Columbia Sues WV Landowners for Delaying Mountaineer XPress Work
It’s one thing for a landowner (or Big Green supporter, sometimes one and the same) to oppose a pipeline project by protesting, asking politicians to get involved, writing to regulatory agencies, etc. We have a great American tradition of free speech. Go for it. But it’s quite another thing to “harass, intimidate and interfere” with work crews in an area by screaming at them and shooting your “large caliber gun” near where they’re working. Columbia Gas Transmission is currently building the Mountaineer XPress Pipeline, a $2 billion, 170-mile pipeline that will flow 2.7 billion cubic feet (Bcf) per day of natural gas from existing and future points of receipt along or near the Columbia pipeline system–most of it located in West Virginia (see Details on Columbia Pipeline Mountaineer XPress Pipeline Project). At 2.7 Bcf/d, Mountaineer XPress is the second largest (by volume) new pipeline project for the Marcellus/Utica region–second only to Rover’s 3.25 Bcf/d pipeline. It is a big and important project. And yet, a single couple whose land the pipeline does NOT cross can delay the entire project with threats and intimidation and interference. That’s the charge Columbia has made in court. On April 30, Columbia sued a couple in Doddridge County who live near an active construction site for Mountaineer XPress, claiming their hostile actions toward workers have caused a delay for the entire project–and that’s costing Columbia big bucks. Columbia wants to ask a jury to extract some of that lost revenue from the hostile couple as compensation. Lesson: Your (hostile, threatening) actions have consequences, and may cost you money…
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In 2013, Buckeye Brine, a relatively young Ohio-based company, added a second shale wastewater injection well in Coshocton County (see 
This story stretches back four years. In November 2014, MDN told you about anti-drillers in Lebanon County, PA who had succumbed to shiny object syndrome and transferred their irrational hatred of fossil fuels from the Williams Atlantic Sunrise pipeline project to the already-in-the-ground but getting repurposed Sunoco Logistics Mariner East 1 pipeline (see 
A faux religious group calling itself the Interfaith Alliance for Climate Justice (IACJ) is mad that this past Tuesday 27 agencies (many of them police departments) from across the Richmond, VA metro region trained together for a large-scale civil unrest opposing pipelines. Which is totally realistic. The IACJ, a Virginia-based nonprofit 501(c)(3), says it was organized for “supporting resistance to the Mountain Valley Pipeline and Atlantic Coast Pipeline.” Community organizers. Anarchists who refuse to follow the rule of law. That the police in the greater Richmond area are preparing to deal with them is smart. IACJ calls it, “American fascism, state violence, late stage capitalism, state repression.” We call the IACJ not only anti-capitalist, but anti-American. They are the fascists, in the truest sense of the word…
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Last November we updated you on a lawsuit filed by a group of anti-fossil fuelers in Penn Township (Westmoreland County), PA (see 
Who knew that Quakers, formally known as the “Religious Society of Friends” or “Friends Church,” could be so, well, unfriendly? Turns out the Quakers, who at first blush you might think are conservative, like the Amish, are far-left liberals. At a recent meeting of the Roanoke Friends, the Quakers adopted a statement (below) to “speak out against two natural gas pipelines [Mountain Valley Pipeline and Atlantic Coast Pipeline] proposed in Virginia, and all pipelines transporting gas extracted by hydraulic fracking. Fracking is a process documented to contaminate air and water with toxic chemicals, accelerating climate change and encouraging our dependence on fossil fuels.” Sorry my Quaker friends, but you just out-and-out lied. Fracking is not documented to contaminate air and water with toxic chemicals. Period. If you have real scientific evidence to the contrary, please produce it. If we take them at their word, the “friendly” Quakers want all pipelines that flow natural gas everywhere–including the ones that feed their own homes (!)–to be shut down. All pipelines, including local utility pipelines that feed the homes of millions of Americans, flow “fracked” gas. Most gas these days is “fracked.” The “friendly” Quakers also state their support of illegal, law-breaking protesters who sit in trees against a judge’s order, to stop work on pipelines. The Quaker Friends in Roanoke have shown themselves to be just one more non-thinking, knee-jerk reacting group of liberals who really don’t know what they’re talking about…
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Last winter, from Dec. 26 to Jan. 9, the northeast and New England experienced an extreme cold snap. New England essentially ran out of natural gas needed to feed electric generating plants. The entire region came razor close to succumbing to rolling blackouts. The only thing that prevented the blackouts was the restart of 1960s oil-burning electric plants. During that two week period, New England burned through 2 million barrels of oil to keep the lights on. Scary. Although a number of circumstances conspired to produce this “perfect storm” that almost tripped over into blackouts, there is one main, towering, primary reason why it happened: lack of natural gas pipelines. And there is one main, towering, primary reason why there aren’t more pipelines to flow more natgas into New England: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Andy has admitted, on camera, that his policy is to block any/every/all new natural gas pipelines (see 
Last week at a press conference an organization calling itself the Pennsylvania Conservative Energy Forum (PennCEF) officially launched. The group says it, “seeks to provide a conservative voice in the state energy policy debate, supporting common-sense, all-of-the-above energy solutions that are good for the economy, grid and national security, and the conservation of our state’s natural resources.” PBS’ StateImpact Pennsylvania, a mouthpiece for Big Green groups, opens its glowing article of the new “conservative” organization this way: “A group of political conservatives wants a voice in the state’s energy future.” Big red flag when StateImpact writes positively about a “conservative” group. We read the StateImpact article, located the PennCEF press release from last week, and looked over their website in detail. It appears PennCEF promotes an “all of the above” energy philosophy–EXCEPT fossil fuels, which are THE major source of energy today and for the next several generations. The use of the phrase “all of the above” used by PennCEF sounds eerily like what Lord Obama used to say. He said “all of the above” but meant he would pick the winners and losers. Solar and wind are the winners, fossil fuels the losers. Which is not truly an “all of the above” philosophy. We scoured the PennCEF website and a single reference (on an infographic) to natural gas. Nothing else about shale gas and its role in a clean energy future. We reviewed the Executive Leadership Council bios, the people who run the organization, and found Big Green, Big Solar, Big Wind, and Big Libs among those steering the organization. Our conclusion? There’s nothing “conservative” about PennCEF–other than a misappropriation of the word conservative…