Westmoreland Zoning Challenge re H&H Wells Closer to Resolution
Huntley & Huntley has plans to drill shale wells in Upper Burrell Township (Westmoreland County), PA. As MDN reported in June, a landowner in Upper Burrell filed an appeal against Upper Burrell’s zoning ordinance that allows drilling in rural, agricultural districts (see Westmoreland Zoning Challenge Heads to Court, Delays H&H Drilling). H&H plans to drill a well near where this woman lives, and she’s arguing such drilling will violate the state’s environmental rights clause and (more importantly), “devalue her property.” The case was supposed to go to township’s Zoning Hearing Board, but all of the (many) lawyers involved agreed to instead move it to county court, making the process faster and less expensive. The only potential problem with that is the judge may decide to hold off on a decision until two similar cases are heard and decided by the PA Supreme Court. However, the judge is not waiting. A recent media report states the judge will make a decision in the case “next month” (meaning in August) about whether or not the town can issue conditional use in agricultural-residential zoning districts…
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The Gas Technology Institute (GTI), based in Illinois, is doing the Marcellus/Utica region a huge favor. GTI has launched a pre-employment training program to introduce folks to natural gas pipeline operations. The four-week program provides a basic understanding of natural gas, the utility and pipeline industry, and different equipment, procedures and operations used. The program is aimed at students, veterans, displaced coal workers and others with an interest in getting a job with utilities, midstream (i.e. pipeline) companies and their contractors. Here’s the best part: The program is fully funded, so there is no tuition cost for those who qualify. The program is delivered via classroom at three participating colleges: Westmoreland County Community College and Butler County Community College (both in PA), and Washington State Community College (in OH). Here’s the lowdown..
It’s been a while since we’ve updated you on a little-known (but rapidly becoming better known) company called JKLM Energy. In May 2016, the last time we wrote about JKLM, we told you the company had successfully drilled and was flowing gas from Potter County, PA’s first Utica Shale well (see 
Here’s not something you read every day, especially in Lebanon County, PA where local media seems only too interested in covering negative stories about pipelines: “What I have heard has all been positive – that the workers were willing to go beyond anything that might be expected of them and do little special things for the landowners.” That statement is from a town official in Lebanon County, talking about Mariner East 2 pipeline construction workers who are busy in the Lebanon County installing the first of two ME2 pipelines. Of course, not everyone is happy. But then, not everyone is always happy with anything–even a sunshiny day! Here’s what’s happening in Lebanon County with ME2…
While the construction of the Mariner East 2 natural gas liquids (NGL) pipelines in Lebanon and Lancaster Counties appears to be sailing along with very few issues (see today’s companion story), the project did hit a small bump in the road in nearby Chester County, PA. A dozen families reported their water wells became cloudy–or lost pressure–after underground horizontal directional drilling (HDD) by Sunoco Logistics Partners in attempting to install pipes underground in places where digging trenches will not work. The company put up five families in local hotels for several nights. Sunoco also provided bottled water for all of the affected families. The working theory is that bentonite clay (i.e. drilling mud) is the source of the cloudiness. Fortunately, bentonite is non-toxic and used to manufacture many products, including toothpaste and kitty litter. The incident, while troubling and inconvenient for the families involved, has not set back the project–at all. Drilling and construction of the pipeline resumed on Saturday…
Here’s a story of some Catholic nuns who have forsaken their vow to serve Christ, and instead have taken up a vow to serve radical environmentalism–which is apparently their new religion. A group of nuns in Lancaster County, PA invited the radical group Lancaster Against Pipelines (whose organizer participated in the illegal blockage of the Dakota Access Pipeline) to build a “prayer chapel” in the middle of a cornfield that belongs to the Adorers of the Blood of Christ (as they are called). The chapel is meant to stand in the way of Williams’ Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline, slated to go through that field. The so-called prayer chapel is little more than a few portable benches and a pop-up shelter like the one you would use when camping–just about big enough to cover a gas grill and leave enough room for two or three people to stand under it. The “prayer chapel” is obviously a statement thing. Knowing it will get torn down at some point, the sisters and their radical friends didn’t want to waste a lot of money on the project. Essentially this is a setup for a photo op when the bulldozers come through. It’s truly a shame to see how those who have dedicated themselves to the work of Jesus Christ have been co-opted and distracted from their far higher, and much better, calling. Unfortunately, the nuns are rank hypocrites. They themselves use–and promote the use of–natural gas for their own ministry on the very same parcel of property…
Totally biased, Big Green-backed mouthpiece StateImpact Pennsylvania, funded in part by taxpayers via PBS (a travesty), as well as funded in part by anti-drilling organizations like the Heinz Endowments and the William Penn Foundation (which appear to control StateImpact’s “reporting”), is targeting a PR agency because the agency has the audacity to do good work for Sunoco Logistics and the Mariner East 2 Pipeline project. You see, in liberal anti-drilling land, it’s OK for antis to smear and lie and fabricate all sorts of falsehoods about pipeline projects–but it’s not OK for the object of those smears (i.e. Sunoco LP) to fight back and to present its side of the issue. As soon as you fight back and tell your side of the story, you’re “targeting” innocent people, you’re attempting to bully the little guy. You’re mean. You’re pedaling fossil fuel death. That’s how it works in Big Green land. A recent article on StateImpact PA attempts a smear job on PR agency Bravo Group because Bravo has the gonads to say this on their website: “We’re helping Sunoco Logistics build public and policyholder support for its Mariner East projects, an infrastructure investment of more than $3 billion. The goal: secure regulatory approvals, neutralize opposition and develop the Mariner East projects on budget and without capital losses.” The “neutralize opposition” phrase in particular set off the anti-pipeline crazies, so StateImpact created an entire story focused on that phrase. You know you’re being effective when they attack you with a smear campaign…
Being a marketing guy, MDN editor Jim Willis knows that crystallizing a concept into a few key words is critical. You have to be able to convey your meaning in as few words as possible–and those words must be pregnant with meaning. Jim was lucky enough to name this blog/news site Marcellus Drilling News, which (mostly) conveys its purpose–to report on happenings in the Marcellus (later adding the Utica) region. A very smart person who’s given a lot of thought about our industry is Kathryn “Katie” Klaber. Katie owns her own consulting firm–The Klaber Group. But before that, she was founder and president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition (a well-named organization). Katie lives and works in Pittsburgh. In a recent article for the Pittsburgh Business Times, Katie ponders over Pittsburgh (and our industry’s) “identity crisis”–by which she means our lack of good branding. Sometimes our industry and region is referred to as “Appalachia.” But that term often connotes the mountains of West Virginia, spreading out into Kentucky. Sometimes we are referred to as the “Marcellus/Utica basin,” which gets a lot closer to meaningful, but connotes drilling and leaves out the downstream. And sometimes we’re called “the Northeast.” But folks in Ohio consider themselves Midwesterners, not northeasterners. Why is it important to lock down an accurate, pregnant-with-meaning description for our entire industry (upstream, midstream and downstream), and our geographic region? According to Katie, it comes down to two words: capital investment. We need to brand ourselves and do it sooner rather than later, if we want to grow business in our neck of the woods…
Here on MDN we talk a lot about big interstate natural gas pipelines–like Rover and NEXUS, Atlantic Sunrise and Atlantic Coast. But we don’t talk so much about the tiny (in diameter) gas pipelines that connect to people’s homes. In oil and gas industry parlance, those pipelines belong to the “downstream”–or the end users of natural gas. From time to time we’ve covered stories about NiSource and other utilities spending big money to replace aging local distribution pipelines (see 
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you are tempted to treat everything as a nail (Abraham Maslow, 1966). Such is it with radical anti-drillers who recently won a case at the PA Supreme Court by the skin of their teeth. The case dealt with the narrow issue of how PA can spend revenue raised by leasing and allowing drilling for oil and gas under state-owned land (see 
Franklin Kury was a young lawyer and PA House of Representatives member back in the late 60s/early 70s. He was, at that time, the author of Pennsylvania’s so-called Environment Rights Amendment (Article I, Section 27 of the PA Constitution). For 40 years the ERA didn’t have much of an impact–but then activist, liberal, leftist judges got ahold of it and (ab)used it to screw with the Marcellus Shale industry in the state. Things “all changed” on June 20 when the PA Supreme Court (ab)used the ERA to tell the Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) it can’t use money raised from shale drilling to help fund itself–a bass ackwards view of things if ever we’ve heard of one (see 
In a story about PA’s “moribund” drilling industry beginning to turn around, the AP notes some news that we think it pretty significant. For the first six months of 2017, PA shale drillers have drilled 397 shale wells. That’s more than twice the number they drilled in the first six months of 2016. There are now 20 additional drilling rigs active in the Marcellus, and fracking crews are in “short supply.” This is all great news for the PA Marcellus, something to celebrate on the day after July 4th…
As MDN reported in June, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court of Appeals, in a sharply divided 3-2 decision, sided with virulent anti-drilling group Pennsylvania Environmental Defense Foundation against the state in saying that any royalties generated from drilling on state-owned land MUST be used solely for conservation and the environment (see 
MDN has extensively covered the story of a family in Huntingdon County, PA radicalized by the Big Green movement into opposing the Mariner East 2 pipeline across their property. The Gerhart family, with the assistance of what Sunoco Logistics Partners calls “eco-terrorists,” have pledged to illegally block construction of the pipeline. So a few weeks ago Sunoco asked a Huntingdon County judge to grant an injunction against the Gerharts AND the interloping eco-terrorists–to have them forcibly removed if they attempt to stop construction which is about to begin (see 