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PA DCED Announces $501K Grant to Build NatGas Pipe to Greenhouse

Gov. Josh Shapiro (center) visits Little Leaf PA

Pennsylvania’s Pipeline Investment Program (PIPE) issues grants covering part of the cost for building new natural gas pipelines to connect homes and businesses, typically in rural parts of the state, to homegrown Marcellus Shale gas supplies. We’ve written about many PIPE grant projects in the past (see our PIPE stories here). Another PIPE grant was announced yesterday by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Community and Economic Development (DCED). This latest grant is for half a million dollars to help build a 3,000-foot pipe to help feed more Marcellus gas to a greenhouse operation that wants to expand.
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Carbon County, PA Joins PA Senate Lawsuit Against DRBC Frack Ban

Carbon County, PA

Carbon County, PA is the latest county to join in and support Pennsylvania’s Republican State Senators suing the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) over its ban on hydraulic fracturing. In a brilliant move aimed at boxing in the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), two northeastern Pennsylvania State Senators–Gene Yaw and Lisa Baker–along with members of the PA Senate Republican Caucus (27 Senators in all), filed a lawsuit in January against the DRBC accusing the quasi-governmental agency of “taking” the property rights of PA residents without just compensation under the law (see PA Senators Sue DRBC for “Taking” Property re Frack Ban). A group of 16 left-wing PA Democrat Senators filed to “intervene” in the lawsuit (see Court Lets 16 Anti-Drilling PA Senate Democrats Join DRBC Lawsuit). The battle lines are drawn. PA counties are lining up to support the Republicans in the lawsuit.
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First Domino Falls: Judge Grants PennEast Pipe Eminent Domain

It certainly seems as if the deck has been stacked against the PennEast Pipeline project, a $1 billion, 120-mile natgas pipeline that will stretch from northeast PA to the Trenton area of New Jersey. As we pointed out in November, DTE Energy’s NEXUS Pipeline, a 255-mile pipeline from Columbia County in Ohio to Southern Michigan, received its Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approval around the same time PennEast did, about a year ago. NEXUS is already built and flowing, PennEast hasn’t turned the first shovelful of dirt yet. It’s been a real battle for PennEast (see The War to Build PennEast Pipeline Continues). However, things are finally beginning to look up. Last week a federal judge granted PennEast its first approval in a string of eminent domain cases, giving PennEast the right to enter and survey a property in Carbon County, PA. Mixing our metaphors, last week’s decision is the first domino falling, with the rest sure to follow.
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Trout Unlimited Launches Spy/Snitch Program for PennEast Pipeline

Let’s be right up front about how we feel about the innocent-sounding Trout Unlimited (TU). Four years ago the organization was outed as a radical, far-left environmentalist group–hellbent on opposing fossil fuels (see Trout Unlimited, Other Groups Outted as Radical Green Groups). We have zero respect for the organization. Yes, there are some well-meaning (hoodwinked, misguided) people who belong to it. Good people. But tricked into supporting an anti-American, anti-fossil fuel agenda. (You need to get out!) TU has just announced a new spy/snitch training program to keep an eye on the PennEast Pipeline–when it actually starts to get built. TU will soon begin training for a so-called “water monitoring” program in PA counties where PennEast will run–Luzerne, Carbon, Northampton and Bucks counties. To which we say, knock yourselves out. PennEast has nothing to hide. The pipeline won’t negatively impact waterways–not in any meaningful, long-term way. So if you want to spy and snitch, go right ahead. There won’t be anything to snitch about…
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PennEast Pipeline’s Sole Compressor Station Approved by PA Town

PennEast Pipeline has just achieved yet another milestone on its way to getting built. At a meeting last Thursday, the Board of Supervisors for Kidder Township (Carbon County, PA) voted 5-0 in favor of issuing a permit to PennEast to site the one-and-only compressor station the 120-mile pipeline will need. Proving yet again that most Pennsylvanians are in favor of this project, contrary to the mainstream/leftist media drumbeat against it. PennEast is a $1 billion primarily 36-inch pipeline from Dallas (Luzerne County), PA to Transco’s pipeline interconnection near Pennington (Mercer County), NJ. The company expects final Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approval any week now. There are still a few hurdles left–mostly in New Jersey. But those hurdles are certainly surmountable. The radical Sierra Club and THE Delaware Riverkeeper are adamantly opposed and continue to try and throw up legal (and regulatory) roadblocks. No matter. This important pipeline will get built–and this compressor station approval is one more bit of evidence that it will get built…
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PA DEP Holds Public Hearing on PennEast Compressor Station

PennEast Pipeline is a $1 billion, 118-mile pipeline from Luzerne County, PA to Mercer County, NJ. Along the entire length of the pipeline, there will only be one compressor station–located in Carbon County, PA. This past Wednesday the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) conducted a public hearing on the compressor station plan. Nominally the hearing is to elicit feedback from the public. However, as is so often the case, these are not really hearings but theatrical performances where anti-drilling kooks put on the equivalent of a circus act. But antis weren’t the only ones who showed up for the hearing. Plenty of supporters were there too…
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Kidder Twp Approves Zoning for PennEast Compressor Station

A little good news to share about the PennEast Pipeline project–a $1 billion, 118-mile, primarily 36-inch pipeline that will get built from Dallas (Luzerne County), PA to Transco’s pipeline interconnection near Pennington (Mercer County), NJ. Last month PennEast got some bad news–a further delay from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in delivering a final environmental review. The review was supposed to be done last August, but got pushed to this December. Then in November, FERC announced it would be next February before the final review is delivered (see FERC Delays PennEast Pipeline Final Review – Again). That review is the big nut to crack. However, there are many smaller regulatory issues along the way that are also important. One of those is getting permission to build a few compressor stations along the pipeline’s route. One of those locations, in Carbon County, PA, has just approved PennEast’s plan to site a compressor station there…
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Iberdrola, Sierra Clubbers Booed at PA Windmill Hearing

Iberdrola windmill

We have nothing against wind energy–except that it’s produced by huge, ugly turbines that permanently scar the landscape with their presence, and they kill gazillions of bats and birds (including Bald Eagles) each year, and they are LOUD, with a constant wump, wump, wump 24/7/365. Compare that to natural gas. A few months after a natgas well is drilled and connected to a pipeline, you can’t even see the well from 200 feet away. A few years after the pipeline is in the ground, you can’t tell where it is! Everything grows back over top of it. The pipeline, and well, are literally out of sight and out of mind. Not so with windmills. They are a constant, unwelcome presence for many. Which explains why a room full of Pennsylvania residents (more than 300) packed a recent zoning hearing near Allentown, PA to express their opposition to Big Wind company Iberdrola’s plan to install 37 of these monsters on Penn Forest Township land. Iberdrola is a Spanish-based energy and utility company that makes billions of dollars each year from our federal government in return for installing these intrusive monsters. The Sierra Club is Iberdrola’s publicity whore (receiving money from Iberdrola). Both Iberdrola and the Sierra Clubber rep at the recent zoning meeting were, literally, booed out of the room. You won’t read that in the New York Times…
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PennEast Changes Route Where it Crosses Appalachian Trail

This story is cool on many levels. Score another PR victory, and another clever re-route, for the PennEast Pipeline. PennEast, you may recall, is a $1 billion, 110-mile, 36-inch diameter natural gas pipeline that will run from Luzerne County, PA to Mercer County, NJ. It is vigorously opposed by Big Green groups like the nutty Sierra Clubbers and THE Delaware Riverkeeper. Some who oppose it have threatened violence (see today’s companion story). Why? Because the PennEast will flow that evil, nasty fossil fuel called natural gas. Can’t have that, you know. PennEast has made a course correction that is sure to cut down on the time it requires to get approved. The course correction is where the PennEast will cross the Appalachian Trail in Carbon County, PA. The course correction also lets the PennEast deliver cheap Marcellus Shale gas to a new electric generating plant being built by the Blue Mountain Ski Resort…
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More Silly Antics from Antis at FERC PennEast Pipeline Hearing

We’ve been to a number of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) scoping hearings, as well as hearings by the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation. Whether it’s a hearing on pipelines, compressor stations or shale drilling, anti-fossil fuel nutters always show up and it seems as if they read from the same script every time. The latest example of that comes from Carbon County, PA where the silly antics of antis was on full display once again, this time at a FERC hearing on the PennEast Pipeline. Example: One anti-pipeline nutter used part of her 3 minutes of talk time to read the lyrics from a Disney movie (boggles the mind)…
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3rd New NEPA Marcellus Pipeline Proposed, Connects to Trenton, NJ

A third new pipeline has been proposed–seriously proposed and already in the planning stages–to carry Marcellus Shale gas from northeastern Pennsylvania all the way to New Jersey. Yesterday a consortium of four companies, including energy utility giant UGI, along with AGL Resources, NJR Pipeline Company (subsidiary of New Jersey Resources) and South Jersey Industries announced the PennEast Pipeline, a 105-mile long, 30” diameter interstate natural gas pipeline. The new pipeline will cost $1 billion to build (providing 2,000+ jobs for seven months) and when finished, carry 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. Here’s the full details for the new project…
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Help Wanted: PA Fire Truck Co. Retools to Build Marcellus Tankers

More positive impacts from the Marcellus drilling industry in Pennsylvania. A major employer in Carbon County, PA, Kovatch Mobile Equipment Corporation (in Nesquehoning), a company that previously manufactured mostly fire trucks, is hiring 40 new workers to help with a new business line: water hauling tankers used by the Marcellus Shale industry. Kovatch’s increase in employment is rippling throughout the entire local economy…

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