Scientists, engineers, economists and political leaders have a responsibility ...

From the Article by David Shearman, The Hill ~ Energy & Environment, May 12, 2022

Human health and the natural environment are indivisible. A recent article in the journal The Lancet reminds us that “economic decisions on the environment have major impacts on human health, and health and wellness depend on a flourishing environment.”

Those living in vast cities may find this statement difficult to grasp and many economists certainly do, for the words “natural environment” have now to be changed to “natural capital” for their understanding. We live in a world where economic thinking rules our lives, whereas many believe it should be our servant in delivering an equitable and secure future.

When leaders of most Western nations continue to puff out their chests to announce their latest increase in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), or rate of growth, they expose their impotence to manage a nation’s future by failing to recognize environmental costs.

Or as written more politely by Stephen Posner and Lydia Olander, in The Hill, “While congressional leaders debate trillions of dollars of federal spending, they have a critical blind spot” for they are “not informed by a complete accounting of the nation’s assets, leaving out many critical services that nature provides.”

After nearly 70 years of GDP in economic ideology and practice, the World Bank is having second thoughts about GDP as a measure of “growth” for it takes no account of natural and human capital used to achieve it.

Indeed the bank’s “The Changing Wealth of Nations 2021 Managing Assets for the Future” report now seriously questions the use of GDP in its present form and may at long last provide a glimmer of hope for the world to have a sustainable future.

On “natural capital,” the report states “mismanagement of nature and failure to consider the longer-term impacts of our actions can carry severe consequences, even if they might not be immediately evident. We therefore need an expanded economic toolkit, including broader measures of economic progress, to secure our collective prosperity and even sustain our existence as a species.”

The report notes that “in countries where today’s GDP is achieved by consuming or degrading assets over time, for example by overfishing or soil degradation, total wealth is declining. This can happen even as GDP rises, but it undermines future prosperity.”

In Australia with an election due on May 21, the government has proudly announced a current GDP of 4 percent, yet it may well be minus 4 percent if the loss on natural capital is accounted for, due to prodigious land clearing, urban expansion and extensive environmental damage from mining. This may also be the case in the U.S. but there has been little attempt to measure it.

The issue is of pressing importance because world food supply is threatened by war, harvest failures from climate change extreme events and by supply problems. This is a threat to one of our life support systems, the living soil, the ecology of which together with the surrounding services from biodiversity provide our food. The research of many scientists defining these threats should galvanize action.

The World Bank 2021 report may have been influenced by the report “The Economics of Biodiversity,” by eminent economist Professor Partha Dasgupta, which was cited in a previous article in The Hill. Dasgupta pointed out that GDP does not include “depreciation of assets” as such as the degradation of the biosphere. Economic progress has been based on the extraction of resources from nature and the dumping of waste back into it. When extraction and dumping exceed nature’s capacity to repair itself, natural capital shrinks as do biodiversity and the essential environmental services they provide.

A basic tenet of any policy or practice is that it should be able to measure its effect accurately so it is now vital to establish environmental accounting to place a value on natural capital as explained in an article from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Indeed, one has to ask why the U.S. has been tardy to adopt the UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) which commenced in 2012, when about 90 countries have already done so. The answer may be that the U.S. favors of a free-market system that embodies deregulation and is the leading instrument in disregard for the consumption of natural capital. Indeed, even recent articles from eminent business schools fail to mention the environment as it related to the U.S. economy.

It is also important to reflect that for too long we have failed to acknowledge and use the inherent knowledge of many indigenous peoples on land management. The free-market system has moved Western civilizations far from such understanding.

Reform must be initiated by a fundamental change in the thinking of economists and by politicians of both persuasions. Bipartisan reforms will become all the more necessary when climate-driven conflict emerge, and reforms could offer security, especially to rural constituencies who understand food production. Given the unprecedented impact we’ve had on land, the recent sobering UN land report is essential reading for all members of Congress as they consider economic policies — not just climate action.

A vital step in developing the World Bank’s “expanded economic toolkit” should be to educate the public and business on reform of GDP to put a value on nature so providing an incentive for government to protect it. Currently, “Real GDP” denotes GDP adjusted for inflation. Let us have “true GDP,” which encompasses environmental loss.

But we must realize that reform of GDP is only one piece of a thousand others needed to complete this jigsaw puzzle in the next few decades, if the planet is to remain viable for human life. The other pieces — including climate change, pollutions, toxic chemicals, water security, sea and land ecology, population growth, consumption, conflict — must all fit together as they are interrelated. Only in fitting together the puzzle can we ensure out survival.

>>> David Shearman (AM, Ph.D., FRACP, FRCPE) is a professor of medicine at the University of Adelaide, South Australia and co-founder of Doctors for the Environment Australia. He is co-author of “The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy” (2007) commissioned by the Pell Centre for International Relations and Public Policy.

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See Also: Americans Largely Favor U.S. Taking Steps To Become Carbon Neutral by 2050, Alec Tyson, et al., March 1, 2022

Majorities of Americans say the United States should prioritize the development of renewable energy sources and take steps toward the country becoming carbon neutral by the year 2050. But just 31% want to phase out fossil fuels completely, and many foresee unexpected problems in a major transition to renewable energy.

Food & Water Watch analysis of employment

From an Article by Alison Grass, Pittsburgh Tribune Review, October 16, 2020

The road to the White House once again runs through Pennsylvania, which explains the campaign photo ops and nonstop TV ads. It also means we’ll be treated to a lot of claims about fracking. Unfortunately, much of what we’re hearing about drilling is not rooted in the facts.

The stories that the Trump campaign and the fracking industry tell are straightforward: Fracking equals jobs, and lots of them. Trump tells his supporters that 600,000 (or occasionally even 900,000) fracking jobs in Pennsylvania are at risk due to a ban on drilling. That is nowhere near the truth — the real number is under 30,000 — and Joe Biden does not support a fracking ban in the first place.

The Trump team makes the same kinds of boasts about the Shell petrochemical cracker plant going up in Beaver County, which has become a regular campaign backdrop. In a sense, this is perfectly fitting; that facility, and the massive public subsidies that have been wasted on it, are emblematic of Trump’s distorted fossil fuel agenda. The public will eventually shell out $1.6 billion — in the form of corporate tax credits — to help subsidize the $6 billion facility, which will convert fracked gas byproducts into plastics. This is, in Trump’s view, a huge success story; he even once bizarrely claimed credit for the plant’s existence.

But the Shell saga is not a success, it’s a cautionary tale. Contrary to the boasts of petrochemical backers, the plant was mostly built with imported materials and out-of-state workers. Instead of providing for thousands of local, permanent jobs, it will create about 600. And these massive corporate giveaways don’t create jobs — they serve to widen the inequality gap.

The fossil-fuel industry and its political allies are telling us the same story we’ve always heard: If you want the jobs, you have to put up with living with the air and water pollution. But new research from Food & Water Watch shows that “choice” is false. Our new analysis — “Cracked: The Case For Green Jobs Over Petrochemicals In Pennsylvania” — shows that a similar level of investment in wind and solar manufacturing would create as many as 16,000 permanent jobs.

But let’s be real: Subsidies and tax breaks alone are unlikely to attract manufacturers. The most effective way to ensure the transition to a green economy is through a large-scale buildout of publicly owned renewable electricity. This should include a comprehensive, New Deal-scale green public works program that guarantees employment for fossil-fuel workers and prioritizes American-made renewable energy and energy-efficient equipment, materials and appliances.

The fact that clean energy manufacturing provides a much more serious jobs boom should move Pennsylvania’s political leaders to pursue policies to create an economy that works for everyone. Unfortunately, state lawmakers are still banking on fossil fuels and petrochemicals.

Right now, the entire “debate” around fracking in Pennsylvania is marred by outlandish exaggerations and a willful blindness to the realities of the fossil-fuel business. As national media outlets pontificate about what the presidential candidates will do to “protect” fracking jobs, the industry is in the midst of a devastating collapse. While the campaign rhetoric spins fantasies about hundreds of thousands of good jobs, in the real world fracking jobs are disappearing and companies are going bankrupt.

The Shell cracker plant does not represent the kind of future that will truly benefit all Pennsylvanians. Instead of spending billions of dollars to create a few hundred jobs — and unknown quantities of air and plastic pollution — the state should make serious investments in wind and solar manufacturing, which will create far more stable, long-term jobs at a fraction of the cost.

>> Alison Grass is research director at the national advocacy group Food & Water Watch.

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FACT CHECKER: Trump campaign promotes false claim that Biden would end fracking – The Washington Post, October 7, 2020

More than six months after former vice president Joe Biden became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, the Trump campaign still acts as if it is running against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

PennEast natural gas pipeline is under construction in northeast Pennsylvania

From an Article by Jon Hurdle, New Jersey Spotlight, January 6, 2020

The PennEast Pipeline Company is asking federal regulators for two more years to build its controversial natural gas pipeline through New Jersey and Pennsylvania, saying it has been the victim of “unforeseeable circumstances” that have delayed construction some two years beyond its original start date.

The company wrote to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on December 30, saying it has used its “best efforts” to meet a FERC certificate that required putting the proposed pipeline into service by this month but now needs the extra time.

Critics of the controversial pipeline say, given legal and regulatory challenges, company is unlikely to meet its desired new deadline of January 2022

Arguably the biggest setback was an appeals court ruling in September, holding that the company was not entitled to build the pipeline on 49 parcels of protected land in which the State of New Jersey has an interest.

The company says it will appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court but a decision on whether to hear the case isn’t expected until mid-2020, and even if the court takes the case, a ruling is unlikely before early 2021.

PennEast will be unable to resubmit its failed applications for water-quality and other permits to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection until any Supreme Court ruling on whether the pipeline can be built on state land.

Other permitting challenges exist

The troubled project must also obtain permits from the Delaware River Basin Commission, which is reviewing its application but has not scheduled required public hearings.

The continuing legal and regulatory requirements hanging over the project make it highly unlikely that it will be able to meet its desired new deadline of January 19, 2022 even if FERC grants the extension, critics said.

“I think it’s very unrealistic to go two years,” said Tim Duggan, an attorney for several local government entities and about 45 individual landowners who oppose the project. He estimated that any Supreme Court review would take six to nine months and even if PennEast wins its appeal, it will then have to face both the DEP — where permit applications can take a year to be decided — and the DRBC.

Faced with that timetable, Duggan said the company may be planning on asking for a further two years after the currently sought period expires. “They’re going to get the two years but I don’t think it’s enough time,” he said.

He argued that the chances of the pipeline being built are further limited by the environmental policies of the Murphy administration, which aims to create a 100% clean-energy economy by 2050, and would be undermining that goal if it approved a major piece of fossil fuel infrastructure like PennEast.

The $1 billion pipeline would carry natural gas about 120 miles from the Marcellus Shale of northeastern Pennsylvania, crossing beneath the Delaware River, and ending in Mercer County. The company says the project would bring low-cost natural gas to consumers in New Jersey but critics including the New Jersey Division of Rate Counsel, a watchdog for utility ratepayers, say it’s an unnecessary and environmentally damaging plan.

The project has aroused strong community opposition in New Jersey, especially from landowners who fear their private water wells will be contaminated by construction. Many have denied PennEast access to their land for surveying.

In Pennsylvania, PennEast is seeking permits from regulators, and has modified its route in four places.

What natural gas shortage?

Popular resistance is the main reason for the delays, argued Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “PennEast said they needed the pipeline in 2015 because of the shortage of gas in the region. Here we are five years later and there is still no shortage and PennEast is looking to delay the project even longer.”

In its two-page request to FERC, PennEast said it is “considering available remedies” to address the DEP’s “unfounded claim” that it could not move forward with the permit application because the Third Circuit Court of Appeals said the company could not build on the state lands.

The company, whose investors include a unit of New Jersey Resources, said postponement of the in-service date would have no impact on FERC’s findings that the project is in the public interest, and therefore that the company has the right to take private land under eminent domain.

“PennEast remains committed to constructing this important energy infrastructure project and placing the project into service as soon as possible,” it said.

Company spokeswoman Pat Kornick declined to say what legal remedies the company might pursue against the DEP, but said PennEast will appeal to the Supreme Court over the September appeals court decision by early February. FERC declined to comment.

In October, the DEP denied PennEast’s application for a water-quality permit for the second time, saying the Third Circuit’s ruling means the company “no longer has the legal authority to perform activities” on the 49 parcels.

The court ruling stands in the way of any further movement, said Tom Gilbert, campaign manager for the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, an outspoken opponent of the project.

“At this point, given that Third Circuit decision, they are unable to move this project forward,” Gilbert said. “They don’t have legal authority over properties that they are depending on to build their pipeline in New Jersey, and unless and until they can find some way to resolve that issue, this project is going nowhere.”

Rather than planning for another extension, PennEast is likely looking at the end of the road for its project, Gilbert said. “If the Supreme Court refuses to take the case up, they are pretty much out of options.”

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See also: FERC: Natural Gas Pipelines: Approved Pipeline Projects (2015 — 2019)

See also: Cineplex Rex — Natural Gas Pipeline Video Clips

Marcellus shale drilling operation

Article by E. Mayfield, J. Cohon, N. Muller, I. Azevedo & A. Robinson, Nature Sustainability, Vol. 2, Pp. 1122–1131(2019)

ABSTRACT — Natural gas has become the largest fuel source for electricity generation in the United States and accounts for a third of energy production and consumption. However, the environmental and socioeconomic impacts across the supply chain and over the boom-and-bust cycle have not been comprehensively characterized.

To provide insight for long-term decision-making for energy transitions, we estimate the cumulative effects of the shale gas boom in the Appalachian basin from 2004 to 2016 on air quality, climate change and employment.

We find that air quality effects (1,200 to 4,600 deaths; US$23 billion +99%/−164%) and employment effects (469,000 job-years ±30%; US$21 billion ±30%) follow the boom-and-bust cycle, while climate impacts (US$12 billion to 94 billion) persist for generations well beyond the period of natural gas activity.

Employment effects concentrate in rural areas where production occurs. However, almost half of cumulative premature mortality due to air pollution is downwind of these areas, occurring in urban regions of the northeast.

The cumulative effects of methane and carbon dioxide emissions on global mean temperature over a 30-yr time horizon are nearly equivalent but over the long term, the cumulative climate impact is largely due to carbon dioxide.

We estimate that a tax on production of US$2 per thousand cubic feet (+172%/−76%) would compensate for cumulative climate and air quality externalities across the supply chain.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0420-1

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CMU study suggests taxing natural gas to offset environmental damage

Article by Paul J. Gough, Pittsburgh Business Times, December 10, 2019

PHOTO in ARTICLE: A drilling rig stands about 100 feet tall on a well pad being developed in the Utica shale play near Marietta, Ohio. From Jeff Bell | Columbus Business First

A Carnegie Mellon University study said a $2 per thousand cubic foot tax on natural gas production would help compensate for the climate and air quality impacts of drilling and hydraulic fracturing in the Appalachian basin and elsewhere.

The study, co-written by former CMU President Jared L. Cohon and Princeton University’s Erin N. Mayfield, was published in Nature Sustainability, an academic journal published by the same company that owns the globally respected journal Nature. The article, published in Nature Sustainability’s December 2019 issue, looks to reconcile what it said was the environmental and socioeconomic costs of drilling not just in the field, but through the supply chain.

The researchers found benefits and costs on both sides of the equation, including economic development and job gains, while at the same time an increased amount of deaths from air quality related to the shale gas activity. The study estimated between 1,200 and 4,600 premature deaths due to shale activity between 2004 and 2016, and about 469,000 job years in the period. Job years are defined in the study as a part-time or full-time job over a year.

The analysis projected $12 billion to $94 billion in additional climate impacts over the course of 30 years. It also found long-term impacts further away from the shale drilling areas, with what it said was half of the premature mortality happening downwind in the Northeast. The drilling activity modeled occurred in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio between 2004 and 2016.

“The cumulative effects of methane and carbon dioxide emissions on global mean temperature over a 30-year time horizon are nearly equivalent but over the long term, the cumulative climate impact is largely due to carbon dioxide,” the study said.

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Natural gas become LNG at minus 260 deg. F.

By Barbara Daniels, Letter to the Editor, Charleston Gazette, January 20, 2018

An (unusual) Tufts University economic analysis of the Mountain Valley Pipeline and Atlantic Coast Pipeline overturns almost everything pipeline companies and government officials are telling us.

Counter to loudly proclaimed manufacturing jobs and cheaper electricity rates, the December 5th report shows that States with recently built pipelines, including West Virginia, often have less employment and an increase in rates.

Demand for electricity is generally dwindling, moreover, and existing pipelines have expanded their capacity far over that of the two proposed pipelines. Meanwhile, the Tufts report states: ”Testimony using Dominion’s own, more recent cost projections concludes that Dominion’s customers may actually pay $1.61 to $2.36 billion more with the ACP than without the ACP over the next 20 years.”

The estimated cost of the ACP and MVP could support enough alternative energy for 400,000 homes. And, according to the National Resource Defense Council, that money could generate three times more clean-energy jobs than could the ACP in the same period.

Why, then, are these pipelines being built, especially in spite of widely-based protest?

The answer may be this: A July 28, 2016, advocate staff report states that the Panama Canal has been widened to accommodate enormous, new liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers. So gas companies can now competitively ship to the much more lucrative Asian markets. The continual planned extension of these pipelines toward coastal LNG export terminals (which are also new), and the propaganda enabling this, are probably not coincidental.

Unsurprisingly following gas industry assumptions that are, at best, incomplete, the U.S. government promotes liquefied natural gas exports.

Greenwire reports that this policy is based on simplistic gas industry claims that LNG exports will displace coal overseas, thus reducing greenhouse emissions. This assumption fails to consider three major factors: 1. the huge emissions during production and delivery that offset any “clean-burning” benefits; 2. the resulting rise in U.S gas prices that would increase coal use here; and 3. Asian countries would likely add, rather than substitute, gas for their growing energy needs.

Frack fluid is used to produce the delivered gas. The chemicals contained in this fluid are so toxic that they are hidden under patents and nondisclosure laws. Further, the fracking process itself is so polluting that it needs exemptions from all seven major federal environmental laws, including the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Superfund Act and the Clean Air Act.

Nevertheless, once the pipelines reach coastal terminals and gas prices rise with offshore sales, hundreds of unused West Virginia drilling permits will be activated. West Virginia is facing destruction from fracking as never before.

Barbara Daniels, Richwood, WV

Diesel exhausts near Barr family home

Marcellus Shale impacts still large in Wetzel County

From an Article by Mandi Cardosi, WTRF 7 News, Wheeling, WV, April 11, 2014

Wetzel County has always been a producer of natural gas, but a boom in the Marcellus Shale gas drilling really put it on the map for the Mountain State. Since 2008, the county at the base of the Northern Panhandle saw an increase in drilling by 6,000 percent.

A recent collaborative research effort looking into the shale drilling was released to show the effects of the oil and gas industry on West Virginia, among other surrounding states. The Multi-State Shale Research Collaborative, of which the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy participated in, released case studies April 10, which examined the impacts of shale oil and gas drilling in four active communities.

Read the case studies HERE.

The study looked at Carroll County in Ohio, Greene and Tioga counties in Pennsylvania and Wetzel County in West Virginia.

West Virginia is unique in that companies have been taking actions to sever surface rights from mineral rights, meaning some individuals do not own the mineral right so their land. This means some residents don’t have control over fracking on their property and are limited in being compensated from the oil and gas companies.

“Overall, the impact is unclear with how much royalty payments are flowing in,” said Sean O’Leary, fiscal policy analyst with the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy. “Local officials will note jobs in gas industry are going to out of state workers.”

Unemployment in the county remains 3 percent higher than the state average at over 10 percent. ”There hasn’t been a population boom as you see in other counties (including Pennsylvania and Ohio drilling counties),” O’Leary said. “The population continues to decline – you’re also not seeing new home constructions, sales, real estate prices are the same.”

The community in Wetzel County was, according to the WVCBP, still impacted by the industry in the fact that officials were caught off-guard when it came to town, so to speak.

O’Leary said his best advice for communities would be proper planning, as Wetzel County has a task force of county leaders to discuss road damage from heavy truck traffic as well as other primary concerns.

By promising more jobs, the oil and gas industry hasn’t delivered in many cases and Wetzel County continues to suffer from the double-digit unemployment despite having some of the highest natural gas production in the region, the WVBPC said.

“In Wetzel County the Marcellus shale boom has brought some growth but less development,” said Ted Boettner, executive director of the WVCBP. “This highlights why it is so important for communities to enact policies that ensure that they are better off, not worse off, after the drilling subsides.”

WV Marcellus Well Completions

Pennsylvania charity keeps funding gas drilling research

From an Article by Kevin Begos, Associated Press, January 18, 2014

PITTSBURGH – The Heinz Endowments are continuing to strongly support research and advocacy relating to environmental and health impacts of natural gas hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in spite of significant turnover in its senior management.
 
The Pittsburgh-based Endowments told the Associated Press that it gave out more than $3.3 million in 2013 for grants specifically related to gas drilling. That estimate doesn’t include grants to other groups who spend only part of their time on drilling issues.
 
The more than 20 grantees included many regional groups, but also universities such as Yale, Harvard and Cornell. The projects ranged from studies of potential air and water pollution to films, community organizing and support for a sport fishing group that monitors drilling impacts.
 
The largest single grant – $766,400 – went to the FracTracker Alliance, a group that researches and maps oil and gas drilling activity and impacts across the nation.
 
Brook Lenker, FracTracker’s director, said Heinz Endowments is an important and valued partner, and currently their largest funder. But he also noted that as the shale gas drilling boom keeps expanding “more funders are becoming interested” in the issue. “Our intent, like most nonprofits, is to diversify our funding,” Lenker said.
 
In 2012 Heinz estimated that it had already awarded about $12 million in gas drilling-related grants. The large majority were for institutions or organizations that were asking tough questions about the impacts of the drilling boom.
 
But last August the Endowments suddenly dismissed Caren Glotfelty, its longtime head of environmental grant making, leading to speculation that its priorities might change. At the time Glotfelty told reporters in an email that “the board has indicated that it is moving in a different direction with regard to the Environment Program.”
 
Then in October, Endowments president Robert Vagt announced that he planned to retire, and his last day is January 24th. Endowments spokeswoman Carmen Lee says a search is underway for a new president but there’s no timetable. Teresa Heinz Kerry is the head of the charity, which is not connected to the global food company with the same name.
 
The departure of Vagt and other staff members came after the endowments received criticism from some environmental groups for the formation of the Center for Sustainable Shale Development, a partnership among other environmental groups, charities, and the oil and gas industry that was announced last spring. Endowments officials never formally mentioned a connection between the criticism and the departures. In 2012, the Endowments provided at least $95,000 in grants to help launch the CSSD, but it’s not clear if there was any further support last year.
 
Vagt played a leading role in launching the CSSD, and Lee said it’s unclear who will take his place on that project. The Endowments did not comment on the matter.
 
The Heinz Endowments, with assets of $1.4 billion, is the 49th largest foundation in the United States. The charity gives out an average of about $60 million in grants each year, but that includes other program areas such as arts and culture; children, and community and economic development.
 
In the past, the Marcellus Shale Coalition, a leading industry group, criticized the Endowments for supporting organizations that are opposed to natural gas drilling. A Coalition spokesman said they had no comment.

Wet Gas By-Product Storage Tanks

Local Shale Industry Spending Ramping Up Rapidly

 >> Construction expenditures for the area take a huge jump from 2012

From an Article By Casey Junkins, Wheeling Intelligencer, 01/14/14

 WHEELING – Powered by extensive Marcellus and Utica shale processing and pipelining infrastructure, the Wheeling Metropolitan Statistical Area saw construction investments grow from $60.3 million in 2012 to $1.72 billion in 2013. “I see another 5-10 years of construction like this,” said Keith Hughes, business manager at Ironworkers Local No. 549 in Wheeling. “It has been tremendous for our area and we appreciate all of the work we are getting.”

Williams Energy will eventually invest a total of $4.5 billion for Utica and Marcellus shale natural gas processing infrastructure in Marshall County, while Blue Racer Midstream and MarkWest Energy continue working on similar ambitious projects throughout the Upper Ohio Valley. Simultaneously, new hotels are opening at The Highlands, in St. Clairsville and in Morristown to accommodate those individuals now working in the shale regions.

It all adds up to show that construction in the Ohio (WV), Marshall (WV) and Belmont (OH) counties – collectively known as the Wheeling Metropolitan Statistical Area – grew to $1.72 billion in 2013. According to McGraw Hill Construction, the same area saw only $60.3 million worth of construction in 2012.

McGraw Hill tracks and analyzes construction trends throughout the nation. The company’s data shows that 2013 saw $1.7 billion worth of “non-residential” construction in the MSA, up from $54.3 million in 2012. Non-residential building includes offices, hotels, retail outlets, warehouses, manufacturing, education, hospitals and government buildings and infrastructure. The remaining amounts for both years are for “residential” building – $10.8 million in 2013 and $6 million in 2012.

The numbers could be even more impressive next year, as construction does not seem to be slowing. In Marshall County, the Williams company has three sites of operation: the Fort Beeler processing plant; the Oak Grove processing plant; and the Moundsville fractionation plant. While each of these sites are in some level of operation, the company continues building at each site, with most of these efforts now focused on the Oak Grove facility.

Once all projects are up and running, they will work as a cohesive unit to separate the liquid portions of the natural gas stream from the dry portions. Williams officials believe they will be able to process at least 2.5 billion cubic feet on natural gas per day.

In April 2012, Williams paid about $2.3 billion to acquire the Fort Beeler cryogenic processing plant – which can be seen along U.S. 250 between Moundsville and Cameron – and the other Marshall County operations of Caiman Energy. Williams is now in the midst of expanding with an additional $2.2 billion expenditure.

Williams spokeswoman Helen Humphreys said her company performed $1.64 billion worth of new construction in 2013, with plans to build $1.3 billion more this year. Hughes said the union appreciates Williams. ”We have 40 ironworkers out at Oak Grove right now,” Hughes said. “We are also doing work for MarkWest and Blue Racer. It is really a boon for us and for the whole area.”

MarkWest has invested $2.2 billion into pipelines, processing and fractionation plants in the region. MarkWest expanded its Majorsville facility in eastern Marshall County in 2013, via supply agreements with Consol Energy and Noble Energy. MarkWest also started a second de-ethanizer at the Majorsville site. Blue Racer continued building onto the Marshall County Natrium plant and its pipeline network in 2013 until a September 21, 2013 fire. (That facility has not yet resumed operation.)

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U.S. oil & gas industry to invest $890B in infrastructure to 2025

From an Article By Katherine Lymn, Forum News Service, January 9, 2014

The U.S. oil and gas industry is investing confidently in infrastructure the near future, according to a recent report on infrastructure investments. Those investments, of a projected $890 billion over the next 12 years, will pump the national economy with hundreds of thousands of jobs along with the ripple effects of a workforce with more spending money.

“It’s a time of optimism for the industry,” said James Fallon, director of downstream energy consulting at IHS Global Inc., which did the study. The investments will break down into an especially strong year this year, carrying over from a “banner year” in 2013, and will sustain at annual investments of at least $80 billion in midstream and downstream infrastructure until 2020.

The report noted developing shale formation areas will require more extensive investments in gathering and support facilities because they are not historic production regions. That issue is ever present in the minds of Bakken industry players as flaring of natural gas, which often occurs because of a lack of a pipeline hookup to transport the gas, becomes a top problem.

The study said pipelines will be the primary mover of oil and gas despite other methods increasing in popularity as of late. Investments in crude oil pipelines increased from $1.6 billion in 2010 to $6.6 billion last year.

North Dakota is seeing ripple effects across the state, such as the fertilizer plants in Jamestown and Grand Forks, and the manufacturing industry in Fargo where oilfield equipment is built. There’s also the ripple economic effect that comes from the increased workforce. “They need to eat somewhere, they need to sleep somewhere, they need places to refill their vehicles, they need leisure activities,” Fallon said.

An overall theme of the changing infrastructure is a shift in the focus of the industry toward exports away from the historical infrastructure supporting imports, a relic of the now outdated focus on getting oil from elsewhere.

North Dakota

North Dakota requires compensation for surface owners

As reported in the Western Livestock Journal, February 1, 2013 

Recognizing the concerns of surface owners who do not own the minerals, North Dakota law has been modified through the years to offer the surface owner more property protection rights; the key legislation at this time is the Surface Damage Compensation Act, which defines two categories of surface damage. The first category is damage and disruption and the second is loss of production. The legislation includes examples of compensable damages, such as lost land value, lost use of and access to land, and loss value of improvements.

The mineral developer must provide the surface owner a notice of planned activities (seven days for activities that do not disturb the surface and 20 days for oil and gas drilling operations) and a written offer to compensate for damages through a surface compensation agreement. If the surface owner does not accept the agreement the parties can proceed in court.

However, in an effort to reduce the number of court proceedings, the North Dakota Legislature has directed the Department of Agriculture to provide mediation service for the surface owners and mineral developers. This statute also states that these payments are intended to compensate the surface users, such as a farm tenant.

The anticipated network of pipelines that is intended to reduce truck traffic and gas flaring is leading to a need for pipeline easement. Executing the easement is an opportunity for a surface owner to thoughtfully specify what rights are being granted….

Surface users and mineral owners may be told when they are offered a lease, compensation agreement or document to create an easement that states “this is standard language” or that it is “a standard document.” However there is no such thing as a standard document.

Mineral owners and landowners should not feel obligated to accept the first offer. They should take their time and review the document, consider their situation, assess whether the document addresses their needs and concerns, and seek outside council if they so desire…

David Saxowsky, North Dakota State University, prepared this article in the Western Livestock Journal. Professor Saxowsky teaches Farm and Agribusiness Management and related subjects, and maintains the ND Oil and Gas Law site at this site.