Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel

Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Apex Energy | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Olympus/Huntley & Huntley | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Westmoreland County

Penn Twp Antis Try to Use PA ERA to Block Shale Drilling
April 10, 2018April 10, 2018

Last November we updated you on a lawsuit filed by a group of radical anti-fossil fuelers in Penn Township (Westmoreland County), PA (see Penn Twp Ninny Nannies File Lawsuit to Block Apex, H&H Wells). A group calling themselves Protect PT, backed with money and legal help from Big Green group PennFuture, filed a lawsuit to try and stop Apex Energy and Huntley & Huntley (H&H) from drilling wells in the township. The lawsuit finally made it to a county judge who is hearing testimony this week. One of the “expert witnesses” called by Protect PT is retired and discredited Cornell professor Tony Ingraffea, who makes a living by traveling around the country bashing fracking (see our Ingraffea stories here). The peril with this particular lawsuit is that it uses Pennsylvania’s so-called Environmental Rights Amendment (ERA), which liberal PA judges have, in recent years, breathed new life into. The argument is that fracking denies those who live near this temporary activity their “right” to enjoy Mom Nature, therefore it should be banished forever. That’s what Protect PT is attempting to pull off–a total frack ban in the Penn Township…
Read More “Penn Twp Antis Try to Use PA ERA to Block Shale Drilling”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Chester County | Crime | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Sunoco Logistics

Criminal Antis Vandalize Sunoco ME2 Pipe Construction Equipment
April 6, 2018April 6, 2018

It’s OK to be a blithering idiot and oppose important pipeline infrastructure projects like the Mariner East 2 Pipeline because you believe in the fairy tale of man-made global warming. It’s OK to march and protest and write and name-call, and yes, it’s even OK to launch frivolous lawsuit after frivolous lawsuit. Knock yourselves out. It’s your right as a citizen in the greatest country on Mom Earth, a country we call America. What is NOT OK is to vandalize construction equipment used to build the pipeline, causing thousands of dollars in damage, simply because you’re demented and delude yourself that you are somehow saving “the environment” with your criminal action. That is precisely what Sunoco is alleging after someone(s) damaged the engines, fuel systems and hydraulic lines of two pieces of heavy equipment on April 2 & 3 in Chester County, PA (near Philadelphia). Sunoco is offering $10,000 for information leading to an arrest. We certainly hope that happens…
Read More “Criminal Antis Vandalize Sunoco ME2 Pipe Construction Equipment”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Crime | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Statewide VA | Virginia

US Forest Service Gets Tough on Illegal MVP Pole Sitting Protester
April 6, 2018April 6, 2018

polecat

The kooky antis who are trying to stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) in the Jefferson National Forest are a gift that keeps on giving. On Monday MDN told you that some of the antis (movement people, from other states/areas) had erected a pole in the middle of a gravel road in the Forest–a road MVP construction equipment uses–and that an anti had scampered up to the top of the 50-foot pole (suspended with ropes) and is living in a platform at the top of the pole (see One MVP Radical Protester Arrested, Another Goes Up a Pole). Other antis, some movement people, some local, are sitting nearby in magic tree houses in a couple of trees. Unfortunately a judge refuses to allow law enforcement to forcibly remove those in the magic tree houses (see WV Judge Refuses to Eject Tree Sitters Blocking Pipeline Work). The tree (and pole) sitters are getting on the nerves of the U.S. Forest Service. According to a Facebook page maintained by the radicals, the Forest Service has blocked volunteers from sending food and water up the illegal pole to the person at the top. They’re also shining bright lights on the top of the pole 24/7. There’s more than one way to make them leave! We also have updated comments from one of the tree sitters–Grandma Red, a 61 year-old woman who recently climbed up to one of the magic tree houses–who says she’s “swinging in the wind.” You got that right, Grandma…
Read More “US Forest Service Gets Tough on Illegal MVP Pole Sitting Protester”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Services | Equitrans/EQT Midstream | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Statewide VA | Virginia

VA Tree Sitting Continues in Failed Attempt to Stop MV Pipeline
April 4, 2018April 4, 2018

Here’s the latest update in the ongoing story of “protesters” who are trying to stop progress in cutting trees for the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), which will run from West Virginia into Virginia. We previously reported on illegal tree-sitters that judges and law enforcement refuse to remove (see WV Judge Refuses to Eject Tree Sitters Blocking Pipeline Work). The latest to join the tree sitting movement is a 61 year-old woman who calls herself “Red” and claims her family has owned land in the area for seven generations. When MVP workers began removing a ladder on the tree where Grandma Red planned to sit, she began screaming like a petulant three year-old child. Her histrionics got them to stop. She subsequently climbed the ladder and is still perched up a tree. The bald truth of the matter is this: Regardless of this nonsensical display by (a) misguided locals like Grandma Red, and (b) movement anti fossil-fuel radicals, MVP is in the process of getting built and will be completed. Tree sitting protesters are not going to stop it. So let’s grab some popcorn and enjoy the show in the meantime!…
Read More “VA Tree Sitting Continues in Failed Attempt to Stop MV Pipeline”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Crime | Energy Services | Equitrans/EQT Midstream | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Statewide VA | Statewide WV | Virginia | West Virginia

One MVP Radical Protester Arrested, Another Goes Up a Pole
April 2, 2018April 2, 2018

Click image for larger version

First they went up trees to try and stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) from getting built (see WV Judge Refuses to Eject Tree Sitters Blocking Pipeline Work). Now they’re illegally erecting poles for crazies to sit in. That’s what paid, radical protesters do these days: think up the most freakish, idiotic, outlandish stunt they can pull (or pole), in an effort to get publicity for their misguided cause. Not far from where radicals built tree houses in the Jefferson National Forest, a group of protesters gathered on a gravel access road, erected a 50-foot pole (held in place with ropes to nearby trees), and one of the crazies scampered up to the top to sit there (and is still there) in an attempt to block construction vehicles from passing down the road. The protesters on the road near the pole were ordered to move by the police. Most did, although one of them was arrested. As for the woman up the pole, she’s sitting in a makeshift shelter up there and refuses to reveal her name, nor will she come down…
Read More “One MVP Radical Protester Arrested, Another Goes Up a Pole”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Electrical Generation | Industrywide Issues | Michigan | Statewide MI

Lansing, MI Approves Borrowing $500M for Gas-Fired Electric Plant
March 29, 2018June 6, 2019

In December MDN brought you the news that the Lansing, Michigan Board of Water & Light (BWL) wants to build a brand new $500 million natural gas-fired power plant (see Lansing, MI to Build New 250 MW Gas-Fired Electric Plant). The new plant will generate 250 megawatts of electricity, create 1,200 construction jobs, and go online in 2021. It will replace (and retire) two BWL coal-fired plants. Out with old, in with the new. We’re interested in the project because it is a potential new demand source for Marcellus/Utica Shale gas. On Tuesday, BWL voted, unanimously, to approve borrowing up to $500 million to construct the project. They did so over the objections of a group of fossil fuel haters who apparently would rather sit in the dark rather than build a plant that uses a dreaded fossil fuel. BWL board members had to put up with the usual fossil fuel speechifying, and then proceeded to move forward like the adults they are, over the objections of the petulant children present…
Read More “Lansing, MI Approves Borrowing $500M for Gas-Fired Electric Plant”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Potter County | Wastewater

Coudersport Council Votes to Oppose Frack Wastewater Facility
March 27, 2018March 27, 2018

In January MDN told you that a new shale wastewater treatment facility that works in tandem with a local sewage treatment plant is on the way in Coudersport (Potter County), PA (see Shale Wastewater Treatment Plant Planned for Potter County, PA). Epiphany Water Solutions, via a subsidiary company called Epiphany Allegheny, plans to build a centralized water treatment facility in Coudersport to process brine coming from shale wells drilled by JKLM. That has brought out the antis who make all sorts of wild accusations. The main accusation is that brine contains radioactivity and that even processed water will contain some radioactivity and will, over time, affect the stream or river where it is released (in this case the Allegheny River). A Seneca Indian tribe that lives 65 miles downstream opposes the project claiming radioactivity will pollute them. Epiphany has pushed back against false claims of radioactivity in their processed water (see Spirited Defense of Proposed Potter County Shale Wastewater Plant). However, real science and facts have fallen on deaf ears. Coudersport Borough Council, which has NO jurisdiction over the facility nor over the Coudersport Area Municipal Authority’s sewage treatment plant that plans to dispose of the processed wastewater, voted last week to go on record opposing Epiphany’s plan. Epiphany says the vote is meaningless and the plant will get built, with or without Coudersport Council’s so-called approval…
Read More “Coudersport Council Votes to Oppose Frack Wastewater Facility”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Dominion Energy | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pipelines

Fed Court Dismisses Anti Lawsuit to Stop Atlantic Coast Pipeline
March 27, 2018March 27, 2018

Earlier this month MDN reported that the Southern Environmental Law Center and Appalachian Mountain Advocates, on behalf of a mishmash of second tier radical groups, filed a “hail Mary” request with the federal Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to stop construction of Dominion Energy’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline until a lawsuit sitting before the Fourth Circuit questioning the validity of the permits granted for the project is played out (see Big Green Makes Desperate Attempt to Stop Atlantic Coast Pipe). Last week the Fourth Circuit responded by denying the request to stop ACP. Why? Because the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has not yet decided on whether or not to rehear their decision on ACP, which Big Green previously requested. FERC has used a “tolling order” to give themselves more time to consider whether or not they were wrong in approving the ACP project. The Fourth Circuit doesn’t have jurisdiction until FERC makes a decision on rehearing. In the meantime, construction on ACP continues…
Read More “Fed Court Dismisses Anti Lawsuit to Stop Atlantic Coast Pipeline”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Lancaster County | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Williams

Lancaster Nuns Continue to Agitate Against Already-Installed Pipeline
March 26, 2018March 26, 2018

The Adorers of the Blood of Christ, a group of nuns in Lancaster County, PA, simply can’t stay away from sacrificing Christ on the alter of politics. The Sisters didn’t want the Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project passing through their property. They own several buildings (one of them an old folks home heated with natural gas) on the very same property. The pipeline was due to run through a nearby field owned by the Sisters that they lease to a local farmer who grows corn on it. The Sisters took up with radical anti-fossil fuelers from Lancaster Against Pipelines to protest the project, putting a few wooden park benches and a flower tressle in the middle of the corn field, calling it a “chapel” (see Catholic Nuns Use Radicals to Build Chapel in Path of PA Pipeline), which is why we refer to them as Sisters of the Corn. They’ve tried a couple of different lawsuits, trying to spin the pipeline crossing their property as a religious freedom issue (see Lancaster Nuns Demand “Religious Freedom” Trial re Pipeline). Fast forward to Palm Sunday. The pipeline is now in the ground and covered up, and the farmer can plant his corn over top of it this spring. Yet the Sisters held a political protest service on Palm Sunday at the site of the pipeline. How enormously sad to sully the name of Christ in that way…
Read More “Lancaster Nuns Continue to Agitate Against Already-Installed Pipeline”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Beaver County | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Processing Plants | Shell | Statewide PA

More Pipes Needed in M-U; Antis Gear Up to Protest Shell Cracker
March 23, 2018March 22, 2018

Charlie Schliebs

Speaking of yesterday’s Kallanish Energy “Crackers, Storage & Pipelines 2018” event at Southpointe (Pittsburgh), one of the speakers, Rick DeCesar from AECOM, said contrary to what you may read and hear, the Marcellus/Utica region needs MORE midstream and pipeline projects over the next five years. Lately it seems we’ve read countless stories that say if all of the existing projects that have been announced come online, there will be more pipeline capacity than gas to flow through it. In other words, we’ve overbuilt with pipelines. DeCesar disagrees. He maintains new projects are “desperately needed.” His company is putting its money where its mouth is, hiring new people, in anticipation of more pipeline projects. MDN friend Charlie Schliebs was moderator for the panel featuring DeCesar. Charlie also had some interesting, and disturbing, things to say. Namely, he warned attendees that antis are gearing up to fight “and perhaps be arrested” in a bid to block construction work on the Shell ethane cracker plant in Monaca, PA…
Read More “More Pipes Needed in M-U; Antis Gear Up to Protest Shell Cracker”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines

Democrat Mass. AG Prefers Russian Gas to Marcellus Pipelines
March 23, 2018March 22, 2018

Mass. AG Maura Healey

In January MDN told you about at least two (perhaps there have been more since) tankers of Russian LNG (liquefied natural gas) coming to the Boston area. It is an outrage. The gas comes from a Russian facility in the Arctic that was sanctioned by the United States in response to Russia’s aggression in the Ukraine a few years back. And yet we allowed their gas to come to our shores, while the world’s most productive shale gas field (the Marcellus/Utica) sits a few hundred miles away from New England. The reason the gas from M-U doesn’t go to New England? Politicians like Massachusetts Democrat Attorney General Maura Healey. Healey has actually said, out loud, that importing LNG from Russia, from half a world away, is “better for the environment” than building a pipeline from the M-U into New England. She is either demented, or on Big Green’s payroll. Either way, she has to go…
Read More “Democrat Mass. AG Prefers Russian Gas to Marcellus Pipelines”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Services | Equitrans/EQT Midstream | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pipelines | Statewide VA | Statewide WV | Virginia | West Virginia

WV Judge Refuses to Eject Tree Sitters Blocking Pipeline Work
March 22, 2018March 22, 2018

If the so-called “tree sitters” in Jefferson National Forest who are trying to block tree cutting for the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) get themselves hurt, Monroe County Circuit Court Judge Robert Irons will be the one to blame. Well actually, the protesters can blame themselves (they’re idiots), but Irons is certainly complicit. On Tuesday Judge Irons refused to grant MVP a court order to remove the radical protesters. Apparently they are 7 feet outside of the right of way zone for tree felling. Have you ever cut a big tree down? Trees don’t care if they fall 7 feet this way or 7 feet that way when they fall. MVP wants to ensure the protesters don’t get hurt, and wants them gone before they cut trees near them. But because the radicals technically, according to the judge, are not in the actual right of way, they can stay up the trees where they’ve been for the past 25+ days. There are two suspended tree houses (platforms), held in the trees with ropes. Up to seven people have been living in the two magic tree houses, eating, breathing and defecating up in the trees (harming the environment they profess to be protecting). MVP technically has a deadline of March 31 to fell trees along the path of the pipeline. We suspect MVP has a Plan B for this segment where the loons have perched themselves up a tree. We predict sitting up a tree will get old sooner or later–and MVP can wait them out…
Read More “WV Judge Refuses to Eject Tree Sitters Blocking Pipeline Work”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues | Mahoning County | Ohio

Youngstown Antis “Tilting at Windmills” with Frack Ban Ballot Measure
March 22, 2018March 22, 2018

Tilting at windmills by Gustave Doré

In July 2017 MDN told you that puppets of the PA-based Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) had once again gotten enough signatures to put a so-called Community Bill of Rights (i.e. frack ban) ballot measure on the ballot last November in Youngstown, Ohio–for a 7th time (see Youngstown Frack Ban Vote on November Ballot – for 7th Time). The same people had tried six times before–and the ballot measure failed every single time. However, as we pointed out, the 7th time was different. In addition to the usual no fracking, no pipelines pablum, the 7th petition had language that makes it legal to break the law. If the ballot measure had passed, and if an anti got it into her head to sit in front of a bulldozer that was about to clear ground for a wellpad, or dig a trench for a pipeline, the police would not be able to arrest and remove the anti. It would be within her rights to sit there and block legal, legitimate activity–all in the name of saving the planet. It would, in essence, legalize mob rule. Fortunately the Ohio Supreme Court had the good sense to block the 7th ballot initiative from appearing on the ballet last November (see OH Supreme Court Blocks Youngstown Frack Ban Ballot Measure). However, some antis in Youngstown just won’t give up. They’re heading back to the Ohio Supremes to ask them to reconsider and allow the ballot measure, since the court was split in its decision last year (4-3). What’s interesting is that even the local newspaper, the Youngstown Vindicator, has had enough of these these puppets of the CELDF. The Vindicator calls the ring leaders out by name in a scathing editorial…
Read More “Youngstown Antis “Tilting at Windmills” with Frack Ban Ballot Measure”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Dominion Energy | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide VA | Virginia

Virginia Governor Moves to Bypass FERC in Regulating Pipe Projects
March 22, 2018March 22, 2018

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam

Not until a few years ago when the corrupt Andrew Cuomo decided to block federally approved pipeline projects like the Constitution, and then Northern Access, did the issue of states rights verses the rights of the federal government come into sharp focus with respect to pipeline projects. At its core, it is an age-old issue. During the founding of our country the early leaders wrestled with how much control a federal government should have. We have a Bill of Rights (and a Constitution) specifically to LIMIT how much control the federal government exercises over the individual states. We support a very limited federal government. However, the founders recognized there will be times when the interests and “rights” of states clash with the federal government, and with other states. How to break a tie when deciding competing interests? Perhaps not in their wildest dreams would the founders have foreseen things like interstate highways, high tension electric lines, and yes, natural gas pipelines. Through the years our country has innovated a system based on the original founders’ vision, using agencies like the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to oversee the permitting and permissioning of infrastructure projects like pipelines. What happens if several states want and need gas from a pipeline, but a single state stands in the way and blocks it, denying the citizens of other states the benefit of that gas? That’s why FERC was created–to referee such “wisdom of Solomon” situations. New York plunged us down the slippery slope of overturning long-established law with their lawless action in blocking FERC-permitted pipelines. Other states noticed and are now trying it themselves (like Massachusetts). The latest state to take a stab at assuming powers it doesn’t legally possess is Virginia, under a Democrat governor who plans to pass legislation that can willy nilly stop construction of federally approved pipelines like Dominion’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Electrical Generation | Industrywide Issues | Lackawanna County | Pennsylvania | Regulation

Antis Mad at DEP re Yellow Smoke at Gas-Fired Plant Near Scranton
March 21, 2018March 21, 2018

Antis in the Scranton suburb of Jessup just won’t leave it alone. They’re mad they can’t stop what will be the state’s largest natural gas-fired electric plant (fed by Marcellus gas) from coming online–and they’ve turned their anger on the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). As we reported two weeks ago, a puff of yellow “smoke” (more like vapor) was seen coming from the plant for a brief period of time and it sent antis into an apoplectic shock (see Gas-Fired Power Plant Near Scranton Nears Startup; Yellow Smoke and More on Yellow Smoke Coming from Gas-Fired Plant Near Scranton). According to Invenergy, the builder of the 1,480-megawatt Lackawanna Energy Center in Jessup, there were “no chemicals” involved in the yellow smoke. The only people reporting ill health affects from the yellow smoke were antis. Nobody else seems to have been affected by it. Maybe Invenergy secretly put something in the smoke that only affects antis? Inquiring minds want to know. Apparently the DEP isn’t inquiring fast enough nor deep enough for Jessup antis, who have their knickers in a twist…
Read More “Antis Mad at DEP re Yellow Smoke at Gas-Fired Plant Near Scranton”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Services | Equitrans/EQT Midstream | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Statewide VA | Virginia

Praying Against the Mountain Valley Pipeline in Virginia
March 21, 2018March 21, 2018

When was the last time you read a news story about 50 people gathering to pray…*against* an infrastructure project? Ever see or read a news story about people gathered to pray against a new highway being built? What about people who pray against construction of a new bridge? Or maybe those who pray against a new high-tension electric line coming through the area? We’ve never heard of or read any of those kinds of stories. Ever. So why does Virginia Public Radio feel compelled to publish a story about 50 people gathering to pray against the Mountain Valley Pipeline? What about the 5,000 people who live in the same area who are just fine with the pipeline? Do you think they might deserve a story too?…
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