West Virginia Rivers Coalition

Deadline for Public Comments on Two Projects Due by August 12^th

[Your Comments Needed by 5 pm, Tomorrow, 8/12/16]

The WVDEP is currently accepting comments on two 401 Water Quality Certification Applications. What is a 401 permit? Read our 401 fact sheet to learn more. The permit application for these large projects should be very detailed, but both lack information that WVDEP needs to certify the projects will not impact our water.

Rover Pipeline 401 Application
The proposed Rover pipeline would install approximately 60 miles of new 24 and 36-inch pipelines through Hancock, Marshall, Wetzel, Doddridge and Tyler counties to transport natural gas to markets in Ohio and Michigan. The project would impact approximately 175 streams and involve 3 crossings under the Ohio River. To submit comments to the WVDEP on Rover’s inadequate 401 application click here.

Antero 401 Application
The proposed Antero landfill and wastewater treatment facility encompasses approximately 486 acres in Doddridge and Ritchie Counties. The facility would treat fracking wastewater for re-use and dispose of the salt byproducts in the attached landfill. It is still unclear how they plan to dispose of the sludge byproduct. The project would impact 89 streams and 11 wetlands and is located 4 miles upstream of Harrisville’s drinking water intake. To submit comments to WVDEP on Antero’s insufficient 401 application click here.

Comments on each 401 application must be submitted separately. Please send your comments on these projects by 5pm, tomorrow, August 12.

>>> For more information contact West Virginia Rivers Coalition,

www.wvrivers.org – (304) 637-7201

###=====================================
Notice Issued by WV Department of Environmental Protection

[Antero Project Comment Period Extended to August 23^rd]

Thursday, August 11, 2016 @ 8:35 AM

=====================================
The public comment period for a state water quality certification requested by Antero Landfill Project and Antero Treatment LLC has been extended to August 23rd.

The comment period was initially slated to end on August 12th but was extended by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection’s Division of Water and Waste Management due to significant public interest.

Pursuant to Section 401 of the Federal Clean Water Act, the state may either certify, certify with conditions, deny or waive certification that the proposed activity will comply with Sections 301, 302, 303, 306 and 307 of the Federal Clean Water Act and other appropriate requirements of state law.

When issuing certification, the WVDEP may consider the proposed activity’s impact on water resources, fish and wildlife, recreation, critical habitats, wetlands and other natural resources under its jurisdiction. Procedural and interpretive regulations governing the scope of the department’s certification, public comment, hearings and appeals are in Title 47, Series 5A.

The 401 permit application is connected to a project that involves construction of a non-commercial industrial solid waste disposal landfill located in Ritchie and Doddridge Counties. The landfill would accommodate salt generated from the adjacent Antero Clearwater Water Treatment and Reuse Facility. Construction of the site would include an access road between the landfill and the treatment facility.

The Water Quality Certification application is available for inspection between the hours of 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, at the following location:

WV Department of Environmental Protection
Division of Water and Waste Management
401 Certification Program
601 57th Street SE
Charleston, WV 25304

Comments and information relating to Section 401 Water Quality Certification for this activity will be considered if postmarked prior to August 23rd. All such comments and information should be mailed to the address above or emailed to dep.comments@wv.gov.

===========================================
To view past notices of open public comment periods, login at:

http://apps.dep.wv.gov//MLists2/

One small example: "ATEC pipeline in Ohio"

Ohio’s natural gas boom brings flurry of pipeline construction

From an Article by Jon Chavez, Toledo Blade, December 7, 2014

The 1,230-mile Atex pipeline is one of numerous new or ongoing natural gas projects criss-crossing Ohio right now. Atex went into operation in 2013. About 38,000 miles of pipeline are expected to be built or replaced across the state in the next decade.

A huge supply of natural gas in the shale of northern Appalachia is igniting a mega-boom in gas pipeline construction in Ohio, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the 1940s.

“You have interstate, intrastate, local utility service lines upgrades, collection lines for oil and gas utilities, and lines for gas-fired electric utilities. Altogether, there will be 38,000 miles of pipeline development in Ohio over the next decade,” said Dale Arnold, director of energy services for the Ohio Farm Bureau Foundation.

“I tell people you might not see shale and oil drilling development in your area like in the eastern part of the state, but with pipelines and development, it’s coming your way.”

Three proposed pipelines are winding their way through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approval process now. A major pipeline company has hinted it may build a fourth large pipeline.

The largest project is Energy Transfer Partner L.P.’s $4.3 billion Rover Pipeline, an 823-mile conduit running from southeast Ohio west to Defiance County and then north to Michigan and Canada. The 409-mile main line will have nine new lateral pipelines ranging from 4 to 206 miles to connect it to southeast Ohio, Michigan, and Canada.

E.T. Rover will begin moving 3.25 billion cubic feet of gas daily from Appalachia to southern Ontario in 2016. [This pipeline would start at the Sherwood Separation Plant on US Route 50 near West Union in Doddridge County, WV.]

Also aimed at the Canadian market is Spectra Energy/​DTE Energy’s $1.5 billion Nexus, a 250-mile pipeline that will begin in northeast Ohio’s Columbiana County, cut across to Maumee, and turn north through Fulton County to reach Michigan and Canada. It will move 2 billion cubic feet of gas daily starting in 2017.

In southeast Ohio, NiSource subsidiary Columbia Pipeline Group is proposing Leach XPress, a $1.75 billion, 160-mile pipeline to send 1.5 billion cubic feet of gas daily from West Virginia and southeast Ohio to central Ohio, where it will connect to lines running to Leach, Ky. Set to be ready 2017, the line is needed to ship gas to the Gulf of Mexico — where Ohio got most of its natural gas in the past.

Two other major pipelines went into service the last two years.

Enterprise Products Partners’ 1,230-mile Atex pipeline runs from southwest Pennsylvania through a sliver of West Virginia and across 13 Ohio counties, ending in southern Indiana. It began operating in 2013. It can move up to 190,000 barrels a day of ethane (a natural gas liquid) that winds up in Texas and the Gulf Coast, where it is refined into the petrochemical ethylene.

Sunoco Logistics/​MarkWest Liberty Midstream’s 230-mile Mariner West pipeline, which moves ethane from the Youngstown area to Sarnia, Ont., via Toledo and southern Michigan, began operating last spring. It can transport 50,000 barrels of ethane per day.

Recently, ANR Pipeline Co., one of North America’s largest pipeline operators, has started discussions about building a major pipeline that would follow the ET Rover route. ANR has yet to submit a proposal to FERC.

However, it is not just major pipelines that are cutting across Ohio’s farm fields. Smaller lateral lines that feed off the new pipelines to provide gas for homes or for new electric generation plants are in the works as well. “Gas exploration and production has grown in Ohio in the last few years. We have seen a general increase in the construction of pipelines in the state. Most of it is routine,” said Matt Butler, a spokesman for the Ohio Power Siting Board.

But, “We have definitely seen an increase in natural gas-fired plant proposals, and that has a lot to do with the trend in utilities to retire coal-fired generation,” he said. The new Oregon Clean Energy Center, an $800 million electric plant with natural gas-fired turbines, will be fed from a new pipeline — the 22-mile Oregon Lateral line proposed by North Coast Gas Transmission LLC of Columbus.

Mr. Butler said two more plants, one south of Dayton and the other in Carroll County in northeast Ohio, have been proposed. A third plant is being discussed for suburban Cleveland. All would need lateral pipelines.

Huge upgrade

New pipeline also is being laid statewide to replace pipes laid almost 70 years ago when a post-World War II economic boom led to high demand for natural gas. This year Columbia Gas of Ohio is replacing a million feet (189 miles) of old pipe at a cost of $181 million statewide. In the Toledo area, it is replacing 40 miles at a cost of $22 million and spent $7.5 million this year on a replacement gas line running under the Maumee River between Maumee and Perrysburg.

Driving the pipeline boom are rich natural gas deposits in the Utica Shale bed in West Virginia, western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, and southern New York, and the Marcellus Shale in West Virginia, eastern Ohio, and western Pennsylvania. Utica Shale sits a few thousand feet below Marcellus Shale.

Reverse flow

Petrochemical plants, which break down or “crack” natural gas liquids into more usable products, historically were built in the south or southern Canada because it put them closer to the pipelines. Now with plentiful, cheaper natural gas liquids available in Appalachia, the Atex and Mariner pipelines were needed to get those liquids to the plants, Mr. Bennett said. “Our traditional conventional pipeline system is just for natural gas. But now we’re having to build pipelines to take these natural gas liquids out of here to get them to the markets,” he said.

In 2009, Kinder Morgan Energy’s 1,679-mile Rockies Express pipeline came east to Ohio to bring cheap Rocky Mountain and West Texas natural gas east. Earlier this year, however, the Rockies Express reversed its flow to head west because gas from Utica shale was much cheaper than gas coming from the western areas of the United States.

Demand for cheap Utica and Marcellus gas now is coming from Canada, the Gulf region, Texas, and further west but the infrastructure can’t move large volumes to supply Ontario, Louisiana, Chicago, St. Louis, and elsewhere, Mr. Anderson said.

That is why E.T. Rover, Nexus, Leach XPress, and other projects all are happening simultaneously, he added. “I don’t recall anything of this kind of magnitude having occurred in my historical recollection,” Mr. Anderson said. “The driver is the success basically of the Marcellus and Utica shales. The level of production there is trying to find a market, trying to find a home.”

NOTE: The landscape in WV and PA is also becoming overwhelmed with pipeline rights-of-way. The Marcellus and Utica shale counties are in for more gathering lines, local process plant lines, regional lines and interstate pipelines.  The 36 inch and 42 inch lines are particularly disturbing to the backyards, farms, hills and valleys. DGN

See also: www.mareproject.org and www.FrackCheckWV.net

Pipeline Air Force on the ready

Highland County scientist leading pipeline opposition

From an Article by Geoff Hamill, Pocahontas Times, Nov. 19, 2014

A retired scientist from Highland County, Virginia, is leading a local effort to prevent construction of a large-diameter natural gas pipeline through national forests in West Virginia and Virginia. Rick Webb, of Mustoe, is a retired senior scientist with the University of Virginia. During a 30-year career in the university’s environmental science department, Webb spent a lot of time studying the forests and streams in the mountains of West Virginia and Virginia.

“I managed a program that involved monitoring the water chemistry of streams in the mountains in Virginia and West Virginia and the Central Appalachian region,” he said. “We collected samples from lots of streams and we did chemical analysis on them in our laboratory. We did a synoptic study involving close to 500 streams in 35 different counties in Virginia, and we did a lot of surveys in West Virginia.”

Dominion Resources and three energy corporation partners have proposed construction of a 550-mile, 42-inch pipeline from West Virginia to North Carolina, with a 20-inch spur line to Hampton Roads, Virginia. The companies’ current proposal calls for construction through approximately 30 miles of national forest in West Virginia and Virginia. The project requires approval by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

Several organizations have mobilized to oppose Dominion’s plan, among them the Dominion Pipeline Monitoring Coalition (DPMC), of which Webb is a founding member and coordinator. DPMC is a coalition of various groups, including the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, the Greenbrier River Watershed Association, the Sierra Club of Virginia, Wild Virginia, Highlanders for Responsible Development and several other groups.

Webb discussed why he opposes Dominion’s pipeline proposal. “I don’t believe that this project can be built without long-term degradation to this area of the world, which happens to be the best remaining wild landscape in the Eastern United States, hands-down,” he said. “It’s got the greatest biodiversity of anywhere in the Northeast. It’s the largest extent of continuous unfragmented forest and this pipeline would cut right through it. The pipeline would be the dominant feature of the landscape and it would fragment this forest. It would cause temporary and long-term damage to the streams.”

The health of Appalachian Mountain waterways is closely tied to the surrounding forests, according to Webb. “You can’t separate the forests from the streams,” he said. “These are forest streams. The fish that live in these streams, like the brook trout, are forest fish. What happens to the forest and what happens to the soil in the forest affects what happens in the streams. It’s all tied together. I don’t believe there is any mitigation that can make this project acceptable; no implementation of best management practices that will work; no adjustment in the route that will make it okay. It simply cannot be done.”

Webb said Dominion didn’t expect so much resistance from mountain communities. “I don’t think Dominion understands the determination and the depth of the opposition to this project,” he said. “I think they have been taken by surprise, particularly in the mountains. In Nelson County, Augusta County, Highland County, Pocahontas County and Randolph County, people are opposed to this project. People care about this landscape and we will do what we can to stop this project.”

Webb said Dominion’s promise to protect waterways is illusory. “They’re talking about building pipelines straight up and straight down steep mountainsides – 20 or more steep mountainsides – with high quality streams at the bottom of every one of those mountains,” he said. “The landscape is simply too steep and too rugged to do it without damage. They cannot control the runoff. They can’t have runoff control structures in place while they have that equipment on the hillsides. They use multiple bulldozers, four or five bulldozers, chained together, to hold the big trackhoes in place on the mountainside. They can’t have runoff control in place while they have that equipment there – it’s not conceivable. They cannot control runoff in that situation.”

“We’re talking about impacting a landscape that’s been set aside for future generations, for our children and their children and their children. We cannot, for the short-term profit of a private corporation, allow that to happen. This will be the last stronghold of the native brook trout. It’s going to be impacted by climate change, but this is the place it will last the longest. And they want to cross these streams one after the other and damage them. It just can’t be allowed to happen.”

Two other major natural gas pipelines have been proposed to accomplish the same purpose as Dominion’s. EQT Corporation proposed the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which would run from West Virginia to North Carolina. William’s Appalachian Connector pipeline would connect gas supply areas in northern West Virginia to the company’s existing Transco pipeline in Southern Virginia. All three pipelines would transport natural gas from production fields in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio to the Atlantic Coast. But Dominion’s pipeline would have the greatest impact on protected public lands, according to Webb.

“There’s three [pipelines] on the books right now being proposed for this region, and it could be four before FERC at the same time.” he said. “The Dominion pipeline is unique in terms of the conservation lands that would be impacted. We’re talking mainly about national forests. Initially, it proposed to cross approximately 50 miles of national forest. They adjusted the route somewhat, now it may be down to 30 miles of national forest. The other pipelines cross just two or three miles of national forest, at the most. There are a lot of issues related to pipeline construction – a lot of them apply to pipelines everywhere. The amount of national forest that’s impacted is what makes the Dominion pipeline stand out.”

DPMC plans to ensure that regulatory agencies are doing their jobs. “We are opposed to this project,” said Webb. “We don’t believe it can be built in compliance with our public environmental policies and our environmental laws and regulations. Our purpose is to bring a new level of scrutiny to the regulatory review of this project, and, if the project goes forward, to its construction. We intend to become as well informed as possible about all of the laws and regulations and authorizations that this pipeline must have to proceed – and there’s a long list.”

DPMC wants corporate directors to understand their responsibility. “The Dominion people who have spoken at these open houses seem very sincere,” said Webb. “They say, ‘we have a very strong environmental ethic, we’re going to do things very carefully.’ Maybe they do, but they’re not the people doing the work. I don’t know if they have any connection to what’s happening on the ground or not. I’m sure the people in the board room won’t have any direct connection to it. Part of our task is to connect the people in the board room to what’s going on on the ground. Make them understand it and make them responsible for it. It’s not going to be okay for Dominion to say, ‘that’s just a rogue sub-contractor.’ We’re going to make sure that they’re not going to get away with it.”

If the Dominion project is approved for construction, DPMC has a plan to monitor construction from the ground and air. “Our surveillance will involve water quality downstream,” said Webb. “We’re working with other groups to make that happen. We also have what we call the pipeline air force. We have four planes and four pilots. They’re helping us with case studies. We’re getting aerial photography of other projects that have gone forward. If this project goes forward, despite all of our concerns and despite the environmental review process that should not allow it to go forward, we plan to be in the air watching this project very carefully with video cameras and still cameras. We will use the evidence to go to the agencies, we will go to the courts, we will do what we can to prevent serial damage, as they go forward. We fully expect to see egregious damage, based on what we’ve seen at other pipeline projects.”

“Our own governor [Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe] has pre-empted the process by declaring it’s a good project before anybody’s even looked at it,” said Webb. “He did not even consult with his own Secretary of Natural Resources or any of the agencies that are there for him to work with to make sure that environmental policies and laws are implemented. He made a decision without consulting with these people and to me, that’s unethical.”

To download a slideshow presentation produced by Webb, “Pipeline Across the Alleghenies – Wild Landscape at Risk,” see protecthighland.org on the Internet.

(See “video section” or “you-tube” to view a statement from Rick Webb)

See also: www.mareproject.org