Stored Underground NGL Fire and Explosion Hazards for Two Counties in OH and Marshall County in WV

From the Concerned Ohio River Residents, January 25, 2021

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources is currently considering a permit application to construct the Mountaineer natural gas liquids (NGL) storage facility 2.5 miles from Clarington, OH, along Ohio Route 7 in Salem Township. The facility would store up to 3.25 million barrels of highly flammable, explosive natural gas liquids (NGLs) in underground caverns near dozens of frack wells and adjacent to the Ohio River, posing a significant threat to our region’s public health and natural resources.

Last Thursday, CORR and a coalition of advocacy groups hosted a community meeting on the the Mountaineer facility. We outlined the specific threats posed by the facility’s construction, including groundwater contamination, air pollution, subsidence, and an increase in fracking and fracking waste. Other underground storage facilities have seen serious and even deadly incidents caused by inadequate regulation, including fires, explosions, chemical leaks, earthquakes, and sinkholes.

How can we be sure a similar disaster wouldn’t happen to Mountaineer? Get the facts they won’t tell us:

Click here to view a recording of our Mountaineer Community Meeting.

Concerned about the Mountaineer NGL Storage Facility? You can help make a difference. Submit a public comment to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources today. You can use our draft template to quickly submit a blanket list of comments to ODNR, but we encourage you to add a few sentences about any specific concerns you may have about the facility. Unique comments carry more weight in the permit evaluation process. How would storing explosive natural gas liquids near the Ohio River affect you and your family?

Click here for more information on how to submit public comment.

Get the Facts on the Mountaineer NGL Storage Facility:

Powhatan Salt Company LLC has applied through the Ohio Department of Natural Resources for three solution mining well permits to begin creating storage caverns in the Salina salt formation, just 2.5 miles north of Clarington, OH along the Ohio River in Monroe County, so that its sister company, Mountaineer NGL Storage LLC can store natural gas liquids (NGL) next to and potentially beneath the Ohio River.

The Mountaineer NGL storage facility would store natural gas liquids like ethane, propane, and butanes extracted from fracking, supporting the industry proliferation and increasing the massive amount of toxic, radioactive waste it generates. To create these storage caverns, Powhatan Salt Company would inject millions of gallons of fresh water underground at high pressures to carve out salt cavities. Powhatan would withdraw approximately 1,928,000 gallons of fresh water each day from the Ohio River to carve out the first storage cavern. More caverns could be constructed to increase storage capacity, each of which would require approximately 380,200,000 gallons of freshwater.

We believe the existing application materials for these wells do not contain enough information for anyone to evaluate the safety of these operations. The applications do not fully consider the possibility of contaminants migrating to underground sources of drinking water, and they include no real emergency response plan. How will we find out if the caverns leak? What will we do if they leak? Without a doubt, local residents will be the ones to suffer the consequences.

Take action today. Click here to submit your concerns to ODNR.

Contact Us:

CORR’s website: www.concernedohioriverresidents.org

Email: general@concernedohioriverresidents.org

§ Concerned Ohio River Residents P.O. Box 135 Bridgeport, OH 43912

GREEN NEWSLETTER, Volume 3, Issue 1

Happy New Year Everyone! ………………… January 21, 2021

With the start of a new year comes the legislative session. It’s hard to believe we are less than a month away with the session starting February 10. We expect things to be much different this year. Access to the Capitol building will be limited and the process for posting agendas and confirming public hearings is unclear.

The WVEC is in preparation mode reaching out to legislators and working with our coalition partners. Starting February 12 we will send out GREEN to you each Friday so you can stay informed. We also expect to send along more frequent action alerts as calling and emailing your legislators will be the best (only?) way to reach them this session.

All events in the rotunda are cancelled this year so our annual E-Day will be a virtual event on Wednesday evening, March 10. Please mark your calendar and look for more info in our next issue. If you are part of an organization that would like to be involved, please email me. Last year we had over 20 groups travel to Charleston and we hope you can join us virtually this year!

We have a lot to tackle this year. Topping the list of our member group and member survey taken last fall and presented at our annual meeting were water quality, climate change, and clean elections (changing the political rules that favor special interests and giving regular West Virginians an equal voice in our government).

Specifically we will focus on the following priorities with our legislative allies:

>> Water quality standards rule and the Safe Drinking Water bill
>> Power Purchase Agreements legislation
>> Expansion of recycling including styrofoam
>> Protection of funding for DEP inspectors in the state budget
>> Resolution to study energy use in state buildings
>> Just Transition bill
>> Disclosure of dark money political expenditures

We also expect to use a good deal of our resources to educate the large number of newly elected legislators, especially in the House of Delegates, and to provide fact sheets and grassroots outreach on any potentially harmful legislation as well as proactive bills.

We can’t do it without your support! Please consider a donation to support our lobby team. Please donate online or mail a check to; WVEC, PO Box 1007, Charleston, WV 25324.

Thank you! Linda Frame, WVEC President

>>>>>…..>>>>>…..>>>>>…..>>>>>…..>>>>>

Mountaineer Community Meeting!

Your support is crucial to our efforts to put an end to the proposed Mountaineer NGL Storage Facility and the threats it poses to our community’s health, safety, and natural resources.

Please view the Fact Sheet document for more information about the facility’s harms and a draft for submitting public comment. Again, unique comments carry more weight in ODNR’s permit consideration process. We encourage you to add a few words about any specific concerns you may have regarding the facility’s construction and operation.

To view a recording of last night’s meeting, click the link below:

bit.ly/mountaineermeeting

Again, thank you if you joined us last night, and please feel free to reach out with any questions.

Ben Hunkler & Concerned Ohio River Residents

Areas of Interest for Ethane Storage

Article by Jim Kotcon, Conservation Chair, Sierra Club, Morgantown, WV

From: Mountain State Sierran, Volume 45, Number 2, Summer 2019

The Appalachian Storage Hub (ASH), sometimes called the Appalachian Storage and Trading Hub, is a proposal for underground storage of various natural gas byproducts that could support a plastics industry.

Natural gas is mostly methane, but in some formations, significant amounts of other gases and liquids (including propane, butane, and especially ethane) occur with the methane. These are usually separated from methane because they burn hotter or have more value for manufacturing purposes.

Without a market, these may be “flared” (burned off to eliminate them). But converting ethane to ethylene and polyethylene makes the ethane valuable for plastics. The process requires multi-billion-dollar “cracker” plants, several of which are proposed for West Virginia and adjoining states to take advantage of the ready supply from the fracking boom and the large volumes of these liquids.

But a cracker plant wants a steady supply of ethane, and the ASH is needed to store the large volumes needed. Neither the ASH nor the crackers are economically viable without the other. Proponents argue that the ASH is the key to $100 billion in investments and tens of thousands of jobs.

So, Where’s the Elephant?

In 2015, almost all nations signed the Paris Climate Agreement, committing these nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to keep global warming below 2o C, and striving for 1.5o C. The IPCC and most other scientific organizations agree that this means we must drastically reduce use of fossil fuels. The world must reduce emissions from fossil fuels by 50 percent within 10 years and be almost entirely off fossil fuels within 30 years.

Construction of a large gas industry is fundamentally incompatible with that goal. Yet none of the proponents will discuss this issue, or even admit that it is real. None of the major investors in the ASH or cracker plants or related industries are including greenhouse gas mitigation in their business plans.

The West Virginia Department of Commerce and the U.S. Department of Energy are offering major incentives and subsidies to develop the ASH. Political leaders including WV’s U.S. Senators and all three Representatives, the Governor, and the overwhelming majority of state legislators and county commissioners and all state and local economic development agencies are advocates for these increased federal subsidies.

But no one will talk about the greenhouse gas issue, or even plan for it.

Why is This Relevant to the ASH?

Ethane crackers create more demand for fracking and natural gas wells, pipelines and related facilities. These all emit methane, and some emit a lot. Methane is 84 times more effective at capturing heat than carbon dioxide (over a 20-year life span).

Ethane crackers also use tremendous amounts of electricity, most of which is expected to come from fossil fuels. It is expected that the plastics industry will account for one-sixth of all greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Most importantly, investments in fossil fuel infrastructure slow the transition to sustainable, renewable energy sources.

What You Can Do

Call or e-mail our Congressional delegation and ask them to oppose federal subsidies for the ASH. Send a copy of your comments to U.S. Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, and Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

Source: https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/www.sierraclub.org/files/sce-authors/u4882/2019%202%20Summer%20Sierran.pdf

Natural gas liquids (NGL) projects and plans in the Marcellus - Utica region

From an Update of Kallanish Energy News, March 22, 2019

NORTH CANTON, Ohio — Ohio-based Marathon Petroleum is exploring the possibility of an underground liquids storage facility in eastern Ohio’s Utica Shale, Kallanish Energy reports.

The company is looking at utilizing underground salt caverns for ethane, butane and propane storage, said Jason Stechschulte, commercial development manager for Marathon Pipe Line LLC. The site would be near the company’s Hopedale fractionation facility in Harrison County.

Core samplings in 2018 looks promising

The company last year conducted core sampling and the site has potential, he said Thursday at the day-long Utica Midstream conference sponsored by the Canton Regional Chamber of Commerce and Shale Directories. The event drew roughly 130 people to Walsh University in North Canton.

Marathon is talking with potential customers, but there are no firm plans, price estimates or timetables, Stechschulte said. Any timetable would be driven by customer interest and permitting, he said. He described the plan as a “multi-year project.” No applications have been filed for the project, except for the coring work done in 2018.

What the company is envisioning is a storage facility that would provide a solution for the entre industry in the Appalachian Basin, he said. Natural gas liquids would be stored under pressure with the ethane, butane and propane all being segregated in different salt caverns, he said.

The facility would be close to numerous pipelines in the area where Ohio, West Virginia and western Pennsylvania come together. Storage is needed as Shell Appalachia continues to build its ethane cracker plant at Monaca, Pennsylvania, northwest of Pittsburgh.

Waiting on PTT Cracker in the Ohio River valley —-

PTT Global Chemical is still looking at building a similar cracker at Dilles Bottom in Ohio’s Belmont County. A final investment decision has been expected for some time.

A private company, Colorado-based Mountaineer NGL Storage, hopes to develop a storage facility in salt caverns at Clarington in Ohio’s Monroe County. It would be designed to handle up to 3.5 million barrels of natural gas liquids. Natural gas liquids are also flowing via pipelines to eastern Pennsylvania for export.

Rio Pipeline work wrapping up —-

In other news, Marathon Pipeline is completing the finishing touches to expanding its Rio Pipeline to move Utica Shale liquids from Lima, Ohio, to Robinson, Illinois. That required adding three pumping stations on the 250-mile, eight-inch line.

Stechschulte told the audience the pipeline will move roughly 55,000 barrels per day, starting within the next 10 days. The company is also working to move Utica normal butane and isobutane to refineries and storage in the Midwest, a project that will be completed by mid-2020. The two projects together will cost Marathon about $150 million, he said.

The company is also looking at a possible arrangement to move Utica liquids from Cadiz and Scio in eastern Ohio, to Bells Run on the Ohio River for river transport, he said. That might be an arranged in cooperation with EnLink Midstream.

========================================

See also: New Warnings on Plastic’s Health Risks as Fracking Industry Promotes New ‘Plastics Belt’ Build-Out, Resilience & DeSmog Blog, March 5, 2019

Huge process tower erected at Shell’s cracker facility

From an Article by Heather Doyle, Petrochemical Update, October 19, 2018

Shell has completed a substantial step in the construction of its Pennsylvania Petrochemicals Complex, bringing the Northeast chemicals hub dream another step closer to reality.

Shell said on October 10, 2018 it had successfully installed the project’s largest piece of equipment: a 285-foot cooling and condensation tower for gas and other hydrocarbons.

At approximately 2,000 tonnes, the tower spent more than three and a half weeks in transit up the Mississippi and Ohio rivers and required one of the world’s largest cranes to lift it into place.

Upon arrival in Pennsylvania, it was unloaded onto a dock and transported down a newly-created road – both specially-designed to handle the large quench tower.

The heavy lift of the quench tower, undertaken October 7, marked an important milestone in the project.

Shell took the final investment decision on the Pennsylvania Petrochemicals Complex in June 2016. The site preparation program ended in November 2017, with Shell announcing the start of main construction. Commercial production is expected to begin early next decade.

Since the start of main construction in November 2017, Shell has also safely erected two of three reactors associated with the planned polyethylene units and laid around 15 miles of underground pipe for the cooling, firewater and drainage systems.

The project is bringing economic growth and jobs to the region, with some 3,000 workers on site. That number will likely increase to 6,000 by the end of 2019 through its construction phase. Shell expects around 600 onsite jobs when the complex is completed.

The petrochemicals complex will use ethane from shale-gas producers in the Marcellus and Utica basins to produce 1.6 million tonnes of polyethylene per year.

The complex will include four processing units – an ethane cracker and three polyethylene units. Two polyethylene units will manufacture high-density polyethylene (HDPE) grades of pellets and a third unit will produce linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) pellets.

The Shell petrochemical complex in Pennsylvania will be the first major U.S. project of its type to be built outside the Gulf Coast in 20 years, but many say Shell is paving the way for a major Appalachia petrochemical industry.

“There is more than enough ethane in the Northeast region now for another two to three world scale crackers,” U.S. Energy Information Administration Industry Economist Warren Wilczewski said while speaking at Petrochemical Update’s Northeast U.S. Petrochemical Construction Conference in 2017.

Surging supply of ethane is expected to come from the Marcellus and Utica shales over the next several years. By 2020, a quarter of U.S. ethane will be produced in Appalachia, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Pipelines, infrastructure and storage are still necessary for the northeast petrochemicals hub to become a reality, players caution. According to analysts, a storage solution is a crucial next step in transforming the Appalachian Basin and its natural gas assets into a petrochemical production center.

A proposed multibillion-dollar regional storage complex for natural gas liquids sourced from the Marcellus, Utica and Rogersville shale plays moved one step closer to reality in August when Parsons was named engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) partner for the buildout of the Appalachia Storage and Trading Hub (ASTH).

Parsons will initially focus on the pre-front end engineering design (FEED) including project management and execution planning. Subsequent phases would include constructing the $3.4 billion project and its long-term operation.

http://analysis.petchem-update.com/operations-maintenance/shell-reaches-engineering-milestone-northeast

Seneca Lake near Watkins Glen is naturally beautiful

From an Article by Jessica A. Knoblauch, Earthjustice.org, July 27, 2018

“Do you still have that bottle of champagne? Well, get ready to put it on ice!”

After almost a decade of fighting a dangerous proposal to fill two underground salt caverns with explosive liquid petroleum gas (propane and butane) in upstate New York, Joseph Campbell and Yvonne Taylor knew it was time to celebrate when they first heard those words from Earthjustice attorney Deborah Goldberg earlier this month.

Goldberg went on to explain that the state Department of Environmental Conservation had denied a permit for the gas storage project. The agency cited concerns about cavern stability and risks to community character and the agriculture-based, tourism economy of the Finger Lakes region.

Campbell and Taylor were overjoyed — and stunned. After all, when they first took on this battle against a multi-billion dollar company in 2010, they were told they couldn’t stop plans to build a dirty energy behemoth in their backyard. But Campbell and Taylor went for it anyway, spending almost every day, including most holidays, weekends and birthdays, organizing their neighbors against the proposal.

The surprise victory is just the latest bright spot in a series of efforts led by activists in the region to keep dirty fossil fuel projects out of New York State. Finger Lakes advocates were at the core of the campaign for local fracking bans, which set the stage for the state’s historic decision to ban fracking in 2014. The permit denial is also a huge win for the coalition of residents, local elected officials, and business owners who have long fought to protect the iconic Finger Lakes region.

Each year, millions of tourists flock to the Finger Lakes to enjoy the region’s bounty of vineyards, wineries and bed and breakfasts, among other things.

It’s a world-class tourist destination. But it’s also home for people like Campbell and Taylor — partners in life and in protest. They both grew up near Seneca Lake, one of the 11 lakes left behind by glaciers that traveled through the region millions of years ago. Today, they live together in their “dream home” on property near the lake that’s been in Taylor’s family for generations.

“Seneca Lake is in my blood and bones. I drink it. I have swam, water skied, kayaked, motor boated and sailed on this lake my entire life,” says Taylor. “When I’m home, I’m always looking out the window at this gorgeous lake. It’s been the only constant I have ever had.”

In 2008, that stability was shattered after the two learned an out-of-state gas storage company planned to store millions of gallons of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) — also called “propane” — in abandoned salt caverns under the shores of Seneca Lake. They started organizing opposition to the proposal. Soon after, Gas Free Seneca was born.

“After a lot of soul searching, we decided we weren’t gonna let this slip,” says Campbell, adding that the first public forum they held on the issue packed the auditorium with more than 800 people.

But Taylor and Campbell knew that a “bunch of rag-tag environmental activists” weren’t going to stop this project alone. They needed to get local business owners on their side. At first, that wasn’t easy.

“But once they realized this gas proposal was a threat to their livelihood, they started getting involved,” says Campbell. Photo in Article: Yvonne Taylor (left) and Joseph Campbell (right) of Gas Free Seneca.

The couple also knew that they couldn’t win without a top-notch legal team. They contacted Earthjustice with a list of concerns about the proposal that ran about as deep as the lake itself.

For starters, the unlined salt caverns along Seneca Lake were never engineered for storage once their salt was mined, yet the gas company proposed storing up to 40 million barrels of explosive propane in a manner that has caused injuries and deaths, large fires, evacuations and major property loss in other places. A 2004 analysis found that between 1974 and 2004, there were ten catastrophic accidents involving underground storage sites for gas, all of them occurring in salt caverns.

Even if no major accidents occurred, the company’s proposal to build an industrialized storage facility in a rural area threatened to permanently alter the region’s bucolic character. That may sound like an innocuous side effect — until you ask yourself whether anyone wants to sip a pricey glass of Finger Lakes bubbly within view of LPG pumps and other ugly equipment. Finger Lakes’ tourism industry currently brings 60,000 jobs to the region. Crestwood’s offer for permanent jobs? Three to five.

In May 2013, Earthjustice sent a letter to New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) on behalf of Gas Free Seneca, demanding that state officials scrutinize the combined environmental and community impacts of the LPG project and the then-proposed expansion of a gas storage facility. At the same time, Earthjustice worked alongside Gas Free Seneca to ensure that the issue received the national attention that it deserved. After all, projects like these threaten to lock the U.S. into continued extraction and use of dirty fossil fuels and discourage the growth of renewable energy.

“From the very beginning, we knew they weren’t your average environmental attorneys,” says Taylor. “Not only did they give tremendous legal advice, Deborah [Goldberg] and Moneen [Nasmith] gave us guidance on messaging that was critical in convincing the public and eventually state leaders to speak out against the proposal.”

“They were a force to be reckoned with,” she adds. In the end, more than 450 Seneca Lake property owners, 500 local and regional businesses on the Gas Free Seneca and Finger Lakes Wine Business coalitions, hundreds of local wineries and vineyard owners, and 32 municipalities representing 1.2 million New Yorkers opposed the proposal.

Now, with the state regulators’ decision to deny the permit, the project cannot go forward. “Undaunted by an out-of-state energy company, the people of the Finger Lakes stood up to protect everything they hold dear,” says Goldberg. “Today, they won.”

But local fracktivists like Taylor and Campbell aren’t stopping yet. Building on this latest victory, as well as another victory in 2016 to stop a coal and gas plant repowering proposal, fracktivists like Taylor and Campbell are now pivoting toward fighting a waste-to-energy trash incinerator in the region. These local fights and victories are critical in maintaining momentum for clean energy and against fossil fuels at a time when the Trump administration is doubling down on dirty energy. (Earthjustice attorneys are active on the health, climate, and environmental justice aspects of the incinerator project.)

“Talk about a bad idea for the climate,” says Taylor of the incinerator proposal, adding that it would emit a million tons of carbon dioxide per year. “It’s not gas industry infrastructure, but it’s equally as damaging to the environment and to our way of life in the Finger Lakes.”

So stay tuned. With their track record, that could very well be their

Over 5 years of protests and legal activities were involved

The accidents and pollution continue ...

By Dustin White, Opinion – Editorial, Charleston Gazette, June 8, 2018

Recently, we’ve been seeing a lot of opinion pieces and articles in the local media telling us how great the proposed Appalachian Storage and Trading Hub will be for our economy.

While the name of the proposed hub sounds benign, it’s anything but.

The project is a massive petrochemical complex that will rival the area known as “Cancer Alley” in Louisiana and will make the current Chemical Valley in Charleston look minuscule.

This new Cancer Alley in our region is being neatly packaged and sold to us by a select group of individuals seeking to make themselves rich at the cost of our health and economic well-being. The primary focus of this hub is to store and refine fracked gas liquids to manufacture more plastics, in a world already drowning in plastics.

First, a big incentive to build this petrochem infrastructure in West Virginia is a $83.7 billion Memorandum of Understanding with China. The Trump administration, with state government backing, signed this MOU last November without any input from the people of West Virginia.

I don’t know about you, but I would like to be consulted before being sold to another country. This MOU has still yet to be released to the public, even after several Freedom of Information Act requests on the state and federal levels.

At the signing in China was our very own commerce secretary, Woody Thrasher. In what is obviously a conflict of interest, Thrasher still owns 70 percent of the Thrasher Group, which is a contractor for oil and gas fracking infrastructure and other projects that would feed this plastic manufacturing monster.

Then there is WVU professor Brian Anderson. Anderson lends his professional title as director of WVU’s Energy Institute to scholarly studies supporting the hub. Anderson is also one of the chief principals for the Appalachian Development Group LLC — the primary group signed on to the China MOU. The ADG is responsible for the initial concept and marketing phase and is owned jointly by the Mid-Atlantic Technology, Research and Innovation Center (MATRIC) and the WVU Innovation Corporation. ADG has also been invited to apply for a $1.9 billion loan from the Department of Energy, meaning taxpayer dollars will be tapped for this complex.

West Virginia’s congressional delegation on both sides of the aisle have not only publicly promoted the hub and introduced several pieces of legislation in Congress to support and fast track this boondoggle, but they also have received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions this election cycle from oil, gas and petrochemical companies.

Joe Manchin received a $10,000 campaign donation from the American Chemistry Council after he introduced the Appalachian Ethane Storage Study Act of 2017, according to opensecrets.org. In turn, the American Chemistry Council, along with other interested parties, deployed a team of lobbyists in D.C. to work on the bills our delegation has sponsored.

Most recently, we have seen opinion pieces in support of the petrochem hub from the likes of former state legislator Brooks McCabe and former congressional candidate Howard Swint, both of whom could be in a position to make money from the project. McCabe is a commercial realtor who owns land with depleted gas wells near the Kanawha State Forest, in hub “areas of interest.” These areas have potential for storage of volatile fracked gas liquids awaiting transport to refineries. Swint is a commercial property broker.

So, people who appear set to line their own pockets are waging a P.R. campaign to promote a mega-petrochemical complex as a shiny, fabulous game-changer for our state. But it is just the same old, deadly game: We sacrifice our water and land and health to a fossil fuel industry.

To make things even worse, these hucksters are using the state’s economic hard times — from the downturn of the coal industry — to manipulate the public into thinking this project is a good thing.

We deserve better than opportunistic profiteers looking to get rich off another round of suffering for ordinary West Virginians.

>>> Dustin White is project coordinator with the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, which is based in Huntington.

URL:

https://www.wvgazettemail.com/opinion/gazette_opinion/op_ed_commentaries/dustin-white-petrochemical-complex-not-good-for-wv-gazette/article_a37149eb-d2c9-5f60-8476-ea7f3ac29849.html

Ethane, propane and butane (NGL) by-product from Marcellus and Utica shale wells

From an Article by Casey Junkins, Martins Ferry Times-Leader, December 22, 2017

CLARINGTON –A new U.S. Department of Energy report identifies a plan to store 420 million barrels of ethane, propane and butane in underground salt caverns along the Ohio River as a key to developing the $36 billion Appalachian Storage Hub that experts say ultimately could create 100,000 jobs.

Mountaineer NGL Storage Managing Director David Hooker said his firm plans to spend at least $150 million to build the salt caverns along Ohio Route 7 in Monroe County, while the total investment for the project could reach $500 million. He hopes to begin storing ethane and other natural gas liquids along the river by the end of 2019 –- at a site that will be only about 10 miles south of the proposed $6 billion PTT Global Chemical ethane cracker.

“We’re pleased to see that the federal government has identified the need for NGL storage in the region and specifically sites Mountaineer NGL Storage as part of this Natural Gas Liquids Primer. We commend the DOE for providing this resource to help educate the public on the importance of keeping NGLs local to the region and believe our project is vital to help foster additional investments across the NGL supply chain,” Hooker said.

Hooker said he already has a permit from the Ohio Department of Transportation, but is still waiting for authorization from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Hooker said he expects all environmental permits for the project to be obtained within the first six months of 2018, after which construction can begin.

Hooker, along with elected officials and other industry leaders, said the DOE report shows how vital and viable his project is.

“This Department of Energy study proves that what we are doing here in the local region is a national issue. Underground natural gas liquids storage — and the Mountaineer NGL project in particular — is critical to the future of shale development in our region,” Monroe County Commissioner Mick Schumacher said. “We need to utilize our natural resources locally and grow jobs in our local economies rather than exporting our natural resources with little benefit to our residents.”

Since discussion of a Marcellus and Utica shale ethane cracker commenced, industry leaders have maintained a major obstacle is the lack of underground storage capacity for the natural gas liquid. This is needed, they say, to ensure a constant source of ethane to the cracker plant in the event of supply disruptions.

“The Mountaineer NGL Storage Project is centrally located to an existing pipeline network that can both deliver ethane to storage and withdraw it and deliver it to markets that need it now and in the future. As additional consumers of ethane and propane locate or expand in West Virginia, Mountaineer NGL will be ready to serve their needs,” West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association Executive Director Anne Blankenship said.

Monroe County Commissioner Carl Davis said he believes the Mountaineer NGL project is “essential to the future of the proposed PTT Global project, as well as the Marcellus and Utica shale plays and future exploration and production of our natural resources.”

“This is very good news for Belmont County and the entire Upper Ohio Valley region,” Belmont County Commissioner Mark Thomas added of the study.

Monroe County Gas Storage Facility Seeks Expedited ODNR Permit

From an Article by Janell Hunter, Wheeling Intelligencer, November 7, 2017

A natural gas liquids storage company based in Colorado has hired Scott Pleskonko of Moundsville to be its local development facilitator as it seeks permits from the Ohio Division of Natural Resources to build a facility in Clarington.

Pleskonko updated the Monroe County Board of Commissioners on Monday about the proposed Mountaineer NGL Storage facility, which is considered a critical component for industrial development for the region. It will be particularly important to the proposed PTT Global Chemical ethane cracker plant in Belmont County.

The project will use subsurface salt formations to store ethane, propane, butane and other products. Pleskonko said David Hooker, managing director of Mountaineer NGL Storage, has been in touch with officials at both Royal Dutch Shell and PTT Global Chemical and found that both organizations are “very interested” in using the facility.

“The Marcellus Shale and the Utica Shale below it have surprised the entire industry and are fast becoming the next super-producers of natural gas supply in this country, but there is a dire need for reliable storage solutions,” Hooker said.

Pleskonko said the project continues to move forward, although at a slower pace than expected. He said an underground injection control program permit has been filed but has not yet been approved by ODNR.

“Right now we are into the project with about $20 million of expenditures — engineering, test wells, land acquisition, all those things,” Pleskonko said. “Where we are at really now is trying to resolve the rest of the permit issues.”

The permitting for the brine impoundment was initially rejected by the ODNR, but steps are being taken to correct the issues that led to its rejection, according to Pleskonko.

“Most of the issues are getting resolved. It takes some time to work through those. Clearly, three of the four are resolved, and the fourth issue is we need to supply them with some data on the type of soil above the impoundment to make sure there are no problems with a potential hillside slip.”

The company has identified sites for core boring to supply the needed data and plans to resubmit the permit for the impoundment by late November. Plesonko said the company hopes the permits will be in place by the second quarter of next year, at which time construction could begin.

“Tentatively, if things go well, we would have a 2019 startup date,” he said.

Monroe County Economic Development Representative Jason Hamman said he would draft a letter for the commissioners to sign that would be sent to ODNR in support of expediting the permit.

Natural Gas Underground Storage is Risky

FERC: Constitution Pipeline can’t cut New York trees yet

From an Article by Joe Mahoney, Daily Star, January 29, 2016

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Friday rejected the Constitution Pipeline company’s request to take down thousands of trees in New York but allowed it to begin doing so in Pennsylvania, where the firm has secured water-quality permits from that state.

Anne Marie Garti of East Meredith, an organizer for Stop the Pipeline and an environmental lawyer, called the FERC decision a “huge victory” for her group and other opponents of the proposed 124-mile natural gas transmission line.

“The significance of this cannot be overestimated,” Garti said. “This is FERC admitting that the state’s right under the 401 (the water quality permitting authority held by DEC) pre-empts its power.”

Garti said it would have been illegal for the federal regulators to allow the trees to be cut down in New York, where the state Department of Environmental Conservation continues to review the company’s application for water quality permits.

The pipeline firm had a different interpretation of FERC’s decision, with a spokesman, Christopher Stockton, expressing optimism that his company will eventually get the green light to move forward with the tree felling in the New York counties that would be traversed by the project.

“We appreciate the FERC’s prompt issuance of a limited “Notice to Proceed” for non-mechanized hand felling of trees in Pennsylvania,” Stockton said in a written statement. 

He added: “Although the Commission has not yet authorized tree felling in New York, we are optimistic that authorization will come in order for the project to meet its 2016 in-service commitment while complying with the environmental conditions of the FERC Order and the USFWS (the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) Biological Opinion. This FERC decision allows us to get started on tree felling in Pennsylvania while we wait for the necessary authorizations to begin work in New York.”

The pipeline company has contended that it would have used “non-mechanized” means to fell the trees, avoiding disturbance to the root systems and thus creating no impacts on water quality.

The state attorney general’s office earlier this month urged FERC not to allow the tree cutting in New York because the DEC has yet to decide on the water permit application.

Constitution PIpeline was advised of the FERC decision Friday in a two-page letter from Terry Turpin, director of FERC’s Division of Gas, Environment-Engineering.

Two weeks ago, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers advised the pipeline company that its authorization was not required for the tree-clearing work proposed by the company, a consortium of energy firms led by Williams Partners and Cabot Oil and Gas.

The pipeline company has said it has already spent $350 million on the project and has obtained easements to all properties along the route that stretches from northeastern Pennsylvania to the Schoharie County town of Wright.

The company says the pipeline would carry enough gas to power three million homes.

Working in conjunction with Constitution Pipeline, Leatherstocking Gas Company has plans to run a feeder line from the pipeline to the Amphenol Aerospace plant in Sidney. There would also be feeder lines extending to several communities in Chenango and Delaware counties.

With the pipeline route crossing numerous forests, fields and farms, opponents argue that the project will cause irreversible environmental impacts and drop property values of those parcels that would be traversed by the subterranean gas line.