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PA DEP Issues Permits for Transco Northeast Expansion Pipe Project

A little over a month ago, MDN brought you the good news that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has approved the Williams Regional Energy Access Expansion (REAE) project, a plan to beef up the Transco pipeline in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to deliver an extra 829 MMcf/d of Marcellus gas to PA, NJ, and Maryland (see FERC Approves Transco $950M Northeast Expansion Pipe Project). We have more good news: The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) announced it has issued permits to Williams to allow the project to move forward with construction.
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PA PIPE Grants to Extend Gas Pipelines in Monroe, Snyder Counties

Pennsylvania’s Pipeline Investment Program (or PIPE) grants cover 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 of the more-than-a-dozen (so far) PIPE grant projects in the past (see our PIPE stories here). Two more PIPE grants totaling over $1 million have just been awarded–one in Synder County, the other in Monroe County.
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PA Awards 4 More Grants to Extend NatGas Pipelines – $2.3M

Pennsylvania’s Pipeline Investment Program (or PIPE) grants cover part of the cost for building new natural gas pipelines to connect homes and businesses in rural parts of the state to homegrown Marcellus Shale gas supplies. We’ve written about many of the more-than-a-dozen (so far) PIPE grant projects in the past (see our PIPE stories here). Another four such grants, totaling $2.3 million, have just been awarded–in Chester, Monroe and Northampton counties. The big news with this latest round of grants is that they will create 575 *permanent* new jobs in the Commonwealth. Some 500 of those jobs will be at a mushroom farm!
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Northeast PA Railroad Traffic Surges Due to Marcellus Shale

We love a good railroad story–always have, always will. And here’s a great railroad story. The freight trains in northeastern Pennsylvania will this year, once again, set a new record. Last year the Delaware-Lackawanna Railroad, which operates 85 miles of track in Lackawanna and Monroe counties, hauled 8,572 carloads. This year they will fly by that number, to a new record. Why? Mainly due to frack sand used by Linde Corp, which supplies sand to drillers in the region. Translation: Drilling picked up again in 2018 in northeastern PA.
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PA State Program Spends $980K for NatGas Pipe in Monroe County

Monroe County, PA

Every now and again Pennsylvania spends money to build new local distribution pipeline systems to bring home-grown Marcellus Shale gas to PA residents. The state has a program called the Pipeline Investment Program (PIPE). Last November the PIPE program committed $1 million (out of a $2.4 million project) to fund natural gas lines in Tunkhannock Township (Wyoming County), to provide Marcellus Shale gas to 102 residential homes, 13 businesses and several civic buildings (see PA Approves $2.4M Project to Run NatGas Pipes in Wyoming County). The program continues. On Friday the state announced another such investment–this time in Monroe County. The PIPE program is chipping in $980,000 as part of a $2.7 million project to construct a natural gas line extension along the Route 611 corridor in Pocono Township to the Monroe County Transit Authority…
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PA Game Commission Cuts ROW Deal with Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline

Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline map
Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline map – click for larger version

More progress for the Williams Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project. Atlantic Sunrise is a $3 billion, 198-mile project running through 10 Pennsylvania counties to connect Marcellus Shale natural gas from PA with the Williams’ Transco pipeline in southern Lancaster County. It is a much-needed pipeline to move more Marcellus gas south, to new markets. The progress is this: the Pennsylvania Game Commission has cut a right-of-way deal to allow the pipeline to traverse game lands in northern Lebanon County–including a crossing of the Appalachian Trail. But have no fear, Williams plans to drill under the Trail and not disturb the surface. In return for the right to cross a few acres of certain state-owned game lands in Lebanon County, the state is picking up a whopping 285 acres owned by Williams in Monroe and Lackawanna counties…
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League of Women Voters Questions New PA Reps on Fracking

Too funny. The League of [Liberal Democrat and Anti-Drilling] Women Voters held their annual beat-up-on-Republicans, er, a, “legislative coffee” with newly minted state representatives on Saturday at the Hughes Library in Stroudsburg (Monroe County), PA. All of the questions were, apparently, asked by the moderator of the event, the liberal Democrat editor of the Pocono Record, Paula Heeschen. On the hot seat were two newly elected Republicans to the PA House: Rep. David Parker, R-115, and Rep. Jack Rader, R-176. Heeschen tried her best to bait the pair with patently loaded and in many cases questions with false premises, like this one about fracking…
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FERC Says “No Significant Impact” from Leidy Southeast Pipeline

Williams is one very important step closer to beginning construction–this fall–on their Transco Leidy Southeast Expansion project. Last fall Williams filed an official application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for permission to proceed with the project, a $610 million project designed to increase the Transco pipeline’s capacity by 525,000 decatherms per day–enough natural gas to serve 2 million homes (see Williams Takes Next Step with Transco Leidy Pipeline Expansion). The expansion will pipe cheap, abundant NEPA Marcellus Shale gas to points from New York City to the southeastern U.S. The project includes construction of approximately 30 miles of additional pipe segments, called loops, in PA and NJ, in addition to modifying some existing compressor stations and valve sites. Earlier this week FERC reported the proposed changes would have “no significant impact” on the environment. What does that mean?…
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PA Town in Poconos Symbolically Votes to Condemn Fracking

The day before the PA Supreme Court ruled that towns must allow fracking but can impose their own zoning rules about where it is and isn’t used, the Stroudsburg Borough Council voted, unanimously, to pass a resolution (or depending on your news source, ordinance) that “condemns” fracking. Stroudsburg is located about five miles from the Delaware Water Gap in Monroe County, PA. It’s debatable whether or not there’s anything to frack under Stoudsburg. Because the borough is in the Delaware River Basin the DRBC doesn’t yet allow drilling there anyway–so the vote was purely symbolic.

The ring leader seems to be outgoing councilwoman Kathleen Lockwood who has proven her ignorance on the subject of fracking with her public comments on the matter (see below). Since this was a symbolic vote, we nominate Ms. Lockwood to symbolically remove herself from using all natural gas–she should quit heating her home with it, quit using it to cook her food, and quit using electricity in her home produced by using natural gas–you know, to show the rest of us her resolve in opposing fracking. If fracking is so bad and evil, surely she would want to quit using the results of that fracking–natural gas–right? What’s that? Not so fast? Let’s not be hasty now! Yeah, that’s what we thought…
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