Pipelines: The new battleground over fracking | StateImpact Pennsylvania Skip Navigation
EXPLAINER | Pipelines: The new battleground over fracking
216 stories

Pipelines: The new battleground over fracking

Pipeline wars are raging in Pennsylvania, where production is high and pipeline capacity is low. Marcellus Shale gas has the potential to alter the landscape of the global energy market. But right now, a shortage of pipelines to get that gas from the wellheads to consumers means rock bottom prices for producers, who are eager to dig new trenches. Activists opposed to more drilling see pipeline construction as the new battleground over fracking.

In our six-part series on Pennsylvania’s pipeline building boom, StateImpact examines who wins and who loses in the next phase of the natural gas rush.

Part One: Pipelines: The new battleground over fracking

Pennsylvania’s pipeline building boom could expand the nation’s and perhaps the world’s, supply of natural gas. This boom includes an estimated 4,600 miles of new interstate pipes, tunneling under Pennsylvania’s farms, wetlands, waterways, and backyards.

Part Two: Pipelines’ path remains a risky mystery beneath our feet 

Pipeline companies know exactly the routes for all the pipelines they maintain or plan to build, but they aren’t required to share that information with the public in a post-9/11 world. Even when it comes to interstate pipelines, the large ones that carry lots of gas at high pressure across multiple states, those are only required to be mapped within 500 feet of accuracy.

Part Three: Unmapped, unregulated maze of rural pipelines poses hidden risks

Pennsylvania expects the industry to add 20-25,000 miles of gathering lines, which are pipelines that take gas from wellheads to a larger transmission line or gas processing facility. Most of these so-called “class one” lines will be in rural areas and no state, federal or local authority oversees them. This lack of regulation can lead to dangerous consequences.

Part Four: In New Jersey, open space sacrificed for cheaper gas

Industry says these large interstate pipelines will benefit rate-payers, especially those in areas where energy costs are high like New York and Boston, and feed cleaner-burning fuel to large East Coast power plants. But the lines cut through areas of rare open space in New Jersey, where land has been preserved with public dollars, forcing residents to weigh the environmental costs of moving natural gas to the marketplace.

Part Five: New pipeline could mean tax bonanza for NJ towns, but for Pa.? Not so much 

Pipeline builders also say local communities will benefit from new jobs and tax dollars. But those tax benefits aren’t equal across state lines and while New Jersey could reap millions of dollars a year in new revenue, Pennsylvania could be leaving millions of dollars on the table.

Part Six: Towns take on gas industry, at their own peril 

Local communities across the state increasingly see themselves as the losers. Faced with little influence over interstate pipeline construction, some are trying to stop the surge in oil and gas development by embracing a novel legal tactic: community-based rights ordinances. It’s a strategy that carries risks.

Latest stories


Revolution Pipeline, part of which exploded in 2018, is back in service

The Department of Environmental Protection said the pipeline’s owner has put in enough safety precautions to make the ground beneath pipeline route stable.

By Reid Frazier

U.S. Supreme Court to hear PennEast pipeline eminent domain case

PennEast wants the Supreme Court to overturn a federal appeals court ruling preventing the company from exercising eminent domain on NJ state lands.

By Susan Phillips

PUC proposes $1M fine for Beaver County pipeline blast

Agency: internal study showed blast occurred in area rated "9 out of 9" for landslide risk
By Reid Frazier

More sinkholes develop alongside Mariner East construction in Chester County

Residents asking Public Utility Commission to shut down construction
By Susan Phillips

Family that lost hundreds of trees to failed pipeline project settles with company, gets land back

Constitution pipeline builder cut 558 trees to make way for line that never got built
By Susan Phillips

Updated: 2020-06-26 15:30:30

Pa. grand jury report on fracking: DEP failed to protect public health

“Regulators were supposed to prevent abuse by big corporations, and level the playing field,” Attorney General Josh Shapiro said. “But they didn’t.”

By Reid Frazier and Susan Phillips

EPA’s new rule limits states’ ability to regulate pipelines under the Clean Water Act

The EPA’s new rule reverses 50 years of practice regarding how states protect water supplies from large infrastructure projects.

By Susan Phillips

Federal appeals court strikes blow to PennEast pipeline project

The Third Circuit decision blocks PennEast from condemning state-owned land in New Jersey
By Susan Phillips

Updated: 2019-09-03 16:24:53

Criminal defense counsel represents DEP in Mariner East probe

The firm is among several chosen in 2018 by the state’s Office of General Counsel to provide legal services related to criminal procedures, if needed, to about 30 state agencies. Several environmental lawyers say they’ve never heard of the Department of Environmental Protection using a criminal defense attorney, and wonder why the agency felt the need to do so.

By Susan Phillips

LOAD MORE