ME2 Work in Lebanon, PA Halted for Spilling a Single Cup of Mud
A single cup of drilling mud, bentonite, is nothing. It is beyond nothing. Bentonite is the clay-based compound used to make toothpaste, lipstick and kitty litter. It is completely non-toxic–it goes on and in the human body! And yet when underground drilling work restarted at Snitz Creek in Lebanon County, PA for the Mariner East 2 pipeline project, a single cup of drilling mud (bentonite) came out where it wasn’t supposed to (in the creek), so once again the whole shebang was shut down. Which we find crazy. What’s next–shutting down drilling when a tablespoon of drilling mud comes out? A teaspoon? Look, we get it. There have been other spills at Snitz Creek (see ME2 Construction in Lebanon County Stopped for 50 Gal Mud Spill). If a cup comes out, maybe it will be followed by a gallon coming out. And if a gallon comes out, maybe 10 gallons or even 50 gallons will follow. Immediately halting all underground horizontal directional drilling used to install the pipeline under Snitz Creek is an “abundance of caution” thing. But come on! So what if 10 or even 50 gallons comes out? It’s bentonite and its non-toxic! Spilling 50 gallons of the stuff in the creek is like spilling 10 bags of kitty litter in the creek. A few fish and salamanders might die. So what? That’s the price of progress. Here’s the crazy news that a single cup of drilling mud has once again stopped ME2 work in Lebanon County at Snitz Creek…
Read More “ME2 Work in Lebanon, PA Halted for Spilling a Single Cup of Mud”
It’s one thing for a landowner (or Big Green supporter, sometimes one and the same) to oppose a pipeline project by protesting, asking politicians to get involved, writing to regulatory agencies, etc. We have a great American tradition of free speech. Go for it. But it’s quite another thing to “harass, intimidate and interfere” with work crews in an area by screaming at them and shooting your “large caliber gun” near where they’re working. Columbia Gas Transmission is currently building the Mountaineer XPress Pipeline, a $2 billion, 170-mile pipeline that will flow 2.7 billion cubic feet (Bcf) per day of natural gas from existing and future points of receipt along or near the Columbia pipeline system–most of it located in West Virginia (see 
This story stretches back four years. In November 2014, MDN told you about anti-drillers in Lebanon County, PA who had succumbed to shiny object syndrome and transferred their irrational hatred of fossil fuels from the Williams Atlantic Sunrise pipeline project to the already-in-the-ground but getting repurposed Sunoco Logistics Mariner East 1 pipeline (see 
A faux religious group calling itself the Interfaith Alliance for Climate Justice (IACJ) is mad that this past Tuesday 27 agencies (many of them police departments) from across the Richmond, VA metro region trained together for a large-scale civil unrest opposing pipelines. Which is totally realistic. The IACJ, a Virginia-based nonprofit 501(c)(3), says it was organized for “supporting resistance to the Mountain Valley Pipeline and Atlantic Coast Pipeline.” Community organizers. Anarchists who refuse to follow the rule of law. That the police in the greater Richmond area are preparing to deal with them is smart. IACJ calls it, “American fascism, state violence, late stage capitalism, state repression.” We call the IACJ not only anti-capitalist, but anti-American. They are the fascists, in the truest sense of the word…
Canadian natural gas customers in Ontario and Quebec can expect to begin paying less for their gas, courtesy of their American cousins. Starting last week, Marcellus/Utica gas is now flowing all the way to the Dawn Hub in Ontario, via the Rover Pipeline connected to the Vector Pipeline (see 
It’s been a long, tough fight to get the Mariner East 2 Pipeline (ME2) project built. In fact, it’s still not 100% built (it is about 98% done). Construction on a tiny section near Philadelphia is currently being stopped by a liberal judge (see 
Who knew that Quakers, formally known as the “Religious Society of Friends” or “Friends Church,” could be so, well, unfriendly? Turns out the Quakers, who at first blush you might think are conservative, like the Amish, are far-left liberals. At a recent meeting of the Roanoke Friends, the Quakers adopted a statement (below) to “speak out against two natural gas pipelines [Mountain Valley Pipeline and Atlantic Coast Pipeline] proposed in Virginia, and all pipelines transporting gas extracted by hydraulic fracking. Fracking is a process documented to contaminate air and water with toxic chemicals, accelerating climate change and encouraging our dependence on fossil fuels.” Sorry my Quaker friends, but you just out-and-out lied. Fracking is not documented to contaminate air and water with toxic chemicals. Period. If you have real scientific evidence to the contrary, please produce it. If we take them at their word, the “friendly” Quakers want all pipelines that flow natural gas everywhere–including the ones that feed their own homes (!)–to be shut down. All pipelines, including local utility pipelines that feed the homes of millions of Americans, flow “fracked” gas. Most gas these days is “fracked.” The “friendly” Quakers also state their support of illegal, law-breaking protesters who sit in trees against a judge’s order, to stop work on pipelines. The Quaker Friends in Roanoke have shown themselves to be just one more non-thinking, knee-jerk reacting group of liberals who really don’t know what they’re talking about…
We’re happy to report that “Fern” and “Decard” have joined “Ink,” “Sprout,” “Red” and “Nutty” back here on Mother Earth. No, we’re not talking about a new Disney “Snow White” remake (Sneezy, Sleepy, Dopey, et al). The names we listed are the names of so-called protesters who have been sitting in the tops of trees (or in the case of Fern and Nutty, on top of poles) in Virginia, part of an illegal action to prevent the construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. These last two protesters, Fern and Decard, were recently forced down to earth and arrested. Pipeline construction through the areas they once occupied has resumed. Which is good news. This bunch of kooks were making a mockery of our justice system. Nutty was a woman who sat on top of a pole for nearly two months. Yeah, her self-selected nom de guerre was appropriate. She finally came down two weeks ago when she ran out of Snickers bars (see 
On Friday, a small group of anti-drilling Democrats and RINOs introduced a “bi-partisan” resolution that would create yet another black hole to dump taxpayer money into–a so-called Commission to Study Pipeline Construction and Operations that would “recommend improvements for the safe transport of oil, natural gas and other hazardous liquids through pipelines.” The “bi-partisan” (meaning TOTALLY partisan and anti-pipeline) members include Republicans in Name Only from the Philadelphia area coupled with virulent antis from the Democrat party. They do their best, with the help of sycophantic supporters in the media, to make it sound like an unbiased, impartial look at how to make pipelines safer and better. It’s nothing of the sort. It’s a commission aimed at shutting down any more pipeline development in the Keystone State. The good news, if there can be said to be good news, is that resolutions and in this case the commission it would create have zero ability to impose laws or regulations. It is an exercise in bloviating, giving a bunch of windbags a forum from which to bash fossil fuels and the methods used to extract and transport them. We predict this resolution is going nowhere fast…