Jim Willis
Editor & Publisher, Marcellus Drilling News (MDN)

A coalition of phony environmental groups is opposing pipeline development and FERC with a Potemkin Village strategy that smacks of arrogance and wackiness.

Here’s what passes for thinking in anti-drilling land: Fossil fuels, when burned, release carbon into the atmosphere. Carbon is bad (at least it is for anti-drillers), although you and all other animals breathe carbon out with every breath and plants breathe it in–it’s a requirement for all of life to exist. Still, play along, k? Because natural gas is a fossil fuel, it’s evil. By burning it you pollute Mother Earth and will cause Her to bake with mythical global warming (although we almost froze to death this winter in the Northeast).

Fracking is the ultimate rape of Mother Earth, as stated by none other than that towering intellect Yoko Ono when singing the song “Don’t Frack My Mother” (see Yoko Ono and Son Sean Lennon Go on Anti-Fracking Tirade). Fracked shale wells require pipelines. If you can stop pipelines, you can stop fracking. Who approves the big pipelines? The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). So who’s the latest target of anti-drilling wackos? You got it – FERC.

Anti-drillers have a new boogeyman in FERC. They claim FERC is just a rubber stamp for those evil, nasty frackers and they’ve launched a campaign to de-legitimatize FERC–to either pressure them into not approving projects or damage their reputation to the point the public loses confidence in their own government. Read through the press release below from a group of these nutters located in the Marcellus/Utica region.

Notice the language about getting “beyond all fossil fuels, including natural gas,” and “exacerbating global climate change” because of fracking, etc. Their animation, their motivation, their raison d’être is irrational – eliminate all fossil fuels – now. They fail to see how utterly dependent their own lives are on fossil fuels and fossil energy. They hold a kindergartenish worldview that we can wave a magic wand and simply stop using fossil fuels. Since FERC is an “enabler” in their twisted worldview, FERC must be beaten down and either made to subject to their philosophy, or eliminated altogether – “step aside” these blithering idiots demand.

Here’s some of the latest bilge from the wacko contingent (emphasis added):

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is not informing the public about the big picture when it comes to natural gas infrastructure projects related to increased gas drilling in the Marcellus and Utica shale formations according to several environmental groups.

The groups represent interests in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, and Virginia and are concerned that the regional impacts to forests, watersheds, air quality, and wildlife are largely being ignored as FERC approves new gas pipelines and compressor stations across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. The groups contend that FERC’s rush to increase natural gas infrastructure incentivizes fracking for shale gas while stifling the development of renewable energy.

“Natural gas is not a bridge fuel but an anchor keeping us stuck in the past,” said Ryan Talbott, executive director of the Allegheny Defense Project in Pennsylvania. “If we want to achieve meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas emissions we need to get beyond all fossil fuels, including natural gas. We will never get to a clean energy future as long as FERC keeps incentivizing more fracking for shale gas through these infrastructure expansions.”

“Here in Ohio we have been shocked by the sheer immensity of these large pipeline projects intended to transport fracked gas to ‘markets,’ including export markets,” said Lea Harper, managing director of the FreshWater Accountability Project in Ohio. “We are glad to be part of the growing movement to hold FERC accountable for the long-term impacts caused by the unconventional shale gas drilling industry, contributing to the destruction of ecosystems, negatively impacting property values, creating public health and safety threats and exacerbating global climate change through the proliferation of fracking and its infrastructure, including compressor stations, pipelines, and export facilities.”

According to the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (OVEC), multiple pipeline projects are also threatening West Virginia’s forests and watersheds, including the Ohio Valley Connector, Mountain Valley, and Atlantic Coast pipelines. Combined, these pipelines would add over 800 miles of pipeline from Ohio to North Carolina.

“All signs point to the urgent need for West Virginia and the world to accelerate our shift to truly cleaner renewable energy,” said Vivian Stockman, project coordinator for the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition. “If FERC continues greenlighting more pipelines, then it is greenlighting more deep shale gas fracking activities. That means more reeling communities subject to dangerous heavy truck traffic, more poisoned water and air, more noise and light pollution, lowered property values and more risks of deadly explosions. FERC is standing in the way and should step aside: no more enabling the extreme extraction of deep shale gas.”

…In Virginia, where the U.S. Forest Service recently banned new leases for fracking in the George Washington National Forest, Ernie Reed of Wild Virginia is concerned about pipeline construction on Virginia’s other national forest, the Jefferson National Forest. The Mountain Valley pipeline will directly impact the Jefferson National Forest and the Appalachian Trail in southwestern Virginia. In addition to the Mountain Valley pipeline, the Atlantic Coast pipeline would impact hundreds of miles in Virginia.

“These pipelines serve no public benefit as all current and proposed users are currently served by existing pipelines, “said Ernie Reed, Wild Virginia’s President. “FERC cannot ignore that these pipelines will massively increase gas extraction in the shalefields of West Virginia and provide huge volumes of natural gas for export.”

The groups claim that FERC routinely ignores the cumulative environmental impacts of all of this pipeline construction by considering each proposal in a vacuum and ignoring the regional impacts, including the impacts of related fracking for shale gas.

Editor’s Note: The news release to which Jim refers was issued by four “groups” named, respectively, Allegheny Defense Project, FreshWater Accountability Project, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and Wild Virginia under the title Environmental Groups Align Efforts to Challenge FERC Pipeline Projects: Groups claim federal agency facilitates fracking for shale gas. Who are those four “groups”? We decided to take a look.

The Allegheny Defense Project is essentially a one-man band consisting of Ryan Talbott, the “Executive Director” who is apparently funded by the Sierra Club. It claims to be from Kane, Pennsylvania but is actually headquartered in Pittsburgh according to the last 990 return filed (latest available, according to Citizen Audit, is 2009). The Sierra Club gave it , gave it $49,245 in 2009, which represented 87% of its budget that year.

The FreshWater Accountability Project isn’t even a corporation; it’s the registered fictitious name of an individual named Leslie (“Leatra” or “Lea”) Harper. She and her husband Steve created both this “group” and another named the Southeast Ohio Alliance to Save Our Water. She calls herself the “Managing Director,” but seems to manage no one but herself and perhaps her husband.

The Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition apparently has actual members and staff but more than 20% of its budget in 2013 came from Pam Solo’s Civil Society Institute, which tells us exactly what type or organization it is – a down and dirty bunch of activists both playing off and doing the bidding of “ne’er do wells” such as Solo and the super-wealthy funding them. The Sierra Club has also funded the organization.

Wild Virginia is another one-man (one woman in this case) band with minimal revenue and one regular staff person.

Phony environmental groups are modern-day Potemkin Villages

What this news release is all about, therefore, is the considered collective opinion of three phony environmental groups – Potemkin Villages – representing perhaps 20 people altogether (if we count board members, husbands and staff) plus a fourth entity funded by a Boston ex-nun given to supporting all sorts of questionable fractivist activity. Such is the nature of the fractivist movement – a handful of “nimbys, eccentrics and revolutionaries” using multiple names to make it appear they represent communities.  

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