Irrational Fossil Fuel Hatred in Bristol, VT re Local Gas Line
It took Vermont Gas Systems three years to build a 41-mile, $165 million natural gas transmission pipeline from Colchester to Middlebury. The pipeline went into service in April. Vermont Gas is now working to complete several local distribution spurs–short, small pipelines to deliver the gas to homes and businesses. One of those spurs goes to Bristol, VT. A handful of Bristol residents are suing the town board for approving the local distribution pipeline without first holding a townwide vote. When you read the objections of those against the project, they don’t talk about exploding pipelines and safety issues, or running pipelines through pristine areas. How can they object on that basis? There are literally tens of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of miles of this very same kind of pipeline in every major and most minor cities and towns across the country. When you read the comments of those in Bristol objecting, they talk about natural gas as “a big, dirty fossil fuel” and fracking as an abject evil, contaminating water, filled with chemicals, yada yada yada. In other words, they are clinically insane. They irrationally hate fossil fuels, even though their very lives and existence depend on those fossil fuels every minute of every day. We’ve run out of words to describe such lunacy…
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Borrowing a chapter from EQT and their Mountain Valley Pipeline project, Dominion Energy has asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to lift a stop-work order for its 600+ mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) project. On Tuesday MVP sent a letter to FERC requesting the agency lift it’s stop-work order for them (see 
According to a report from BTU Analytics, the top three shippers who will soon flow natural gas along Williams’ Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline (ASP)–Cabot Oil & Gas, Seneca Resources and Chief Oil & Gas–have “nearly doubled” their rig counts over the past few months leading up to the imminent startup of ASP. The pipeline is due to go online any day now–by the end of August (see 
Shell is proposing to remediate a swamp in Mercer County as a way to “offset” the “impacts” of building an ethane pipeline to feed it’s mighty cracker plant under construction in Beaver County. Oops. Sorry. Instead of calling it a swamp, the PC term is “wetland.” Shell will make a swampy portion of Neshannock Creek in Mercer County swampier, in return for permission to build the Falcon ethane pipeline elsewhere. Apparently it’s not the first time Shell has proposed such a swap. Shell is in the middle of remediating a swamp in Washington County in return for “local impacts” (i.e. “damage” to the environment) they’re causing by building the cracker plant itself. This is not an uncommon practice–across the country. We happen to think it’s silly. Either a project is worthwhile–worth “damaging” some of our precious environment, because of the greater good it will bring–or not. Playing this game of “I’ll spoil this area here, so I’ll un-spoil that area over there” is senseless, in our humble opinion. But hey, if that’s the game we must play to get it built…
Big Green antis thought they could stop the Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) pipeline project–an expansion of the existing Algonquin pipeline system designed to carry 342 million cubic feet of natural gas per day to New England states that badly need the gas. On March 3, 2015 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a final approval for the project. Construction began in 2015 and, following extreme opposition from New York State over a small portion of the project near the Indian Point nuclear plant (which will shut down in a few years anyway), AIM finally went online in late 2016. In what has become a typical pattern, Big Green groups asked FERC to rehear their decision to approve AIM, FERC refused, and Big Green then filed a lawsuit in federal court. But two weeks ago the federal court told the antis “no,” crushing their efforts to roll back the expanded pipeline (see 
We spotted something that seemed a bit odd to us. In a story about pipelines in WV and the challenges they face, EQT said they continue to engage in some construction activities for Mountain Valley Pipeline, even though the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) recently ordered them to stop all construction on the project until further notice (see 
In just about every state in the country, before you start digging a hole in the ground for some reason (water well, septic system, laying an underground electric line, etc.)–the first thing you do is call 811 or some similar phone number. The “one call” or “first call” reaches a state-authorized (not necessarily state-run) office where they have, on file, maps detailing any kind of underground cables, pipelines and other infrastructure. If such underground structures exist, a representative of the owner for the underground line will, if necessary, stop by and mark the areas so when you do begin digging, you don’t hit it. Makes sense. A bill introduced in 2016 in the Pennsylvania legislature “enhances” the existing 811 law in PA. One of the “enhancements” is that it removes an exclusion for low-pressure natural gas gathering pipelines from being required to be part of the 811 system, mainly lines run to conventional gas wells. The bill was opposed by the Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association (see 
The U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a hearing this Thursday to consider the Water Quality Certification Improvement Act of 2018 (S. 3303). Two weeks ago we told you about S. 3303, a bill that will “fix” the issue of states like New York using Section 401 of the Clean Water Act, which allows states to have a say in where interstate pipeline routes can pass through a state, from abusing their authority by blocking pipeline projects (see 
As MDN predicted last week (see 
Pssst. Don’t tell anyone, but somebody has figured out how to get a pipeline built in New England. Keep it quiet–just between us, K? Time after time we’ve seen worthy, sensible natural gas pipeline projects proposed for New England. And time after time they’ve been shot down by radical Big Green groups and sleazy politicians (like MA Sen. Elizabeth Warren and MA AG Maura Healey) who are in the pockets of Big Green. Instead of building a pipeline from the Marcellus to New England–a few hundred miles–those same sleazy politicians would rather have Russian LNG imported to avert annual energy crises (see 
Last week our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, posted an article on their Today in Energy website chronicling an astonishing fact: By the end of this year, nearly 19 billion cubic feet of natural gas pipeline capacity will be moving natgas *into* the South Central region–in other words, gas moving into the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana. That is truly astonishing, because a few short years ago the Gulf Coast (largely from offshore supplies) shipped gas *out of* the region. But now, gas will flow into that region, even amidst record natgas production happening in the Permian Basin. What caught our eye about the article is that 2.8 Bcf/d of gas that will flow into the region will come from the Marcellus/Utica, from three pipelines: Rayne XPress, Gulf XPress, and Atlantic Sunrise. Rayne XPress went online late last year (see 
West Virginia has just published a draft revision for terms and conditions under which the state will issue a “Section 401” water permit for federally approved pipeline projects. Under the federal Clean Water Act (CWA), the federal government delegates some of the responsibility in approving a pipeline project to the individual states. It’s a small but important part of the regulatory pie. Under Section 401 of the CWA, states get one year to review a pipeline project–to evaluate where that project will cross streams and rivers. If the state doesn’t like something about the plan, they tell the pipeline company and the plan gets revised. That’s how it’s supposed to work. Instead, some states (like New York) are abusing Section 401 and simply refusing to issue the permit, effectively killing entire pipeline projects. That’s not the intent of the regulation, something Congress is now looking to fix. We can’t have tinhorn dictators like Andrew Cuomo telling other states (like Pennsylvania) that you can no longer build pipelines into or through a neighboring state. That’s why approval of interstate pipeline projects resides at the federal level and not the state level–to prevent one state holding another hostage. WV has had some issues of their own with respect to Section 401 approvals (see 
A federal judge turned down a request by six Franklin County, VA landowners to shut down construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) in their area. The six claim that work being done by MVP is leading to soil erosion–that storm water runoff has resulted in mountains of mud ending up on their property. The legal argument is “trespass” for failing to do the work correctly, thereby leading to an intrusion on their property. The judge denied the request. However, the judge did not toss out the entire lawsuit–only a request for a preliminary injunction. The lawsuit itself will continue. Not that it makes much of a difference. All work on MVP is currently stopped anyway (see