PA DEP Fines Drill Cuttings Landfill for Contaminated Runoff
Last year a sewage treatment facility in Belle Vernon (Fayette County, PA) claimed the effluent (runoff) it was receiving from a nearby landfill in Westmoreland County contained high levels of salt and radioactivity and was causing damage to their treatment system (see Another Post-Gazette Smear Job: Drill Cuttings Pollute Rivers). The landfill accepts drill cuttings–leftover rock and dirt from drilling holes (not wastewater)–yet the sewage treatment plant with help from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette made accusations against the landfill and the shale industry. The state Dept. of Environmental Protection has stepped in and brokered an agreement with the landfill (called a consent order) for the landfill to make certain corrective actions and (of course) pay a $24,000 fine.
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Big time opposition continues to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s plan to force the state to participate in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a tax on carbon aimed at coal and natural gas-fired electric power plants, with an eye to driving them out of business. We’ve written plenty about Wolf’s naked power grab, to force the state into RGGI without the legislature’s consent (
Pennsylvania Democrats are complaining about State Senate Republicans using a political tactic against the Dems that they themselves use. Which we find hilarious. We’re referring to a recently passed House Bill (HB) 1100, a bill to encourage new petrochemical plant investment in PA (see 
In September 2018, MDN brought you the news that six men had been charged with conspiring to illegally alter emissions systems on 30+ trucks with heavy-duty diesel engines, trucks used to haul water and wastewater to and from Marcellus Shale wells (see 
Yesterday the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) released a draft of its proposed rules for PA’s participation in what is called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). It’s a tax on carbon aimed at coal and natural gas-fired electric power plants, with an eye to driving them out of business. PA Gov. Tom Wolf is attempting to force PA to participate in RGGI, a collection of blue northeastern states (New England, NY and NJ) in an attempt to bolster his credibility with environmentalist wackos–to ingratiate himself with the wackos so he is more appealing as a Vice Presidential candidate.
A brand new study (full copy below) published in the peer-reviewed Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) looked at 25 small watersheds over the course of 2 years in northeastern Pennsylvania, looking for any possible correlation between fracking and local streams. Know what they found? There is NO impact from fracking on local streams. NONE. Those who worked on the study include researchers from the US Geological Survey, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), and the Pennsylvania Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR).
UGI Corp. has just won a case on appeal at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit that overturns an order by a lower court ordering UGI to pay more than $380,000 combined to two sets of property owners for taking their land as part of the Sunbury Pipeline in Snyder County, PA. The landowners who sued used a so-called expert whose testimony was, according to the judges, “speculation and conjecture” and “not good science.” Therefore the lower court award was overturned.
In January the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) finally, after more than a year, agreed to lift a moratorium on new construction work for several Energy Transfer pipeline projects in the state, including the Mariner East 2 and 2X projects (see 
The fix is in. A bankruptcy judge in Delaware yesterday announced he is awarding the sale of the closed Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) refinery to a Chicago developer that has plans to demolish the East Coast’s largest and oldest refinery–and replace it with big, smelly, noisy warehouses with trucks coming and going day and night. The judge’s remarks are telling, citing as one of his main reasons for dumping the refinery is the facility’s “numerous and repeated problems.”
Three cheers for Pennsylvania State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R-Butler). Hip hip hooray! Metcalfe is the Majority Chair of the House Environmental Committee. He’s not a big believer in the hoax/myth of man-made global warming, and he’s not afraid to say so. Because Metcalfe won’t bow down to the climate change worshipers and their twisted agenda, a cabal of “green” groups has colluded to demand House Speaker Mike Turzai fire Metcalfe from the Environmental Committee. When pigs fly my climate changer friends!
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s Santa Claus routine is wearing thin. As he has done year after year with his annual proposed budgets, Wolf once again is calling for a massive tax increase of $4.5 billion, assessed solely on the Marcellus Shale industry, in order to fund a panoply of projects (see 
Yesterday MDN brought you news about Democrat trade union members in Pennsylvania turning on one of their own–Gov. Tom Wolf (see 
The sale of the bankrupt former Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) refinery has officially become a soap opera. Last June a series of explosions and a massive fire at the facility, the East Coast’s oldest and largest oil refinery, closed it down (see