EPA’s “No Wastewater @ Sewage Plant” Rule Snags PA Conv. Drillers
A federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation meant to ban wastewater coming from unconventional (shale) wells from being disposed via municipal sewage treatment plants is about to go into effect in August. The new reg, which was first issued by the Obama EPA in 2016 (see EPA Bans Disposal of Frack Wastewater at Public Sewer Plants), will also apply to (snag) a number of Pennsylvania’s conventional oil and gas drillers. Further collateral damage from the new regulation will be local municipalities, some of which will lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue–an economic catastrophe for those communities.
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It’s not every day you read an editorial in a prominent Pennsylvania newspaper lending a full-throated endorsement for PA’s impact fee over a so-called severance tax, but it just happened in Williamsport. The Sun-Gazette editorial board published a column pointing out the superiority of an impact fee (actually an impact tax) over a severance tax. They make some great points, pointing out the numbers speak for themselves…
Invenergy’s 1,480 megawatt, $1 billion Marcellus gas-fired electric plant, called the Lackawanna Energy Center (located near Scranton, PA), is now 100% done with construction. Yesterday the company celebrated the end of construction with a special ceremony and tour.
Competitive Power Ventures (CPV) finally broke ground and began to build a new Marcellus gas-fired power plant in Cambria County, PA in October 2017 (see 
Do you consider it “free speech” to assemble a mob outside someone’s home at 2 o’clock in the morning and start hollering and shouting, beating a drum, thereby threatening and menacing an innocent family in that home? We sure don’t call it free speech. We call it gang activity–or maybe even terrorism. When the people inside the home feel threatened, what else can you call it? That’s what happened to EQT’s then-CEO Rob McNally and his family in the early morning hours of July 10, the day he lost his job following EQT’s annual meeting. Those outside doing the terrorizing were radical anti-fossil fuel nutters–some from out of state. Crazies. They should have been arrested. They weren’t.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has just published its 2018 Oil and Gas Annual Report. This is the third year in a row the DEP has published the report in an interactive, electronic (i.e.online) format ONLY. What does the 2018 report show?
Last July a group of 100+ southwestern Pennsylvania landowners sued EQT for failure to pay them rental fees for storing natural gas under their properties (see 
When so-called protesters take the law into their own hands and illegally block a legal activity, like building a pipeline, they should be arrested and the maximum sentence should be enforced. If that doesn’t happen, people begin to disrespect and not trust our legal system. Such a miscarriage of justice happened yesterday in Lancaster County, PA. A group of seven radicalized anti-pipeline activists, including an 88-year-old grandma, were given a pass by a local judge for their illegal actions in blocking pipeline construction back in 2017. One more erosion of our legal system.
A project we’ve been tracking since 2017, a 620 megawatt Marcellus-fired electric plant in Greene County called Hill Top Energy Center (
A little over a year ago CNX Resources announced that the company had signed a long-term contract with Evolution Well Services to use Evolution’s 100% natural gas-fueled electric pressure pumping equipment (see 
It seems the door *does* swing both ways when it comes to Pennsylvania municipalities and the Act 13 lawsuit decision that allows municipalities to have a say in zoning in, or zoning out, shale drilling. In 2013 seven selfish PA towns won the right, from the PA Supreme Court, to impose their own zoning rules on oil and gas drilling (see 
Competitive Power Ventures (CPV) finally broke ground and began to build a new Marcellus gas-fired power plant in Cambria County, PA in October 2017 (see 
In late June, MDN brought you the sad news that Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES), which operates the East Coast’s largest refinery on the banks of the Delaware River, has decided to close, throwing 1,020 people out of work following a recent fire (see