The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Friday declined to hear a four-year-old case over how much leeway local municipalities have in regulating drilling within their borders. Does the court’s refusal to hear the case mean local governments will have more, or less, latitude than they do now? Depends on who you ask.
Read More “PA Supreme Court’s Indecision on Local Regulation of Drilling”
MDN chronicled the battle earlier this year between Northeast Natural Energy and the city of Morgantown, WV over Northeast’s plan to drill two Marcellus Shale gas wells near the city. In short, the Morgantown City Council tried to ban drilling both inside and outside city limits—up to one mile outside—which would have prevented Northeast from drilling the two wells.
Morgantown attempted to use a state law which indicates cities can take such actions outside their borders if they believe there is an imminent threat to residents of the city. The ban went to court, and a judge overturned it, clearing the way for Northeast to drill.
Please see an important update at the end of this article.
West Virginia’s new Marcellus drilling law is not yet a week old (see this MDN story for a summary of what’s in the new law), and already some who are unhappy with the law are talking lawsuit. The Charleston, WV Rotary Club hosted a luncheon at the Civic Center on Monday with a panel discussion presenting four different viewpoints on the new law. None of the four, who included those who favor drilling and those who don’t, were happy with the final version. But one in particular, Dave McMahon, a Charleston public interest lawyer, is threatening to sue over the new law.
Read More “Lawsuit on the Horizon for WV’s New Marcellus Law?”
Yesterday, U.S. oil and gas exploration firm Endeavour International Corp announced they were bailing out of a deal to buy the Marcellus holdings of SM Energy (no stated reason for abandoning the deal). This was the single-sentence press release they issued:
Read More “Endeavour Leaves SM Energy at the Altar, SM Ready to Sue”
Last Friday, Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board Judge Bernard Labuskes, Jr. denied an appeal from 11 families in the Carter Road area of Dimock Township, PA who were asking that water shipments from Cabot Oil & Gas be restored. The 11 families, from an original group of 19 families, decided to not accept a remediation solution ordered by the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) that directed Cabot to pay the families up to twice the value of their homes and to install filtration systems that would remove all methane from their water supplies.
Because of their ongoing refusal to accept the remediation solution offered, preferring instead to pursue litigation with Cabot, the DEP finally told Cabot they could end water deliveries to those families as of Nov. 30—deliveries that have been ongoing for more than two years.
Read More “Judge Denies Request to Restart Water Deliveries in Dimock PA”
Norse Energy Corp, the U.S. subsidiary of the Norwegian energy company, owns leases for 180,000 net acres in New York State, 130,000 of those acres being in the Marcellus and Utica Shale plays. Norse bet the farm on New York allowing shale gas drilling long before now, and they lost (NY is still months, if not years away from allowing shale gas drilling). Norse has put their New York acreage on the auction block, looking for another company to buy it.
In the meantime, one of Norse’s drilling partners is suing them for lack of drilling according to their agreement. That agreement had nothing to do with shale gas, but instead was drilling in the Herkimer formation, a limestone-type layer in central New York. Norse seems to indicate they may restart Herkimer drilling at some point. From the Norse press release:
Read More “Bradford Drilling Sues Partner Norse Energy for No Drilling”
In the ongoing press event that is Dimock, PA, yesterday Gasland creator Josh Fox and actor Mark Rufalo, among others, gathered in Dimock to keep up the pressure and to continue to demagogue what has really happened in Dimock. See MDN’s previous coverage for background. A brief summary of events leading up to yesterday’s dueling press conferences:
A new email from the federal Environmental Protection Agency says the water wells for 19 affected families in Dimock, PA have tested fine and do not pose a threat to those families. Yet, some of those families are still grabbing headlines by playing the victim, claiming their water is undrinkable. Who to believe?
The Dimock situation is difficult to understand, being shrouded in so many layers of publicity stunts it’s hard to know what the real story is. As near as MDN can tell, in a nutshell:
Read More “EPA Tells Dimock Families Their Water is Safe to Use”
According to a lawsuit filed on Monday, the U.S. government is obstructing legitimate and legal gas drilling in the Allegheny National Forest (ANF) in northwestern PA. A court in Erie, PA has been asked to find them in contempt and force them to allow drilling to proceed on a timely basis.
A brief background on the ANF and why the lawsuit was filed:
Read More “Drillers Sue US Govt over Allegheny National Forest Delays”
A group of more than 60 residents in the Dimock, PA area sued Cabot Oil & Gas in 2009 claiming they had been exposed to pollution as a result of hydraulic fracturing in the area. The lawsuit wants Cabot to pay for medical monitoring as part of the settlement, but they refused to allow Cabot access to their medical records in order to verify their claims. Last week a court told the claimants if they want Cabot to pay, they will have to share their medical records.
Read More “Court Tells Dimock PA Residents to Share Medical Records”
The Pennsylvania anti-drilling group Clean Air Council is suing the federal EPA in an effort to force the EPA to clamp down on Marcellus drillers who the Clean Air Council says are creating too much ozone during drilling.
Read More “PA Clean Air Council Sues EPA, Force Drillers to Reduce Ozone”
Mt. Airy City Council voted on Oct. 13 to sue the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) to prevent the Commission from allowing hydraulic fracturing to move forward in Mt. Airy.
Read More “Mt Airy PA City Council Sues DRBC to Prevent Fracking”
Cecil Township in Washington County, PA—a suburb of Pittsburgh—recently passed an ordinance changing shale gas drilling from a permitted use to a conditional use, meaning each well drilled would have to be approved by the township on a case by case basis. It requires drillers to do twice the work—once in filing a permit application with the state, and a second time with the local municipality. Range Resources, one of the nation’s largest Marcellus Shale drillers (and with operations in Cecil), has just filed a lawsuit requesting the new ordinance be overturned.
Read More “Range Resources Sues Cecil Township Over New Ordinance”
Under threat of a lawsuit, supervisors in Columbus Township (Warren County, PA) reversed their previous ban on the disposal of fracking fluids in two injection wells in the township (see this previous MDN story about the lawsuit).
Injection wells are deep wells used to dispose of fracking fluid from those drillers who do not recycle all of the fracking fluid used in their drilling operations. The fluid is pumped into the wells under high pressure, forcing it deep into the ground. Ohio has hundreds of such injection wells due to a better underground geography. However, PA currently has only a relative handful of injection wells (less than a dozen?), including the two in Columbus Township.
Read More “Columbus Twp, PA Ban on Injection Wells Rescinded”
We have a new development in the ongoing case from Susquehanna County, PA where a lower court upheld the “Dunham rule” declaring oil and gas are not part of mineral rights. The Dunham rule, a PA law precedent that’s been in place since 1882, was challenged by PA Superior Court (see this MDN story), threatening to overturn dozens if not hundreds of leases and deeds in Pennsylvania. The landowners in the case have now appealed directly to the PA State Supreme Court in an effort to lay this to rest and have the Dunham rule upheld.
Read More “Shale Gas Mineral Rights Case Appealed to PA Supreme Court”
Those opposed to drilling will get a measure to ban shale gas drilling put on the ballot in Peters Township (Washington County, PA) this fall. A judge has just ruled in favor of the Peters Township Marcellus Shale Awareness Group to have the measure put on the election ballot for Nov 8. See this MDN story about the group, their motivation (calling sustainable energy a “right”) and the wording of the ballot measure.
Read More “Western PA Township Wins Right to Put Ban on Nov. Ballot”