From an Article by Sharon Kelly, DeSmog Blog, June15, 2020

Over the past few months, amid the COVID-19 pandemic and stay-at-home orders, Shell Pipeline Company has pressed onward with the construction of a 97-mile pipeline running through Ohio and western Pennsylvania. Shell plans to use the Falcon pipeline to supply its $6 billion plastics plant currently being built in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, with ethane, a raw material pulled from shale wells in the state and from neighboring Ohio.

A DeSmog investigation found that Falcon’s construction has struggled with drilling problems and has continued even while one key water-crossing for the pipeline lacked state or federal permits. During that same time, vast numbers of other businesses in both states — including the Shell plastics plant itself — were forced to slow or stop activities in efforts to combat the spread of the deadly coronavirus.

Throughout March and into April, Falcon was missing permits from state or federal regulators. Problems during a process known as horizontal directional drilling (HDD), which Shell attempted to use to install the Falcon pipeline under an Ohio creek called Wolf Run, forced the company to change its construction plans, and those permits had not yet been approved when the pandemic hit the region.

Then, on April 15, just nine days after Falcon secured its final missing state permit, the legal status of its construction was again thrown into question, this time by events halfway across the country. A federal court hearing a challenge to the Keystone XL pipeline in Montana tossed out a nationwide permit issued for Falcon and many other oil and gas pipelines, finding that this particular permitting program failed to meet the standards of the nation’s cornerstone environmental laws.

While appeals in that case remain pending, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was ordered to stop authorizing activities for new oil and gas pipeline construction under those permits until those legal questions were resolved. On Thursday, May 28, the Ninth Circuit rejected a request to put that order on hold until it issues its decision in that case. The Army Corps and Keystone XL’s backers “have not demonstrated a sufficient likelihood of success on the merits and probability of irreparable harm to warrant a stay pending appeal,” the court wrote.

Since the early days of its construction, Shell’s Falcon pipeline has encountered construction difficulties, according to public records from Ohio and Pennsylvania environmental regulators obtained by FracTracker Alliance and Fair Shake Environmental Legal Services and reviewed by DeSmog.

https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/06/15/shell-falcon-pipeline-construction-pandemic-permits

FracTracker received an anonymous tip about a release of drilling fluids in the range of millions of gallons from part of the Falcon Pipeline in Jefferson County, Ohio. The source stated that the release could be contaminating drinking water for residents and livestock.

Documents from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) show that at least 70 spills have occurred since construction of the pipeline began in early 2019, releasing over a quarter million gallons of drilling fluid.

Yet the true number and volume of spills is uncertain, due to inaccuracies in reporting by Shell, and discrepancies in regulation by state agencies. Read on to learn more about how spills like these impact ecosystems and natural resources.

https://www.fractracker.org/2020/06/falcon-pipeline-construction-releases-over-250000-gallons-of-drilling-fluid/