When Mountaineer Gas announced its proposed natural gas pipeline through Berkeley Springs and Morgan County, word quickly spread that the reason for the pipeline was to meet the need of major industrial users along the route — including US Silica in Morgan County and Procter & Gamble in Berkeley County.
The Hagerstown Herald Mail reported on April 1, 2016 that the proposed pipeline was “due in part to Procter & Gamble Co.’s request for natural gas at its new plant in Tabler Station Business Park south of Martinsburg, according to company spokesman Larry Meador.”
But Procter & Gamble said this week that “P&G has not signed a letter of intent with any gas company for the Tabler Station plant.”
And Berkeley County Commissioner Elaine Mauck said that she was told that US Silica did not sign a letter of intent either.
“The project was pushed by Mountaineer Gas with the promise that big industrial users wanted the gas — users like Procter & Gamble and US Silica,” Mauck said. “But that’s apparently not so.”
Mountaineer Gas requested a meeting with Mauck after she went public last week with criticism of the pipeline project. That meeting will take place tomorrow morning in Martinsburg.
Mauck said she didn’t believe Mountaineer Gas when it said it had major users of the gas lined up to purchase gas from the pipeline.
“They are just prospecting,” Mauck said. “They will jeopardize Back Creek and wetland areas with this project. They haven’t done an environmental impact study. They haven’t done a geological study. They just said — we are going to do it. They have not been polite. They have been brash. They say to the landowners, to my constituents — sign these papers to give us a right of way — or it’s going to be eminent domain. That’s what my constituents are telling me.”
The West Virginia Public Service Commission is also feuding with Mountaineer Gas over documents that the company says show potential customers for the pipeline.
Last week, PSC staff attorney Linda Bouvette demanded that the company turn over the documents. Mountaineer Gas refused, claiming confidentiality. Bouvette was able to go to the company’s office and inspect the documents. But the PSC refused to say what Bouvette found out from her trip to Mountaineer Gas.
This week, Bouvette called on the company to estimate the revenue impact of each entity that submitted to Mountaineer Gas Company “a non-binding letter of intent.”
“Include in the estimate the two major potential gas users and the forty-five smaller potential gas users,” Bouvette said.
The PSC would not say whether Bouvette knows the names of those potential gas users.
Bouvette also wants to know whether construction, operation and or maintenance of the pipeline will “impact the Back Creek watershed in any negative way.”
And she called on the company to “provide a list of permits, and the agencies to which they will be submitted, which are required for construction and operation” of the pipeline.
According to a filing before the PSC by the West Virginia Propane Gas Association, “through discovery, Mountaineer revealed that it sent a single letter to P&G dated November 21, 2014, and has received no correspondence back from P&G.”
“Other discussions were verbal. The letter to P&G notes that P&G had asked for ‘adequate assurance that 200 Mcf per hour will be available by June 2016, at no additional cost to [P&G],’ which assurance the letter did not provide. P&G has not committed to receiving service at an incremental cost for the Expansion Project.”
“P&G expressed an interest in service ‘at no additional cost’ and there was no formal communication back from Mountaineer.”