Speaker Didn’t Tell Middletown Pipe Antis What They Wanted to Hear
Anti fossil fuel radicals continue to try and stir up opposition to the Mariner East 2 (ME2) pipeline project near Philadelphia. Local supervisors in Middletown (Delaware County, PA) walk a tightrope between a desire to protect area residents and anti groups fomenting irrational fears. The Board of Supervisors hired a consultant to advise them on potential safety issues with ME1 & 2. Monday night the supervisors held a public meeting to allow residents to hear from and ask questions of the consultant. The consultant, to his credit, maintained his objectivity. He’s not for or against pipelines–he’s looking at safety issues and discussing realistic scenarios. His responses to some of the questions were not what antis in the crowd wanted to hear. They wanted him to feed their fear-mongering (and false) beliefs. The consultant refused to do so. We found one bit of news from the session highly instructive. There is an anti group calling itself Middletown Coalition for Public Safety. The group presents itself as a “nonpartisan grassroots group of parents and residents whose goal is to educate elected officials and the public regarding the risks associated with the proposed Mariner East 2 pipeline.” It is the exact opposite. Rabidly partisan (Democrat). And not composed of residents. The people who belong to the group, at least its leaders, aren’t from Middletown! At the Monday meeting one of their members, Eric Friedman, was not allowed to question the consultant because he doesn’t live in Middletown. What does that tell you about how these “grassroots” groups are operated and funded?…
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Talk about obtuse–about cutting off your nose to spite your face. The dunderheads at the Nelson County Service Authority have just voted to turn down $3.5 million of revenue from Dominion Energy’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) over the next two years. ACP wanted to buy water from the authority to use in underground horizontal directional drilling for the pipeline as it passes through the region. ACP would have paid half a million dollars for a hookup fee and a rate of 10 cents a gallon for the water. The five dunderheads on the board–three of them brand new in the past month–offered up all sorts of excuses to cover the fact they simply don’t want the pipeline. They don’t want to be seen “supporting” it. Makes for uncomfortable conversations at the local Five & Dime. Frankly, it doesn’t matter. ACP has said they already have an alternative source for the water and will simply truck it in. Congratulations to the Service Authority Board–you just made your community less safe and poorer. Less safe because now water truck after water truck will clog up the highways (running the risk of accidents), and poorer because you turned down $3.5 million you could have used to give a break in water fees to county residents…
Our sadness that Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Commissioner Rob Powelson is leaving is quickly turning to anger–against Powelson. In June we told you that Powelson will be leaving FERC in mid-August (see 
Anti-fossil fuel nutters are on a holy mission to stop a 3.5-mile, 8-inch pipeline from being built under the Potomac River by Columbia Gas, from Maryland to West Virginia (see 
One of the oft-repeated canards by antis is that having a drill pad near you, or a pipeline crossing your property, will devalue (lower the value) of your property’s assessment and worth. If you want to sell the property you won’t get as much for it–if you can sell it at all. Who wants to live near a big, ugly drill site, or have an “explosive” pipeline running near the house? Except you can’t even see a drill pad from more than a few hundred feet away after the wells are drilled, and when the pipeline is in the ground and replanted over the top of it–you don’t see or even think about it. Let’s take the later case, of pipelines. Is there evidence that when a pipeline passes through your property, the value goes down? According to property assessors in West Virginia, the answer is “no.” At least not in the short term. Longer term, they say, will have to be watched. IF there are more incidents like the landslide that caused the Leach XPress pipeline to explode, maybe there will be an impact on assessments. But then, if you live in an area where there are frequent landslides, you have bigger valuation problems than a pipeline running through it…
In July 2012, the PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) announced a one-year study that will look at impacts on air quality from Marcellus drilling and the infrastructure (pipelines and compressor plants) that comes with shale gas drilling (see 
You don’t often read about pipeline projects that seek to flow more Pennsylvania Marcellus gas into the Ohio Utica region. In January, Dominion Energy filed a request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to expand capacity along the existing Dominion Energy Transmission Inc. (DETI) pipeline from Pennsylvania to Ohio (see 
In August 2016, Millennium Pipeline, which stretches from Corning, NY to just outside New York City, filed an application for what it calls its Eastern System Upgrade (see 
Last Friday MDN brought you the sad news that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) rejected Williams’ request to rehear an earlier decision to not overrule the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) decision to block the Constitution Pipeline (see 
One more thread has broken that holds together hope that Williams’ Constitution Pipeline will ever get built. Perhaps the final thread. Yesterday the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a ruling denying a rehearing request on the project–the second time they have done so. The Andrew Cuomo-corrupted NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) refused to grant the pipeline project necessary federal stream crossing permits, blocking construction, in April 2016 (see 
On Tuesday, Pennsylvania State Rep. Chris Quinn (R-Delaware) hosted a House Republican Policy Committee meeting at the Penn State Brandywine Campus (Delaware County) to discuss pipeline safety, construction and siting issues in Chester and Delaware counties. The real aim of the session was to focus on Sunoco Logistics Partners’ Mariner East 2 (ME2) pipeline project–a state-regulated project not under the purview of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Eve Miari of the Clean Air Council and Virginia Marcille-Kerslake from West Whiteland Residents for Pipeline Safety were there to provide an overview of concerns by “the community” with siting and building ME2. MDN friend Garland Thompson, a contributing editor for US Black Engineer & Information Technology magazine, attended the session and wrote a report (below). As usual, Garland does a terrific job in capturing the key points of what was discussed. Spoiler alert: While Garland found Miari and Marcille-Kerslake’s testimony heart-felt, their allegations that nobody was/is in charge of siting a project like ME2, and that Sunoco is not being “transparent” in their building of ME2, were skewered, point by point by point. Here is clear, honest, accurate reporting you won’t get anywhere else…
Earlier this week MDN told you that TransCanada’s Leach XPress, a 160-mile natural gas pipeline (and compression facilities) located in southeastern Ohio and West Virginia’s northern panhandle, was back online after experiencing an explosion in early June in Marshall County, WV (see 
Contrary to the doom and gloom predictions that the hothead and dangerous Donald Trump, by imposing tariffs on Europe and China, is creating a “trade war” that is going to sink the U.S. and world economies–the facts show otherwise. Even the mighty American Petroleum Institute has been lobbying and complaining loudly that Trump’s tariffs will hurt the oil and gas industry. Except, it isn’t happening. At least not in the Marcellus/Utica. In fact, the opposite is happening! Dura-Bond, a company that manufactures steel welded pipes in McKeesport, PA, is *benefiting* from the tariffs. M-U pipeline companies are now buying Dura-Bond’s pipes instead of foreign imports. Dura-Bond is investing, like crazy, in the McKeesport facility in order to use the plant to manufacture smaller, midstream pipe. That ain’t supposed to happen! These words are sure to grate on a lot of people’s nerves (and we LOVE saying them): THANK YOU President Trump!…
There’s a small group of rich snobs who have created a mini-swamp in Cooperstown, NY. They go to each other’s wine tasting parties and pretend they’re Important People. Gentry class. Folks with lots of money who want to keep Upstate as their own private playground. You know…keep the poor folks away from your property, unless they’re mowing the lawn or weeding the garden. God forbid people like disgusting farmers should actually make money on drilling or pipelines. These are the type of people behind a group called Otsego2000. They just can’t accept the reality that their will is not being obeyed in blocking a VERY modest upgrade to an existing pipeline that runs through Upstate–called the New Market Project. Dominion’s New Market Project (currently under construction) consists of building two new compressor plants and upgrading another to help flow more abundant, cheap and clean-burning Marcellus Shale gas from Pennsylvania into the northeast (see