WV citizens groups wary of cracker plant proposal(s)
Based on Article by Ken Ward Jr., Charleston Gazette, November 16, 2013
Citizens groups aren’t rushing to flatly oppose a possible ethane cracker project in Wood county WV, but they said they want to see more details about the sort of plant the Brazilian firm Odebrecht would build, and hope the company and the state will start taking steps to discuss potential environmental impacts early in the process.
Don Garvin, West Virginia Environmental Council, said his organization has not yet taken a position on the matter but that potential concerns are fairly obvious. “As with any large industrial facility, we are concerned about likely increases in air and water pollution,” Garvin said. “The administration will say, of course, that any such facility will have to go through the permitting process. However, the end result is always the release of more tons of pollution into our air and water.”
Citizens groups also said last week they remain concerned that the state is overly focused on the natural gas boom to the detriment of cleaner economic development and energy projects, and that it isn’t doing enough to ensure that gas drilling is done in a way that doesn’t harm the environment or surface landowners.
When word leaked of Thursday’s announcement, though, it set off a media frenzy and sent state and local officials running to declare a major economic development victory.
The cracker project would have to obtain a variety of state Department of Environmental Protection permits, likely including those to cover water and air pollution discharges. One potential hurdle appears to have been removed in September, when the EPA agreed with state officials that the Wood County area now meets federal air-quality standards. Previously, state officials had noted that the area violated standards for fine-particle pollution, a designation that could have made it more difficult for a large, new facility to obtain a state air permit.
While state business leaders frequently complain that the permitting process takes too much time and is overly burdensome, an official from Odebrecht expressed no such concerns when asked about environmental matters during a news conference last week.
“One of the things we are committed to is a sustainable philosophy,” said David Peebles, vice president of business development for the company. “Permitting is a very, very fundamental part of this process. “And the permitting process is positive,” Peebles said. “You hear some complaints about permitting, but we have clean air, we have clean water, we have safety rules in place because of best practices, and we are going to follow these best practices.”
However, Vivian Stockman, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, said her group’s concerns about the Marcellus boom and any related proposals for a cracker plant are more fundamental. “While Governor Tomblin is calling this possible plant a ‘game changer,’ for West Virginia, he and most other state politicians seem to be playing the same old poisonous fossil-fuel game: Rush headlong into tax giveaways and look the other way while public health and well-being suffer,” Stockman said.
Two years ago, West Virginia lawmakers passed a law they said would toughen regulation of modern, horizontal natural gas drilling. However, the final version was significantly weakened during talks between Tomblin’s office and industry lobbyists.
Studies released since that law was passed have raised questions about the adequacy of the law’s provisions for buffer zones between drilling and homes, limiting air emissions and controlling the flow of wastewater from drilling operations. So far, neither Tomblin nor legislative leaders have announced plans for additional legislation on those issues. “State officials have been ignoring the outcry from folks whose lives have been upended by Marcellus Shale drilling and waste disposal activities,” Stockman said.
Stockmen noted that many residents in the Wood County area and downstream have already seen their drinking water supplies polluted by toxic chemicals from the nearby DuPont Co. plant’s longtime production of Teflon materials.
“Considering these folks would be a game-changer,” Stockman said. “Acknowledging climate change, as well as the state’s troubles with water quality and quantity would be a game-changer. Working to bring cleaner, renewable energy jobs and manufacturing here would be a game-changer. Embracing a highly-polluting industry without thinking about all the hidden costs is just more of the same, sad old game.”
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Shell rethinking its Pennsylvania cracker plans
From an Article by Linda Harris, State Journal, November 15, 2013
Royal Dutch Shell is rethinking its plans for an ethane cracker in Western PA and two other cash-intensive projects, leaving business leaders in the Mountain State to wonder if the spin-off economic growth they’ve been anticipating is ever going to come.
Shell CEO Peter Voser told analysts the company can’t afford to do the cracker in Pennsylvania plus a gas-to-liquids plant in Louisiana and a liquid natural gas plant in Canada. Voser said in the near future, the company will have to decide which of the three signature projects to give the green light. “We cannot afford to take all three together at once and if we could, I am not sure we have the engineers and the project managers to do so,” Voser said during a recent conference call discussing 3Q earnings. “So we will need to make choices (about) which go forward.”
Shell announced in March 2012 it had selected an industrial property in Monaca, Pa., for the cracker plant, which would convert ethane from shale deposits to ethylene, a compound used in manufacturing plastics. Monaca is located just minutes from the West Virginia state line.
Pat Ford, executive director of the Business Development Corporation of the Northern WV Panhandle, said there’s no question the group would be disappointed if the Monaca cracker goes on the back burner, “but we’re optimistic there will still be opportunities for other crackers to be built in West Virginia.”
“Obviously, there’s going to be a much more direct benefit on the Northern Panhandle if the one in Monaca is built,” he said. “The infrastructure and land are both available to support any spinoff industries associated with the cracker, but as we speak there are opportunities; they do exist for other crackers to be constructed in West Virginia in general and the Northern Panhandle in particular. ”So either way, I’m confident we’re going to see direct economic impact from some type of cracker being built.”
Shell isn’t saying which project or projects have the edge. “We have an embarrassment of riches of high quality opportunities for new LNG, gas-to-liquids and the downstream gas-to-chemicals,” Shell CFO Simon Henry told the investment community. “We can’t do all of (them).
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