Air Quality | Electrical Generation | Industrywide Issues | Lackawanna County | Pennsylvania | Regulation
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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Three families who live near a former drill site and frack wastewater impoundment at the Yeager Marcellus Shale site in Washington County, PA sued Range Resources in May 2012 claiming the air they breathe and the water they drink had been contaminated by Range’s operations at the site (see 
The folks at Argus Media have done an analysis of the number of shale well permits issued in Pennsylvania for January 2019. The numbers show the number of new permits issued during January were up 72% from the number issued in December 2018, but down 11% from the number of permits issued in January 2018, one year earlier. Can we divine anything from this mixed bag of numbers?
One of the long-running complaints from shale drillers across Pennsylvania has been the amount of time it takes the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to issue a simple permit–like an erosion and sediment control permit.
Perhaps two unrelated cases of individual landowners challenging Energy Transfer’s Mariner East 2 (ME2) Pipeline–one in court, the other with regulators–doesn’t make a trend, but it is worth noting. Our antennae are up.
It’s good to step back every now and again and look at who is drilling, how much they are drilling, and where they are drilling. We have such a list below for the 42 active shale drillers in Pennsylvania.
CNX was fracking their Shaw 1G Utica well in Washington Township on Saturday, Jan. 26, when they detected “a strong drop in pressure” and stopped fracking (see 
A startling revelation came from yesterday’s court hearing in the tiny village of Montrose, PA. Some of the landowners from Dimock, PA who have traveled around the country claiming their water had been contaminated by Cabot Oil & Gas (remember the fraud “documentary” called Gasland?) were actually paid up to $5,000 *per month* by green groups to spread their lies.
When people communicate, that’s a good thing. When a shale well “communicates” with nearby conventional wells, that’s a bad thing. And that’s what happened with a CNX Resources Utica well being fracked in Westmoreland County last week.
Yes, we told you so. We told you that if our friends in PA were to unwisely reelect Tom Wolf for a second (and thankfully final) term as governor, he would continue to fight for a Marcellus-killing severance tax each and every year of his ignominious second term. Democrats (and some Republicans) just can’t keep their hands off other people’s money–it’s in their DNA.
In November the Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed to hear a case, Briggs v. Southwestern Energy, that is hands-down the most important court case to ever happen regarding the Marcellus Shale in PA. And no, we’re not exaggerating. A blizzard of briefs by Southwestern and those supporting Southwestern were filed earlier this week.
