Crime and Justice
PA Grand Jury Report On Fracking: State Failed To Protect Public Health
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Grand jury makes proposals on regulation, oversight of fracking industry
App NEWS
Pennsylvania Poll Finds Registered Voters Split On Fracking Ban
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Support for a ban strong in cities and suburbs; weak in rural SW Pennsylvania
App NEWS
NY Assembly Member Barbara Lifton Retires After This Year
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“Critical work remains on climate and education and health care among other issues about which I care deeply.”
Energy
PA Orders Range Resources To Clean Up Its Act On Lycoming County Well
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DEP quietly withdrew the fine for faulty drilling after the company promised to fix the problems.
Energy
Study: Replacing Coal Plants With Natural Gas Cuts Pollution, Saved Lives
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Fracking pollution not included in study; could lessen health benefits, author says
Energy
Johns Hopkins Researcher: PA Should Ban Fracking
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“What would I say now? I would say because of the regional and local health concerns and concerns about climate change, we should stop fracking–everywhere.”
Economy
Despite Scotland’s Fracking Ban, Imported American Shale Gas Is Key To One Town’s Economy
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Natural gas is mostly used for heating homes or fueling power plants. But when it comes out of the ground, it contains another key ingredient — ethane, a building block of plastics.
Crime and Justice
PA’s Governor Says He’s Unaware Of Wrongdoing In Mariner East Pipeline Permitting Process
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Tom Wolf, a Democrat, addressed the situation for the first time Wednesday afternoon, saying he is not aware of any wrongdoing.
Energy
PA Senator Takes Preventative Measures As Dems Call For Fracking Bans
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Pennsylvania’s Republican US Senator introduced a resolution he hopes will enable Congress to defeat future presidents’ fracking bans in court.
Economy
In Scotland, This Town Evolved With Its Refinery And The Arrival Of Shale Gas
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“The benefit is there’s employment in the area. But the rest of the town’s neglected and I don’t feel our town of Grangemouth benefits as much as it should, with an oil refinery on our doorstep.”
Energy
In The UK, Fracking’s Not A Thing — So Shale Gas From PA Has Become Their Workaround
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For decades, the United Kingdom has relied on oil and gas from the North Sea. Those fields, first developed in the 1960s and 70s, are declining.
App NEWS
At Grangemouth Refinery In Scotland, A Plastics Evangelist Says PA’s Shale Gas Is Vital
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The massive refinery and petrochemical complex in Grangemouth, Scotland, run by INEOS, was one of the first overseas plants to receive Pennsylvania ethane.
climate change
Trump Visits PA Plastics Facility, Touts Petrochemical Future For Ohio Valley
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The facility is part of what industry boosters hope will be a new plastics and chemical manufacturing base in the upper Ohio Valley, but many residents here worry about the heat-trapping gases and plastic waste.
Anti-fracking movement
New York Study: Fracking Causes Environmental Damage, Birth Defects
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A New York metastudy details the adverse effects fracking has on Pennsylvania’s environment, its climate and human health.
App NEWS
Pennsylvania Natural Gas Impact Fee Revenue Rises To 7-Year High, Boosted By Stripper Wells
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Pennsylvania’s impact fee on natural gas producers raised more money in 2018 to offset the effects of shale development than at any time in the fee’s seven-year history
Energy
$3-Million Settlement Revealed In High-Profile Fracking Case
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The court document was issued under seal, but was discovered last week in a public database by a public radio reporter. After issuing an injunction, Judge Katherine B. Emery on Tuesday ruled it could be published.
App NEWS
Higher Operating Pressure Prompts New Safety Concerns Over Sunoco’s Mariner East 2X Pipeline
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Pipeline opponents are raising new concerns about the safety of Energy Transfer/Sunoco Logistics’ Mariner East 2x natural gas liquids line.
Crime and Justice
Investigation Into PA Pipeline Builder Energy Transfer Now Includes Grand Jury
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Energy Transfer, parent company of Sunoco Logistics and builder of the Mariner East natural gas liquids pipelines, is the target of a Chester County grand jury investigation.
Energy
Energy Transfer CEO: ‘We’ve Made Mistakes’ In Building Mariner East
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Sunoco’s parent company admitted it made mistakes in building the Mariner East pipelines through Pennsylvania, and told investors that it will do better in future, but its assurances failed to persuade critics that the project will become any safer for the public or more protective of the environment.
Energy
Mariner East Startup Renews Safety Fears For Some PA Residents
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Homeowners focus on integrity of repurposed 12-inch pipeline first built in 1930s
Energy
PA Investigators: We Didn’t Say The Mariner East 2 Pipeline Was Safe
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Investigators at the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission said on Tuesday they didn’t confirm that the 12-inch pipeline component of Mariner East 2 was safe, despite a statement by Sunoco that they had done so.
Crime and Justice
District Attorney Opens Criminal Investigation Into Mariner East Pipeline Project
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The Chester County District Attorney said Wednesday he is opening a criminal investigation into Sunoco’s Mariner East pipeline project because it has caused sinkholes, contaminated water and has resulted in “not so subtle bullying” of residents.
Energy
PA Panel Sees ‘Statewide Concern’ With Pipeline Corrosion After ME1 Leak
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Investigators at the Public Utility Commission blamed corrosion for a leak of natural gas liquids from Sunoco’s Mariner East 1 pipeline in April 2017, and said they are concerned about the company’s corrosion-control program throughout the ageing statewide line.
Energy
PennEast Pipeline Can Take New Jersey Lands Using Eminent Domain
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The PennEast Pipeline Co. can take private land through eminent domain to build a natural gas pipeline, a New Jersey federal judge ruled on Friday.
Crime and Justice
Judge Grants First Eminent Domain Case To PennEast in Pennsylvania
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A federal judge granted PennEast Pipeline Co. the right of eminent domain to build its pipeline on a property in Carbon County, in the first ruling of its kind over the controversial project in a Pennsylvania court.
Energy
PA Study: Pipeline Blast Could Be Devastating, But Risk Is Low
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A worst-case explosion of the Mariner East 2 pipeline in PA’s Delaware County would kill anyone within about a mile of the rupture, a new report says, but it concludes the chances of someone dying from a pipeline incident are less than that of dying in a car crash or from falling down stairs.
Energy
Mariner East Pipelines: Judge Reviews Request For Immediate Shutdown
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STATE IMPACT PENNSYLVANIA – An administrative law judge for the state Public Utility Commission heard testimony this week on whether Sunoco can operate its controversial Mariner East pipelines — a set of export lines moving natural gas liquids across Pennsylvania — while the judge reviews a request to permanently shut down the lines.
Government
Tompkins County Legislature Opposes Power Plant Conversion To Natural Gas
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The Tompkins County Legislature passed a resolution Tuesday urging the New York DEC to reject a proposal that would convert an old coal fired power plant to natural gas.
Energy
Natural Gas Operator Fined For Causing Leak Into Monongahela River
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STATE IMPACT PENNSYLVANIA — State environmental officials have fined natural gas operator EQT for drilling into an old mine in 2017 and releasing 4 million gallons of abandoned mine drainage into the Monongahela River and surrounding wetlands in Allegheny County.
Energy
Sunoco Expects Hybrid Mariner East 2 To Start Operating By Year’s End
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STATE IMPACT PENNSYLVANIA – Sunoco’s Mariner East 2 pipeline across Pennsylvania will begin operating in the current quarter, the company’s parent, Energy Transfer, said on Thursday.
fracking
States Wrestle With Soaring Costs For Oil & Gas Industry Mess
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William Suan is no stranger to the problems abandoned oil and gas wells can cause. “It’s just an eyesore,” he said, standing inside a barn on his cattle ranch near Lost Creek, West Virginia. “I had to fence one off because it’s leaking now.”
There are five inactive wells on his land, most installed in the ’60s and ’70s, and the companies that owned the wells have long since gone out of business. On a recent rainy Monday, Suan treks down a muddy hill on the backside of his property. Hidden in the wooded thicket is a three-foot-tall rusted tube jutting out of the ground.
Energy
Fracking Industry Water Use Rises As Drills Extend, Study Says
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Marcellus region shows smallest increase in water use but quadruples frack waste from 2011-16
Science
EPA Science Advisory Board Sharpens Criticism of Fracking Report
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EPA science panel calls on the agency to produce more evidence for its assertion that fracking by gas rigs like this one does not have a widespread effect on drinking water. photo by JOE ULRICH/ WITF
By John Hurdle, State Impact Pennsylvania
A scientific advisory panel on Thursday stepped up its criticism of the Environmental Protection Agency’s controversial report on fracking, calling on the agency to provide evidence for its landmark conclusion that fracking for oil and gas has had “no widespread, systemic impacts” on drinking water.
Read the rest of the story here.