Royal Dutch Shell yields to government actions

From an Article by Tom Fontaine, Pittsburgh Tribune Review, March 18, 2020

Shell Chemicals said Wednesday it will temporarily halt its multibillion-dollar project to build an ethane cracker plant in Beaver County because of coronavirus concerns. The company then plans to gradually ramp work back up at the sprawling site where about 8,000 people have been working.

“The decision to pause was not made lightly,” Shell Pennsylvania Chemicals Vice President Hilary Mercer said in a statement. “But we feel strongly the temporary suspension of construction activities is in the best long-term interest of our workforce, nearby townships and the commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” Mercer added.

The decision came hours after Beaver County government leaders called on Shell to suspend work on the project.

“It’s time to shut down. Do what you have to do, but get to that point where we won’t have anyone on that site,” Beaver County Commissioner Dan Camp said at a news conference late Wednesday morning in front of the county courthouse in Beaver.

Camp, who was joined by fellow Commissioners Tony Amadio and Jack Manning and state Reps. Jim Marshall, Rob Matzie and Josh Kail, said his office had received more than 500 calls in recent days from concerned residents and Shell employees and contractors.

Callers reported crowded conditions on buses that take the project’s thousands of workers to and from the work site, limited hand sanitizer and other problems.

“With 8,000 workers, if something happens there, our health care facilities will not be able to undertake what they will have to do,” Camp said, noting that the Heritage Valley Beaver hospital is equipped with only 40 ventilators.

“There’s potential for a very catastrophic outbreak,” Manning added.

The government leaders said they had been in communication with Shell and Gov. Tom Wolf’s office about their concerns. “I believe Shell understands the problem and our concerns. I have confidence they will do the right thing,” Camp said.

The company did not say how long it would suspend work or how long it might take to ramp work back up to full capacity. “As of now, there is no definitive timeline to return to construction activities,” spokesman Curtis Smith said. “It’s too early to know that. For now, our focus is on the 8,000 workers who have dedicated their time and talent to this project.”

The company said it would spend the coming days installing what it called “additional mitigation measures” at the site. Smith said those measures haven’t been finalized, but could include using additional buses to transport workers to and from the site and installing more sanitizing stations and work tents on the site.

No workers at the site have shown symptoms of covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, according to Smith.

Work on the project is expected to be completed sometime in the early 2020s, Smith said. When the plant begins operating, it will process ethane from the Marcellus and Utica shale reservoirs into ethylene and polyethylene, the building blocks of plastic. Officials have said it will employ about 600 full-time workers, and hundreds of others jobs could be created by spinoff companies related to the plastics industry.

“Our goal is to build a positive, decades long legacy in the region,” Mercer said in her statement. “That means earning our right to live and work here every day. It also means caring for people. While (suspending work is) understandably disappointing to many, we believe this decision honors that approach.”

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Shell ‘s construction crew at risk of COVID-19 sickness

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania (WPVI) — Gov. Tom Wolf is tightening his directives to businesses to shut down, issuing a dire warning and saying Thursday that all “non-life-sustaining” businesses in Pennsylvania must close their physical locations by 8 p.m. to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Enforcement actions against businesses that do not close their physical locations will begin Saturday, March 21st, Wolf said in a statement.

You can also find the list at this link.

Impacts of pipelines severe in VA and WV

From an Article by Charles Young, West Virginia News, August 20, 2018

CLARKSBURG — The Mountain Valley Pipeline project has released as much as 50 percent of its construction workforce as a result of the recent court-ordered work stoppage.

The delay will push the project’s proposed completion date to “the last quarter of 2019,” according to Natalie Cox, corporate director of communications for EQT.

“Because of the continued work stoppage order that impacts more than 200 miles of the project’s route, MVP has released as much as 50 percent of its construction workforce,” she said.

The Mountain Valley Pipeline, a project of EQT and several other partners, has a proposed route spanning more than 300 miles from northwestern West Virginia to southern Virginia. The pipeline will be used to supply natural gas from Marcellus and Utica Shale production to markets in the Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic.

The project’s original in-service completion date was targeted for “late 2018,” according to Cox.

The company was recently ordered to stop all work after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said EQT and its partners hadn’t obtained rights of way or temporary use permits needed for the pipeline to cross federally owned lands since the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals canceled permits in early August.

FERC issued a modified order Thursday allowing for work to continue on part of the proposed route in West Virginia, Cox said.

“The modification allows construction to restart for approximately 77 miles of the route in West Virginia, with exception of a 7-mile area located in proximity to the Weston Gauley Bridge Turnpike Trail,” she said.

Although work will continue in this area, many of the other workers have been released until FERC gives the green light for full construction to continue, Cox said.

“Despite the construction activities authorized under the modified work order and the FERC-approved stabilization plan, MVP was forced to take immediate measures to address an idled workforce and protect the integrity of the project,” she said.

“MVP is working to mitigate any additional job loss; and we believe we are making progress to receive authorization to resume full construction activities and return the currently released workers back to their jobs.”

In its original work stoppage order, FERC gave indications that the stoppage would not be permanent.

“There is no reason to believe that the Forest Service or the Army Corps of Engineers, as the land managing agencies, or the Bureau of Land Management, as the federal rights of grantor, will not be able to comply with the Court’s instructions and to ultimately issue new right-of-way grants that satisfy the Court’s requirements,” FERC wrote in its order.

The other major pipeline project currently underway in West Virginia, Dominion Energy’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline, was also recently ordered to halt work in most areas.

In the wake of a U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that nixed Dominion’s proposed right-of-way crossing of the Blue Ridge Parkway and vacated an Incidental Take Statement issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, FERC ordered a halt to all construction.

Later FERC granted permission for construction to continue on two “critical road bores” — one at Mount Carmel Road in Upshur County and one at U.S. 50 near Bridgeport — as well as certain activities at the Mockingbird Hill Compressor Station in Wetzel County.

The stoppage order has not impacted the Atlantic Coast Pipeline’s workforce, according to spokesman Aaron Ruby.

“We’re encouraging our contractors to stay in the area so they’re ready to resume construction at a moment’s notice,” he said. “We’re confident the agencies can quickly reissue the permits, and we’ll get back to work as soon as possible.”

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ACP Pipeline hoping shutdown is resolved within a matter of weeks

From an Article of the Record Delta, Buckhannon WV, August 25, 2018

BUCKHANNON — Atlantic Coast Pipeline officials told the Upshur County Commission Thursday the company expects work to resume on the natural gas pipeline within a matter of weeks.

“Everybody’s hoping it’s really weeks and nothing more than that,” ACP community liaison Mike Cozad said at the commission’s weekly meeting Thursday. “That’s based on things that have occurred with our pipeline, and the feeling is, it’s going to be weeks, and not a longer issue.”

ACP is a joint venture to build a 42-inch-wide natural gas pipeline that will span 600 miles from Harrison County, West Virginia into Virginia and Robeson County, North Carolina; Dominion Energy is the lead developer and operator of the pipeline.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a Stop Work Order Friday after the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated two key permits — one of which had been issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and was designed to protect threatened or endangered species. The second is a right-of-way permit issued by the U.S. National Park Service that would have allowed the pipeline to pass beneath the Blue Ridge Parkway and required boring into a mountain along the scenic highway, he said.

Cozad said the work stoppage shouldn’t affect the pipeline’s impact on the local economy. “You shouldn’t see anything changing as far as the number of people out in town during the day — maybe more so,” he said. “They’ve got time now to do that. The hotels are still full, no one’s going to be leaving.”

Dominion Energy workers and employees of the energy company’s contractors are still being paid, and they have several tasks to complete despite the work stoppage, Cozad added.

“We have some limited things we can do to keep the right-of-way stabilized and that our environmental controls are being maintained and those kinds of things, so nothing gets out of whack in that regard, so there’s a little bit of things that need to be kept up if you will.”

Local environmental activist April Pierson-Keating asked Cozad whether ACP has turned in its stabilization plan, but Cozad said it had not yet been completed.

“It has not been finalized yet,” Cozad said. “Our stabilization plan is what we’re allowed to do to wrap things up that, really, if they’re left undone, it’s worse than going ahead and doing it.”

One example in Upshur County is Mt. Carmel Road, where work was well underway when the SWO was issued.

“The (W.Va. Department of Highways) DOH has requested that we go ahead and finish that bore, get it all stabilized, fill it back in so it’s actually less of a hazard than it is right now when remaining open, so that’s the kinds of thing that the stabilization plan takes into account,” Cozad said. “If you have any clout or anything, please contact anybody you can and tell them to get this thing going. It’s having a big impact on a lot of folks in ways that you couldn’t imagine. All of these things cost money, which ultimately impacts the cost of the gas supplied down the road.”

Teachers Work Stoppage for Information Picketing at West Liberty, WV

By Duane Nichols, Retired Chemical Engineer, Stewartstown, WV

This is the Second Day of work stoppage protest by the WV educators. This is important because we ALL benefit from a strong and comprehensive system of education. Education in West Virginia is under funded. There are over 700 openings in the 55 counties, because the salaries and benefits are too low.

The teachers held an incredible rally at the State Capitol in Charleston yesterday, very well attended and very active! The State Legislature, bent on tax cuts year after year, has a responsibility to fully fund education. It’s even specified in our State’s Constitution.

There is money in our natural resources, coal, oil, natural gas, timber, wind, and solar. These sources need to be tapped as necessary to achieve a strong and vibrant state government. We are overdue for an increase in the gasoline tax.

We are overdue for a new tax called a “carbon fee.” Such a carbon tax can supplement education and be used for infrastructure in our state. It’s primary purpose is to reduce the impacts of climate change. Lord knows it is time to start a real response to the effects of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The main effect is called “global warming” that influences our earth in many and various ways.

My education started in 1940, in a one room school for eight grades. Change is inevitable. Later, I was in a three room school until the eighth grade. My high school building had over 12 rooms, but the wood inner structure burned a few years after. The community had such pride in the schools that new and better facilities were constructed. West Virginians have very great pride in our educational system and our educators. Community spirit is high across the State.

We have always had a plentiful supply of coal and natural gas in West Virginia. These can and should be taxed. The coal and gas industries use our land and water (public water), and they dispose of their wastes on the land and in the air and water. These industries should pay for education!

Our teachers are becoming active and they are to be admired for that, as they care deeply! Information picketing has been underway statewide. I saw them in person in Baker in the far East of WV off US Route 48, and in Mount Storm on US Route 50, and in Morgantown on WV 857 near I-68. I known they were out all across the State. See the photo above from West Liberty in Brooke County.

One chant of the educators is “Tax Our Gas.” When deep natural gas is recovered from depths of approximately one mile, it actually belongs to the earth and to the people in general as much as it belongs to mineral owners or surface land owners. So, let’s continue to say Tax Our Gas!

Change continues world-wide. We need education at all ages! We need to learn about the Food-Energy-Water Nexus. We need to learn about “the limits to growth” and the threats to the future of mankind. In education we have hope for the future, so let’s fully fund education and support education in our work day lives and in our leisure time.

Most poems contain ideas to make us think:

“Don’t tax you, don’t tax me; Tax that fellow behind the tree!”