One of the rallies over the last eight years opposing the 42” MVP ….

From the Article by Maury Johnson (Monroe County, WV), Common Dreams, 4/26/23

Secretary Granholm’s letter cheerleading the Mountain Valley Pipeline came the day after she promised to meet with me, a landowner impacted by Senator Manchin’s pet fossil fuel project.

I am saddened by the depths that proponents of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) will go to advance a false narrative and spread inaccuracies. This time it is Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm who on Friday, April 21, 2023 wrote a cheerleader’s letter rooting for the MVP, Joe Manchin’s pet project. It is very ironic and even a bit disturbing that she wrote this letter one day after she appeared before the Senate Energy Committee and the very next day after she told me personally that she (or her staff) would meet with me in the next week or two.

I am currently in Washington, D.C. where I attended the Senate Energy Committee meeting on Thursday, April 20. I spoke to the Secretary at the conclusion of the hearing and asked her to meet with me. She indicated that a meeting could be arranged this week or next. But in what appears to be a hastily prepared letter — even possibly dictated by the fossil fuel lobby — she expressed her desire to exert political pressure on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and other federal agencies.

The Secretary apparently decided that she did not need to talk to those most affected by the project or even entertain an opposing viewpoint. Like many agencies, she did not talk with or listen to any affected landowner and totally continued to perpetrate the social, racial, and environmental injustice concerns that President Joe Biden had just a few hours before expressed that his administration would take seriously.

You can’t have it both ways: You either listen to impacted communities or you don’t. This letter appears to be written to appease Senator Manchin and others in the MVP camp. It is also strange that this letter was filed just before Equitrans Midstream Corporation — the company behind the pipeline — had its shareholder meeting on Monday morning, April 24.

You can’t have it both ways: You either listen to impacted communities or you don’t.

The MVP project is not necessary to support the nation’s energy security and energy supply. Just because they say it is so, doesn’t make it true. It actually would do just the opposite. It would lock us into decades of methane and carbon pollution that the nation or the planet can ill afford. As the lead federal agency for the project under the FAST-41 framework, I feel that the FERC has failed in its regulatory duty to be an independent agency by submitting to inappropriate industry-generated political pressure similar to that which is reflected in Secretary Granholm’s letter. It appears to me to be an attempt to intimidate the commission.

In a letter I just completed and sent to the FERC, I requested that they do their job and follow their charter as an independent agency: to evaluate all projects on their merits and with regard to their impact on climate change and to resist the political pressure placed on them by politicians like Senator Manchin, who would build more pipelines, mine more coal, drill for more oil and gas, despite the fact that it would put us on a fast track to total environment destruction.

I do not believe that the MVP project would help ensure the “reliable delivery of energy that heats homes and businesses, and powers electric generators that support the reliability of the electric system,” despite what Secretary Granholm may state in her letter. This is a 42-inch diameter interstate transmission line which is most likely slated to transmit gas for export.

Infrastructure such as MVP destroys communities, pollutes water, harms our environment, and has no role to play in the clean energy transition. Unproven technologies such as “carbon capture” facilitated by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act are not something you should rely on to fix our climate emergency. With the severe problems we are facing, these proposals are too little, too late.

No new pipeline infrastructure is needed. The rapid growth of hydrogen as an emissions-free fuel is also a misnomer, especially if the hydrogen is produced as a byproduct of more drilling. The transport of carbon dioxide through a pipeline might be the most dangerous thing we could ever do. I believe Secretary Granholm herself knows better than what she stated in her April 21 letter.

As extreme weather events continue to put strain on the U.S. energy system, we must quickly transition to green energy and continuing to build pipelines cannot be part of that transition. The MVP project would, if completed, lock us into decades of climate-busting greenhouse gas emissions as it destroys communities and property across its entire route.

The MVP project would, if completed, lock us into decades of climate-busting greenhouse gas emissions as it destroys communities and property across its entire route.

Now here is the hardly disguised, hard-hitting core message embedded in a (not so funny part of) Granholm’s letter: “While the Department takes no position regarding the outstanding agency actions required under federal or state law related to the construction of the MVP project, nor on any pending litigation, we submit the view that the MVP project will enhance the Nation’s critical infrastructure for energy and national security. We appreciate the Commission’s prompt actions to fulfill its regulatory responsibilities regarding natural gas infrastructure under the Natural Gas Act, and the interagency coordination it provides as the lead federal agency for the project under FAST-41. We look forward to continuing to work with FERC to ensure consumers have access to reliable, cost-effective, and clean energy.”

That was a very strong armed tactic, if I ever saw one. I believe it is totally inappropriate to write such a letter, especially when just one day before she said she would meet with me and the president issued the Executive Order Revitalizing Our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All on the morning before she wrote her letter to the FERC. The president said all executive branch agencies have a duty to pursue environmental justice. Apparently Secretary Granholm did not get the message.

Meanwhile, I am still in Washington D.C. waiting to hear from Secretary Granholm. Personally, I don’t understand her rush to write her letter cheering for the MVP. It is also typical of how most government leaders have treated landowners and other citizens in the path of the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

Maury Johnson inspected a section of the plastic coated pipe here

A pipeline and two power plants have been cancelled, but look out in West Virginia? CLICK HERE

Chickahominy Power LLC has officially called it quits for their pipeline and power plant project. That means that Charles City County here in Virginia is free from fossil fuel development for the foreseeable future.

The company blamed its failure on the “renewable energy industry and state legislators that supported them.” To that we say: “Good! We’re proud that CCAN played a key role, too.” The tide is turning in Virginia. Thanks to the clean energy victories we’ve achieved with your help, companies such as Chickahominy are finding it much harder to build new polluting projects.

We plan to continue working to prevent future fossil fuel injustices like the Chickahominy gas pipeline and plant, to prevent methane pollution and carbon dioxide emissions.

Chickahominy Power has been a looming threat since October 2016 when the project was first proposed. This plant was intended to be a merchant plant – meaning that it would supply energy into the regional grid for profit but not provide energy directly to Virginia customers. The business venture struggled to find financing and faced stiff opposition from Charles City County residents. CCAN is proud to have partnered with Concerned Citizens of Charles City County and other groups to defeat this pipeline project.

The cancellation of Chickahominy comes only months after another proposed gas plant — C4GT — was canceled. That gas plant would have been built just a few miles from the proposed site of Chickahominy. At a time when scientists call climate change a “code red” for humanity, it would have been lunacy to build these two new massive gas plants when we know that clean energy is our future.

But it’s not over yet. Chickahominy Power has stated that it intends to site the project elsewhere – looking to either West Virginia or Ohio. We know that NO community deserves to be home to a massive merchant gas plant like Chickahominy Power, polluting the community and fueling climate change. That’s why our federal work — efforts to inject billions into clean energy across the US — is so vitally important.

Thank you all for your tireless work. We won here and we will continue to win – against the Mountain Valley Pipeline, TC Energy & Transco-Williams pipelines**, and whatever else comes our way.

>>> In solidarity, Elle de la Cancela, Virginia Grassroots Organizer, Chesapeake Climate Action Network

** — PPS: For more about these pipelines and for information on an upcoming comment period, click here.

Land owners in Craig County (Virginia) discuss Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP)

From an Article by Laurence Hammack, Roanoke Times, October 7, 2019

The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday it will not hear an appeal from a group of Southwest Virginia landowners whose property was taken, before they were paid, for a controversial natural gas pipeline.

An order filed on the court’s first day of a new term gave no reason why it declined to consider the case, which involves land seized by eminent domain for the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

A group of about a dozen landowners had hoped the court would overturn a ruling by a Roanoke-based federal judge, who last year gave Mountain Valley immediate possession of about 300 properties in a decision that cleared the way for tree-cutting to begin.

In a practice known as “take first, pay later,” the question of how much the landowners should be compensated was put off until a later date.

“Somewhere along the way, this is something that needs to be resolved,” said Karolyn Givens of Giles County, the lead plaintiff in the case. “It is dead wrong to take somebody’s land, damage it … and then walk away and leave the land damaged.”

Since Judge Elizabeth Dillon and two of her counterparts in West Virginia gave Mountain Valley the right of eminent domain — which involves the taking of private land for a public use — most of the property owners along the pipeline’s 303-mile route have reached settlements with the company over how much their land was worth. Givens has not; a trial in her case is set to begin October 21.

In asking the Supreme Court to take the case, attorney Christopher Johns wrote that Dillon’s decision and others like it “let MVP cut down trees and bulldoze land before anyone knows whether the pipeline will ever be built.”

Since tree cutting began in February 2018, construction has been hampered by the loss of two key federal permits, which were struck down after legal challenges by environmental groups.

Mountain Valley also faces a lawsuit by Virginia regulators, who claim the company repeatedly failed to curb erosion and sedimentation.

Mountain Valley, which says the pipeline will be completed by the middle of next year, called the appeal an effort to delay the $5 billion project. “The court’s resolution of the merits in this case would have little, if any, practical import to the parties here — if the dispute is not already moot by then,” pipeline attorneys wrote in asking the high court to let Dillon’s ruling stand.

Givens and the other plaintiffs had faced an uphill battle, as the court hears arguments and renders a decision in only about 1% of the approximately 8,000 appeals filed each year.

Although crews have yet to bury a 42-inch diameter pipe on a strip of Giles County farmland owned by Givens, she says that blasting for the trench has unearthed a cave — and exposed potential problems with contamination being spread through the underground karst formations in the region.

Mountain Valley says in documents filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that its specialists found no direct evidence of “any pre-existing karst voids or conduits,” in the area, where construction was stopped when a permit to cross the nearby Jefferson National Forest was struck down.

Helicopter of MVP hobbled with some damage

Also on Monday, a pipeline protester spent several hours chained to a Mountain Valley helicopter. The aircraft had been parked overnight in a construction area in Montgomery County, not far from where the pipeline will cross the Roanoke River. The opponent was positioned just below the helicopter’s blades, next to a banner that read “Doom to the Pipeline.”

Virginia State Police spent several hours at the scene, finally removing the person about 11:30 a.m. Standing on top of the helicopter, the protester raised both arms in the air, prompting cheers and whistles from about a dozen supporters who watched several hundred yards away.

In a statement released by Appalachians Against Pipelines, the anonymous protester said direct action was needed to stop the damage being caused by pipeline construction, and that is to come with the release of harmful greenhouse gases. “In times such as these, with the catastrophic effects of global warming accelerating at an alarming pace, it is imperative to act now,” the statement read. It was not clear Monday whether any charges had been filed.

Since work began last year, more than 50 people have been charged with sitting in trees, chaining themselves to equipment or hindering construction in other ways. Monday’s incident was the first involving a helicopter. The helicopter was being used for hydro-seeding, which is part of an effort to control erosion and sedimentation along the right-of-way, Mountain Valley spokeswoman Natalie Cox said.

Monday’s incident left the helicopter damaged, Cox said, “the extent of which is still being evaluated.”

On Aug. 15, Mountain Valley said it had decided to suspend new construction in much of Virginia, following a lawsuit filed by environmental groups that claimed the work was harming endangered and threatened species.

Both the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and FERC have since been asked to order a full stop to construction while the case is pending. Neither had reached a decision by late Monday.

The legal system should protect private property

From an Article by Rick Miller, Olean NY Times Herald, November 15, 2018

A state appellate court ruled Friday that National Fuel Gas Corp. could not use eminent domain proceedings to cross a Clarksville couple’s property for the Northern Access Pipeline from McKean County, Pa. to Western New York.

The Appellate Division, Fourth Judicial Department overturned an earlier State Supreme Court ruling granting eminent domain powers to National Fuel Gas in order to cross the 200-acre parcel owned by Joseph and Theresa Schueckler. The property lay in the path of the proposed 97-mile $455 million Northern Access pipeline.

While National Fuel officials are still hopeful about the project’s future, the Schueckler’s attorney Gary Abraham thinks differently. “The pipeline is dead,” he said.

Dozens of streams and creeks are also in the pipeline’s path, which require DEC permission to cross. The DEC asked National Fuel Gas to use horizontal drilling to minimize stream disruptions. The company said it was unnecessary in most streams.

The 12-page ruling acknowledges the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) denied a Water Quality Certificate under the federal Clean Water Act, which National Fuel Gas has challenged in the Second Circuit U.S. Federal Court in New York City.

National Fuel Gas claimed DEC took longer than the one year allowed to review the company’s application for a Water Quality Certificate. The DEC said both parties had agreed to extend the deadline.

Last year, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which controls interstate transmission of natural gas, agreed with a National Fuel Gas request to approve the project with conditions.

One of the conditions is that National Fuel Gas obtain a Water Quality Certificate from DEC. National Fuel Gas sued FERC in Federal Court in the District of Columbia to remove the conditions. The ruling states that “It is indisputable, however, that if the Water Quality Certificate denial is ultimately upheld, the pipeline cannot be built.”

The appellate ruling will apply to others still fighting eminent domain proceedings by National Fuel Gas.

Abraham, of Great Valley, noted another portion of the appellate decision stated: “Only a viable public project can force respondents to surrender their rights in their land.” He said there will be no eminent domain “unless and until National Fuel Gas can prevail against DEC” in the Second Circuit or against the FERC conditions in the D.C. Circuit.

“They don’t have authorization from FERC to begin construction,” Abraham said. He cited one portion of the decision, which said: “given the State’s WQC denial, there simply is no viable public project. Consequently, petitioner [National Fuel] has no right to force respondents [the Schuecklers] to sell something that is not for sale.”

National Fuel Gas spokesman Karen Merkel said Wednesday, “The litigation surrounding the Northern Access Project has been significant over the last two years involving federal, state and local jurisdictions. Interstate pipeline projects are regulated by FERC under the federal Natural Gas Act.”

In an email Merkel said, “The federal approval received from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and FERC’s Aug. 6 Order that the NY DEC waived the ability to issue or deny a Clean Water Action Section 401 permit for the Northern Access project remain in force.

“National Fuel remains committed to this project and is pleased that we have secured agreements more than 500 property owners along the 97-mile proposed pipeline route. At this point we are considering our appellate options based on this ruling,” Merkel said.

National Fuel Gas President and CEO Ron Tanski said during a Nov. 2, earnings conference call: “Our Northern Access project received a boost by way of a favorable determination by FERC that the NY DEC exceeded their allowed time to either approve or deny a water quality certification.

“While we are still a couple of years and likely a few legal challenges away from constructing this project, it’s a giant step in the right direction. We anticipate that this will likely be a 2022 project,” Tanski said.

The project would employ about 1,700 workers during construction, generate $11.8 million in annual sales taxes and a one-time $8 million sales tax impact.

The pipeline would move natural gas from the Marcellus shale fields of Pennsylvania into Western New York for residential and commercial supplies as well as the export market.

Equitrans pipeline connectors as bold red lines

From a News Report of Sean Sullivan, SNL Daily Gas Report, SNL Financial LC, December 29, 2017
 
Staff at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission asked for more information before they sign off on a request to proceed with construction on an Equitrans LP natural gas pipeline expansion linked to the larger Mountain Valley pipeline.
 
In a Dec. 28 letter, FERC staff asked Equitrans to respond within 10 days with additional information to help staff check for compliance with environmental conditions in the commission’s Oct. 13 approval order. Equitrans had filed a request Dec. 20 for a partial notice to proceed that covered most of the project.
 
In the October order, FERC approved the estimated $172 million Equitrans project as a piece connected to the $3.7 billion, 2-Bcf/d Mountain Valley pipeline led by EQT Midstream Partners LP. The Equitrans expansion would consist of seven miles of pipeline and a new compressor station in Pennsylvania, as well as the abandonment of an existing compressor station. Equitrans is owned by EQT Midstream.
 
The Mountain Valley project, a joint venture of EQT and affliates of NextEra Energy Inc., RGC Resources Inc., WGL Holdings Inc. and Consolidated Edison Inc., would bring gas about 300 miles from West Virginia to pipeline connections in Virginia for transport to markets farther downstream.
 
The information requested by FERC staff includes data on permanent stockpile areas near the Redhook compressor station in Greene County, Pa.; maps with the locations of all parts of the expansion project, including temporary work spaces and staging areas; survey results for drinking water sources; survey reports for water bodies and wetlands; documentation that shows the developer submitted erosion control plan to appropriate state agencies; and an analysis of horizontal directional drill noise. (FERC docket CP16-13)
 
Contact: Lorne Stockman, Senior Research Analyst, Oil Change International, 714 G Street SE, Suite 202, Washington, DC 20003
W: priceofoil.org


Tyler County Gas Fire

WV Worker Dead after Injuries in Gas Explosion and Fire

Tyler County, WV – WTRF.com, April 14, 2013

A worker has died from injuries suffered in an accident at a natural gas operation in Tyler County. The Tyler County Sheriff’s Office said Sunday that 56-year-old Bruce Phipps of Marietta, Ohio, died late Friday night.

Two other workers were injured in Thursday’s accident at a Eureka Hunter Pipeline operation near Wick. The sheriff’s office says it doesn’t have any information on them.

Authorities have said the incident was an explosion at a compressor station. But Eureka’s parent, Magnum Hunter Resources, says it was a flash fire at a “pig receiving station.” Pigs are devices used to clean out or to inspect pipelines.

Magnum says initial reports indicate that natural gas liquids ignited in tanks during “pigging” operations and fueled the fire. Magnum says the workers were employed by contractors.

Authorities are investigating the cause of an explosion at a gas well compression site in Tyler County Thursday night after four people suffered injuries.

According to the Tyler County Sheriff’s Office, at about 7 p.m., Tyler County 911 received a call from a Eureka Hunter employee of an explosion with storage tanks on fire and at least two people injured at the Twin Hickories Road compression station near Wick, W.Va.

Fire and emergency responders were sent to the scene along with the Tyler County Sheriff Deputies. According to a press release, fire units from Shirley, Alma, Middlebourne, Sistersville as well as Saint Mary’s from Pleasants County and Paden City from Wetzel County responded.

According to the release, three people were flown by helicopter to West Penn Burn Center in Pittsburgh. A fourth person was taken to Sistersville General Hospital. The condition of the victims is unknown.  The WTRF video is available here.

Fire departments in Tyler County are responding to a gas well fire Thursday night.

According to the Tyler County Emergency Management Association, the explosion happened at a compression station in Tyler County. They did not confirm the exact location. The EMA is reporting three people were injured.

St. Mary’s, Paden City and numerous fire departments are at the scene, according to the EMA. The EMA is also responding to the scene to provide drinking water to firefighters.

To view the video click here.

For mobile devices click here.