Rev. Kevin Gillespie filled his regular appointment at the Burning Springs M. E. Church.
The Creston Community Christmas party will be Saturday, December 21 starting with a meal at 3:30 P. M. Please coordinate the covered dish meals with Barb at 275-0006 so there are 10 dishes of mashed potatoes and no baked beans. It is understood that a jolly fellow from the polar regions will arrive circa 5 P. M.
The local area had cold, snow and then rain. Local streams seem to have normal water levels which is good.
It was standing room only Tuesday at the old Hope Natural Gas Company office in Grantsville for the public hearing by Mother Hope on the proposed abandonment of several local gas lines and the conversion of natural gas customers to propane. The plan is to abandon (decommission) 1,100 miles of gathering lines taking natural gas from wells to the marketplace and having customers on those lines convert to propane or electric heat.
Jeff Nehr was the spokesperson & he did admit that electric service locally was not reliable which would explain the popularity of Generac emergency generators locally. Mr. Hehr told several stories of woe about the EQT (Equitable) gas lines that Mother Hope took over although EQT was never prominent in Calhoun & Wirt counties. In other counties Equitable (formerly called Pittsburgh & W. Va.) and Carnegie Natural Gas Company (U. S. Steel) were major players. Mr. Nehr is an old EQT man now working for Hope which is part of the old Rockefeller Standard Oil Trust. It was noted that 18 counties are involved in the proposal.
Hope had asked the PSC (Public Service Commission) to approve this move and the maps showing the lines to be abandoned were “confidential”. The PSC folks realized this was a “live one” and stated that there had been “lots of telephone calls”. A PSC employee, Robert Williams, was at the meeting and spoke. He seemed impressed that one local House of Delegates member attended the meeting. In addition to impacted gas customers, retired Hope men & local citizens there were several small oil & gas operators at the gathering.
When asked why folks didn’t know about the lines being abandoned he said, “Well we told your industry group and were told that no one was interested.” “Who did you tell?” “We told Go W. Va. The industry group – members could get a security clearance and look at the lines and see what we wanted to do.” Of course the group is more or less controlled by the Marcellus & Utica folks and a big player is Hope Gas. No conflicts of interest here, now move on. George Patterson, the lawyer for the lobby group was present but did not speak.
Several county officials were present, asked questions and made the tee vee news. Also present was Erica Moore the delegate that represents Wirt & Roane counties and who has a background in small oil & gas companies.
People were able to look at the maps and all the Hope lines in the Creston – Annamoriah – Joker area were coloured RED which means that they are to be abandoned. A question about this being economic development in reverse was not allowed. There are proposed plans for the use of the old armory and such would require new housing in non flood plain areas but . . . .
Some folks purchase natural gas from Mother Hope near Millstone but the maps showed no lines in the area which might raise questions about the veracity of the maps generally.
Talk had been that the Biden EPA was “on them” because of leaks from steel lines and that “they had to act”. Mention of November’s election results were ignored. One local pipeliner noted that he had been working on a job where the company had a grant to replace steel lines with plastic [to comply] and the work was to be on the “rural lines” but someone did “town work” instead. Mr. Nehr kept saying “We’ll give you these lines.” It was noted that it would take some time for good abstractors to ascertain if there was good title for the rights-of-way as one local resident recalled that one old Eureka oil line had no title at all.
There has been discussion about a big ‘data center’ in Logan County that would be powered by coal & renewables, wind, Chinese solar panels & pixie dust but there ‘are problems’. One fellow, who lived down at the Mouth of the Elk, suggested that the facility could be placed in Wirt County with the facility being powered by Marcellus & Utica natural gas from wells drilled locally. There will be an informal discussion next month.
Cap’n. & Mrs. Spock were Christmas shopping down in Wood County.
The Creston Area Neighborhood Watch had their meeting and discussed various items. It was noted that folks were robbed near Arnoldsburg and there is a good description of the vehicles involved. It would be clear that folks need to keep everything locked and have “equalizers” handy.
There were 96 Christmas hams given out at the Creston food pantry.
Antero is wanting to lease oil & gas for 15% net with no payments for liquids and binding arbitration. If state government represented the citizens no one would dare send out such outlandish leases to take property of state citizens. The State gets 20% gross when state property is leased.
Local folks were consulting with their medical professionals.
Mike Wade was attending to business in Creston.
The price for local Pennsylvania grade slipped to $69.02/bbl. With condensate fetching just $51.02/bbl. And Marcellus & Utica light bringing $58.02/bbl. The Henry Hub price of natural gas was $3.28/MMBTU.
