Leftist Radicals in Pittsburgh Try to Redefine Oil & Gas “Bad Actors”
What makes an oil and gas company (specifically a driller) a “bad actor”? Anti-fossil fuel zealots believe they’ve found a clever way of smearing Marcellus drillers and painting them as “bad actors” by citing how many notices of violation (NOVs) the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) has issued to a driller. The problem is, those notices are highly inconsistent and many times are for relatively minor (quickly fixable) “infractions” against regulations. Citing a high number of NOVs sounds impressive and scares people, which is the important thing for antis.
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In early 2013 the Pittsburgh International Airport and Allegheny County, PA, signed a deal with CONSOL Energy (now CNX Resources) to lease 9,000 acres surrounding the airport for natural gas drilling (see 
What’s fair is fair. If a county blocks drilling under county-owned land, as the Allegheny County Council recently did (see 
The leftist members of the Allegheny, PA County Council have proven just how leftward they have lurched (and how unhinged they have become). Last night the Council voted to overturn the veto of a ban on drilling for natural gas under (never on top of) county parks. The Council’s action denies taxpayers millions of dollars in revenue to fix and repair and expand county parks. County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, a Democrat himself, vetoed the idiotic ban, but the Democrats of the County Council just couldn’t help themselves. They voted to override Fitzgerald’s veto. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Welcome to the People’s Republic of Allegheny County.
As he promised to do, Allegheny County, PA County Executive Rich Fitzgerald vetoed a horrible bill passed by County Council that would prohibit drilling and fracking *under* county-owned parks (see 
For the week of July 4-10, the three Marcellus/Utica states issued 37 permits to drill new shale wells. Pennsylvania led the way, as it typically does, by issuing 25 new permits. Three PA drillers tied with six permits each, all six (in each case) on the same pad: Olympus Energy in Allegheny County, Repsol in Bradford County, and Clean Energy Exploration in Tioga County. Ohio issued five new permits, with four going to Encino Energy for a single pad in Carroll County. West Virginia issued seven new permits, all of them to Antero Resources in Doddridge County but spread across three pads.
Plum Boro (Allegheny County, PA) officials and environmental leftist groups (backed by Big Green foreign money) are gearing up to oppose Plum’s second wastewater injection well with smears and lies. A long-fought-over wastewater injection well in Plum finally opened for business in mid-2021, having overcome all sorts of smears and slanders and lawsuits by the enviro-left (see 
Since 2013 anti-fossil fuel zealots–people with an irrational hatred of fossil fuels–have tried to ban drilling under (not on) public parks in Allegheny County, PA (near Pittsburgh). A small group of 100 radicals gathered outside the City-County building in downtown Pittsburgh last week to throw a collective temper tantrum, demanding Allegheny County Council ban any new drilling under county-owned parks (see 
Since 2013 anti-fossil fuel zealots–people with an irrational hatred of fossil fuels–have tried to ban drilling under (not on) public parks in Allegheny County, PA (near Pittsburgh). A small group of perhaps 100 radicals gathered outside the City-County building in downtown Pittsburgh last night to throw a collective temper tantrum, demanding Allegheny County Council ban any new drilling under (not on) county-owned parks.
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” (Quote attributed to Joseph Goebbels, the head of Nazi Germany’s Ministry of Propaganda) The left so often adopts the attitude if you keep repeating the same lie over and over–preferably the bigger the lie the better–the lie will become accepted as the truth. State Sen. Katie Muth, D-Montgomery, chair of the Pennsylvania Senate Democratic Policy Committee, and Sen. Jim Brewster, D-Allegheny, are expert practitioners of this strategy with respect to lying about the Marcellus Shale and fracking. They were at it again last week holding a public (i.e. propaganda) hearing at the Community College of Allegheny County.
Engineers at the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering are developing a new way to reduce the environmental impact of drilling and fracking by cleaning produced water for reuse. Produced water is the water that comes out of the hole long after drilling and fracking is done. It is “water from the depths”–far below the water table–and it’s full of minerals, which is why it’s often called brine (or salt). Pitt engineers have researched membrane distillation (MD) to treat this salty wastewater. Pitt has discovered how to use MD to economically recycle and reuse produced water from shale.
In early 2013 the Pittsburgh International Airport and Allegheny County, PA signed a deal with CONSOL Energy (now CNX Resources) to lease 9,000 acres surrounding the airport for natural gas drilling (see 
Olympus Energy (formerly Huntley & Huntley) drills in the Greater Pittsburgh region, in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties. Last year Olympus filed an application to build a new well pad in a rural part of Allegheny County, in West Deer Township. So-called “concerned citizens” got amped up to oppose the project. They succeeded when the Dionysus well pad was rejected by town supervisors (see