Bird

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) intends to strengthen the Migratory Bird Treaty Act to address threats from natural gas flares, uncovered oil waste pits and unprotected power lines and communication towers, the agency said Friday.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) intends to strengthen the Migratory Bird Treaty Act to address threats from natural gas flares, uncovered oil waste pits and unprotected power lines and communication towers, the agency said Friday.

Lawmakers on the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works debated with regulators and each other over the best way to protect the sage grouse, and to possibly avoid listing the bird on the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Lawmakers on the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works debated with regulators and each other over the best way to protect the sage grouse, and to possibly avoid listing the bird on the federal Endangered Species Act.

The leading California state lawmakers bird-dogging proposals to stiffen the state’s oversight of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) brought a new issue to the table — acidization to unlock Monterey Shale oil deposits — during a state Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee hearing last month in Sacramento .

TEPPCO has scheduled a concurrent Bird Station shutdown and Pioneer processing facility turnaround in the Jonah Gathering Field to occur both Oct. 5 and Oct. 12. According to the Kern River bulletin board, TEPPCO has estimated that each day’s work will require downtime of approximately 15 hours and an estimated curtailment of 753 MMcf. Because most Kern River supply comes to it either through the Opal Plant downstream of Jonah or the Pioneer receipt points, there will be an impact to Kern River shippers. During TEPPCO’s Oct. 5 maintenance, Kern River will take the opportunity to complete semi-annual maintenance on Fillmore Station’s Unit #2, previously scheduled for Oct. 19, and the Warm Springs Station hot tap, previously scheduled for Oct. 20. The pipeline asked shippers and operators to align their supplies with markets so that no banking occurred Tuesday (in preparation for the Oct. 5 work) and no drafting occurs on Oct. 5.

Natural gas-fueled vehicles (NGVs) have not gone the way of the dodo bird, but with only 130,000 NGVs on the road today and the government’s attention now solely focused on hydrogen fuel-celled vehicles (FCV), that outcome could be on the horizon.