Monroeville, PA Hostile to Shale, Bans Drilling in Most Places
For whatever reason, Monroeville, PA (Allegheny County, suburb of Pittsburgh) is hostile toward the shale industry. In September Monroeville Council voted to enact a super-restrictive seismic testing ordinance (see Monroeville, PA Passes Restrictive Seismic Testing Ordinance). The ordinance was meant to hassle Huntley & Huntley, which had wanted to conduct seismic testing in two rural areas of the municipality. But that wasn’t enough for the anti-drilling zealots of Monroeville. On Tuesday, Monroeville Council voted to ban oil and gas well drilling everywhere except for those areas marked M-2 industrial zoning. This is a big change. Previously drilling permits were “conditional use,” meaning each permit was evaluated on its own merits, regardless of which zoning district it was located in. By limiting drilling to M-2, the Council has effectively banned drilling in the municipality. Which is a shame, as Huntley & Huntley’s headquarters is located in Monroeville. We think they should seriously consider moving out of the municipality, taking their considerable economic impact (jobs, tax revenue) with them…
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The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has done it again. They’ve posted another fake news story about the Marcellus Shale industry. Here’s how it works: A Big Green group, like the odious Earthworks, enlists the help of a servile, biased “reporter”–feeding all sorts of false information to said “reporter”–the “reporter” essentially takes dictation, writes it up, and publishes it as “news.” Earthworks and Moms Clean Air Force, both national, radical, out-of-the-mainstream anti fossil-fuel groups, have colluded with the Post-Gazette to release a fake news “report” that says because some of Pennsylvania’s children go to school within a half mile of an oil or gas well, those children are endangered from emissions, including methane. Yeah, methane–you know, natural gas. IF methane happens to leak (which doesn’t happen often) it simply goes straight up into the atmosphere where it supposedly contributes to man-made global warming. It certainly doesn’t endanger anyone on the ground. The Big Green groups publishing the report say 311,000 kids in PA go to school near an oil or gas well (the vast majority being conventional, non-shale wells). Big Green totally lies about the risks. But let’s set that aside for the moment. Why are only children endangered? Why not adults too? Or pets? Or zombies? Big Green is (ab)using children in their narrative because everyone has a knee-jerk reaction when it comes to kids. We all will protect our children with our own lives–it’s an ingrained, automatic reaction. These sleazeballs are playing off that fear with a false report–and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is complicit in spreading the lie…
Finally, some justice against law-breaking eco-terrorists. You may recall in October 2016, eco-terrorists were arrested when they cut padlocks and chains at five remote flow stations (four different states) and shut down five oil pipelines coming from Canada into the United States (see 
Environmental radicals from a group called Lancaster Against Pipelines made good on their promise to disrupt work on Williams’ Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project–a $3 billion, 198-mile natural gas pipeline project running through 10 Pennsylvania counties to connect Marcellus Shale natural gas from northeastern PA with the Williams’ Transco pipeline in southern Lancaster County. Lancaster Against Pipelines is headed up by Mark Clatterbuck (who participated in the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline) and his wife Malinda. The clattering Clatterbucks got 20-35 wackos from Lancaster County to load themselves into 16-18 vehicles (numbers change depending on the news source), which they then drove onto an access road used by Williams, where workers are beginning to clear land. The wackos parked themselves right in the middle of the road and stood in front of machinery, preventing Williams personnel from accessing the site. The only problem, for the wackos, is that it was raining so hard (leftovers from Hurricane Nate moving through), that Williams personnel weren’t working at the site anyway! However, it’s the principle of the thing. So the police were called. The so-called protesters were asked to move (or be arrested)–so they moved. End of story. Nobody hauled away in handcuffs, no striking images of people laying down refusing to move (too wet for that). Just a bunch of wackos with nothing better to do for a few hours, along with a few reporters…
In July MDN told you that puppets of the PA-based Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) have once again gotten enough signatures to put a so-called Community Bill of Rights (i.e. frack ban) ballot measure on the ballot this November in Youngstown, Ohio for a 7th time (see 
Antis certainly learn from one another. If an anti-fossil fuel tactic works (in court) in one place, antis in other locations jump on it like white on rice. Ninny nanny antis in the Chenango Valley School District (suburb of Binghamton, NY) got their knickers in a twist when NG Advantage proposed building a “virtual pipeline” project about a mile from one of their schools. A virtual pipe is a compressor station that compresses gas from a pipeline (the Millennium in this case) and loads it onto specially fitted tanker trucks to haul the gas to industrial users. The school paid $40,000+ for an outside-the-area law firm, which sued and in a county-level court (called “Supreme Court” in quirky NY). The Big Money law firm won the case, convincing the judge to proclaim that the local planning board didn’t do a good enough job in considering NG’s application (see 
Last week the radicals at Big Green group PennFuture launched an advertising campaign that targets both U.S. Steel Corp. and the might Shell ethane cracker. The ad campaign, called “Your Toxic Neighbor” includes big ads on the sides of buses and on billboards in the Pittsburgh region. From the beginning of PA Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration, PennFuture radicals have populated his administration. Two PennFuture radicals previously in the Wolf cabinet are now gone: former Secretary of Policy, John Hanger (now gone, supposedly to spend more time with his wife and daughter in Massachusetts) and former Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection, John Quigley (fired for conspiring with Big Green groups and getting caught doing it). The one remaining PennFuture radical still in the Wolf cabinet is Secretary of the Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), Cindy Dunn. Time for Wolf to show her the door too (see 
Next month when New Yorkers go to the polls to cast their votes (an illusory scam in Communist NY), there will be three Propositions on the ballot. One of the three is called, “Authorizing the Use of Forest Preserve Land for Specified Purposes.” The one-paragraph description implies municipalities will have more flexibility in using “preserved” land–so long as they designate the same amount of land to be added back to the pool of preserved land. It also allows bicycle trails and public utility lines to cross preserved land. However, what the description does not say (which can be found in a full reading of the proposition) is this: the proposition “prohibits the construction of a new intrastate gas or oil pipeline that did not receive necessary state and local permits and approvals by June 1, 2016.” So no new intrastate (within the state) pipelines through preserved land, period. Ever. Even though electric lines crossing preserved land are just fine. Why is Gov. Cuomo trying to hide this from residents? Will NY residents even wake up and notice they don’t know what they’re actually voting for (or against)? That’s how sleazy politics is played in the Empire State…
Perhaps it’s time for those who support using clean-burning natural gas to find a new hospital–if they live in the Lancaster, PA area. In the fall edition of The Journal of Lancaster General Hospital, an anti-fossil fuel doctor who practices at the hospital published an outrageous political smear job pretending to be a scientific article–lying about natural gas and its extraction and its “pollution” of the environment. Dr. Alan S. Peterson, M.D., who specializes in geriatrics (he’s 71 himself), is an anti-driller with a history of activism against the shale industry. In an article in the Fall issue of the Journal, Peterson quotes a number of discredited “studies” funded with money from Big Green groups to make a case against the shale industry. Unfortunately, the article is dressed up scientific garb, giving it the illusion of accuracy. It is nothing more than typical anti hoo-ha. Two weeks ago Dr. Peterson penned an op-ed for a local Lancaster news outlet opposing a plan to fix dramatically slow response times at the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) when issuing permits related to shale drilling. Peterson is political, plain and simple–and he opposes the extraction of fossil fuels, which says all you need to know about Dr. Peterson, and about Lancaster General…
For more than two years MDN has chronicled the journey of Competitive Power Ventures (CPV) to build a $900 million Marcellus gas-fired electric plant in Wawayanda, NY, called the Valley Energy Center. Early on the project faced court challenges, but a judge gave final approval to build it in September 2015 (see 
In August the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled in a case that (we previously thought) may have long-term, very negative consequences for the oil and gas industry related to pipeline development (see 
A group of lawless anarchists–people calling themselves “anti-capitalists” from the Philadelphia area, have admitted in a blog post that they engaged in illegal, criminal (we’d call it eco-terrorist) activities against construction equipment being used in Media (Delaware County), PA for the Mariner East 2 Pipeline project. The criminals, from the anti-American group Philly Anti-Capitalist, said they filled the fuel tanks of a flatbed truck and several excavators with sand and sugar–meant to ruin the engines. They even outline how to inflict maximum damage to the engines by removing the fuel filters. These idiots justify their criminal actions by saying, “Human-caused ecological collapse and mass extinction are upon us.” In other words, they’re loony tunes. Crazy. Driven to commit criminal acts because they’ve been brainwashed into believing mankind is poisoning Mom Earth by extracting and using fossil fuels. And brainwashed against liberty and freedom as personified in the United States. They are serious (and dangerous) nutjobs. We sincerely hope the FBI, Homeland Security and other police organizations hunt them down and jail them for destroying private property…
Police in Lancaster County, PA are trying to get out in front of what they expect may be a tense situation. Big Green groups along with local nutters in the Lancaster area have pledged so-called non-violent action to stop work on the now-fully permissioned Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project. Atlantic Sunrise is a $3 billion, 198-mile natural gas pipeline project running through 10 Pennsylvania counties to connect Marcellus Shale natural gas from northeastern PA with the Williams’ Transco pipeline in southern Lancaster County. Lancaster Against Pipelines, headed up by Mark Clatterbuck (who participated in the ineffective protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline) and his wife Malinda. The clattering Clatterbucks have made threats that they and their “many” followers will enter private land and do whatever it takes–lock arms, chain themselves to something, etc.–to stop the backhoes and bulldozers. Several local town police departments, wanting to be prepared, sent a form letter/survey to residents where the pipeline will cross, to ask them (a) if they (the landowners) plan to allow antis onto their property, and (b) if they don’t plan to allow antis, will they consent to allowing the police to arrest antis on their property. Manor police Chief Todd Graeff says his department is neutral with respect to the pipeline–they just want to know where they have permission to enter and arrest people, and where they don’t. In West Hempfield “many” of the questionnaires have been signed and returned. Every single returned questionnaire gives the police permission to arrest antis on their property. Which is a VERY loud and clear signal to the troublemakers: You WILL get arrested and jailed for your shenanigans…
Two serial, paid protesters, along with a landowner and her daughter have sued Sunoco Logistics and parent company Energy Transfer for breaching their constitutional rights. You may recall our story about the daughter of a Huntingdon County, PA landowner, radicalized by Big Green groups (as evidenced by her association with well known protesters previously arrested), who took to a tree on her mom’s property in March 2016 in order to illegally stop crews working on tree clearing for the Mariner East 2 pipeline (see 
NEXUS Pipeline, a $2 billion, 255-mile interstate pipeline that will run from Ohio through Michigan and eventually to the Dawn Hub in Ontario, Canada, is about ready to begin construction–any time. NEXUS got final approval for the project from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in August, the first major pipeline to get approved following a newly restored quorum at FERC (see