U.S. Steel Corp. has ended its controversial effort to have Marcellus Shale gas wells drilled within the industrial footprint of the 148-year-old Edgar Thomson steel mill straddling the North Versailles-East Pittsburgh border.
The Pittsburgh-based steelmaker announced Friday it terminated the lease it had with Merrion Oil & Gas Corp. for a 10-acre tract between Braddock Avenue and Turtle Creek, a tributary of the Monongahela River.
“U.S. Steel has decided to exit a lease agreement that would have allowed a natural gas well on the property of our Edgar Thomson Plant,” the company said in a short release. “U.S. Steel values input from our neighbors and the communities where we live and work, as well as the open dialogue needed to balance our responsibilities to our shareholders, our neighbors, and to environmentally sustainable steelmaking.”
The steel company had hoped to use gas from up to 18 wells planned for the site to heat blast furnaces at its Mon Valley Works operations at the Edgar Thomson and Irvin steel mills in Braddock and West Mifflin, and also for heating at the Clairton coke works.
It has no plans to pursue the project with another drilling company.
Merrion, headquartered in Farmington, N.M., has drilled numerous conventional gas wells in 17 states, mostly in the Rocky Mountain West, but has never drilled in Pennsylvania and has no experience drilling an unconventional, horizontal well in any shale formation.
U.S. Steel declined to provide details about why the lease was terminated, whether Merrion’s lack of experience or delays in getting state and local permits played any role in the decision to terminate the lease, or if there are other options under consideration to fuel the Mon Valley Works operations.
“What I can say is we reacquired our oil and gas rights on the property of our Edgar Thomson Plant, thereby ending the plans to install a natural gas well on the property,” said Amanda Malkowski, a U.S. Steel spokeswoman. “We’re not able to discuss terms of the agreement.”
Ryan Davis, Merrion’s operations manager, also declined to provide details about why the lease agreement was terminated, but released a written statement saying, “Merrion has agreed to withdraw our appeal of the East Pittsburgh ruling, to re-assign our lease rights to U.S. Steel, and to abandon our efforts to drill a well at the Edgar Thomson steel mill.”
The state Department of Environmental Protection suspended its review of the drilling permit in December, citing Merrion’s failure to obtain local zoning permits for the project.
According to the DEP permit applications, the project would have disturbed 13.4 acres for well pad construction, two access roads, five freshwater storage tanks, a 2,770-foot natural gas pipeline and a 2,990-foot freshwater pipeline. The wells would have been drilled into the Marcellus Shale at a depth of approximately 6,000 feet, then extended laterally within the formation for almost 2 miles.
Megan McDonough, state director of Food & Water Watch Pennsylvania, which has campaigned against the drilling project, applauded the lease termination.
“I do think it’s fantastic news for the communities surrounding Edgar Thomson,” Ms. McDonough said. “It’s a stellar win for environmental justice.”
Opponents of the drilling, first proposed in 2017, have cited that lack of shale drilling experience in voicing concerns about health and safety impacts on the more than 21,000 residents of Braddock, Braddock Hills, Chalfant, Duquesne, East Pittsburgh, Forest Hills, Munhall, North Braddock, North Versailles, Rankin, Turtle Creek, Wilmerding, Whitaker and West Mifflin who live within a 2-mile radius of the proposed gas well site.
“Since the day Merrion’s fracking plan was announced, this community has fought to stop this project. We know all too well the dangers of fracking, and folks in the Mon Valley are sick and tired of sacrificing the health and safety of their families for the sake of fossil fuel companies,” Ms. McDonough said.
She said residents who live near the steel mill “worked with local political leaders to protect ourselves from an outrageously dangerous plan to drill a new fracking well in a densely populated community.”
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, shale gas development, including drilling, hydraulic fracturing and diesel emissions from trucks, causes increases in emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and hazardous air pollutants, including benzene, ethylbenzene and n-hexane, which are known to or suspected of causing cancer and other serious health effects.
Shale gas operations are also the largest industrial source of emissions of volatile organic compounds, a group of chemicals that produce unhealthy ground-level ozone and smog.
Don Hopey: dhopey@post-gazette.com.
First Published: April 23, 2021, 4:16 p.m.