Williams Locates WV Condensate Pipeline Leak, Remediation Begins
Last Friday Williams finally found the break/leak in a 4-inch condensate pipeline that ruptured nearly two weeks ago (see 2 Williams Pipelines Rupture in Marshall County After Heavy Rains). That’s the good news. The bad news is that testing done of a nearby unnamed stream (that empties into Little Grave Creek) four days after the rupture occurred contained evidence of some nasty chemicals: benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene. Fortunately none of those chemicals have turned up in Little Grave Creek. Williams is now cleaning up and telling the neighbors that as they dig and remove soil from the area of the rupture, the neighbors may smell some foul odors. The WV Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) says they “don’t believe” nearby residents are in any danger…
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The shakedown is complete. In June 2012 Reuters tried to stir up trouble against Chesapeake Energy by broadcasting “leaked” (Watergate anyone?) emails that somehow magically appeared on the Reuters doorstep that supposedly show Chesapeake trying to collude with Encana Energy to keep the price of Michigan state land oil and gas leases artificially low (see 
You may recall MDN has tracked the issue of potential LNG (liquefied natural gas) exports from Canada that would use, in part, Marcellus Shale gas. There are five such possible LNG projects, four of them based in Nova Scotia (see 
New York State’s anti-drilling Dept. of Environmental Conservation Commissioner, Joe Martens, is doing his best to concoct a litigation-proof Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS). The SGEIS is the document that will find too many “troubling” aspects of fracking to allow it in New York. Except there’s potentially a loophole coming in the SGEIS, if press reports can be believed. Fracking WILL be allowed IF it uses under 300,000 gallons of “liquid”–the liquid most likely being water. (A typical well takes 5-8 million gallons of water to frack.) The NY loophole of using up to 300,000 gallons of liquid leads pro-drillers like MDN to muse: Is there an alternative liquid, other than water, that can be used to frack a well economically at under 300K gallons? What if the substance is foam and not liquid–is foam exempt from the 300K gallon cap? Or how about this: Can a driller use 299,999 gallons of water to frack a well and get enough gas out of it to break even and wait until the idiot we have in office now (Gov. Andrew Cuomo) is gone and go back later and re-frack the same well once the 300K gallon restriction is lifted? Hey, it’s fun to speculate. We’re not trying to foster false hope, but we do wonder if there’s a loophole in the SGEIS that can be exploited so landowners and drillers (the good guys) can beat extremist environmentalists like Cuomo, Martens and Yoko Ono (the bad guys)…