Posts Tagged ‘effect’

Landowners, communities challenge Delaware River Basin Commission to explain rationale, authority behind denying opportunity of the Marcellus to Northeast PA

Translated literally from French it means “superior force,” but translated practically into American law, the term force majeure is a clause used by parties that encounter a situation so severe that it’s actually designated as an “Act of God” by the courts. Floods, famines, earthquakes, volcanoes – these are the kinds of events that trigger the rare invocation of the clause, allowing all parties involved in a contract to shield themselves of obligation in light of the extraordinary and unforeseen events that transpired after it was signed.

Actually, there’s one other event that has historically fallen under the rubric of force majeure: acts of war. Unfortunately, in the case of the West Trenton, N.J.-based Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), that’s precisely the action that was taken against landowners in eastern Pennsylvania last month, with the Commission instituting a de-facto, back-door moratorium on all activities within its sprawling jurisdiction even tangentially related to the development of clean-burning natural gas from the Marcellus Shale.

The upshot? This description comes from the June 30 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Of course, with potentially thousands of jobs at stake in the area – and millions of dollars in much-needed payments to landowners and state and local governments – folks who actually live and work in the Northeast PA counties affected by the DRBC promulgation aren’t exactly taking the decision lying down.

Case in point: Later today, the DRBC will hold a regularly scheduled hearing on a whole slate of issues related to regional water use and management, including a draft water withdrawal request from an energy operator in the area. Among the folks expected to attend? A busload of landowners from the Northern Wayne Property Owners Association (NWPOA), and from the information we’ve been able to glean from its website, the group is expecting a significant showing among residents in the area concerned by the implications of DRBC’s historic overreach on natural gas. To wit:

Back in June, the Marcellus Shale Coalition released an issue alert on the DRBC moratorium decision, wondering aloud if the modern-day DRBC would have let George Washington cross the Delaware without first initiating a years-long review procedure aimed at stalling the process and ultimately executing a pocket-veto of the entire enterprise. Needless to say, the denial of energy and mineral rights to landowners across the border in Pennsylvania wasn’t exactly what the creators of DRBC had in mind 50 years ago when the commission was created.

Earlier this week, the MSC expanded on its previously stated objections to the DRBC moratorium in a letter sent to Commission director Carol Collier. You see, in extending its initial ban to include a moratorium on doing even the most basic things to test the future viability of natural gas wells in the affected counties, the Commission cited “the risk to water resources” as the reason for pulling the plug on exploratory work in the area. But as MSC president and executive director Kathryn Klaber makes plain in her letter to DRBC this week, no water would be put at risk under such an approach – and very little of it will need to be withdrawn from surface areas under DRBC jurisdiction:

Of course, if DRBC’s review and approval of permits in this context is considered appropriate, then “it likewise would be appropriate for the development of a multitude of projects over which the Commission, appropriately, has not sought to assert jurisdiction, such as malls, hotels, restaurants, and residential subdivisions,” according to the letter from MSC.

So why is natural gas so different? That question, unfortunately, is not one that DRBC has answered with any degree of specificity just yet –content instead to simply assert its primacy over the matter and issue sweeping, multi-state declarations with significant implications for the clean-energy future of Pennsylvania and the economic security of those who live here. Hopefully, with the help of groups like NWPOA, the Commission will soon find itself in a position to better understand that the actions it makes from West Trenton, N.J. have real-world consequences for residents in the Commonwealth.

Copyright: Marcelluscoalition.org

By ANDREW MAYKUTH The Philadelphia Inquirer

The state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources signed a $6.15 million agreement Monday with Chesapeake Energy Corp., giving the company the right to drill the Marcellus Shale under a seven-mile stretch of the Susquehanna River in Bradford County.

Under the lease, which applies to 1,500 acres of river between Towanda and the Wyoming County line, Chesapeake is permitted to access the shale with wells drilled on either side of the river. No well bores will penetrate the river itself.

Horizontal-drilling technology makes drilling for gas beneath the waterway feasible. With wells that reach laterally for thousands of feet, operators can capture gas under a large area from a remote location.

The state Department of Environmental Protection says that under-river gas exploration poses no more risk than any of the 1,400 other wells drilled into the Marcellus formation, which is a mile below the surface. The lease is separate from the state’s offering in January of 32,000 acres of state forests, which generated $128.5 million to help close the state budget gap.

The $6.15 million raised by the Susquehanna River lease will help keep open 24 state parks that had been threatened with closure because of the budget crisis, said Christina Novak, DCNR spokeswoman.

DCNR’s Susquehanna River lease may conjure memories of the 1959 Knox Mine disaster in the Port Griffith section of Jenkins Township, when the Susquehanna broke through a coal mine that was dug just below the river bottom. A dozen miners died in the flood.

Geologists say subsidence is not an issue with gas exploration. The well bores are only a few inches in diameter.

Copyright: Times Leader