Tom Shepstone
Shepstone Management Company, Inc.

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Natural Gas NOW readers pass along a lot of stuff every week about natural gas, fractivist antics, emissions, renewables, and other news relating to energy. As usual, emphasis is added.

So, the Alternative to Natural Gas Is
Still Natural Gas, Four Years from NOW?

If it weren’t so serious an issue this would be an hilarious admission by New Yorkers that their governor is the Pied Piper:

Con Edison has reached an agreement with the owners of an existing natural gas pipeline to send more gas to Westchester in the future. 

This deal, however, doesn’t mean the immediate halt of the ongoing natural gas moratorium. If everything moves forward according to the plan, the moratorium would end in November 2023, according to the utility company.

ConEd stopped accepting new natural gas applications in southern Westchester as of March 16, citing the lack of sufficient natural gas capacity. 

Under the new agreement, Tennessee Gas Pipeline, which has been sending natural gas to Con Edison’s distribution system in Westchester, would increase its capacity by upgrading compression facilities on its system outside of New York state…

Following the state regulatory agency’s directions, Con Edison has been pursuing cleaner energy solutions, such as its $223 million “Smart Solutions” initiative…

The Tennessee Gas Pipeline deal, if approved, would bridge the gap between the growing natural gas demand and the existing service capacity, while encouraging customers to pursue alternative technologies, Con Edison said.

Apparently, “smart solutions” means no solutions. We told you not to trust the Pied Piper but you wouldn’t listen.

Does Anyone in Grant Township Have A Brain?

Speaking of Pied Pipers, how many times and how many ways do Grant Township, Indiana County, Pennsylvania officials have to be told by the court that listening to the CELDF is madness?

The decision came a year after Baxter ruled in favor of Pennsylvania General Energy, which had sued to overturn a township ordinance that prohibited the disposal of drilling waste. The ordinance targeted a PGE plan for an injection well near East Run.

While local leaders say the heart of the ruling is meaningless — because Grant Township had already repealed what it called the “Community Bill of Rights” ordinance — they’re holding hope that the township may withstand a second lawsuit still pending in a state court.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection brought suit in 2017, charging that Grant — after adopting a home rule charter form of government — was illegally preventing DEP from carrying out its responsibility as a state agency…

While township leaders are watching for the home rule charter to survive the state court challenge, they’re vowing that Grant Township’s farmers and retirees won’t be told to help pay legal fees in the federal court case.

The $103,000 order hit a township that makes ends meet on a $140,000 a year budget…

The supervisors haven’t decided yet what to do about the order, but [Township Supervisor] Long said they don’t plan to pass the hat among the township residents. If every man, woman and child chipped in, each would pay an average of $147 to cover the fee…

It comes down to a test of whether the status as a home-rule municipality and its principles of self-governance carries equal weight with the authority of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

“There’s a lot of case law that we point to that says home rule charter takes the force of state statues when they are enacted,” said Chad Nicholson, of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. “The conflict is between the charter on one hand, and the Oil and Gas Act on the other hand. What’s going to win? We can never say which way the courts will decide because there hasn’t really been a case like that…

“We have no money to fix that. There are no businesses in Grant Township and the people are getting no more wealthy,” Long said. “We’ve put everything on the line for this.

Tom Linzey, the Pied Pier from the CELDF

“Bankruptcy is probably inevitable for the township anyway, whether it happens tomorrow or 10 years from now,” Long said. “We put everything out there to be able to win, and if we had not done what we did, it would be just lying down and taking it.”