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SRBC Water Withdrawal Restrictions Hit 42 PA Oil & Gas Operators

The weather has been fantastic for those of us living in the northeastern U.S. over the past few weeks. Clear blue skies (when they aren’t clouded with wildfire smoke from Canada), really warm temperatures, and absolutely no rain to spoil outdoor activities. Here in the Binghamton, NY area, we went from a surplus of rain and swollen rivers and lakes just a month ago to a rain deficit today. Lawns and fields and beginning to turn brown. Hey, we’re not complaining! But we do need some rain. The lack of rain in the Susquehanna River Basin has triggered water withdrawal restrictions for 42 oil and gas drillers and four other large water users (46 in all) by the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC). In many cases, the SRBC order is to “cease withdrawal.”
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Shell, Archaea Energy Explore Carbon Capture Projects for SW, NE PA

click for larger version

Two different companies working on two different plans have met with Pennsylvania’s Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to discuss potential carbon capture and storage/sequestration (CCS) projects in the Keystone State. Shell, which is nearly done building its multi-billion-dollar ethane cracker in Beaver County, PA, is looking to establish a CCS project in Beaver County. Archaea Energy, one of the largest so-called renewable natural gas (RNG) producers in the U.S., is looking to set up a CCS project in Lackawanna County, PA (near Scranton).
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DEP Issues Permit to Expand Scranton Landfill, More Drill Cuttings

For the past seven years a privately-owned dump near Scranton, the Keystone Sanitary Landfill, has sought to expand in order to accept more garbage. The dump is also authorized to accept Marcellus Shale drill cuttings–rock and soil leftover after drilling. Yesterday the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) announced after seven years of study, hearings, meetings, and whatever else the DEP does to fiddle away the time, they have finally approved Keystone’s request to expand.
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PA AG Continues to Target Marcellus re Keystone Landfill in NEPA

MDN has been writing about a privately-owned dump near Scranton, the Keystone Sanitary Landfill, for the past decade (see our stories here). Although the dump accepts all sorts of toxic substances, one of the more benign waste streams it accepts is drill cuttings from Marcellus Shale drillers. Anti-fossil fuelers would have you believe those cuttings are radioactive and will make you glow in the dark. It’s bogus. But now the state’s anti-fossil fuel Attorney General, Josh Shapiro, is investigating Keystone looking for evidence of radioactivity.
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Know-Nothing Anti Tries to Scare NEPA Town into Banning LNG Trucks

It might help anti-fossil fuel radicals if they at least got a few of their facts right. Facts are typically missing from their hysterical proclamations. Case in point: An anti addressed the Ransom Township board earlier this week (Scranton, PA suburb) to try and convince the board to pass a resolution against trucks hauling LNG from traveling through the community on the way to Interstate 81. Her wild claims were false.
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Biden Goes to Scranton, Says He Won’t Ban Fracking “Right Now”

Joe Biden held a drive-in “town hall” with a couple hundred of his closest friends attending last night in Scranton, PA. CNN, which hosted the town hall, covered up what Biden actually said about his intention to ban fracking. Why are we not surprised? What Biden said was that he would not ban fracking “right now,” leaving the open question of when (not if) he intends to ban it.
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Scranton Newspaper Whips Up Town Opposition to NFE LNG Plant

The anti-fossil fuel zealots at the Scranton Times-Tribune (in Lackawanna County, PA) are doing their darnedest to try and stop an $800 million LNG liquefaction plant (generating hundreds of jobs) planned for nearby Bradford County. On Monday we told you the zealots were attempting to whip up a frenzy of opposition to the plant, based on trucks that would travel through the borough of Clarks Summit, a suburb of Scranton (see New Fortress Energy LNG from NEPA to NJ Truck Route Revealed). Looks like it worked. The Times-Tribune has scared the bejesus out of Clarks Summit and the borough council has passed a resolution opposing the plant.
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Scranton Newspaper Seeks to Destroy $800M Wyalusing LNG Plant, Jobs

The leftists who run and write the Scranton Times-Tribune are at it again–doing anything and everything they can to destroy the Marcellus industry that singlehandedly has created more new jobs and raised the standard of living for more people in northeastern PA than any other industry in the past generation–the Marcellus industry. The new target for Times-Tribune is a proposed $800 million LNG liquefaction plant in Wyalusing, PA (in nearby Bradford County). The Times-Tribune editors say the plan to build the plant and transport the LNG via rail is too “risky” and northeast PA will be just fine without an extra $800 million and hundreds of jobs. Dopes.
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EmberClear Drops Plan to Build Gas-Fired Elec Plant Near Scranton

Pennsylvania’s largest natural gas-fired electric plant, Invenergy’s 1,480 megawatt, $1 billion project called the Lackawanna Energy Center, has been completely done and fully online since earlier this year (see Huge Marcellus-Fired Power Plant Near Scranton Now 100% Complete). In 2016 EmberClear announced it wanted to build Lackawanna County’s second Marcellus-fired electric plant project, going so far as to get a required air permit. Plans for EmberClear’s Lackawanna project are now dead.
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PA Legislators Float Bill to Attract Cracker-Sized Projects to NEPA

Yesterday two northeast Pennsylvania legislators–state Representative Aaron Kaufer (Republican) and state Senator John Yudichak (Democrat)–hosted a rally to promote proposed new bipartisan legislation aimed at luring a “world-class” petrochemical manufacturing plant to the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area. A big plant, on the order of the Shell cracker plant in southwestern PA. But no, not an ethane cracker. The kind of plant the two legislators want to attract in northeastern PA would leverage the huge volume of locally extracted Marcellus dry gas (i.e. methane).
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Lawsuit: Jessup Board Colluded to Punish Gas Plant Property Seller

A landowner in Jessup Borough (Lackawanna County, PA, near Scranton) has filed a lawsuit against the Borough Council as a whole (and the individuals who serve on it), claiming they rezoned the landowner’s property, cutting them out of millions of dollars, as retribution because the landowner had the audacity to sell property to the Marcellus gas-fired Lackawanna Energy Center (LEC) power plant.
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Caught on Video: Frack Sand Train Goes Off Rails Near Scranton

Derailed train in Dickson City – click for larger version

Around noon yesterday, a train moving slowly, at 10 miles per hour, was hauling lumber and frack sand from Scranton to nearby Carbondale, when a video surveillance camera caught the train leaving the rails. Ten cars derailed, with three tipping over completely (spilling sand) and one teetering on the brink. The video, taken from a police station across the street, is amazing.
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Jessup Votes to Allow Power Plant Water in Local Sewage System

Credit: Power Technology (click for larger version)

Here’s one we consider a conundrum. In Jan. 2018 MDN told you that the Borough of Jessup (Lackawanna County), PA was supposed to rule, quickly, on a request by Invenergy to allow a new power plant it was building at the time to, when fully built and operating, discharge up to 56,600 gallons of “wastewater” (heated water) per day in the borough’s sewage system (see New Town Board Tries to Stop Nearly-Done Gas-Fired Plant in Jessup). The plant has been operating since early this year, but the borough just voted to approve the sewage wasterwater plan…yesterday.
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PA Anti Group Seeks to Block New NatGas Elec Plants with New Law

The radical group Citizens for a Healthy Jessup is floating a plan to try and prevent any new Marcellus gas-fired electric plants from getting built in the Keystone State. Aided and abetted by a corrupt local newspaper, the group tries to pass itself off as a collection of local concerned citizens. It’s nothing of the sort.
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PA DEP to Issue “Acid Rain Permit” to Scranton Gas-Fired Power Plant

Pennsylvania’s largest operating natural-gas fired electric generating plant, Lackawanna Energy Center (LEC) near Scranton (in Jessup), will soon receive a permit officially allowing and capping sulfur dioxide emissions from the plant. Should nearby residents be concerned?
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