Marine East Pipeline

just_jon

just_jon

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During my Thursday outing to fish the native/wild trout streams of Tuscarora SF, I came across several work crews prepping Blue Mountain for installation of the Mariner East pipeline. The pipeline is following the path of an existing pipeline. All vegetation had been removed on both sides of Blue Mountain. I witnessed no devises which would minimize soil erosion on the south side, but could not be 100% certain since I could only see small portions of the work area from the SF roads.

given the heavy thunderstorms Thursday night and rain on Friday, I would expect a considerable amount of silt entered the South Branch of Laurel Run. I plan on checking things out tomorrow and taking some pictures.
 
Yes. It will cross just before the forks merge.
 
Erosion and Sediment controls should be installed prior to any earth moving or brush clearing/grubbing occurs. Call DEP or county conservation district and file a complaint.
 
Happened to be up there Saturday afternoon as I've been keeping an eye on this for TU. From what I saw, they've surveyed and marked out the crossing of both branches of Laurel Run but have yet to do any logging/brushing to clear the way, same as it was 3-4weeks ago. The current logging activity stops at the south/east side of Laurel Run Road and they have the wetlands and sensitive stream areas marked out from the recent survey once you cross the road. Other than some pruning/light clearing by hand for the survey work and increased foot traffic, they haven't started any heavy work adjacent to the branches of the creek yet. Imagine they'll be close to getting started this week.

Creek looked fine to me given the 2" or so of rain we saw in some heavy storms Friday night. Running full but not noticeably off color either below or above the pipeline zone, same for Shaeffer Run near Fowler's Hollow to the north, though they've only roughly surveyed for that crossing at this time.
 
tomitrout wrote:
Happened to be up there Saturday afternoon as I've been keeping an eye on this for TU.

Kudos Tomi.

Thanks to you and all the TU volunteers across the state who are keeping an eye on this sort of thing.
 
Visited the pipeline site near Laurel Run this morning. Crews are in the process of constructing a bridge to move equipment across the stream. Runoff containment is in place.
 

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http://www.dailylocal.com/general-news/20170708/local-lawmakers-call-on-sunoco-to-halt-pipeline-drilling-until-aquifer-issues-resolved

Keep those eyes open
 
Thanks for the info. The pipeline is going in about 1/3 of a mile south of my place.
 
Oh boy....bentonite seepage on the Letort, incident(s) on June 2, just now seem to be going public with it. Doesn't sound like it's in the stream proper, but in the riparian wetland.

Reads like construction has stopped for the time being at the Letort, along with a stretch up in Chester Cty where some folks wells got messed up.

https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2017/07/20/dep-staffers-warned-superiors-of-dangers-to-private-water-wells-from-pipeline-construction/

 
I am confused. I thought they were just building a pipeline. Why are they drilling?
 
http://lancasteronline.com/news/local/state-dep-investigating-violations-in-construction-of-mariner-east-ii/article_723cede8-6e6e-11e7-8c30-0be610e3430b.html

They are killing us in our neck of the woods too.
I am going to have to drive out there to a few locations and look around.
 
They do horizontal drilling to go under streams.

I saw them drill under Bald Eagle Creek between Milesburg and the I80 bridge for a gas line.

Some springs that go into Bald Eagle Creek further down ran cloudy for several days when they were doing this, then cleared up.


 
riverwhy wrote:
I am confused. I thought they were just building a pipeline. Why are they drilling?

How do you think they get the pipeline under rivers and larger creeks?
 
I did always wonder thinking they did some kind of ditching but obviously that would be totally impractical on the larger water bodies. Also, when I heard the chemicals I just thought gas drilling because that is what it is what I always associated it with.

I feel pretty dumb about posting that but you can only imagine the average person's confusion. None of the articles I read explained why drilling was done or why chemicals were used.

I guess they use these chemicals when they drill wells? If so what prevents them from contaminating the aquifers?

 
riverwhy wrote:
I did always wonder thinking they did some kind of ditching but obviously that would be totally impractical on the larger water bodies. Also, when I heard the chemicals I just thought gas drilling because that is what it is what I always associated it with.

I feel pretty dumb about posting that but you can only imagine the average person's confusion. None of the articles I read explained why drilling was done or why chemicals were used.

I guess they use these chemicals when they drill wells? If so what prevents them from contaminating the aquifers?

The assurance from the drillers and energy transport companies that this is all safe. Effects are only temporal, anyway. They'll be gone in a few generations.. Or if the effects are bad enough, the generations will be gone too :)

These articles are more about fracking, but suffice to say the fingerprint of drilling lasts for awhile.

http://cen.acs.org/articles/94/web/2016/05/Toxic-chemicals-fracking-wastewater-spills.html

https://phys.org/news/2017-07-hydraulic-fracturing-wastewater-pollute-area.html

Still learning about all this myself, but will have a front-row seat to the Atlantic Sunrise pipeline. They'll be drilling to get it under the Conestoga river.
 
riverwhy wrote:
I did always wonder thinking they did some kind of ditching but obviously that would be totally impractical on the larger water bodies. Also, when I heard the chemicals I just thought gas drilling because that is what it is what I always associated it with.

I feel pretty dumb about posting that but you can only imagine the average person's confusion. None of the articles I read explained why drilling was done or why chemicals were used.

I guess they use these chemicals when they drill wells? If so what prevents them from contaminating the aquifers?

Your question wasn't dumb at all.

Here's some info:

http://www.sacagaweapipeline.com/crossing-method/river-crossing-methods

I think they generally use the directional drilling method these days for large pipelines.

But what about small pipelines crossing small streams in the gas fields? Do they do use that method? Or just dig a trench, then backfill?

 
Thanks for the info! Interesting! So I am guessing they don't use chemicals when drilling for water wells?
 
Google and ye shall find:

http://www.slb.com/services/drilling/specialty_drilling_applications/hdd/waterwell.aspx

Maybe I should start a business:

Troutbert's Googling Service. "Will Google for food."


 
Not sure if everyone knows this. So maybe a pointless post. But generally speaking drilling and pipelines are two different things. The drilling refers to hydrolic fracturing. Or Fracking. This is when an energy company drills horizontal wells and then blast water and sand and chemicals into the ground to fracture or fract/break the shale. This is done thousands of feet underground. There are tiny pockets of gas in the shale that cannot be extracted by conventional methods, vertical wells. So the fracturing releases the gas from billions of tiny pockets of gas and then collected. I think the major risk in this is the disposal of the waste water that is blasted into the ground. Sometimes it's stored in holding tanks or deposited back into the ground or trucked out. Spilling the waste water is bad and causes immediate environmental damage. There is some evidence that fracking causes increas occurrence of earthquakes in the Midwest.

Once you decide fracking is okay, then you need to build pipelines to transport the gas to refining facilities. If you're gonna frack then you might as well build pipelines. It's generally safer to transport gas and oil by pipeline than by truck or train. Trucks and trains spill more.

As far as I know NY has banned fracking. PA allows it. Although there is high level of regulation and study and public forums before it begins. NY cann afford to ban fracking because the states economy is basically funded by the financial sector in NYC and the other NYC commerce. PA has decided to leverage fracking for tax purposes. The fiscal situation in PA is much worse than NY. No growth. Bad demographics. Funding Medicaid and schools and unfounded pensions has forced PA to allow fracking relative to NY.

For context. From the 1980's - the dotcom bust the greatest breakthrough in technology and growth were in the technology/computer/internet sector. Since then the greatest technology breakthrough globally is America's invention of non-conventional drilling - hydrolic fracturing. And it has had immense impacts across the globe. It basically busted in early 2016. But it will not stop. US energy companies continue to innovate and bring costs down. For the Marcellus gas formation it make clean cheap gas power generation which is more cost effective than coal or nuclear or wind or solar. And it's fairly clean.

So if you want to stop the pipelines. Then you have to stop the fracking. And PA needs the money. Or pensions go unpaid and taxes go up. It also provides a lot of jobs for the people of the commonwealth.

It might cause terrible environmental damage. I do not know. But at some point in the 1800's we clear cut all the trees in the state.

But if you don't want pipelines then you have to stop fracking. I doubt that happens. Only like a 3 mile island type disaster will stop the fracking. Hard to wish for that. Unless it happens in west Texas.
 
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