Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel

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    Lansing, MI Approves Borrowing $500M for Gas-Fired Electric Plant

    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”

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    Coudersport Council Votes to Oppose Frack Wastewater Facility

    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…
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    Fed Court Dismisses Anti Lawsuit to Stop Atlantic Coast Pipeline

    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”

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    Lancaster Nuns Continue to Agitate Against Already-Installed Pipeline

    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…
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    More Pipes Needed in M-U; Antis Gear Up to Protest Shell Cracker

    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”

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    Democrat Mass. AG Prefers Russian Gas to Marcellus Pipelines

    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”

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    WV Judge Refuses to Eject Tree Sitters Blocking Pipeline Work

    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”

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    Youngstown Antis “Tilting at Windmills” with Frack Ban Ballot Measure

    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”

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    Virginia Governor Moves to Bypass FERC in Regulating Pipe Projects

    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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    Antis Mad at DEP re Yellow Smoke at Gas-Fired Plant Near Scranton

    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”

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    Praying Against the Mountain Valley Pipeline in Virginia

    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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    Massachusetts Blocking Atlantic Bridge Pipeline from Completion

    In January 2017 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) granted final approval for the $452 million Atlantic Bridge expansion project (see FERC Approves Atlantic Bridge Project for New England/Canada). The Spectra Energy/Enbridge project beefs up capacity along the Algonquin Pipeline, along with more capacity for Spectra Energy’s Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline, to carry more Marcellus/Utica gas into New England and (eventually) all the way to Nova Scotia, Canada. Much of the project is now done–except in Massachusetts where a critical compressor station planned for Weymouth is stalled. The delay is causing hardships in both Maine and in Canada, due to declining offshore gas supplies. Maine needs the gas for electric generating plants. Actually, Massachusetts itself needs the gas as much as Maine–but the obtuse idiots that pretend to run the state are resisting the project because it flows an evil fossil fuel. The Massachusetts Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) technically has until January 2019 to complete a health impact assessment (HIA) and make a decision on whether or not to issue an air quality permit. By all appearances the DEP is taking its sweet time. If the permit is granted by DEP, Weymouth then has until June 2019 to complete an appeals process. Meanwhile, folks across the border in Maine will begin to experience rolling blackouts if they can’t find a new source of natural gas…
    Read More “Massachusetts Blocking Atlantic Bridge Pipeline from Completion”

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    H&H About to Drill Well in Upper Burrell as Antis Plead with Judge

    In some places, drillers have to fight tooth and nail, every inch of the way, just to drill a simple Marcellus Shale well. Such is the case in Upper Burrell (Westmoreland County), PA. Huntley & Huntley has plans to drill four shale wells in Upper Burrell Township. Sure there’s been push-back, but we thought the corner had been turned when town supervisors voted last November to approve H&H’s plans (see H&H Drilling in Upper Burrell Gets Final Approval, Raucous Crowd). The supporters of drilling far outnumbered the antis at the meeting. However, a small group of antis remains committed to blocking H&H’s drilling plans. The latest twist is that antis are asking a judge to rule that the supervisors, who were discharging their duties in accordance with the law, erred in their decision to grant final approval for H&H’s drilling plans. Here we go again…
    Read More “H&H About to Drill Well in Upper Burrell as Antis Plead with Judge”

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    How to Remove Law-Breaking MVP Tree Sitters without Hurting Them?

    Last week MDN told you about two radical anti-fossil fuel activists who built tree houses in the Jefferson National Forest and are living in them (for now) in an attempt to prevent the trees and the trees around them from being cut to make way for the legally permitted Mountain Valley Pipeline (see Radicals Go Up a Tree in Quest to Illegally Block MVP Construction). Their strategy is to stay up a tree until March 31, when the trees can no longer be cut due to bat season–a prohibition on tree clearing to prevent killing a threatened species of bats that may roost in those trees (season lasts until October). MVP needs those trees to come down now, before the end of the month, or the pipeline won’t get built this year. On Tuesday a judge agreed, granting an injunction that says the tree sitters have to come down. Just one problem–when MVP reps tried to serve the tree sitters with a summons, the radicals refused to identify themselves or “hear” the summons, hiding out in their magic tree houses so they couldn’t be served. What can MVP (and the Forest Service) do now to get them out of the trees?…
    Read More “How to Remove Law-Breaking MVP Tree Sitters without Hurting Them?”

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    Big Green Makes Desperate Attempt to Stop Atlantic Coast Pipe

    Big Green groups opposed to Dominion Energy’s $6.5 billion (up from $5 billion due to delays) Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina are about out of options in their holy mission to stop the project. They’ve tried multiple lawsuits, protests, bullying state environmental agencies–the whole bag of nasty tricks. And yet ACP is now under construction. What’s left to try to stop it? The Southern Environmental Law Center and Appalachian Mountain Advocates, on behalf of a mishmash of second tier radical groups, have filed a “hail Mary” request with the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to stop construction of ACP until a lawsuit sitting before the Fourth Circuit questioning the validity of the permits granted for the project is played out. In other words, back to the tried-and-true playbook: delay, delay, delay–until eventually you deny…
    Read More “Big Green Makes Desperate Attempt to Stop Atlantic Coast Pipe”

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    Part of Jefferson Natl Forest Closed to Keep MVP Protesters Out

    Last week MDN told you about a couple of rabid antis who climbed trees in Jefferson National Forest and have perched themselves in homemade tree stands in an attempt to block tree cutting for the Mountain Valley Pipeline (see Radicals Go Up a Tree in Quest to Illegally Block MVP Construction). Time is ticking. Tree felling must happen by the end of March, or the builder (EQT Midstream) will need to wait until October to fell the trees due to a ban on cutting trees during “bat season” (don’t ask). The antis are still, literally, up a tree–still blocking tree cutting in the forest. Last week a judge issued a restraining order that instructs the tree sitters to come down. But they haven’t–not yet, anyway. Following the judge’s order, the U.S. Forest Service, in charge of Jefferson National Forest, issued an emergency closure order, closing the forest along the 3.5 miles of MVP’s path through the forest. The Forest Service is trying to prevent any more tree sitters from invading the forest and setting up what will no doubt be a police action to remove the demented tree sitters already up a tree…
    Read More “Part of Jefferson Natl Forest Closed to Keep MVP Protesters Out”