Proposed MVP crossing in Monroe County, WV

From an Article by Brad McElhinny in WV Metro-News, January 09, 2018

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Environmental groups have filed a federal appeal to try to stop construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

The groups filed a motion asking for a stay of the project’s certificate of public convenience and necessity that was issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The motion was filed late Monday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

The motion argues that the federal court system needs to act immediately to stop “irreparable environmental harm” that would occur once construction of the natural gas pipeline begins. The motion to stay contends property owners along the pipeline’s path would suffer damage to their property and lifestyles.

“Petitioners, whose members reside near, recreate on, and own land that will be taken and degraded by the MVP, seek the stay to prevent irreparable injury to their property, environmental, aesthetic, and recreational interests pending the Court’s review.”

The motion contends FERC’s didn’t critically evaluate the purpose and need for the MVP. The environmental groups also contend FERC lacked substantial evidence to support its finding of public convenience and necessity.

It aims to stop tree clearing and other construction that could start as soon as February 1: “Once private property is taken, mature trees are cut, steep slopes denuded, wetlands filled, trenches dug, and a high-pressure large-diameter pipeline is laid and filled with gas, the court can no longer restore the status quo,” the motion states.

MORE: Read the MVP Motion to Stay.

The pipeline developers wrote in a recent court filing that they need access to all the property no later than Feb. 1 to comply with a window for tree clearing required by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The federal appeal was filed by attorneys for Appalachian Mountain Advocates on behalf of several other environmental organizations: Appalachian Voices, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, the Sierra Club, the West Virginia Rivers Coalition and Wild Virginia.

“FERC failed to follow the law; in so doing, it is recklessly sacrificing our streams, public lands and private property rights,” stated Angie Rosser, executive director of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition.

“Their refusal to fully evaluate the purpose and need of this project robs the public of benefiting from less harmful alternatives. FERC’s shoddy approval of MVP makes a mockery of their responsibility to the public interest.”

The Mountain Valley Pipeline, along with the similar but separate Atlantic Coast Pipeline, gained approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in mid-October. One of the commissioners dissented, calling the public interest of the projects into question.

The motion to stay reflects one of the points raised by Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur, who contended FERC should have given greater attention to co-locating the MVP with the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

The $3.5 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline would extend 42-inch diameter natural gas pipeline over 303 miles to transport West Virginia natural gas into southern Virginia. The path would cross Greenbrier, Monroe, Nicholas, Summers, Braxton, Harrison, Lewis, Webster and Wetzel counties.

The MVP will be constructed and owned by Mountain Valley Pipeline, LLC, a joint venture between EQT Midstream Partners, LP; NextEra US Gas Assets, LLC; Con Edison Transmission, Inc.; WGL Midstream; and RGC Midstream, LLC.

Starting February 1, MVP wants to start mobilizing construction crews across 11 segments of the project. Each of those is 30 miles long and will be cleared and constructed simultaneously.

MVP and its contractors will first fell and clear trees for properties used for service facilities and access roads. Work then will continue in a straight line down the path — clearing and grading the rights-of-way, ditching the line and moving the pipe.

Hitting that window is crucial, the company says, to minimize environmental consequences. Tree clearing has to happen prior to March 31 for locations with protected bats and before May 31 for species with protected migratory birds.

By mid-April to early May, MVP and the contractors intend to weld pipe in each of the 11 segments. They’ll then test the welds, lower the pipe into the trench, cover and grade the surface, work on crossings and tie-ins, clean and dry the pipeline and finally put as in.

The pipeline is planned to go into service by next December. The company says it has agreements in place to start shipping gas late this year.

The pipeline developers are also in federal court cases over eminent domain with some property owners fighting the claims.

Our message is clear, our water should be

Personal and Property Values in the Countryside and in the Fracking Zones

Essay by S. Tom Bond, Retired Chemistry Professor & Resident Farmer, Lewis County, WV

There is an important point here which is easily overlooked.  The value of property (or friends or anything you like) is not the same as a corporation values it. What a jury of peers does is to value property according to community values – the value as the neighbors understand it, not how the aggressor sees it!

What the Elys and the Huberts have done is a great thing for all of us – they refused the minimal value offered by the corporation to their neighbors and took the risk of going to court.  This showed publically how the neighborhood valued their property, its singular and personal value. (Reference is to the Dimock jury award of $4.2 million described by FrackCheckWV.net yesterday.)

You think my wife isn’t worth more to me than she would be worth on the open market?  She is 79, grey and somewhat bent, but we get along.  I don’t want to adapt to another, and I’d like to keep her around.  It’s the same with my farm – I’ve been here for 52 years, I know about it’s past back to the ones who got the land grants, I know what it can do, and I remember a lifetime of what has gone on here.  I have heirs who are interested in working it.  Of course it is worth more to me than to a stranger.

What if someone comes along and takes it for his profit.  (Rest assured, he makes his effort for profit, not for the public good, otherwise it would be cheaper for the public by the amount of his profit.)  Corporations are notorious for their single value, one of the huge ways they are not “persons.”  Remember Rex Tillson and the water tower?  Rex is CEO of Exxon and when they put up a water tower in his sight, he joined the suit to have it removed.  See here.

Almost all personal property is worth more because people don’t use it just for profit.   If the compensation is the single value of  ”market worth,”  people get cheated.

There is an element of class warfare in fracking.  Few people who aspire to become rich by investment are genuinely democratic (small d, of course).  Probably even less who jump into the hassle of making big incomes.  Their values and ours don’t match.   Laura Legere of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette records this revealing claim about the Eley-Hubert lawyer: ” Cabot’s attorney Jeremy Mercer described it as a calculated effort “to throw skunks into the jury box.”

Class warfare indeed.  Who would be interested in anything but making money?  Should enjoying life, appreciating the people around you and preserving the good world around us be considered worthwhile values?

Should we preserve and protect the rights that go with our private property, and say together “no eminent domain for corporate gain.”

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Fracking could hurt house prices, health and environment, official report says

From an Article by Adam Vaughn & Rowena Mason, The Guardian, July 1, 2015

The DEFRA report, published in full after freedom of information battle, admits impact on water quality and wildlife is ‘uncertain’, though possible benefits also listed. The report’s release comes days after Lancashire council rejected the UK’s biggest fracking bids so far.

Fracking operations to extract shale gas in Britain could cause nearby house prices to fall by up to 7% and create a risk of environmental damage, according to a government report that has been published in full for the first time.

Entitled Shale Gas Rural Economy Impacts, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) document was released on Wednesday after a freedom of information battle. An official assessment of the impact of fracking, it warned that leakage of waste fluids could affect human health through polluted water or the consumption of contaminated agricultural products.

The report was first published last year in a heavily redacted form under freedom of information rules, prompting the Green MP, Caroline Lucas, to accuse the government of censorship and of trying to hide the negative impacts of fracking. Two weeks ago the information commissioner’s office ruled that the environment department must release the report unredacted.

The findings of the study come at a crucial time for the government and shale industry, just two days after the surprise rejection by Lancashire county council of what would have been the biggest round of fracking so far.

Previously omitted sections reveal that:

>> House prices near fracking wells were likely to fall, and there was a potential reduction of up to 7% in property values within a mile of wells.
>> Properties within a one- to five-mile radius of fracking sites may incur additional insurance costs.
>> Leakage of waste fluids from fracking processes has resulted in environmental damage in the US.

Even if contaminated surface water did not directly impact on drinking-water supplies, fracking could affect human health indirectly through consumption of contaminated wildlife, livestock or agricultural products. It concluded that the UK regulatory regime was “likely to be more robust” but the impact on water-resource availability, aquatic habitats and ecosystems, and water quality was “uncertain”.

The report also spelled out possible benefits of fracking, such as generating jobs and economic growth, as well as providing greater energy security for the UK. Rents may also increase due to additional demand from fracking-site workers, it suggested. It added that communities could benefit from investment in local services and infrastructure due to community payments that shale companies will have to pay to people nearby their operations.

Liz Truss, the environment secretary, has distanced herself from the report, calling it misleading and emphasising its draft nature. Ministers were split over the publication of the report in full, with Truss saying it should not be released, and the energy minister Andrea Leadsom saying the paper was “going to be published”.

Tony Bosworth, an energy campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said the timing of the report’s release was significant. “No wonder DEFRA sat on this explosive report until after the Lancashire decisions,” he said.

Lancashire councillors had debated whether to hold off making their planning decision until the report was published in full, but eventually decided to reject bids by Cuadrilla to frack at two sites on the Fylde plain.

Lucas demanded that Truss apologise for initially withholding the full report. “The government has conducted itself appallingly in holding back this crucial evidence. The environment secretary should now offer a full apology to communities facing the threat of fracking and guarantee that such deceitful behaviour won’t happen again in the future,” she said.

The main industry body, UK Onshore Oil and Gas, dismissed the report as being “in danger of extrapolating the experiences of other jurisdictions that have different regulation, planning regimes and geologies”.

Ken Cronin, chief executive of UKOOG, said: “It is a shame that this report has become such a cause célėbre as it is merely a review of literature and brings nothing new to the debate or any new information in a UK context.”

A DEFRA spokesman said: “This document was drawn up as a draft internal discussion paper – it is not analytically robust, has not been peer-reviewed and remains incomplete. “It does not contain any new data or evidence, and many of the conclusions amount to unsubstantiated conjecture, which do not represent the views of officials or ministers.”

See also: www.Marcellus-Shale.us

Fracking adversely impacts our proud land

Letter to the Editor by S. Tom Bond, Charleston Gazette, January 5, 2014

A lot of land is used for shale drilling, perhaps 14 to 18 acres per well pad. Go to Google Earth and “fly around over” Doddridge or Wetzel counties at about 2500 feet. You can now see the first several score of thousands planned.

The typical Marcellus well Is drilled on a pad of some three to five acres, requires an access road wide enough to allow two heavy trucks to pass, and a pipeline right of way for connecting to a transmission line. The transmission line requires a right of way in addition to the well land and frequent stations for shipping the gas and removal of natural gas liquids. Then there are the injection wells for waste fluids, often far from the producing wells, and proppant sand strip mines in Wisconsin and Minnesota. How does this affect the value of property in the vicinity of the operations?

Obviously, there is a loss of production from the farmland or timberland involved, and nearby dwellings and livestock housing is negatively impacted. Agriculture on adjacent land is also impacted, both animals and plants, by various kinds of pollutants, including dust on crops. Timber can not grow on the access, pads or pipeline areas for the life of the operation, and requires 70 years or more after production activity for a crop of trees to grow. Normally, by selective cutting, a tree crop can be cut every 35 years.

Being near a shale well can be devastating for someone who owns a house on a lot, or a small tract, or has the well drilled in close proximity to his/her home, regardless of water contamination. This is true when the well is being drilled and afterward, because of the traffic to the site.

You can find claims that property values go up after wells have been drilled. This may be true in some cases because royalty is being used to expand a property when someone expects to continue farming in the future. Or it may reflect the possibility for more intense use in the drilling area, such as man-camps, accessory services and so forth that will disappear when the drilling era is over. It is not because people want to move near shale wells. The original productivity of the land is lost, some of it to be regained with proper renovation, but some forever. This is an infinite series of annual reduction in land services. Anyone familiar with past extraction realizes the history of recovery from previous mineral exploitation is abominable.

A common attitude is expressed by the following statement: ” Yes, perhaps the surface has become less valuable but the increased sub-surface value more than makes up for it. I’m now leased and one day my surface land might become unsightly. Maybe I’ll lose some timber. Maybe I’ll have to move my honeybees elsewhere. And for sure, the deer hunting will probably be not as good, possibly even non-existent if a well is drilled. But who cares! I would be pocketing between $100,000 and $250,000 per year in royalties. Overall, my quality of life would be vastly improved.”

Land services are a continuing gift to the community of people living at any time and on into the future. This fellow has put himself above those who follow after, conservation is of no value to him. This mind set figures largely in what is wrong in assessing the effects of shale drilling. People owning land, houses or have a business dependent on the land loose that now. Hunting and fishing, quiet enjoyment of the countryside, scenic value, and certain roads are gone too. The royalty money the boom brings lasts briefly.  The yield of gas product(s), and thus royalties, drops off in half within three or four years.

Utilizing land services is unlike most businesses, which come and go. Someone must continue to extract materials based on organic life generation after generation. We humans are organic and need that input. There is no inorganic food, or way to get clean air, water and remove carbon dioxide from the air but by organic means. The farmer, the fisherman, the timber man and the hunter live for a little while, but the business goes on. Their yields must be protected.

Civilization, that is, a life where some people can do work other than acquire food day after day, has been around eight or ten thousand years. It can go on for a very long time, if planned for. There is no reason to discount the future value of land services, particularly on a planet where many people do not have a decent life now, and where the population is gong to grow by nearly one third in 30 years – about the time the gas will be fading away.

We live on a space ship, as the astronauts tell us, not the center of a flat earth with great unknowns beyond what we now use. Space is very inhospitable to life . For us there is no other livable place but our planet, and that surface is all used. We must not destroy it for a few decades gain.

>>> Tom Bond is a retired teacher with a Ph. D. in Inorganic Chemistry. He is a member of the Guardians of the West Fork and the Monongahela Area Watersheds Compact. He lives on and maintains a 500 acre farm near Jane Lew.