On June 8, 2023, hundreds of frontline and Appalachian climate activists rallied at the White House against the Mountain Valley Pipeline

From the Article by Ivy Main, Power for the People VA, June 29, 2023

The folly of building the Mountain Valley Pipeline should be obvious to anyone who hasn’t already committed billions of dollars to the project!

This spring’s passage of federal legislation raising the debt ceiling came with one provision that clean energy advocates had fought hard against: it sweeps away several legal challenges to the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) that have stalled completion for more than four years. The pipeline is supposed to carry methane gas from the fracking fields of West Virginia into Virginia to connect to an existing interstate pipeline here, and getting it built has long been a priority of West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin.

Manchin surely believes he notched a victory with the inclusion of this provision in must-pass legislation. And in one respect, he’s right. Pipeline opponents aren’t conceding defeat, but stopping the MVP in court just got a heck of a lot harder.

Whether the pipeline’s developers should be celebrating is another matter. The wisdom of building a new methane gas pipeline was questionable nine years ago when the MVP was conceived. Today, with the U.S. transitioning away from fossil fuels, the folly of building new gas infrastructure should be obvious to anyone who hasn’t already committed billions of dollars to the project.

Dominion Energy figured this out three years ago when it dropped plans to develop the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. Dominion is a big energy conglomerate and had other projects to pursue. Canceling the Atlantic Coast Pipeline saved it billions of dollars that it is now investing in offshore wind and other renewable energy assets.

MVP’s two largest minority partners are also diversified companies with other options. NextEra Energy, which owns a 31% share in the partnership through its subsidiary Next Energy Resources, wrote off the value of its investment in MVP in 2021 and 2022, saying it planned to “reevaluate its investment in the Mountain Valley Pipeline.”

A NextEra spokesperson did not answer my question about what the company plans to do about MVP now. But if a picture is worth a thousand words, take a look at NextEra Energy Resources’ homepage. MVP isn’t mentioned anywhere on the website, which is largely a celebration of the company’s renewable energy assets.

The third-largest stakeholder in the MVP is Consolidated Edison, with an initial 12.5% stake. In 2019 it exercised an option to cap its investment in MVP, and in 2020 it wrote down the value of its investment by almost half. ConEd CEO John McAvoy told investors that year the company would no longer invest in gas transmission projects and “certainly would” consider selling its stake in MVP.

“We made those investments five to seven years ago,” he said, “and at that time we — and frankly many others — viewed natural gas as having a fairly large role in the transition to the clean energy economy. That view has largely changed, and natural gas, while it can provide emissions reductions, is no longer … part of the longer-term view.”

Unfortunately, these views aren’t shared by MVP’s majority owner and operator. Equitrans Midstream is solely a pipeline and gas storage company, having been spun off from a larger corporation, EQT, in 2018. MVP is its key to growth. The exit door may be wide open, but Equitrans doesn’t want to leave because it has nowhere to go.

That doesn’t mean it makes sense to stay, either. Many a gambler has learned the hard way that continuing to feed coins into a slot machine does not make it more likely to disgorge the jackpot.

And really, if there ever was a jackpot for MVP, it is gone by now. In 2015, EQT saw an opportunity to undercut the price charged by existing pipelines to ship gas to an energy-hungry Southeast. Today, though, demand for methane gas has cooled in the face of cheap wind and solar, while MVP’s costs have ballooned to $6.6 billion from the initial projection of $3.25 billion. Analysts say MVP’s competitive advantage has evaporated, and its prospects for profitability look grim.

Equitrans maintains that there is still a pressing need for its pipeline, but demand has always been hypothetical. From the very beginning, the partnership seemingly indulged in “build it and they will come” magical thinking.

Getting a permit to build from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission requires that pipeline developers have their customers lined up ahead of time in order to demonstrate a “need” for the project. Even in 2015 there were not enough customers clamoring for MVP’s services, so the partners named themselves as the buyers for more than half of the pipeline’s capacity. FERC’s approach to permitting allows this self-dealing, though the commission has been heavily criticized for it.

Obviously, Equitrans was never going to be a customer; it isn’t in the business of generating power or selling gas at retail. Its field of dreams assumed demand for gas would grow, customers would be clamoring for pipeline capacity, and Equitrans would be able sell its share of the capacity and just reap the profits from owning the pipeline.

It’s hard to imagine that happening now. Economics had already started to favor wind and solar over fossil fuels when the MVP broke ground. Total natural gas consumption has been mostly flat nationwide since 2018, and the Energy Information Agency (EIA) projects it will decline steadily for the next decade. EIA also projects that more than half of all new electric generating capacity this year will be solar, with natural gas additions down to a mere 14%. Here in Virginia, methane gas burned by electric utilities has declined from a high in 2020.

The future will only get brighter for renewables and dimmer for gas. In 2020, Virginia committed to a zero-carbon energy future, and in 2022 Congress passed the strongest set of clean energy incentives in history. Betting on fossil fuels in today’s environment makes no sense.

Sure, Governor Youngkin is doing his level best to throw a wrench in the works, and Dominion Energy Virginia just proposed building a 1,000-megawatt gas combustion turbine, citing growing demand from data centers and electric vehicles. Misguided as that proposal is, it doesn’t signal good times ahead for the gas industry. Combustion turbines are not baseload plants; they run only when demand exceeds other sources of supply. Dominion has no plans to build new baseload gas plants.

MVP knows finding customers in Virginia will be hard. Before litigation and permit denials put construction on hold in 2018, the partnership had proposed an extension of the pipeline into North Carolina, perhaps hoping for better pickings in Duke Energy territory. Now that MVP has the congressional seal of approval, it is seeking to revive the proposed Southgate Extension, to the dismay of North Carolina activists. Yet economics don’t favor gas over solar there, either.

The liquefied natural gas export market has also been floated as a potential source of growth, but critics say the lack of liquefied natural gas terminal capacity prevents that from happening.

It’s time to stop this travesty. Equitrans claims MVP is 94% complete, but opponents say the true figure is more like 56%, with many of the most difficult segments (like stream crossings) still to be tackled. Those are also the most environmentally sensitive parts of the line. Pulling the plug on MVP now would avoid not only the cost of completing the pipeline, but also the cost of fixing leaks, erosion damage and other problems critics believe are inevitable given the terrain and geology.

That would be a much better result for everyone concerned than completing the pipeline to serve a market that doesn’t exist – a Pyrrhic victory if there ever was one.

>>> This article was originally published in the Virginia Mercury on June 28, 2023.

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

We can do better, we need to do better, let’s try harder!

Press Release from Karuna Jaguar, Center for Biological Diversity & Peter Hart, Food & Water Watch, July 29, 2022

WASHINGTON— More than 350 conservation and community groups, representing millions of people, called on President Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer today to reject fossil fuel expansion during negotiations over a reconciliation package.

The groups also urged Biden to use the full suite of his executive authority to stop issuing federal fossil fuel leases and deny permits for new fossil fuel infrastructure, and to declare a climate emergency, which would unlock powerful tools to combat the climate crisis.

“Permitting new fossil fuel projects will further entrench us in a fossil fuel economy for decades to come — and constitutes a violent betrayal of your pledge to combat environmental racism and destruction,” the groups’ lettersaid. “New fossil fuel projects will also lock workers into a dying industry and delay the growth in sectors that will support jobs of the future.”

Two provisions buried in the Inflation Reduction Act would require massive oil and gas leasing in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska, reinstate an illegal 2021 Gulf lease sale and mandate that millions more acres of public lands be offered for leasing before any new solar or wind energy projects could be built on public lands or waters. These leasing provisions lock in decades of additional fossil fuel pollution and continue a racist legacy of sacrificing environmental justice communities.

Greenlighting new fossil fuel extraction is incompatible with climate science and the administration’s climate goals. The science is clear that the president cannot approve any new fossil fuel leases and still stay within the U.S. carbon budget for keeping warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Communities at the front lines of the climate emergency are already dealing with and dying from ever-worsening fires, hurricanes, flooding, heat waves and drought. A recent analysis showed that more than 40% of Americans lived in areas hit by climate disasters last year, a number that would grow if the fossil fuel-friendly provisions in the IRA become law.

Letter signers, including the Center for Biological Diversity, Climate Justice Alliance, Food & Water Watch, Greenpeace USA, Indigenous Environmental Network, Our Revolution and Sunrise Movement, are urging Democratic leaders to reject fossil fuel expansion and stand with the communities that voted them into office.

>>>>> COMMENTS AND QUOTES TELL MORE ABOUT IT!

“We can’t let the renewable energy transition be held hostage by fossil fuel companies,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Manchin bill is a devil’s bargain that ignores science and locks us into at least a decade of new oil and gas extraction. There’s a way forward that doesn’t spew more greenhouse gas pollution into the air and harm frontline communities, and it means eliminating these giveaways to the fossil-fuel industry.”

“This bill should not be considered a climate victory,” said Jim Walsh, policy director for Food & Water Watch. “Locking in more drilling and fracking on public lands and waters, billions in subsidies for the myth of carbon capture, and fast-tracking permit approvals for gas pipelines and exports are exactly the policies fueling the climate crisis and harming public health with increasing pollution in our air and water. Lawmakers who support real climate solutions should reject this deal until the fossil fuel handouts are removed.”

“The Inflation Reduction Act may be the most Washington can offer right now, but it’s a far cry from what’s actually needed to address the climate crisis,” said Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth. “The investments in renewables, energy efficiency and Superfund clean-ups will make a difference, but communities and the climate continue to be sacrificed to Sen. Manchin’s fossil fuel demands.”

Patricia Espinosa as UN climate chief says decisions now will determine our future

From an Article by Abigail Adams, People Magazine Online, June 06, 2022

Now is not the time to lose focus on climate change, United Nations climate chief Patricia Espinosa says.

During an address Monday at the opening ceremony of the U.N.’s Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany, the 63-year-old Mexican diplomat urged world leaders to remain focused on addressing the ongoing climate crisis despite other challenges facing populations across the globe — inducing “conflict, energy, food, and economic crises” as well as the COVID-19 pandemic.

But according to Espinosa, who will complete her second term as head of the U.N. climate office at the end of 2022, there is no time to waste with addressing climate change. “I appeal to all of you, especially in these difficult and challenging times, not to lose hope, not to lose focus, but to use our united efforts against climate change as the ultimate act of unity between nations,” she said at the event. “We must never give in to despair,” the diplomat added. “We must continue to move forward. Look at what we have accomplished in the last six years. Look at what we’ve accomplished in the last 30.”

But Espinosa also pressed world leaders to take action, and fast. Earlier in her speech, the climate chief said decisions on how to address the ongoing climate crisis are needed “now,” and that “very difficult decisions” must be made to do so. “We must understand that climate change is moving exponentially. We can no longer afford to make just incremental progress,” she said. “We must move these negotiations along more quickly. The world expects it.”

The Earth is currently about 1.1°C warmer than it was during the 19th century, according to the U.N.’s website. At this pace, the U.N. believes countries are “not on track to meet the Paris Agreement target” of preventing the global temperature from exceeding 1.5°C, which “is considered the upper limit to avoid the worst fallout from climate change.”

Over the next 10 days, Espinosa and “diplomats from around the world will try to lay the foundations” for the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 27) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change which will take place in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt this November, according to the Associated Press.

At the opening press conference held later in the day, Espinosa said she believes the 10-day meeting “marks the start of a new face in the intergovernmental climate change process [and] the process of implementation.”

But “one thing is very clear” about the climate crisis, Espinosa noted: “We don’t have time” to waste. “We have a blueprint and we have a framework and we have the rules to ensure that it is transparent,” she said while addressing the media. “So I think it’s time to get on with the job.”

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See Also: Marine Life Could Experience ‘Mass Extinction’ if Humans Don’t Take ‘Rapid Action’ Against Climate Crisis

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See Also: Chevron CEO Warns Not to Count on New US Oil Refinery Even With Surging Gas Prices, Kevin Crowley & Alex Steel, Bloomberg News, June 3, 2022

(Bloomberg) — There may never be a new refinery built in the US despite surging gasoline prices, as policymakers move away from fossil fuels, according to Chevron Corp. “We haven’t had a refinery built in the United States since the 1970s, my personal view is there will never be another new refinery built in the United States,” Chief Executive Officer Mike Wirth said.

Refining margins have exploded to historically high levels in recent weeks amid lower supplies from Russia and China and surging demand for gasoline and diesel around the world. “You’re looking at committing capital 10 years out, that will need decades to offer a return for shareholders, in a policy environment where governments around the world are saying: we don’t want these products,” Wirth said. “We’re receiving mixed signals in these policy discussions.”

Drilling & fracking in the Marcellus and Utica shales is a huge investment

From an Article by Anya Litvak, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, May 21, 2022

When the airport and the company now known as CNX Resources signed their Marcellus Shale gas agreement in 2013, there was the potential to drill as many as 45 wells on the campus of Pittsburgh International Airport. (But, only 14 have been drilled.) On Friday, the airport authority approved two new agreements with CNX that would incentivize more drilling, including in the deeper and drier Utica Shale layer.

Over the next five years, the airport will act as a marketing agent for CNX to secure customers for the gas that would come from yet-to-be drilled Utica wells. In order to be burned as airline fuel or in vehicles, that gas would need to be either compressed or liquefied — that is, cooled to a point where it turns into a liquid. That would also require the vehicles and/or plane engines to be retrofitted.

All of this will take time and money, Christina Cassotis, CEO of the Allegheny County Airport Authority, acknowledged. But she believes that with an increasing number of transportation and aviation companies pledging to reduce their carbon emissions, natural gas — which burns cleaner than diesel and gasoline — might be a short-term draw.

“Given the carbon commitments that are out there, how can we be part of helping the industry and airlines start to decarbonize immediately,” she said, invoking natural gas as a bridge fuel until cleaner fuels become available.

Both the airport authority and CNX framed this as a path to hydrogen — the subject of billions in federal funding and a focus of the natural gas industry, which envisions using its product to make hydrogen with the resulting carbon dioxide emissions captured and sequestered in a massive Appalachian storage hub.

CNX plans to build a liquefaction plant, according to spokesman Brian Aiello, with the timing yet to be determined. He also said it would produce a “naturally, not mechanically” compressed natural gas product, but the company declined to provide technical details, saying it’s proprietary.

In a fact sheet, the company referenced its “unique autonomous ultra-high-pressure separation technology, which performs consistently in harsh and high-pressure conditions, manages gas streams to be used to generate electricity and power — as well as hydrogen — in the immediate proximity of the wells.”

The timeline for adoption of natural gas derivates isn’t clear yet. Pittsburgh International will loop gas from CNX wells and solar power into its own microgrid, now in place.

“I think it depends on who’s asking, how motivated the engine manufacturers are,” Ms. Cassotis said. “Maybe it’s not an airline. Maybe it’s the snowplow.” She said the airport is looking at its own operations and evaluating ways to use more sustainable fuels. For example, it is pursuing a study of the potential to use organic waste to generate sustainable aviation fuel. “One thing at a time,” she said. “What the new agreement does is it puts some skin in the game for us — and it allows for a little bit of an additional royalty if we help” CNX sign up customers. Specifically, the airport stands to get up to 5% on the sale of any compressed or liquefied gas that it brokers, officials said.

The more immediate impact might come from revising the airport’s existing agreement with CNX — the one signed in 2014 that delivered a $46 million signing bonus and more than $57 million in royalties since the first Marcellus well went into production in 2016.

In exchange for a commitment from CNX to drill new wells, the airport authority has agreed to have post-production costs deducted from its royalties. Such costs include expenses incurred by CNX to get the gas from the wellhead to the point of sale. The airport authority’s original lease specifically prohibited deducting these costs from its 18% royalty, which Ms. Cassotis said has held CNX back from drilling additional wells.

The amended lease now allows for up to $1.60 for each million British thermal units to be withheld from its royalties. For context, the average price that CNX received for its gas last year was $2.57 per million Btu. The cost of gas has increased drastically in recent months. Eric Sprys, the airport’s CFO, estimated this would have the effect of slicing up to 45% from its royalty revenue. But Ms. Cassotis noted that a 45% cut is better than no new drilling and therefore, no new royalties. “We’re each getting something out of the deal,” she said.

According to CNX, the airport authority stands to add $24 million in Marcellus royalties and up to $27 million in Utica royalties by 2030 as a result of these agreements. CNX gas already powers a microgrid at Pittsburgh International Airport, which also includes a solar panel installation.

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See Also: Special Focus: Well Completion Technology ~ “Using data from drilling to guide completion designs,” Kevin Wutherich (Drill2Frac), World Oil, Volume 343, No. 5, May 2022.

Existing but previously unused data obtained during the drilling process can now be used to enhance completion design. The author outlines the available data and discusses how it can be incorporated into the completion design process and ultimately provide economic benefits to an operator.

UNITED NATIONS has assembled the best scientists for long range studies

Essay by Randi Pokladnik, Environmental Scientist, Tappan Lake, OH, April 4, 2022

Dr. Svitlana Krakovska, a Ukrainian climate scientist and member of the International Panel on Climate Change recently said, “Human induced climate change and the war on Ukraine have the same roots, fossil fuels, and our dependence on them.” Europe’s dependence on fossil fuels from Russia is “funding the war” in Ukraine. Russia, the second largest producer of natural gas, has been accused of using the resource in a geopolitical way against European countries dependent on its gas.

Europe views the worsening situation in Ukraine as justification to double up its investments in renewable energy. The IEA and EU leaders announced a proposed series of steps to accelerate clean energy: fast-tracking permitting for wind and solar projects, revisiting decisions to phase out nuclear energy, and doubling the rate of conversions from natural gas boilers to electric heat pumps in buildings.” All of these would cut European natural gas demand.

However, oil and gas companies in the US, along with many politicians including Joe Manchin of West Virginia, are using the war to rationalize more drilling and fracking in the US. Manchin recently said, “Russia has weaponized energy and the thing I know about an adversary or a bullyis if they have a weapon, you better have one that will match it or be better than theirs”. However, Natural Resource Chair Raul Grijalva (D-Arizona) said in a recent op-ed, “Doubling down on fossil fuels is a false solution that only perpetuates the problems that got us here in the first place,” saying it is time to “cut the lifeline to fossil-fuel despots like Putin.”

The newly released UN Climate Report clearly shows we are losing the battle against climate change. UN Secretary General Antonio Gutteras said “the evidence detailed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is unlike anything he has ever seen, it is an “atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership.”

Damaging effects from human-induced (anthropogenic) climate change are happening at a much faster rate than previous modeling had predicted. At least 40% of the world’s population is highly vulnerable to climate change impacts, and these impacts will be felt most in areas that have contributed the least to greenhouse gas emissions. The report stresses that the window to act in a meaningful way and avoid major destruction will close by the end of this decade.

The “David and Goliath” battle environmental activists (especially activists in the Appalachian region) have waged against the fossil fuel industry often feels like a war. The Appalachian region has become a resource colony, the residents have become collateral damage, and the landscape often looks like a war zone after the extraction of coal, oil, and gas.

At one time, it was said that McDowell County, WV exported more coal than any other county in the USA. However, it now sits in poverty with the less than 20,000 residents who still call it home. Harry Caudill’s “Night Comes to the Cumberlands” details the story of broken miners living in a broken land as coal mining destroyed the landscape as well as the bodies of the miners.

Mountaintop coal removal (MTR) replaced long-wall mining in the 1970s. Often referred to as “strip mining on steroids,” this technique uses monstrous machinery rather than miners. Millions of pounds of explosives are used to blast off up to 1000 feet or more of the mountains’ elevation. Peaks that took millions of years to form are gone in a matter of days. Thousands of miles of streams are buried under the mine spoils, and what remains of the once diverse mesophytic forest ecosystem is a flattened sterile moonscape. MTR has destroyed over 500 mountains and flattened an area equivalent to Delaware.

John McQuaid, a writer for the Smithsonian Magazine, once said of MTR, “I’ve reported on devastation around the world, from natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, to wars in Central America and the Middle East, to coastlines in Asia degraded by fish farming. But in the sheer audacity of its destruction, mountaintop coal removal is the most shocking thing I’ve ever seen.”

As the coal industry slowly dies in the area, local, state, and federal politicians are touting new ways to extract wealth from the region: petrochemicals and plastics. Both require hydrocarbon gases obtained by using high pressure hydraulic fracking. This technique forces hydrocarbons from shale deposits under the region, and is as destructive and polluting as coal mining. It requires millions of gallons of freshwater, produces millions of gallons of toxic radioactive brine, releases volatile organic compounds and methane gas, and contaminates surface and ground water.

A study by Yale Public Health found that of the hundreds of chemicals used in fracking, over 80 percent have never been reviewed by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Of the 119 that have been reviewed by IARC, 55 were found to be carcinogenic. Among the chemicals most frequently used in fracking, 24 are known to block hormone receptors in humans (according to a 2017 study published in Science Direct).

Make no mistake, we all are witnessing a war; a war waged on our planet by the fossil fuel industry and those who benefit financially from these industries.

Like most wars, money is needed to fund this endeavor. Federal taxpayer-funded grants, subsidies, and tax incentives help fuel the climate crisis by providing financial incentives for continued extraction. Pennsylvania lawmakers offered Royal Dutch Shell nearly $1.7 billion over 25 years to construct the plastics-making Shell Cracker Plant in Monaca, Pa.

“Conservative estimates put U.S. direct subsidies to the fossil fuel industry at roughly $20 billion per year, with 20 percent currently allocated to coal and 80 percent to natural gas and crude oil. European Union subsidies are estimated to total 55 billion euros annually.”

Just like a conventional war, propaganda and lies are used to mold public opinion. “The fossil fuel industry has perpetrated a multi-decade, multibillion dollar disinformation propaganda and lobbying campaign to delay climate action by confusing the public and policymakers about the climate crisis and its solutions.”

The residents of Appalachia have learned that when it comes to extractive industries, rules and regulations for human health and the environment are more often than not watered down, ignored, unenforced, or non-existent. The oil and gas industries are exempt or excluded from certain sections of these federal environmental laws: Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, National Environmental Policy Act, and Emergency Planning and Community Right-to Know Act.

It is difficult to win a war when the cards are stacked against you, but the war for a livable planet is one we cannot afford to lose. We will have to make sacrifices but the people of Appalachia have sacrificed their health, lives, and land for decades to fuel the nation. It is time to demand renewable energy. It is time to stop subsidizing the companies responsible for the destruction of our planet. No more wars for fossil fuels.

As Dr. Svitlana Krakovska of Ukraine said, “We will not surrender in Ukraine, and we hope the world will not surrender in building a climate-resilient future.” Bill McKibben recently said that if the USA cannot choose renewable energy while watching the incredible courage of the people in Ukraine, then “I don’t know if we’re ever going to do it.”

>>> Dr. Randi Pokladnik was born and raised in Ohio. She earned an associate degree in Environmental Engineering, a BA in Chemistry, MA and PhD in Environmental Studies. She is certified in hazardous materials regulations and holds a teaching license in science and math. She worked as a research chemist for 12 years and now resides near Tappan Lake in Ohio’s Harrison County, near the Marcellus & Utica shale developments.

Every month new evidence implicates horizontal hydraulic fracking

Guest Editorial from Dr. Val Arkoosh, Penn Live, November 7, 2021

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to infect Pennsylvanians and hurt our communities, it is hard to focus on anything else. But as a physician and public health professional, I will not sit back and watch the lack of urgency in Washington on the other escalating public health crisis hurting Pennsylvanians: climate change. This is both an issue of public health and Pennsylvania’s economic future.

Treating patients over two decades, I came to realize that many of the things most impacting them were things outside the exam room and climate change is one of the clearest examples.

People are dying from extreme heat and certain diseases are showing up where they’ve never been before. There are kids who can’t drink water in their neighborhoods or play outside because the air is too dirty for them to breathe. And Pennsylvanians, including in recent months, are being killed in extreme weather events.

But just as we’ve seen COVID deniers undermining the science behind vaccines and masks, we see politiciansin Washington who refuse to accept the science behind climate change or refuse to treat it like the urgent health crisis it is. President Biden is making climate change a domestic priority and repositioning the U.S. as a leader again. But we also have a serious problem in Washington when one U.S. Senator can kill meaningful methane emission rules in the spending bill that could put us on a stronger path.

It is time to be bold. Our kids’ futures, our economic growth, and our national security depend on it. We need to ban fracking, starting with an immediate ban on all new permits and quickly banning fracking near homes and schools. We need to hold polluters accountable for the harm they are doing in our communities. We also need robust testing of water near homes and schools around fracking sites.

Last year, Attorney General Josh Shapiro released a grand jury report , which detailed testimony of dozens of Pennsylvania homeowners who live near fracking sites. The reports reinforced what we’d been hearing for years — children with nosebleeds and chronic fatigue, families with nausea and dizziness, dead livestock, and sludge clogging well-water pumps.

And following an alarming analysis by Physicians for Social Responsibility on the use of PFAS or “forever chemicals” in fracking sites in six other states, an analysis by the Philadelphia Inquirer found that between 2012 and 2014 at least eight Pennsylvania fracking wells used these dangerous chemicals, which have been linked to major health hazards like cancer and low birth weight.

Beyond the clear public health need, this is also about taking the future of our Commonwealth’s economy into our own hands so we can ensure the green jobs of the future are created here in Pennsylvania, not in other states and not in China. Pennsylvanians deserve our share of the sustainable clean energy jobs we are creating today and will create tomorrow.

It just makes sense for our economy and where we know this is headed. For decades, we have seen industries in Western Pennsylvania get the rug pulled out from under them — just look at what’s happened with coal and steel. If we don’t accept the fact that the same will be true of fracking jobs, we risk getting left behind.

Investments in clean energy like solar and wind, efforts to make our infrastructure more energy-efficient and sustainable, and electrifying public transit will create manufacturing jobs here at home and ensure we can lead the way in this fight. We need to incentivize the production of these technologies in American factories by union workers, and give workers in the fossil fuel industry the training to enter this workforce, building the clean energy economy of the future.

Banning fracking will not solve every problem, but it will prevent people from getting sick and must be a priority in creating a healthier Pennsylvania and tackling this climate crisis.

It will take someone with my health background and experience to fight for these pro-public health policies in the U.S. Senate, which needs a science truth-teller right now more than ever. We can’t let ongoing attacks on science and facts hold us back in this fight. I won’t.

>> Valerie Arkoosh, MD, MPH, is the chair of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners and a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania.

MVP impacts to mountains, rivers and streams are excessive

From a Summary by Lewis Freeman, Allegheny Blue Ridge Alliance, March 8, 2021

A report released March 8 by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) concludes that the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), a 300-mile pipeline that would move natural gas from the Appalachian Basin to markets in the eastern and southern U.S., is in financial jeopardy because of reduced demand projections and legal challenges.

The IEEFA report found four primary reasons to be skeptical of the pipeline’s financial viability:

● Revised forecasts now predict lower natural gas demand than when the project was first proposed. The U.S. Energy Information Administration predicts gas demand will fall at least through 2030 in the Southeast and mid-Atlantic.

● The likely cancellation of the Southgate Extension, a spur meant to funnel gas from the Mountain Valley project to North Carolina, weakens the financial case for the pipeline. Public Service Company of North Carolina has signed up for 12.5 percent of the Mountain Valley capacity. But if a North Carolina permit denial is upheld in federal court, the extension can’t be built—and the utility can’t use the gas.

● Gas produced in the Appalachian Basin and shipped through the Mountain Valley Pipeline to an interstate connection known as the Transco Pipeline must now compete with cheaper sources of natural gas. Prospects for saving money with gas shipped through the Mountain Valley Pipeline are already on shaky ground; the construction costs of the project have soared 60 percent beyond original estimates, to roughly $6 billion.

● Liquified natural gas (LNG) exports to Asia and the Pacific may not offset declining domestic demand. Asian LNG demand is predicted to be lower than originally anticipated; lower-cost producers such as Qatar could undercut Appalachian gas; new U.S. LNG export terminals face financing challenges; and any new terminals also are likely to look for less-expensive alternatives to Appalachian Basin gas.

The report notes that the MVP was approved under a 21-year-old Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) policy that bases decisions entirely on the existence of commercial contracts to purchase gas, rather than the actual need for new sources of gas.

A copy of the full report is available for your reading.

>>> ​Lewis Freeman, Executive Director, Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance
https://www.abralliance.org/

What we know about the upcoming vote to decide the fate of fracking in the Delaware River

From an Article by Kathryne Rubright, Pocono Record, February 23, 2021

The Delaware River Basin Commission will vote Thursday on a proposal that would ban high volume hydraulic fracturing, a natural gas extraction process also known as fracking, in the watershed.

The regulations proposed in 2017 would not ban the exportation of water for fracking elsewhere, or the importation of fracking wastewater, but the activities would be subject to DRBC review. Additionally, “new conditions, including stringent treatment and discharge requirements” would be imposed on wastewater, the DRBC said in an FAQ document regarding the proposed regulations.

The basin drains 13,539 square miles, about half of which is in Pennsylvania. This includes all of Bucks, Delaware, Lehigh, Monroe, Montgomery, Northampton, Philadelphia and Pike counties and parts of Berks, Carbon, Chester, Lackawanna, Lancaster, Lebanon, Luzerne, Schuylkill and Wayne counties.

The fracking ban would affect the Pocono region and other northeastern counties sitting entirely or partly over Marcellus Shale: Carbon, Monroe, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Pike, Schuylkill and Wayne.

High volume hydraulic fracturing “presents risks, vulnerabilities and impacts to the quality and quantity of surface and ground water resources,” the DRBC says, citing, among other concerns, the amount of water required to fracture shale and the sometimes-unknown nature of chemicals added to that water.

The Marcellus Shale Coalition, a natural gas industry group, has noted its members disclose chemical information via the registry at fracfocus.org.

Where does fracking stand now?

The DRBC does not have an official moratorium on fracking, but it did vote in 2010 to put off considering well pad dockets until regulations were adopted.

“Since then, the Commission has not received any applications for projects to be conducted on a well pad site – a situation that has sometimes been referred to as a ‘de facto moratorium,’” according to the FAQ.

Who decides this issue?

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf has a seat on the commission, along with Gov. John Carney of Delaware, Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey and Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, all Democrats.

Brigadier General Thomas J. Tickner, commander and division engineer of the North Atlantic Division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is the federal representative.

Wolf, Carney and Murphy have previously expressed support for fully banning fracking in the Delaware River basin. New York has already banned fracking.

From 2019: Gov. Wolf says he supports full fracking ban in Delaware River basin

The Delaware River Frack Ban Coalition is expecting a vote to ban fracking in the basin, but would prefer a fuller measure, saying it has “fiercely opposed the halfway measure of banning fracking but allowing frack wastewater to be dumped in the river and water to be exported and consumed to spur fracking.”

Some landowners in the watershed have questioned the DRBC’s authority to prevent them from profiting from natural gas under their property. The proposed rules note that the commission was given authority to control pollution by the compact that established it in 1961.

How to watch or listen to the meeting —

The meeting will be conducted at 10:30 a.m. Thursday on Zoom at this link: bit.ly/3kffleG. The meeting requires an ID (957 5916 5248) and a passcode (528513).

It will also be livestreamed on the DRBC YouTube channel: bit.ly/3qLZGpZ

Several phone numbers are available for dialing in, including 929-205-6099. See the DRBC’s meeting notice at bit.ly/2ZHzdhb

The meeting does not include time for members of the public to make comments. Public input was gathered at six public hearings in 2018 and through an online submission form.

Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware will be impacted by this project

Update from the FracTracker Alliance, January 4, 2021

After the Delaware Riverkeeper Network again appealed the controversial construction of a second dock for liquified natural gas (LNG) export in Gibbstown, New Jersey, its construction was re-approved in a Delaware River Basin Commission meeting on December 9th. The project’s opposers continue to raise concerns over the highly risky transportation of LNG and the impacts from LNG production at the New Fortress Energy processing plant in Wyalusing Township, Bradford County, PA.

The Delaware Riverkeeper Network has compiled data in cooperation with Fractracker Alliance to produce maps indicating two probable highway routes and two probable railway routes. Along each of these routes, a two-mile-wide hazard zone and population information are displayed. View the maps here.

After this disheartening development, Empower NJ led a coalition of 100 groups, including FracTracker and Delaware Riverkeeper Network, to stop the the LNG port construction. In a December 23rd letter to Governor Murphy, the coalition expressed their concern and disappointment at the DRBC’s approval of the LNG terminal. “This is just round one, we will fight and keep on fighting no matter what,” said New Jersey Sierra Club Director Jeff Tittel.

Delaware Riverkeeper Network plans to challenge the DRBC’s decision in federal court.

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See also: ‘Bomb Trains,’ a New Book on the Deadly, Ongoing Threat of Oil by Rail | DeSmog, Justin Mikulka, July 9, 2019

See also: Forecast for 2020: More Oil Trains, Fires, Spills, and the Rise of LNG by Rail, DeSmog, Justin Mikulka, January 7, 2020