USFS Approves Survey for Marcellus Pipeline in Mon Natl Forest
In January MDN told you that the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) was considering a plan to allow surveyors into the Monongahela National Forest (see USFS Seeks Comment on Pipeline Survey in Monongahela Natl Forest). At the time, USFS was seeking public comment on a plan to allow surveyors into the forest to chart a potential route through 17 miles of the Mon National Forest for the Dominion’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline–a 550-mile, $5 billion pipeline that will carry Marcellus and Utica Shale gas from West Virginia through Virginia and into to North Carolina. The section of the forest to be surveyed is located in Randolph and Pocahontas counties in WV. Good news! The USFS has decided to allow the survey to go forward…
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GreenHunter Resources continues to aggressively push back against the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) with respect to barging brine from shale wells. Yesterday was the latest flare-up in the war of words between GreenHunter and the USCG. Once again GreenHunter COO Kirk Trosclair said the way they read the rules, they have permission under existing 1987 rules to barge it. And once again the USCG said no you don’t–not until we say you do. The latest twist is that the USCG says that brine might have high levels of radioactivity and so now the Dept. of Homeland Security is reviewing the whole matter. Which is a neat way of corrupting the issue–just claim there’s a national security issue and that shuts it all down. Still, GreenHunter is committed to begin barge shipments this year. However, we also learned yesterday that those shipments will not originate at GreenHunter’s proposed facility near Wheeling, WV…
Wow–who woulda thunk? Drillers in West Virginia paid double the amount of revenue in severance taxes in 2014 than they did in 2013–a total of $188 million. Those numbers are approaching the total haul for the tax/impact fee in Pennsylvania (a little over $200 million each year). But there’s a big difference between the revenue raised in WV and PA. In PA, 60% of the revenue raised stays local with the towns and counties where drilling occurs, and 40% goes to the state and other geographies. We call the 40% “walking around money” (i.e. extortion) that politicians had to agree to in order to get any kind of deal done that remotely approaches common sense. In WV however, an eye-popping 90% of the severance revenue raised goes to the state–to disappear through politicians’ fingers–while a meager 7.5% stays in the counties that see drilling…
More troubling talk from Odebrecht about a proposed ethane cracker plant in Parkersburg, WV. In February, MDN brought you the first tremors in what until that point had been nothing but positive signs the project would move forward (see 
Apparently torrential rains in Marshall County, WV last week softened up the earth and led to soil shifting and two Williams pipelines rupturing–within hours of each other. One of the pipelines is a 12-inch gathering line that runs from wells in the area to the nearby Fort Beeler processing plant. The other pipeline is a 4-inch condensate pipeline. Condensate spilled out of a hole and into the nearby Little Grave Creek. Cleanup efforts are ongoing. For a short time, five families who live near the 12-inch gathering line were evacuated as a precautionary measure–but they returned home within a few hours…