see 
In May 2015, Rover purchased a house in Carroll County, OH, located near where the pipeline, and a compressor station for that pipeline, is due to run. Rover bought the house to use for offices for several Rover affiliate companies. After buying it, Rover determined the house was “ill-suited for its intended purpose” and decided to demolish it. Problem was/is, that house was under consideration to be added to the National Register of Historic Places. The house was not yet on the list of Historic Places, but was on a list of properties under consideration. Their action in demolishing the house landed Rover in hot water with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (see 
North Carolina has a Democrat governor. The state Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is an executive branch agency. So it’s no surprise to learn that the DEQ has turned antagonistic toward Dominion’s $5 billion, 594-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP)–a natural gas pipeline that will stretch from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina. In October the DEQ rejected the plan submitted by Dominion for the pipeline project, claiming the erosion and sediment control plan is not up to snuff (see 
PennEast Pipeline is a $1 billion, 120-mile primarily 36-inch natural gas pipeline that will stretch from Dallas (Luzerne County), PA to Transco’s pipeline interconnection near Pennington (Mercer County), NJ. The pipeline is an important conduit to move gas from the prolific gas fields of northeastern PA to markets in southeast PA and New Jersey. From the beginning of the project there have been a collection of so-called environmental organizations opposing it–including THE Delaware Riverkeeper, NJ Sierra Club, and the NJ Conservation Foundation. All radical groups, far far out of the mainstream. They also share something else besides an irrational hatred of fossil fuels–they’re part of a conspiracy to defeat PennEast funded by the William Penn Foundation. William Penn funds the aforementioned groups, as well as buying their own “media” in news outlets by funding StateImpact Pennsylvania and a news site called NJ Spotlight. William Penn sits in the background, pretending to be apart and aloof (to protect their IRS non-profit status) while pulling the strings and directing the opposition. Why the IRS turns a blind eye, we can’t say. At any rate, William Penn pulled another string this week–prompting their serfs at the NJ Conservation Foundation to file a lawsuit against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The cockamamie claim is that IF FERC approves PennEast, the pipeline will then be able to invoke eminent domain to allow it to enter properties and complete route mapping for the pipeline. Right now some hardened antis who live along the route refuse to allow PennEast to step one foot on their property. So NJ Conservation Foundation has filed a lawsuit (copy below) to prevent FERC from issuing a final certificate for PennEast because PennEast will then gain the right of eminent domain. The lawsuit claims PennEast using eminent domain to build the pipeline would be an improper “taking” of private property under the Constitution. The only problem (for the William Penn-backed NJ Conservation Foundation) is that no “taking” has actually happened until FERC approves the project. That is, the lawsuit anticipates a harm that hasn’t happened. We expect that little fact will not escape the judge’s notice and that the lawsuit will be tossed in short order…
On Monday MDN brought you the news that Captain Ahab, er, a, Ohio EPA director Craig Butler, had demanded Rover Pipeline stop all horizontal directional drilling (HDD) work now under way in the state because another (tiny, 200 gallon) drilling mud spill happened on November 16th (see 
In July 2017, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a favorable final environmental impact statement (EIS) for both the Mountaineer XPress and Gulf XPress projects (see 
Why are we not surprised that antis are NEVER happy. EVER. Sunoco Logistics Partners has, after experiencing problems using underground horizontal direction drilling (HDD) at a couple of locations near Philadelphia while building the Mariner East 2 NGL pipeline, decided to abandon HDD and instead switch to another method to get the pipeline installed. Even with the change in methodology, antis are still fussing and moaning. The only outcome that will make them “happy” is for Sunoco to abandon building the pipeline, which isn’t going to happen. Even if Sunoco did quit building ME2, we doubt the antis would really be happy. Have you ever noticed they’re perpetual sourpusses?…
We live in a different world here in New York State–MDN’s beloved, lifelong home state. We suppose it’s like living in East Germany just after The Wall was built. Our wall is not physical but political. Even so, it’s just as real. Our state has become something of a socialist/Communist dictatorship. Our Constitutional property rights have been stripped away. Some private companies are actively opposed and frustrated by our governor, who then turns around and doles out taxpayer money to other private companies who are his cronies. We have no shale drilling, and no prospect of it until Cuomo is voted out of office. He’s even taken to stopping pipelines. Fortunately some pipelines, like the Millennium, were built before Cuomo caught the green fever. However, if you try to expand existing pipelines, say by running a 7.8 mile spur to an electric power generating plant that’s almost built, Cuomo will try and stop you. He’s like a hostile war lord in a third-world country. A tinpot dictator. Operating a pipeline in such a climate is not easy. It brings to mind stories of missionaries who put their own lives at risk to travel to hostile lands to bring religion to the heathen–whoops, to the indigenous population. One such pipeline missionary operating in New York is Michelle Hook, director of public relations for the Millennium Pipeline Company. How does Michelle do it, without going crazy?…
Who says you can’t buy a court decision–at least a temporary one? Back in May MDN told you about the antis running the City of Green, Ohio hellbent on stopping the NEXUS Pipeline, all of it (see 
Basin Energy, which acts as a holding company to invest in (and run) other companies located in the Marcellus/Utica, is based in Bridgeport (Harrison County), WV. Basin’s first acquisition was ProActive Services, an operator of natural gas pipeline compressor stations and other related oilfield services. In September 2015, Basin closed a deal on their second subsidiary–the Jane Lew (Lewis County), WV-based Starett’s Well Service, a specialty roustabout services firm, focused on well site and midstream natural gas infrastructure in the Marcellus and Utica Shale regions (see 
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Friday granted final approval for Columbia’s WB Xpress pipeline project. In Jan. 2016, Columbia Pipeline Group (now owned by TransCanada) filed a full, official application with FERC for the $850 million WB XPress Project (see 
Last week lawyers for National Fuel Gas Company and the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) were in federal court doing battle over the DEC’s arbitrary and capricious rejection of an important Marcellus pipeline project. Three years ago NFG proposed and filed to build the Northern Access Pipeline project–a $455 million project includes building 97 miles of new pipeline along a power line corridor from northwestern Pennsylvania up to Erie County, NY. The project also calls for 3 miles of new pipeline further up, in Niagara County, along with a new compressor station in the Town of Pendleton. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) granted final approval for the project in February of this year (see 
Sunoco Logistics Partners (part of and owned by Energy Transfer Partners) has had its fair share of “inadvertent returns” (i.e. leaks of drilling mud) while drilling underground for the Mariner East 2 pipeline project that stretches across the width of Pennsylvania. Some would say Sunoco has had more than its fair share of mud spills. Bear in mind that drilling mud is otherwise known as bentonite–the nontoxic clay mixture used to cool the drill bit as it chews away underground. Bentonite is the same chemical compound used to make kitty litter, toothpaste and all sorts of cosmetics. It’s totally safe for the environment–unless you spill a lot of it and smother little critters like salamanders and fishies. When installing a pipeline, you don’t just dig a trench across a roadway or dam up a creek or river. Instead, you use horizontal directional drilling (HDD) to dig under it. ME2 is some 350 miles long, so there are a number of places where HDD must be used. There are always small drilling mud spills, or inadvertent returns, associated with HDD work. However, Sunoco has had, at last count, 96 such instances (see the list below). Antis seek to make the most of each and everyone spill episode. The most recent such spill is associated with a sink hole believe caused by HDD drilling in Delaware County last week (see