More Pipes Needed in M-U; Antis Gear Up to Protest Shell Cracker
Speaking of yesterday’s Kallanish Energy “Crackers, Storage & Pipelines 2018” event at Southpointe (Pittsburgh), one of the speakers, Rick DeCesar from AECOM, said contrary to what you may read and hear, the Marcellus/Utica region needs MORE midstream and pipeline projects over the next five years. Lately it seems we’ve read countless stories that say if all of the existing projects that have been announced come online, there will be more pipeline capacity than gas to flow through it. In other words, we’ve overbuilt with pipelines. DeCesar disagrees. He maintains new projects are “desperately needed.” His company is putting its money where its mouth is, hiring new people, in anticipation of more pipeline projects. MDN friend Charlie Schliebs was moderator for the panel featuring DeCesar. Charlie also had some interesting, and disturbing, things to say. Namely, he warned attendees that antis are gearing up to fight “and perhaps be arrested” in a bid to block construction work on the Shell ethane cracker plant in Monaca, PA…
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Two Pennsylvania Senate committees–the Environmental Resources and Energy and the Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure committees–held a joint hearing on Tuesday supposedly on the topic of “pipeline safety”–but instead the hearing turned into a bash Sunoco Logisitcs and the Mariner East 2 (ME2) Pipeline hearing. A variety of witnesses testified. Unfortunately, State Sen. Gene Yaw (RINO from Lycoming County), chairman of the Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, didn’t invite Sunoco to testify, so it was a one-way bash fest. Sunoco was not allowed to respond. Thanks Gene. It wasn’t a court hearing, so we can’t call it a kangaroo court. Perhaps we can call it a kangaroo Senate hearing? While the discourse in the hearing was mostly civil (although it was nonstop bashing of Sunoco), a group of rabble rousers nearby was not. A group of 10-15 (depending on the news source) marched on Gov. Tom Wolf’s office. They were there to serve Wolf with a mock “Notice of Probable Violation and Summons,” which the malcontents say requires Wolf to appear in Chester County before families impacted by construction of ME2. The small mob was met with locked doors and Capitol Police who turned them away…
Sunoco Logistics Partners (aka Energy Transfer Parnters) has had its challenges in constructing the twin Mariner East 2 (ME2) pipelines across Pennsylvania. Earlier this month MDN told you that underground horizontal directional drilling (HDD) work in Chester County had led to a third sinkhole developing in that area (see 
Let’s be honest. Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia compete against each other, fiercely, to attract business to their respective states. However, in 2015 the three states agreed to lay aside their competitive natures when it comes to shale and cooperate (pool resources) for things like marketing and promotion, workforce development, transportation/infrastructure and research (see 
In January MDN brought you the sad news that the Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES), which operates the East Coast’s largest refinery on the banks of the Delaware River, had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy (see 
Rover Pipeline is in hot water again. This time it’s not Captain Craig “Ahab” Butler from the Ohio EPA, but the West Virginia Dept. of Environmental Protection. In a letter just released publicly (dated March 5), WVDEP slapped Rover with a “cease-and-desist” order, stopping all construction of Rover in the state, because of inspections in February that found 14 violations of water pollution regulations. The violations occurred in Doddridge, Tyler and Wetzel counties. Violations ran the range of leaving trash behind at construction sites to improper perimeter controls (no erosion devices installed) to failure to clean up the roads they used. In addition to trouble in WV, Rover is also facing new issues in both Ohio and Pennsylvania. In February heavy rains in the region caused “slippage issues” where the pipeline is being installed. Rover filed a report with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) last week to say it has eight crews working to correct slippage issues at six locations along its 51-mile Burgettstown Lateral. Here’s the latest on WV shutting down Rover, and Rover’s work to fix slippage issues…
Last week MDN reported that due to underground horizontal direction drilling (HDD) in Chester County, PA for the Mariner East 2 (ME2) Pipeline project, a third sinkhole had developed. ME2 is being built close to the existing Mariner East 1 (ME1) pipeline. The sinkhole exposed a portion of the ME1 pipeline to the open air, which is why the head of the state Public Utility Commission (PUC) temporarily shut down the propane and ethane flowing through ME1 (see 
We bet you didn’t know that a bloated, inefficient government bureaucracy like the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) can cut down on the amount of time it takes them to review permits necessary in the drilling process (like erosion and stream crossing permits)–just by changing the paperwork. That’s the claim the DEP is making. Yesterday the DEP released new paperwork–new forms to fill out–for Chapter 105 General Permit Registrations relating to water obstructions and encroachments. These new forms “will improve the quality of General Permit registration requests, eliminate unnecessary redundancies, and reduce review time frames.” Yeah, and we have a bridge in Brooklyn we’d like to sell ya…
As we reported last week, this week the PA House of Representatives was due to host a hearing on a slate of bills aimed at fixing not only the slowmo way the state Dept. of Environmental Protection approves permits, but also roll back some of the egregious regulatory overreach in PA (see 
We’re in a position we don’t typically find ourselves in–defending a member of liberal Democrat PA Gov. Wolf’s staff. We don’t have much respect for Wolf and his administration, but sometimes there’s an injustice that simply can’t be ignored. We find this injustice particularly loathsome. A Big Green supporter and far-left radical environmentalist who lives in Chester County, PA, Caroline Hughes, filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania State Ethics Commission against PA Gov. Tom Wolf’s deputy chief of staff, Yesenia Bane, late last year (see 
MDN reported yesterday that due to underground horizontal direction drilling (HDD) in Chester County, PA (near Philadelphia) for the Mariner East 2 (ME2) Pipeline project, a third sinkhole had developed (see 
Last December MDN told you about the bastardization of our justice system. The New York University (NYU) School of Law is paying to hire radical (Democrat) attorneys to work inside the offices of the Attorneys General in 10 different states–Pennsylvania being the latest (see 
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) needs fixing. That fact is acknowledged by everyone. The question (or rather disagreement) is in how to fix it. The DEP can’t seem to get its act together with respect to approving simple erosion permits. Turnaround from the time a permit is requested until it is supposed to be approved is, by DEP’s own statutory standards, 14 days. Last year it was taking over 250 days in some areas of the state (see 