Mass. Landowners Say Patriotic Duty to Oppose NED Pipeline
MDN is strongly in favor of property rights. “You don’t tell me I can’t allow drilling a shale well or a pipeline–and I don’t tell you that you must allow it.” That’s always been our guiding philosophy. It pains us when pipeline companies use eminent domain to force landowners to allow a pipeline to be built. Having said that, it’s a pipeline! It’s underground. Farmers can plant crops over top of it after it’s in the ground. After a few years, you’re hard pressed to even tell where the pipeline is buried! We say if there’s widespread opposition to pipelines in a given community, don’t bother building it there. However, if there’s a handful of holdout landowners (often driven by global warming insanity), eminent domain may be justified. Life is complex. These issues are complex. Again, forcefully using eminent domain against any landowner–even the stupid anti-drilling ones–pains us. We don’t like it. But eminent domain is part of our laws, created to benefit wider society. We spotted an article about some Massachusetts landowners who equate opposing Kinder Morgan’s Northeast Energy Direct pipeline with being patriotic, like the patriots from the original Boston Harbor Tea Party revolt. We had to laugh…
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Yesterday the Pennsylvania State House and Senate energy committees voted to disapprove the state Dept. of Environmental Protection’s proposed new Article 78 and 78a drilling rules. In February when the Pennsylvania Environmental Quality Board (EQB) approved the new regulations after those regs were vigorously opposed by conventional drillers in the state, the Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association (PIOGA) blasted the decision calling the DEP “deceptive” (see 
West Virginia’s largest natural gas LDC (local distribution company) is Mountaineer Gas–with 220,000 customers, 450 employees and servicing 49 of WV’s 55 counties. Mountaineer Gas maintains close to 6,000 miles of pipeline. They’d like to add another 56 miles of pipelines to that number. Mountaineer has filed an application with the WV Public Service Commission to build a $45 million expansion of their distribution network in Berkeley, Jefferson and Morgan counties (the eastern panhandle of WV). Why? To deliver more Marcellus Shale gas to industrial customers who want to build manufacturing plants in the region. There is some natural gas in the area now–but not nearly enough. The new lines, which are not high pressure transmission lines but low pressure distribution lines, would bump up the volume of gas and deliver it to locations where new plants want to build. Local economic development people are excited as this provides a foundation for long-term growth in the region. Below are the details of Mountaineer’s application, along with a copy of the official paperwork they’ve filed with the WV PSC…