Posts Tagged ‘Northeast Pennsylvania’

Today’s Marcellus Shale news includes the Republican dominated Legislature in Harrisburg failing to reach a compromise on major tax and regulatory legislation affecting Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling companies but passing noncontroversial legislation requiring signs to spell out the GPS location of drilling pads and drilling rig sites.  With primary elections only months away, and even the most conservative constituents calling for taxing and regulating of gas drillers  in light of service cuts and local school district tax increases, the Republican Senate and House leaders are calling for Governor Corbett to alter his pro gas industry no tax/no regulation policies and reach a compromise quickly avoiding campaign issues. Additionally, DEP officials announced the proposed construction of two (2) deep well fracking waste water disposal sites in Warren County. Deep well disposal sites recently came under scrutiny after earthquakes near deep well disposal sites occurred in Youngstown, Ohio. Finally, Pennsylvania electric producers are pushing to take advantage of the Marcellus Shale natural gas boom in Pennsylvania and are moving to switch from coal dependent to natural gas dependent electrical generation plants. The electric companies are hoping to lower the cost of electricity for Pennsylvania residential and business consumers. Natural gas drilling industry leaders have predicted this positive development for Pennsylvania consumers for some time.

The (13) trial lawyers at Dougherty Leventhal Price LLP–DLP—PENNSYLVANIA TRUCK ACCIDENT AND AUTO ACCIDENT CATASTROPHIC INJURY LAWYERS—contnue to follow these and other natural gas drilling rig issues in NEPA, Central and elsewhere in Pennsylvania including Lackawanna, Luzerne, Wyoming, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Bradford, Tioga, Potter, Cameron, Clinton and Lycoming Counties.

News in and around the Marcellus shale natural gas drilling region continues to mount at a staggering rate. Stories today include a push by Pennsylvania’s top government officials, including Senator Bob Casey to encourage Shell Oil and Gas to build a huge natural gas processing plant in Pennsylvania. Additionally, today is the last day for public comment on the pending natural gas drilling regulations in New York. Other reports note a fracking liquid spill caused intentionally  by vandals in Bradford County; a pipe line easement deal on a rails to trails project in Susquehanna County and reports of significant positive hotel and airport usage increases throughout Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania.

The thirteen (13) trial lawyers ant Dougherty Leventhal Price LLP–DLP–PENNSYLVANIA CATASTROPHIC ACCIDENT LAWYERS–continue to follow these and othe natural gas drilling issues throughout the Marcellus Shale Regions of Pennsylvania and New York.

Elected official who held hearing in area last week on natural gas drilling says he was responding to pro-energy group attack.

By Steve Mocarskysmocarsky@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

A state representative says he was unfairly attacked in a press release by a pro-energy group after holding a public hearing in the Back Mountain last week.

State Rep. Camille “Bud” George, majority chair of the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, issued a rebuttal Friday, saying that “money and misinformation are the hallmarks of a gas industry attack titled, ‘Rep. George’s Fact-Free Fact-Finding Mission.’”

Energy In Depth sent the press release to media outlets on Thursday, a day after George convened a committee hearing at 1 p.m. in the Lehman Township Municipal Building to hear testimony on the impact of Marcellus Shale drilling and proposed legislation that would put more environmental safeguards in place.

State Rep. Phyllis Mundy, D-Kingston, invited George to have a hearing in her district, where EnCana Gas & Oil USA plans to drill the first natural gas exploratory well in Luzerne County in May or June. The well will be drilled in Lehman Township.

Area residents and lawmakers are concerned for many reasons, including the fact that the drill site would be less than two miles from the Huntsville and Ceaseville reservoirs, which supply drinking water to nearly 100,000 area residents.

Energy In Depth’s press release classified the hearing as a “pep rally staged by anti-energy activists and like-minded public officials in Northeast Pennsylvania.”

“Characterized as a ‘field hearing’ by … George, who held the event as far away as he could from his home in Clearfield County, the forum included representatives from the Sierra Club and Clean Water Action league, as well as testimony from a local podiatrist and someone describing himself as a ‘naturalopathic’ physician. The only thing missing? Anyone in possession of real, genuine facts related to responsible gas exploration in the Commonwealth,” the release stated.

In response, George said the most troubling aspect of “the attack by Energy In Depth, whose members include the Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association, is its slur of concerned lawmakers and citizens of Northeastern Pennsylvania as anti-energy activists.”

George noted that the committee had a hearing on Feb. 18 in Clearfield County, where the president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition and executives from some of the leading gas companies in Pennsylvania, including Range Resources and Chesapeake Energy, testified. He also participated two weeks ago in a House Democratic Policy Committee hearing in Ebensburg that included testimony from Chief Oil & Gas and Chesapeake. Ebensburg is in the Altoona area.

“The industry has not been an unwanted stranger at hearings,” George said.

Energy In Depth’s press release then listed quotes – pulled from a story in The Times Leader – of people who testified and rebutted them with quotes from gas industry representatives, a state Department of Environmental Protection fact sheet and Gov. Ed Rendell.

Energy In Depth pointed to testimony from Mundy in which she said she supports House Bill 2213 “which would among other things … require full disclosure of the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing.”

The organization then pointed to a DEP fact sheet which states that drilling companies “must disclose the names of all chemicals to be used and stored at a drilling site … that must be submitted to DEP as part of the permit application process. These plans contain copies of material safety data sheets for all chemicals … This information is on file with DEP and available to landowners, local governments and emergency responders.”

But George said that “full disclosure of the chemicals – not just the trade names – and how they are used is not (now) required.”

“The precise chemical identities and concentrations and how and when they are employed can be crucial to emergency responders and remediation efforts after spills, and is at the crux of efforts to remove the infamous ‘Halliburton Loophole’ that exempts the industry from oversight by the Environmental Protection Agency,” George said.

“The gas industry can bloat campaign coffers with money, buy discredited and ridiculed studies and poison the debate by taking statements out of context. However, its ‘best management practices’ should never be taken at face value to be the best for Pennsylvania,” George said.

Steve Mocarsky, a Times leader staff writer, may be reached at 970-7311.

Copyright: Times Leader

Paul had worked for a Texas-based natural gas drilling company out of Texas for a number of years. The company started to develop drilling sites in Northeastern Pennsylvania, and Paul was put up at a hotel close to the drilling site. Paul had never had an accident in the ten previous years he had worked, despite doing very physical types of activities while working with the various drills on the sites.

Paul’s good fortune ran out though, and he jammed his hand on one of the drill bits, seriously injuring the hand. Paul’s employer was insistent that since Paul was employed out of Texas and the employer was based out of Texas, that he would have to file his comp claim under Texas law.

Issue: Is Paul’s employer correct?

Answer: No. In Pennsylvania, regardless of where an employer is principally located and/or where a contract for hire was entered into, if an injury occurs in Pennsylvania, then Pennsylvania has jurisdiction and Paul will be entitled to benefits under Pennsylvania law. Pennsylvania’s workers’ compensation benefits are, for the most part, far more generous, and the injured worker is provided far more protection than in other states, especially states in the South and Midwest.