Judge to Rule on Apex Energy Well Drilling in Westmoreland County
As we have said for years, ever since the Pennsylvania legislature modernized and updated drilling regulations to account for shale drilling in 2012, known as Act 13, anti-fossil fuel nutters have attempted first to destroy Act 13, and later subvert it. Act 13 originally provided for uniform zoning across the state with respect to siting wells. But seven selfish townships sued and eventually won (at the PA Supreme Court) the right to retain their own zoning regulations with respect to oil and gas wells (see PA Supreme Court Rules Against State/Drillers in Act 13 Case). Each town must have at least one zone where oil/gas wells are allowed. However, towns also have the right, via special exemptions, to allow wells in zones that don’t specifically allow wells, or where wells are otherwise prohibited. Exemptions happen on a case-by-case basis, and the town zoning or planning board must approve them. Antis object. They like it when drillers are banned from a zone, pointing to Act 13, saying the town has that right. But when the town then exercises their right to allow a well, also in Act 13, antis object and sue to prevent it. The door only swings one way for antis–to block shale wells. Such is it in Westmoreland County, in Penn Township, where the Penn Township Zoning Hearing Board approved a special exemption for Apex Energy to drill shale wells permitted by the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection. Antis sued saying the Board erred in their decision, and now a judge will decide the fate of the legally-permitted wells…
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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 
In August 2016, energy giant Tenaska (headquartered in Omaha, NE) broke ground to build a 925-megawatt natural gas-fueled power plant in South Huntingdon (Westmoreland County), PA (see 
In an incredible story of how Marcellus Shale drilling benefits local communities, the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County (i.e. the water authority) reports that it expects royalties received from 52 shale wells drilled on authority-owned land will jump another $1 million this year, to a total of over $3 million. The authority is still pushing forward with a three-year rate hike plan that began in 2016–so customers will get a 7% rate hike this year. Even though the authority has all of that extra cash. Why not suspend the rate hike because of the extra royalty money? Because, says an authority official, “The rate hikes were designed to help pay for a $140 million loan finalized last year for capital improvements to the water system that serves more than 120,000 customers in five counties as well as nearly 25,000 sewer customers.” What will the authority do with the extra $1 million they hadn’t planned on receiving? It’s “more money to be reinvested into the system.” Here’s the lowdown on Westmoreland’s windfall from gas royalties, and why royalties are jumping this year…
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 
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 
Westinghouse Electric tried “an ambitious new approach to building nuclear power plants” by building sections of the plants in one location before sending them to the construction site for assembly. They tried the process with two nuke plants–one in Georgia and the other in South Carolina. The process they “innovated” failed and took the company down–into bankruptcy. What does that have to do with the Mariner East 2 (ME2) Pipeline project? Westinghouse Electric is headquartered just outside of Pittsburgh and owns a fair amount of land. Mariner East 2 intends to cross a portion of that land. Sunoco Logistics Partners, builder of ME2, attempted to negotiate a payment for an easement to cross Westinghouse’s land–but Westinghouse wanted more than ME2 offered. So ME2 filed paperwork to use eminent domain and “condemn” the Westinghouse property. In other words, let a judge decide how much is fair. Westinghouse joined the chorus that “ME2 isn’t really a public utility”–sounding no different than the Sierra Club and others who oppose the project. That strategy went nowhere, so Westinghouse eventually came back to the bargaining table and this time, worked out a deal–to sell some of their land to ME2. Now Westinghouse is asking the bankruptcy judge in charge of their case to approve the land sale, ahead of the judge’s decision on other matters to do with the bankruptcy. Here’s an account of the high stakes of “chicken” between Westinghouse and ME2…
In May 2016, MDN told you that the Penn Township (in Westmoreland County, PA) zoning board voted to refuse to grant a permit to Apex Energy to build a DEP-permitted well pad in the town (see 
The Pittsburgh, PA region has been truly blessed by the Marcellus Shale industry. Largely because of the Marcellus, last year (2016) saw the biggest year ever for capital investment in the 10-county Pittsburgh region–a mind-blowing $10.2 billion of investment! It is the highest capital investment in a single year ever. Now mind you, not all of that money actually got invested last year. Some of it will come in dribs and drabs over the next several years. But all of that $10.2 billion was committed to in 2016. Last week the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance (PRA) issued its annual Business Investment Scorecard. The report (read it below) finds that more than half of last year’s capital investments pledged to Pittsburgh region came from a single project–the $6 billion Shell ethane cracker. The report also found another $3.11 billion worth of investment related to shale gas (processing plants, gas-fired power plants, etc.). Add it all together, and over $9 billion of the $10.2 billion committed last year is due to the Marcellus industry. To which we say, Pittsburgh should bow down and kiss some shale rock…
It’s hard to keep track of all the Marcellus and Utica Shale-fired electric plants being planned, built and going online. We recently highlighted a list of 11 such projects getting built in Ohio (see 
In July 2014, MDN told you the water wells for two of three families living near a WPX recycled frack wastewater impoundment (i.e. “pond”), near Ligonier (Westmoreland County), PA, were determined to have been contaminated by that impoundment. That is, the Kalp impoundment leaked into the ground, according to the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), and that caused a long-term problem with those wells (see 
The sharp folks over at the Pittsburgh Business Times have been looking through data from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and have compiled a list of 20 drillers who have at least a dozen shale wells in the southwest PA region. And they ranked them from lowest to highest. We’ve grabbed the list below. The interesting thing for MDN is that there is one name in the list not familiar to us, and we’ve been watching this space since 2009. Always fun to learn something new. Here’s the list of southwest PA’s “Top 20” Marcellus drillers…