Antis Try Last Desperate Ploy to Stop Cove Point LNG in Court
Dominion is working fast and furiously on constructing the Cove Point LNG export facility in Maryland. In fact, it’s now half done (see Dominion 3Q15: Progress on Atlantic Coast Pipeline, Cove Point LNG). Even though the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) gave its blessing on the project, and even though Dominion suffered through something like 70+ federal, state and local permits to begin building, irrational anti-fossil fuel haters are still opposing the project. We told you how some of the most extreme among them endangered fans at an NFL game recently (see Cove Point Protesters Disrupt Monday Night Football Game on TV). Now comes word that several groups of nutters, including Waterkeepers Chesapeake, Potomac Riverkeeper, Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper and others have filed a “friend of the court” brief in a lawsuit that is trying to get the project stopped cold in its tracks…
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As we have done in previous years, MDN will take a brief respite on both Thursday and Friday for the Thanksgiving holiday. And as we’ve done in previous years, we’d like to mention a few people and things we’re thankful for this year…
We’ll let you decide whether the recent action by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) is in line with being a good regulatory watchdog, or with being a mafia Don, using the power of the government to shake down a drilling company. On Sept. 15, 2011 as Chesapeake Energy was drilling the Stinger 8H well in Aleppo Township (Greene County), PA, in an area known for its landslides–they experienced (yes) a landslide. The landslide created sediment that plugged about one-fourth of a mile of seven “streams” so tiny they don’t have names–essentially drainage ditches. The seven drainage ditches, when they have water in them, flow into a very small creek called Harts Run. In return Harts Run, which crosses the border into West Virginia, eventually empties into a slightly bigger creek called Pennsylvania Fork Fish Creek, which eventually empties into Fish Creek (slightly bigger again), which eventually empties into the Ohio River–on the other side of WV where it borders with Ohio. There is zero chance any of the sediment made it beyond Harts Run, let alone all the way to the Ohio. But still, it’s not a good thing if you’re not “careful” to prevent what the Guvment believes you should be able to prevent. Chesapeake, since that time (over four years ago), has essentially fixed the problem–spending millions to do so. Apparently there’s a little bit of work left to do. The PA DEP comes along and yesterday announced that Chesapeake has agreed to pay the DEP a whopping $1.4 million fine for this four year-old accident, as well as do a bit of tidying up of the drainage ditches. Here’s the kicker–Chessy doesn’t even own that well any more…
As we have long chronicled, a few anti-drilling parents from the Mars School District (Butler County, far western part of the state), backed by a couple of Big Green groups from the other side of the state (in the Philadelphia area), sued Middlesex Township to stop shale drilling in rural portions of the county. Rex Energy had applied for, was legally permitted for, but still hasn’t been allowed to drill a series of wells some three-fourths of a mile from the Mars School (for background, 
Three weeks ago MDN told you that Range Resources had decided to sell 3,500 operated wells and approximately 460,000 net acres in the Nora/Haysi combined fields located in southwestern Virginia for $876 million to an unnamed buyer (see