Allegheny County | Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Companies | EQT Corp | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Regulation
PA Supremes Allow Out-of-Town Hearsay in SWPA Zoning Dispute
It’s hard enough for drillers to get permits town by town in Pennsylvania, where the standards are all different thanks to the seven selfish towns that appealed the Act 13 law passed in 2012 (see PA Supreme Court Rules Against State/Drillers in Act 13 Case). The PA Supreme Court has just made it even harder for drillers–by allowing antis from other towns to offer “testimony” in towns where they don’t live, essentially to trash talk a driller’s request for a permit. At best the “testimony” from other towns is hearsay, not substantiated. The Supremes, ruling in a case in Allegheny County, said towns can allow hearsay. Bad move.
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The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) has just fined EQT $330,775 for erosion and sedimentation violations at two well sites in Forward Township, Allegheny County, PA. Water with sediment in it leaked from the well sites in early 2018, which sometimes happens. The reason for the stiff fine is that EQT failed to notify the DEP when it happened. If the DEP finds out via its own inspections first, the cost goes way up.
Yesterday the Pennsylvania Senate Democratic Policy Committee held a hearing in Pittsburgh, supposedly on strategies for combating mythical man-made global warming by reducing methane gas emissions. It reality it was an anti-shale crapfest, complete with speeches by radicals from PennFuture and the Environmental Defense Fund.
It’s no secret that upstream companies (drillers) like EQT are trimming head count and reducing annual spending. So it probably won’t come as a surprise that EQT has put 46,000 square feet (out of 250,000 sq. ft.) in its palatial headquarters in downtown Pittsburgh up for sublease. Meanwhile, in a contrasting bit of news, midstream (pipeline) company Williams has just renewed the lease for its big regional Pittsburgh headquarters at Park Place Corporate Center–a 112,481 sq. ft. building.
Shale driller Huntley & Huntley, headquartered in Monroeville (Allegheny County), PA drilled at least one well last year in the Pittsburgh suburb of Plum (also in Allegheny County). According to a landowner living nearby, H&H’s drilling and fracking of the Midas 8M well led to their water well becoming fouled. H&H disputes the claim.
Last night people opposed to drilling a few wells at the U.S. Steel Edgar Thomson Plant in a Pittsburgh suburb turned up to complain that somehow a noisy, air-polluting steel plant will be made even nosier and more polluting by drilling a few shale wells on the property. It’s an absurd position to argue, but there you go.
Next Wednesday the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection will hold a public hearing on plans to drill a shale well(s) on the property of U.S. Steel Corporation’s Edgar Thomson Plant in a Pittsburgh suburb. What’s so unusual about the well(s) is that U.S. Steel itself will be “the sole consumer of the natural gas extracted.” That is, U.S. Steel will use the gas to power/feed the steel plant.
In early 2018, the federal EPA approved a new Marcellus wastewater injection well for the Pittsburgh suburb of Plum Borough (see 
More than a month ago MDN editor Jim Willis was contacted by PublicSource, an independent non-profit news organization based in Pittsburgh. A reporter wanted to know if Jim would grant an interview as part of a story he was doing on the Shell cracker, pipelines and the petchem industry in southwest Pennsylvania. Jim said yes.
On Tuesday EQT filed lawsuits in both Pennsylvania and federal courts against two former employees it had fired, claiming the employees, before they were fired (sensing it was coming) had systematically copied confidential information from company computers and took it with them when they left.
It appears the “leaders” of Franklin Park Borough in Allegheny County aren’t satisfied enough that they’ve rejected a free $1 million from PennEnergy Resources to drill under a town park (see 
The political “leaders” in Franklin Park (Allegheny County, near Pittsburgh) have decided to reject a proposal to drill a shale well under (not on) the 80-acre Linbrook Park. With a signing bonus of $283,500 plus 18% royalties, the Franklin Park Borough would have seen revenue of *at least* $1 million. Talk about stupid.