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PA AG Continues Marcellus Witch Hunt, Impanels Grand Jury
PA Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a sleazy politician, is investigating so-called environmental “crimes” committed by shale companies in a bid to boost his chances of being the next nominee to run for governor (see PA AG Investigates Shale Drillers for “Enviro Crimes”). One of Shapiro’s sham investigations is into Range Resources and the long-ago settled “Haney” court case.
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On Tuesday EQT filed lawsuits in both Pennsylvania and federal courts against two former employees it had fired, claiming the employees, before they were fired (sensing it was coming) had systematically copied confidential information from company computers and took it with them when they left.
The Sisters of the Corn (our name for the a group of leftist nuns in Lancaster County, PA) asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a case in which they claim their religious freedom has been trampled by Williams running a pipeline (Atlantic Sunrise) across their property. The case came up for consideration with the Supremes and they declined to hear it, meaning it’s the end of the road for the Sisters and the green group backing them.
Last November MDN brought you the exciting news that New Fortress Energy is planning to build an LNG (liquefied natural gas) liquefaction EXPORT plant in landlocked Wyalusing (Bradford County), PA (see 
We won’t pretend to understand the wacky math Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf is attempting to perpetrate on the good citizens of PA. The state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) wants to raise permit fees on Marcellus Shale drillers by 250% in order to help fund the agency, claiming the oil and gas program loses $800,000 per month (see 
In 2013 Eureka Resources built a Marcellus Shale wastewater treatment facility near Towanda (Bradford County), PA with a capacity to treat up to 10,000 barrels of wastewater per day (see 
A drilling team with experience drilling more than 1,000 Marcellus shale wells in Pennsylvania with laterals from 1,500 feet to 11,000 feet recently published a research paper looking at best practices and what it will take to routinely drill wells with laterals longer than 18,000 feet.
It seems we owe an apology to Williams for the story we ran earlier this week (see 
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf has just declared full-on war with Energy Transfer and its Sunoco Logistics subsidiary by directing the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to suspend all reviews of clean water permit applications and other pending approvals for all of ET/Sunoco’s pipeline projects in the state, including Mariner East 2 (ME2) and the Revolution pipeline project.
CNX Resources say they think they know why a Utica well they were fracking in Westmoreland County, PA suddenly lost pressure as they were fracking it–with gas escaping into nearby conventional wells.
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?
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.