Wayne County, PA Landowner Sues DRBC Over Fracking Ban
Some great news to share. A landowner in Wayne County, PA–in the Delaware River Basin–has filed a lawsuit against the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) asking a judge to declare the DRBC does not have jurisdiction to prevent construction of a natural gas well. MDN has chronicled, for years, the lawless actions of the DRBC in seizing power it does not have to block shale drilling in essentially two PA counties where there is measurable quantities of shale gas that could be extracted: Wayne County and Pike County. DRBC’s former director, Carol Collier, is a hardened anti-driller who colluded with Josh Fox in making his infamous propaganda film Gasland. Collier is gone and it was thought her replacement, Steve Tambini would bring some order and sense to the organization (see DRBC Selects Steve Tambini as New Leader, Enviro Groups Unsure). He’s been a dud–at least on the drilling issue. The DRBC has blocked drilling since it considered rules for drilling in 2010, when it put a “temporary” ban in place. Enough is enough. The Wayne landowner is arguing that oil and gas wells, under the DRBC’s charter, do not constitute a “project” that is regulated by the DRBC and therefore are exempt from oversight from the DRBC. Brilliant legal move! Here’s the details, including a copy of the lawsuit as filed…
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Last week Kinder Morgan’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) filed their official, full application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) seeking approval for their Orion Project. The project will cost $143 million and construct 13 miles of “looping” pipeline in Pike and Wayne counties, Pennsylvania. The project will boost capacity on the TGP by another 135 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d), allowing TGP to pump more Marcellus Shale gas to Mid-Atlantic and New England states. If all goes according to plan, the TGP Orion upgrade will be complete and in-service by June 2018…
If you’re a Big Green group, like THE Delaware Riverkeeper, you have millions of dollars to a) launch lawsuits against the natural gas industry, and b) buy yourself research studies that support your twisted viewpoints. It is the latter that happened yesterday. CNA, a not-for-profit organization once called the Center for Naval Analyses, sells itself to the highest bidder (the oldest profession in the world). Most recently they sold themselves to THE Delaware Riverkeeper (we certainly hope they used protection). CNA and THE Delaware Riverkeeper held a press briefing yesterday to release a “study” by CNA titled “The Potential Environmental Impacts of Fracking in the Delaware River Basin” (full copy below). What did the “researchers” at CNA, which is based in Arlington, VA just outside the DC orbit, find? If the moratorium is lifted and shale drilling is allowed in the Delaware River Basin–essentially Wayne and Pike counties in Pennsylvania–CNA says it will lead to “land cover disturbance” in “core forest areas”, extreme water withdrawals from poor little creeks and streams, nasty wastewater polluting everything, erosion everywhere, multiple compressor stations and untold ill health impacts for 75,000 people who live close to all of this mess. See what $320,444 (the actual cost of this study) can buy you? We hope it felt good for Riverkeeper…
A new research study appearing in an online “journal” with very low standards, PLOS ONE, claims that hydraulic fracturing leads to an increase in hospitalization rates in the Marcellus Shale region. The research study, titled “Unconventional Gas and Oil Drilling Is Associated with Increased Hospital Utilization Rates” (full copy embedded below) on the surface appears to contain damning evidence. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University looked at hospitalization records for three northeastern Pennsylvania counties from 2007-2011–Bradford, Susquehanna and Wayne. Both Bradford and Susquehanna counties have seen a huge amount of shale drilling over that period. Wayne County, on the other hand, has seen no shale drilling because of the intransigence of the Delaware River Basin Commission and their ongoing frack ban. The researchers say that people in Bradford and Susquehanna counties go to the hospital for serious heart conditions at a rate 27% higher than those in Wayne County. Ergo, there is a connection between fracking and health issues. We are fully in favor of rigorous academic research into issues like this one. But a few things bother us about this latest “fracking kills” study…
It is the end of an ignominious era. Carol Collier, whose own anti-drilling views have stopped any forward progress on potential Marcellus Shale drilling in the Delaware River Basin, will tomorrow leave the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) that she has headed for 15 years. Last September when she announced she would retire this March, we predicted her platitudes about finalizing draft shale drilling plans would go nowhere. We were right (see 
Thank you Carol Collier (Executive Director) and the other members of Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC): You’ve just cost Wayne County, PA landowners a collective $187.5 million by your continued inaction to allow drilling in Wayne County. Newfield Appalachia PA and Hess Corp. started sending notices last week to Wayne County landowners that they’ve decided to terminate the leases they made with them in 2009–on more than 100,000 acres.