Falcon Pipeline to transport ethane from Ohio & West Virginia at high pressure

From an Invitation by Erica Jackson, FracTracker Alliance, April 30, 2021

Hello friends in the Ohio River Valley and beyond,

I’m writing to invite you to a virtual public meeting regarding how your health and safety may be impacted by Shell Pipeline Company’s Falcon Pipeline. It will be held online on Tuesday, May 4th, 2021 from 6:30 – 8:00pm, on Zoom. You can participate by calling in from a phone or by computer. [REGISTER HERE]

A representative of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PA DEP) will be in attendance. Now is the time to make your concerns heard!

The Falcon Pipeline cuts through Washington, Allegheny, and Beaver Counties in Pennsylvania, Jefferson, Carroll, and Harrison Counties in Ohio, and Hancock County, West Virginia.

The Falcon Pipeline is putting the public & workers at risk. Whistleblowers have bravely spoken out about the Falcon’s construction, prompting state & federal investigations. Secretary of the PA Department of Environmental Protection Patrick McDonnell stated that the pipeline may have been constructed with defective corrosion coating protection, and that these issues “pose a possible threat of product release, landslide, or even explosion.”

These developments have been featured in multiple news outlets, including the Observer-Reporter, the Beaver County times, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Yet our requests for information from PHMSA, the agency that oversees this pipeline’s operation and safety, have gone unanswered.

Where is the accountability? Why aren’t government agencies providing the public with the information we need to protect our families’ health and safety?

We’re demanding more transparency. If you live in Ohio, Pennsylvania, or West Virginia and believe that you deserve answers, please join us. This meeting will consist of an information session as well as an opportunity for attendees to ask questions and share their concerns.

You can register for the meeting here: https://tinyurl.com/FalconPublicMeeting

If you have questions or require special accommodations to participate, please reach out to me, Erica Jackson, at jackson@fractracker.org or by phone at 412-229-7514.

At the event, FracTracker will provide more information about the history of concerns along the Falcon Pipeline, residents will give testimonies, and we will share resources for whistleblowers and concerned community members. Afterward, you will have the opportunities to pose questions.

Speakers include: the prominent Mariner East pipeline protester Ellen Gerhart, Adam Arnold with Government Accountability Project, Terrie Baumgardner with Clean Air Council, Bob Schmetzer with Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Community, myself, and Heaven Sensky with Center for Coalfield Justice.

Please share this information with neighbors and anyone who may be interested in attending by forwarding this email or sharing the Facebook event page. This event is being hosted by the People Over Petro Coalition.

Erica Jackson, Manager
Community Outreach and Support
FracTracker Alliance

Bridge over Ohio River @ Moundsville WV leads to PTTG site in Ohio

From a Newsletter of the FreshWater Accountability Project, June 8, 2020

Last month FreshWater Accountability Project put up a Billboard in Moundsville to help protect the Ohio River Valley from petrochemical projects. FWAP hopes the billboard will raise awareness about projects that threaten the area and help people connect to one another to fight back to protect their environment and health.

The billboard will remain up for at least the next three months. In August, FWAP will also be sending a more detailed informational mailing to those living in the areas that will be most profoundly impacted by proposed petrohub projects.

FWAP has been and will continue to be aggressive in combatting all efforts to turn the Ohio River Valley into the next “cancer alley” through petrochemical development.

As background on the issue, in 2015, the governors of Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania signed the Tri-State Shale Coalition Agreement, a comprehensive plan committing the three states to work together to expand natural gas development in the Appalachian Basin.

As part of carrying out this plan, the three states are determined to build a new petrochemical corridor in the Ohio River Valley, which to date include at least the following projects:

§ — The Mountaineer NGL Storage Facility, a huge ethane storage cavern to be made from a former salt mine in Monroe County that will take enormous quantities of water from the Ohio River to dissolve salt to create storage room, creating huge storage lakes to hold the resultant 3.2 billion barrels of brine that would create a catastrophe if dams were breached during a flood event.

§ — The PTT Global Petrochemical Complex in Belmont County, Ohio (Dilles Bottom across from Moundsville, WV) — a huge multi-national scheme by South Korean and Thai chemical companies to take ethane to make plastics and chemicals and ship product mostly overseas. According to the Environmental Integrity Project, the initial air permit applications for the PTT project requested to emit up to 538 tons of carbon monoxide, 297 tons of Volatile Organic Compounds (some known carcinogens), and 1.6 million tons of CO2 equivalent (greenhouse gases) a year into the air, not to mention tons of other pollutants such as Nitrogen Oxides (a family of highly reactive, poisonous gases) and small particulate matter (which can cause severe health effects when inhaled). Now the project has grown larger, which means even more toxic pollutants will be requested to be permitted.

§ — The Falcon pipeline, a 98-mile pipeline designed to take ethane from our region to feed the Shell Petrochemical Plant in Monaca, PA to make plastics and chemicals. This pipeline passes near schools, day care centers, family homes, and through the watersheds of numerous drinking water sources. FWAP submitted comments with Sierra Club to Ohio EPA opposing the issuance of Falcon’s 401 certification.

§ — The huge Rover pipeline, made of two 42” high-pressure fracked gas pipelines to transport shale gas to overseas markets. Annual GHG emissions from the Rover pipeline alone are equivalent to 42 average U.S coal plants or over 30 million passenger vehicles (145 million metric tons).

These combined projects would support what is often referred to as the Appalachian Storage and Trading Hub, and much of the financing is coming from China Energy with loan guarantees of our tax dollars through the Department of Energy.

These projects stand to impact more than 400 miles of streams and rivers within the Ohio River basin and would encompass more than 50 counties in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia.

Stay in touch for how you can help combat petrochemical projects in your communities, upcoming community meetings, and for updates on what FWAP is doing to defend Ohioans from these dangerous projects. And see above for our recent billboard!