Pipeline Protest: The New Battleground Over Gas Drilling?

The Mar­cel­lus Shale nat­ural gas boom has brought thou­sands of new wells, truck traf­fic, and water con­t­a­m­i­na­tion to rural Penn­syl­va­nia in a short period of time. The indus­try also brings jobs and cash to an impov­er­ished area of the state. Envi­ron­men­tal­ists want the drilling to stop, or at the very least, slow down. But they haven’t had much success.

Now they’re tar­get­ing pro­posed gas pipelines.  Thou­sands of miles of pro­posed pipelines could be the next bat­tle­ground over gas drilling.

• Pipeline Protestby Susan PhillipsDown­load

Sul­li­van County lies in the north cen­tral part of the state, an area referred to as the “End­less Moun­tains.” Six thou­sand peo­ple live in this county, which has just one stop­light and three cov­ered bridges.The econ­omy has long depended on tourism and dairy farm­ing. Just down the road from the remote World’s End State Park, is the Forksville Gen­eral Store, which sits right next to a cov­ered bridge over the Loy­al­sock Creek. It was built in 1851, when tim­ber ruled. Today, the store is owned and oper­ated by Mike Sta­si­u­nas, or “Big Mike.”

“Is this gor­geous up here, or is this gor­geous? I’ve set my feet in four con­ti­nents in this world, and this is one of the most beau­ti­ful spots I’ve ever been to. And to take this away for money, it’s a crime against nature.”

Sta­si­u­nas says he only started to hear about the Mar­cel­lus Shale about two years ago, and he didn’t think much of it.

“But I was asked three times Memo­r­ial Day week­end, the same ques­tion from three dif­fer­ent peo­ple. And they said Mike, is it okay to go into the creek? And I just said, what are you talk­ing about? And they said well, we heard they’re doing a lot of gas drilling up here.”

Sta­si­u­nas wor­ries about the tourist trade.

“You know it’s not whether it’s a lie or not, it’s per­cep­tion. If peo­ple start believ­ing that this area is pol­luted, they’re gonna find some­where else to go. I mean let’s face it, who would want to go in cricks that are, you know, you might have to worry that they’re polluted?”

Sta­si­u­nas is now part of a group of res­i­dents, along with the Penn­syl­va­nia chap­ter of the Sierra Club, and a national envi­ron­men­tal law firm, that joined together to oppose an inter­state pipeline project that would run through Lycoming, Sul­li­van and Brad­ford coun­ties. The 39-mile Marc 1 Hub pipeline is named after the Mar­cel­lus Shale. It would con­nect three major inter­state pipelines that already haul gas from the Gulf Coast to the major east coast mar­kets of New York, New Jer­sey and Philadel­phia. The Marc 1 pro­posal wor­ries Big Mike.

“The pipeline that this Marc 1 com­ing in is the enabler. Once it comes in, it will enable all these gas wells and then they’ll be drilling like crazy. Because they’ll be con­nected and hooked in.”

Sul­li­van County, unlike neigh­bor­ing Brad­ford and Susque­hanna Coun­ties, has not yet expe­ri­enced the drilling boom. That’s not because there’s no gas beneath its for­est, it’s because the gas can’t get to mar­ket with­out pipelines. The newly pro­posed Marc 1 pipeline would change that.

And because it crosses state lines, trav­el­ling up to New York, it’s reg­u­lated by the Fed­eral Energy Reg­u­la­tory Com­mis­sion, or FERC.

Deb­o­rah Gold­berg is an attor­ney with Earth Jus­tice, the law firm that rep­re­sents res­i­dents like Sta­si­u­nas. Earth Jus­tice is help­ing local groups, and seek­ing to inter­vene in the FERC cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process. Gold­berg says putting a halt to pipelines, can help limit the num­ber of gas wells that get drilled.

“Peo­ple are just now begin­ning to catch up to what the impli­ca­tions of all this pipeline con­struc­tion is going to be. And that’s why, you know, ini­tially what you heard about was the wells, because the wells went in before the pipelines did. And then the pipeline con­struc­tion started, and we’re going to be see­ing hun­dreds, thou­sands of miles of pipelines.”

So for envi­ron­men­tal­ists like Gold­berg, the new strat­egy is to tar­get pipeline con­struc­tion. They’re push­ing FERC to do a more exten­sive, envi­ron­men­tal impact study, which would at the very least delay the project and give the activists more infor­ma­tion to work with.

FERC did con­duct a less exten­sive envi­ron­men­tal assess­ment that con­cluded the eco­log­i­cal impact would not be sig­nif­i­cant. But the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency agrees with Earth Jus­tice that a bet­ter study is needed, one that would look at the cumu­la­tive effect of all the new pipelines planned for the region’s unde­vel­oped stretches of forest.

So what does indus­try think about this? Barry Cigich is vice pres­i­dent of engi­neer­ing for Inergy, the par­ent com­pany of Cen­tral New York Oil and Gas, which wants to build the pipeline.

“The EPA said why can’t they use the other pipelines in the area. Well, all the other pipelines are totally full right now. There’s not enough infra­struc­ture to be able to move the gas that they have right now so, there’s def­i­nitely a need for more pipelines.”

Cigich says they’re hop­ing to break ground on the Marc 1 pipeline by the end of July and have it up and run­ning a year from now. Pipeline con­struc­tion does pro­vide jobs for locals. The Linde Cor­po­ra­tion used to lay water and sewer pipes in north­east Penn­syl­va­nia. Now their work­force has more than dou­bled to 250 work­ers because of Mar­cel­lus Shale drilling.

At the bot­tom of a steep clearcut slope in Susque­hanna County, Ben­jamin Ham­mond pre­pares the ground for a new gas pipeline. This is pipe will be part of the Laser project. He says he loves work­ing out­doors. And he says he wel­comes more oversight.

“I have no prob­lem hav­ing one of those inspec­tors look­ing over my shoul­der mak­ing sure I’m doing some­thing right. Because I don’t want that hang­ing over my head that I did some­thing wrong to cause harm, to any­one. Nature especially.”

Back in Forksville, “Big Mike” Sta­si­u­nas wor­ries about the com­pres­sor sta­tions that come with the pipelines. com­pres­sors are needed to pump the gas through the pipes.

Hammond’s boss Scott Linde agrees that Penn­syl­va­nia does need to tighten up some of its reg­u­la­tions. Linde took over the com­pany from his father, who built up the busi­ness after Hur­ri­cane Agnes wreaked havoc on the area in 1972.  He says, in his expe­ri­ence, the gas com­pa­nies are will­ing to pay to do the job right.

“We can han­dle the prob­lems if we work together with the gov­ern­ment. And from what I’ve seen so far in Penn­syl­va­nia, the push is to work with us rather than stop it. Because then no one will win.”

Back in Forksville, “Big Mike” Sta­si­u­nas wor­ries about the com­pres­sor sta­tions that come with the pipelines. Com­pres­sors are used to pump gas through the pipes, and can cre­ate air pollution.

“So it’s not only the water, it’s the air qual­ity too that we’re really con­cerned about. So, its a mess from top to bot­tom it’s just one big mess. And it’s all in the guise of money and jobs. So, there you go, that’s it. Money and jobs. And health, wel­fare and beauty and all that on the other side.”

Sta­si­u­nas says drilling in his neck of the woods is just in its infancy. But if the net­work of pipelines get built, he wor­ries the yearly vis­i­tors from Philadel­phia and New York, will no longer want to swim in the Loy­al­sock Creek.

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Tall gas drilling rigs now dot the bucolic land­scape in north­east­ern Pennsylvania.

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“Big Mike” stands next to the Loy­al­sock Creek in Forksville, PA.

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This clear cut through a for­est in Lycoming County reveals the site of a new pipeline.

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Big Mike looks to where the Marc 1 pipeline will run in rela­tion to his store.

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The Marc 1 Hub pipeline is planned to run across the street from their house in Son­estown, PA.

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Pipeline worker Ben Ham­mond speaks with StateIm­pact Penn­syl­va­nia reporter Susan Phillips. Linde Cor­po­ra­tion exec­u­tive Kevin Lynn stands off to the side.

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Scott Linde has dou­bled his work­force since the gas boom began three years ago.

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Linde Cor­po­ra­tion work­ers pre­pare to lay a new gas pipeline in Susque­hanna County, Pa.

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Con­ven­tional drilling, unlike drilling for the Mar­cel­lus Shale, does not go as deep into the ground.