Martins Ferry Mayor Gives Update on Closed Frack Wastewater Facility
Yesterday, MDN reported that Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost took legal action on Monday, seeking to force Austin Master Services (AMS) in Martins Ferry (Belmont County), OH, to correct “egregious violations of Ohio law” regarding the storage of oil and gas waste that he says threatens the Ohio River and Martins Ferry’s drinking water supply (see Ohio AG Sues Austin Master Services for Unsafe Storage of Wastewater). Last night, Martins Ferry Mayor John Davies addressed the ongoing situation of the now-shuttered AMS facility at the biweekly City Council meeting. We learned some interesting things in reading his comments.
4/8/24: Please see an important update about the ownership of AMS below.
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Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the seemingly moribund effort to drill shale wells on land located in Ohio’s Wayne National Forest (WNF) is active once again. WNF is a patchwork of public and private mineral rights that covers over a quarter million acres of Appalachian foothills of southeastern Ohio. For years, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) blocked new permits and drilling in WNF. During the Trump administration, the BLM began to auction off federal leases and permits (
Earlier this month, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), corrupted by the Bidenistas, voted 3-2 (three Democrats vs. two Republicans) to issue a final regulation that will force all publicly traded companies to disclose their so-called greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the imaginary climate risks their businesses face (see 
Last week, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved an Enbridge project to update its East Tennessee Natural Gas (ETNG) pipeline system. The project is referred to as the ETNG System Alignment Program Project, a project that heretofore was not on our radar screen. ETNG plans to add two electric compressor stations and pipeline capacity in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. In what has become a typical pattern, FERC Chairman Willie Phillips (Democrat) and Commissioner Mark Christie (Republican) voted to approve the project. Radicalized Commissioner Allison Clements (Democrat, former NRDC attorney) voted against approving the project.
In 2004, Pennsylvania implemented one of the most aggressive mandates to adopt wind and solar energy. At the time, less than 1% of net energy generation came from wind and solar in the Keystone State. In 2023, after the state had spent nearly $1.5 billion in subsidies, wind and solar generated less than 2%. And yet current Gov. Josh Shapiro (liberal Democrat) wants to double down by requiring 35% of electricity to come from politically favored sources, such as wind and solar, by 2035. The one energy source that has PROVEN to reduce carbon dioxide emissions? That would be natural gas, which is not on the politically favored sources list.
Last week, MDN brought you a story about the rampant cost inflation for plugging old conventional abandoned and orphaned oil and gas wells in the Keystone State (see 
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) sent a letter to the Shell ethane cracker plant on Feb. 22 essentially saying, “You’re time is up.” The cracker plant facility has 120 days from Feb. 22 (until Jun. 21) to file for a federal Title V Operating Permit for air emissions. If the facility doesn’t at least file for the permit, it’s lights out until it does.
The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) is shopping for a public relations firm that can help the agency convince gullible New Yorkers that they’re better off paying more money for unreliable renewable energy than they are in using fossil fuels like natural gas. NYSERDA is offering $500,000 for a one-year contract to help the agency tout its wide-ranging push to phase out gas cars in favor of electric vehicles, dump gas-heated homes in favor of electric heat, and eliminate fossil-fuel power generation in favor of solar and wind. While they’re at it, maybe they can sell you a bridge in Brooklyn, too.
Earlier this month, MDN told you that President Joementia Biden has nominated three new candidates to become Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) commissioners (see 
It’s full speed ahead for the radical anti-Marcellus Democrats in the Pennsylvania State Legislature. Last week, PA Gov. Josh Shapiro traveled to Scranton, PA, to do a dog-and-pony show announcing his personalized version of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon tax that would apply only to PA (see 
Honestly, we can’t heap enough praise on the excellent work done by Pennsylvania shale drillers. It is unreasonable to expect there will be absolutely zero problems when engaging in something as complex as drilling a mile straight down and then one to four miles horizontally underground. Nothing in life is error-free. NOTHING. There’s always a problem. There’s always a slight error somewhere. Yet in PA drilling, only 54 shale wells out of 14,412 drilled since 2004 have resulted in the shale well “communicating with” (interfering with or leaking methane to) nearby water wells, conventional wells, abandoned wells, or other shale wells. That’s 0.0037 of the time, or 3.7 wells for every 1,000 drilled. Converting that number to a percentage, it’s 0.37% (about one-third of a single percentage point). Rounding further, it’s 0% of the time.
Where do business dreams go to die? New York State, of course. Yesterday, the New York State Senate passed a bill to ban the use of carbon dioxide (CO2) in any process to extract natural gas or oil in the so-called Empire State. The NY Assembly (our state’s lower chamber) voted to approve the same bill a week ago (see 
Plugging old abandoned (which means no longer producing) and orphaned (meaning the owner is not known) wells is not a simple thing to do. It’s estimated that Pennsylvania has perhaps 350,000 old abandoned and orphaned wells, many of them leftover from the early days of conventional oil drilling. The problem is finding them. Many are in out-of-the-way places. Plugging them cheaply is no simple matter. PA, OH, and WV have received millions from the federal government to help with their well plugging programs in an effort to control so-called fugitive methane. Over the past year, PA has plugged over 200 old wells (see 
Last week, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro traveled to Scranton, PA, to do a dog-and-pony show announcing his personalized version of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon tax that would apply only to PA (see