With Gas Boom Comes Miles of New PA Pipeline

• Susan Phillips
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  Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

Gas drilling in Pennsylvania doesn’t stop at the wellhead, it has to get to market. New pipelines are popping up all over the northeastern part of the state to transport Marcellus Shale gas. Thirty-seven miles of pipeline through Susquehanna County, PA, and Broome County, NY, will be built by the Michigan-based Bluestone Gathering. Bluestone is a subsidiary of DTE Energy.
Southwestern Energy Services Company will purchase the gas in an agreement announced Tuesday. The Houston-based Southwestern Energy Services Company has been active in the Fayetteville Shale formation in Arkansas. .
The $250 million dollar project will connect with two major East-West interstate pipelines — the Millenium Pipeline in Broome County, NY and the Tennessee Pipeline in Susquehanna, PA.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission does oversee interstate pipelines. But virtually no regulation exists in Pennsylvania for intrastate pipelines.
A public comment period with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ends on Monday for another north-south pipeline, the Marc 1, that would run through Sullivan County, connecting with the Millenium Pipeline in Bradford County. So far, with few ways to get the gas to consumers, Sullivan County has not experienced the drilling boom of its northern neighbor.
Earth Justice, a New York City environmental law firm wants FERC to do a cumulative environmental impact study of the Marc 1, taking into consideration the growth of pipelines in the region.
Central New York Oil and Gas, a subsidiary of Kansas City based Inergy L.P., has applied for permits to build the 39-mile Marc 1 pipeline.
Stateimpact PA’s Scott Detrow spoke to upstate County Commissioners on Wednesday who are getting increasingly frustrated with the proliferation of new pipelines.
For a map of gas pipelines across the northeast, check out the Energy Information Agency.

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