SPLASHDOWN!

DEP Fines Atlas Resourcs for Drilling Wastewater Spill in Washington County

2010-08-18T19:49:00.003-04:00

Bloomberg Businessweek
Associated Press
August 17, 2010

HARRISBURG, Pa.- The state's Department of Environmental Protection has fined a natural gas drilling company nearly $100,000 for a wastewater spill that contaminated a southwestern Pennsylvania watershed.

The DEP on Tuesday announced the $97,350 fine against Atlas Resources. Environmental officials say Atlas allowed hydraulic fracturing fluids used to drill in the Marcellus Shale to overfill a wastewater pit and contaminate a tributary of Dunkle Run in Washington County.

DEP officials say the spill happened in early December 2009. Environmental officials say Atlas corrected the problem but failed to report it to the DEP.

Atlas Energy says the spill had no negative environmental consequences and the company has stepped up monitoring in response.

LINK

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Meanwhile, back on Paradise Road...

2010-08-18T13:00:00.004-04:00

This 1,100-gallon tank was purchased for Jared and Heather McMicken and their children to supply them with fresh water to bathe and do laundry until a solution is found for their contaminated water. Chesapeake provided these tanks for two neighbors as well—the Mike Phillips and Scott Spencer families—who are currently experiencing the same water issues as the McMickens. Photo by Cain Chamberlin.

Chesapeake Responds to Paradise Road Water Woes

Cain Chamberlin
The Rocket-Courier, Wyalusing, PA
8/12/2010

A streak of bad luck seems to be lingering over Jared and Heather McMicken of Paradise Road in Terry Township.

It all started in early June, when the couple discovered a strange, brown discoloration in their tap water. They still do not know what exactly is causing the disturbance as they are awaiting water test results from DEP. However, the DEP testing done in mid-July did find rising levels of methane in the well, which has now led to something the McMickens never saw coming.

Both of their next-door neighbors, the Mike Phillips and the Scott Spencer families, have the same discoloration in their water wells, which started about a month after the McMickens made that discovery. They all believed that a nearby Chesapeake gas drilling site was responsible for the sudden dilemma. Even though Chesapeake denied the claims at first, they are now taking action in a joint effort with DEP to solve the residents’ water problems.

Because of the increasing levels of methane in the water of each home, DEP installed an alarm device in the basement of each home. These devices are specifically designed to detect high amounts of methane that could be hazardous.

“We were told that if the alarms ever went off, we should call 911 immediately,” said Heather McMicken.

Early last Wednesday morning, their alarm went off, and the McMickens were consequently evacuated from their home as a precautionary measure.

“We made the call, and in no time DEP and Chesapeake were here,” she said. Since then, the McMickens and their two children have stayed at a hotel and also at the home of her mother until they feel safe enough to move back. They do make occasional stops at their home to pick up more clothes and necessities.

Meanwhile, DEP and Chesapeake have been on the property nearly every day trying to find an answer to the current predicament.

“Both are still doing all kinds of testing for us, and we are willing to welcome a third party to do tests too,” Jared McMicken explained.

During a meeting held late last week between Chesapeake and the Paradise Road residents, the company offered to have replacement water wells drilled for each home and purchase them all a temporary water source that they could use for bathing and washing clothes.

Hoses from an enormous 1,100-gallon tank are run through the house, replacing the old existing water pipes.

“We are very happy that they are taking care of the water problem,” said McMicken, “We are just trying to take a breather and wait for the test results to come back.”

Next-door neighbors Mike and Jonna Phillips are waiting on paperwork to look over and sign for a new water well. Their water issues began on July 12, and they finally had the temporary tank hooked up on Saturday. Before that, Jonna, who is seven months pregnant, drove to a friend’s house every day to shower. She is thrilled that she can finally wash clothes and bathe in her own home and is anxiously awaiting a new well. “Chesapeake is certainly trying to accommodate us better than before,” she said.

At the meeting with Chesapeake spokespersons, residents were also informed that there is ongoing testing to determine where the gas is coming from, and it was noted that the affected wells appear to be fed by the same aquifer.

Geologists were present at the meeting in an attempt to help explain aquifers, the type of rock formations in the area and how it may all relate to the potential movement of gas beneath the earth.

The Rocket-Courier has been communicating over the past week with Chesapeake Energy officials on the Paradise Road situation, posing a number of questions.

As of press time, there has been no response or statement.
LINK

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EPA delays final hearing on study of controversial process

2010-08-13T19:22:00.001-04:00

By Sarah Hoye, CNN

August 13, 2010 5:06 p.m. EDT

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is on the hunt for a new location to hold its final public hearing on a planned study of hydraulic fracturing, the controversial process used to extract natural gas from underground, agency officials say.

"We wanted a central location and wanted to keep it in the area where the drilling has been proposed. We're leaving no stone unturned," said agency spokeswoman Betsaida Alcantara. "We are pushing to make an announcement as swiftly as possible."

In July, public hearings were held in Fort Worth, Texas; Denver, Colorado; and Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, to help determine how the EPA will conduct the study.

A final public hearing was slated for Thursday at Binghamton, New York, but on Monday it was rescheduled for Saturday in Syracuse, New York, and on Tuesday it was postponed indefinitely, agency officials said. About 1,800 people had registered to speak for two minutes each, Alcantara said.

Both of the proposed venues, Binghamton University and Syracuse's Oncenter Complex, expressed concern about hosting an event estimated to attract 8,000 people.

"The last-minute change to Syracuse was caused by Binghamton University taking several actions to dissuade the EPA from holding the meetings at its campus, including increasing the cost from $6,000 to almost $40,000," the EPA said in a statement Tuesday.

The university issued a statement putting the cost at $32,000, which it said included "all of the estimated operational costs that the university believed it would incur in order to ensure that activities associated with these meetings would be carried out in a safe and orderly manner."

The EPA now is planning to hold the meeting in September at a location in upstate New York that will be announced as soon as it is confirmed, Alcantara said. The meeting is open to industry stakeholders and the general public.

Victoria Switzer, who registered to speak at Thursday's hearing, is among 15 residents of the northeastern Pennsylvania township of Dimock who filed suit in November 2009 against Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., alleging it contaminated their well water. Cabot solicited Switzer for a gas lease in 2006, according to court records.

Changing the location and then postponing the meeting was upsetting but did not come as a total surprise, Switzer said.

"I had a feeling it was going to be big, but it's absurd," she said.

"Who's leading this pack?" asked Switzer, a former schoolteacher. "I am against drilling as it's going now. They need to step back, call a moratorium and do some serious geological studying."

Julie Sautner of Dimock planned to attend the EPA meeting with her husband, Craig, a cable splicer, and 17-year-old daughter Kelly. They also are a part of the lawsuit.

"We might seem small, but we're here, too, and we're fighting the industry not to pollute, and were fighting for the future generations," said Sautner, who added she has been unable to use her well water for nearly two years. "We're not mad at anybody but we're stuck here."

The EPA announced in March that it would study the potential adverse impact that hydraulic fracturing may have on drinking water, human health and the environment, agency officials said.

"People have raised important concerns that require our attention," said Jeanne Briskin, EPA liaison on hydraulic fracturing from the agency's the Office of Research and Development. "I've worked for EPA for a long time, I was here in the early '80s, this is a case that is unusual."

Hydraulic fracturing is used by gas producers to stimulate wells and recover natural gas from sources including coalbeds and shale gas formations, said Briskin. The process requires the injection of fluids -- generally water and chemical additives.

"We need to have a baseline to get an idea of what the effects of that are, and if you're doing monitoring you have to know what to look for," she said. "At the federal level there is no requirement that companies have to tell us what they use and what concentrations."

The EPA plans to complete the study design by September 2010, begin the study in January 2011 and release initial results by late 2012, she said.

"This is an expedited process; it usually takes longer," Briskin said of the timeline. "As we get results, we're going to be reporting them."

LINK

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

EPA hearings on hydraulic fracturing moved from Binghamton to Syracuse

2010-08-10T13:38:00.002-04:00

by Laura Legere (TIMES-SHAMROCK WRITER)
thedailyreview.com
August 10, 2010

A regional hearing to be held Thursday on a landmark Environmental Protection Agency study of hydraulic fracturing has been moved from Binghamton to Syracuse, N.Y., the agency announced Monday.

The hearings on the controversial natural gas drilling process, which are expected to draw as many as 8,000 participants and protestors, including many from Northeast Pennsylvania, will be held in the Exhibit Hall of the Oncenter Complex Convention Center in Syracuse, after the EPA and Binghamton University, the initial host site, disagreed on a venue.

The three, four-hour information sessions and hearings will be held at the same time they were originally scheduled: 8 a.m., 1 p.m., and 6 p.m. The 300 speaking slots at the event are full, but the agency expects slots will open up because of the venue change. It will open registration for those slots by phone and online beginning at 10 a.m. on Wednesday.

People who preregistered to speak at or attend the event remain registered, according to the EPA, and others who would still like to preregister can do so by Wednesday morning. Walk-in attendees will also be welcome.

The venue was changed after the anticipated crowd size - and the cost of hosting the event - swelled.

Binghamton University released a statement Monday saying that the event is expected to involve 1,200 registered participants, but might have drawn 8,000 people to the campus. The university developed a price based on the expected crowd size "to ensure that the campus would remain cost neutral," it said.

Judith Enck, the administrator of EPA Region 2, criticized that price in a statement, saying it was "more than 500 percent higher than the University's original estimate" and "unacceptable." An EPA official familiar with the situation said the price increased from $6,000 to $40,000.

The venue was moved to Syracuse when an alternate location in Binghamton could not be found, she said.

The EPA announced in March that it will conduct a multiyear, $1.9 million study of the potential for hydraulic fracturing - the process of breaking apart gas-bearing rock with chemically treated water and sand - to harm water quality and public health.

The Syracuse sessions are the largest of four such events that have been held across the country this summer in Colorado, Texas and southwestern Pennsylvania to gather comment about the study's design.

LINK

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Marcellus Shale plan would OK extraction without leases

2010-08-08T00:10:00.002-04:00

DONALD GILLILAND, The Patriot-News
pennlive.com
August 7, 2010

Don’t want natural gas companies drilling under your property?

Tough. They might be able to do it anyway.

The natural gas industry is asking legislators to allow them to take gas from Marcellus Shale under certain properties without a lease and against the owner’s wishes when the owner has neighbors who’ve agreed to drilling.

That’s how opponents see a provision, which they call “forced pooling,” about to be proposed in the state House of Representatives.

Companies would have to pay the owner a “fair” price for the gas extracted.

Nevertheless, a group of more than 30 environmental groups sent a letter to legislators calling the measure an expansion of eminent domain to benefit corporations.

That view is wildly skewed, according to those in favor of the measure, who call it “fair pooling protection.”

“By far and away the largest impact would be on the producers, not on the actual landowners,” said Matt Pitzarella, the public affairs director for Range Resources, an oil and gas firm. “We have not encountered a landowner that says, ‘I’m just fundamentally opposed to drilling.’ It’s a very, very rare occurrence.”

According to the Marcellus Shale Coalition, a natural gas industry group, those who don’t want to lease “will not be considered leasees, nor will they see a rig on their property or an inch of their land disturbed. The only thing they will see? A check in their mailbox each month.”

Horizontal drilling technology allows companies to drill thousands of feet in multiple directions from one well pad, Pitzarella said.

Jan Jarrett, the president of the environmental group PennFuture, did not sign the letter to legislators opposing the plan because PennFuture sees potential for good in a pooling law.

“We weren’t willing to reject the concept out of hand,” Jarrett said. “It could have some benefits, but the devil will be in the details.”

Taking people’s resources without their permission “is an uncomfortable proposition,” even if rare, Jarrett said. And she’s waiting to see the legislation put forward to make sure those landowners “are treated quite fairly.”

Garth Everett, the Lycoming County Republican co-sponsoring the bill, agreed with Jarrett.

Everett said he’s interested in the issue from a property-rights perspective, and if the details of the legislation don’t “work out to be landowner-friendly, I’ll have to switch horses,” he said.

So what’s the benefit of pooling legislation?

“It is the single most effective device to ensure the orderly development of the resource,” Pitzarella said.

He said pooling creates a mechanism to force different drilling companies within a geographic area to cooperate and share resources, and that leads to fewer rigs, fewer tanker trucks, less land disturbance and more gas extracted.
...

If the companies can’t work out an agreement to “rationalize” the parcels through lease swaps, the gas never gets drilled, said Pitzarella, or else the companies want to drill it on their own, and landowners have the sense of being surrounded by drilling rigs.

Pooling would allow a maximum amount of gas to be extracted with a minimum of drilling pads and a minimum of environmental disturbance, he said.

“It’s more economical and less of an impact,” he said.

Many landowners support the measure, he said, because it makes it more likely their leases will produce royalties.

Everett agreed with that.

Companies are already creating pools through swaps and agreements, but “right now we don’t have much in the way of rules and regulations in Pennsylvania for how that can be done.”

“The gas companies are not my constituents,” said Everett, and “many of my constituents are very unhappy with how it’s being done right now.”

“It seems to be a very secretive process right up until [the companies] announce it” by filing in the local courthouse, he said.

Everett said his primary interest is in better regulating the pooling process for the benefit of landowners.

In the few cases of landowners opposed to their resources being taken, he said, “We will have to have a lot of very positive things on the consumer side” to justify it.

Pitzarella said that for those who don’t want to lease their land, “We’d rather that person be as pleased as possible — he’s not going to be happy with three drilling locations around his house with three different companies.”

Some environmental groups are suspicious of the claims that pooling would be better for the environment because it would result in fewer drilling rigs.

“There is no evidence that forced pooling diminishes environmental impact,” said Myron Arnowitt, the Pennsylvania director for Clean Water Action.
...

The letter Arnowitt and others sent to legislators claims “the design of forced pooling is simply to ensure full gas extraction at the lowest cost to the gas companies. ... Forced pooling provisions put all landowners at a disadvantage when trying to negotiate with gas companies. Why negotiate protections for landowners when you know that you can force them to sign a lease in the end?”
...

Everett said the bill is being written and he’s not sure when it will be introduced.
For the complete article, CLICK HERE.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Pa. DEP chief fires back at New York lawmakers over Marcellus Shale oversight criticism

2010-08-06T19:41:00.006-04:00

Associated Press
washingtonexaminer.com
08/06/10

SCRANTON, PA. — Pennsylvania's top-ranking environmental official suggests New York could stop buying natural gas produced in the Keystone State if its legislators are so concerned about the environmental consequences.

Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Hanger fired back Thursday at criticism from Pennsylvania's northern neighbor over regulation of drilling in the Marcellus Shale region.

New York lawmakers held Pennsylvania up as an example of what not to do during discussion of a bill that on Tuesday imposed a nine-month moratorium on hydraulic fracturing. Known as "fracking," the drilling practice has drawn criticism for endangering water supplies.

Hanger says New York is riding a moral "high horse" while consuming Pennsylvania gas. He says Pennsylvania has strengthened enforcement standards and hired more staff to monitor drilling activity.

LINK

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

RED ALERT! Trouble in Paradise Redux!

2010-08-05T14:32:00.006-04:00

Residents evacuated yesterday (Aug. 4th) on Paradise Road.
CLICK HERE for related Paradise Road post.

5:30 p.m. Update: Paradise Road Family Still Out of Home
8/5/2010 Rocket-Courier Reports:

Paradise Road residents, Jared and Heather McMicken and family, were still reportedly out of their Terry Township home and staying with friends or neighbors Thursday.

The unconfirmed word is that they were advised by DEP or another agency monitoring the methane levels that it was potentially unsafe to stay there. They moved out of the residence sometime Wednesday, A neighbor reported this morning that they were still out of their house and had turned the electricity off. Look for a full story in next week's print edition and possible updates on our web page.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Why Gas Leaks Matter in the Hydraulic Fracturing Debate

2010-08-04T18:08:00.012-04:00

by Abrahm Lustgarten ProPublica, Aug. 2, 3:56 p.m.

Last week's article (see July 29 Splashdown post) about a hydraulic fracturing clause that was included in the Senate's drilling accountability bill sparked a lively debate on ProPublica's website about why methane contamination from drilling is relevant to a discussion of environmental risks of fracturing. In response:

Methane migration is a critical part of the discussions of underground contamination risks from drilling and hydraulic fracturing because it demonstrates that a pathway exists for contaminants to move through the substrata to the surface or into water supplies. In many of the cases described in ProPublica's articles, methane -- which was proved to be thermogenic and not from biological decay -- is believed to have moved from thousands of feet underground, or travelled several miles laterally, sometimes from the same layer of gas being exploited for energy.

Fracturing consists of injecting water and (usually secret) concoctions of chemicals deep underground, where it fractures the rock and releases the natural gas deposits. One of the most influential explanations why fracturing presents no risk hinges on the assertion that the deep isolation and many layers of rock and earth effectively seal off the fracture zone from the surface -- that it is impossible for chemicals, water, gas or anything else to move from thousands of feet below into shallow aquifers.

But the consistent and widespread detection of methane migration from unnatural causes -- in places including Colorado, Wyoming, Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York -- shows that it is not impossible, that in fact there are underground pathways for such movement. And if methane can move, it's an indicator of other substances' ability to migrate as well.

Many of the methane migration cases have been traced to flaws in the cementing and casing of the wells, as many of our articles have explicitly explained. Research shows that others may have migrated directly through underground faults and fissures.

Scientists we ask about these issues consistently make two points:

1. The pressure of hydraulic fracturing inside a well structure exerts great force that can exploit cementing problems. In other words, a crack in the cement or casing might be fine until the pressure of hydraulic fracturing forces substances through it.

2. It doesn't matter whether contaminants reach aquifers through a spider web of geologic cracks created by hydraulic fracturing, or in the spaces alongside the well bore that was pushed through the earth. Contaminants are reaching water supplies as a result of the processes and pressures being exerted underground.

The question of whether hydraulic fracturing is responsible for this contamination, and whether it is causing other contamination, remains unanswered. Neither our articles, nor anyone we have spoken with, has claimed to have reached a conclusion on that point. That is why the Environmental Protection Agency conducting two simultaneous studies of these issues -- one in Pinedale, Wyo., which will attempt to assess a specific pattern of contamination there, and another broad national study meant to evaluate the potential risks of fracturing. These are the first studies we are aware of that have engaged a scientific process to study these issues.

Two things are clear now, however:

1. Hydraulic fracturing is the only aspect of the complicated drilling process where basic standards for safe operations are not set by the federal government.

2. If fracturing were regulated, for instance, under the Safe Drinking Water Act -- the federal law that regulates every other type of underground chemical injection -- the law would likely require the sort of well integrity tests and localized pre-drilling geologic analysis to ensure that underground faults and fractures could not reach water supplies. It would also likely require that well casing and cementing be solid enough to withstand the pressures exerted by the fracturing process, and thus prevent the well from leaking methane, or chemicals, or anything else.

LINK

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N.Y. Senate Approves Fracking Moratorium

2010-08-04T17:56:00.003-04:00

By MIREYA NAVARRO
nytimes.com
August 4, 2010

The New York State Senate voted 48 to 9 Tuesday night in Albany to issue a temporary moratorium on a type of natural gas exploration that combines hydraulic fracturing with horizontal drilling and the injection of millions of gallons of chemically treated water underground. The aim of the measure is to ensure an adequate review of safety and environmental concerns.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation is currently reviewing the environmental impact of drilling in upstate New York, where natural gas companies are buying up leases and applying for permits to tap the Marcellus Shale, one of the largest natural gas fields in North America.

The moratorium proposed in the bill would prevent new drilling permits from being issued for the Marcellus Shale until May 15, 2011. While the measure cannot become law before the state Assembly passes a similar bill, and that chamber is not expected to take up the issue until September, environmentalists said the vote was significant in that it buys state officials more time to examine safety issues. They noted that a new administration will be taking over after the November elections because Gov. David Paterson is not running for re-election.

“This is the first action in the country to put the brakes on this type of drilling to give New York the time we need to assess the risks if we’re going to move forward responsibly,” said Katherine Nadeau, a program director with Environmental Advocates of New York.

New York City officials, who oppose drilling anywhere near the watersheds that supply drinking water to the city, welcomed the vote. Councilman James F. Gennaro, head of the City Council’s environmental protection committee, called it “a historic victory for all New Yorkers.”

“Speaker Quinn and I urge the Assembly to follow the lead of the Senate and for Governor Paterson to sign this historic first-in-the-nation hydraulic fracturing moratorium bill,” he said, referring to Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker.

Officials with the Independent Oil and Gas Association of New York, a trade group, had no immediate comment on the vote. They have argued that delays and more regulation of gas exploration only serve to stifle an energy source that the nation sorely needs.

3:01 p.m. | Updated Brad Gill, the association’s executive director, said Wednesday that the moratorium is delaying the jobs, tax revenue and other benefits the state would attract with more drilling. “We have companies that want to come to New York, but in this regulatory and legislative climate and instability they’re going to Pennsylvania,” he said. “We’re just losing out on this economic opportunity.”

Horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is controversial because of the chemicals and vast amounts of water it requires and the risks that opponents say it poses to groundwater. The Senate bill noted both the “risks of accidents” and “potential effects on the communities in which shale gas production is located, including traffic, noise and an influx of transient workers.”

The federal Environmental Protection Agency is currently holding hearings on the effects of hydrofracking as it conducts a national study.

LINK

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Marcellus Shale drilling industry 'is not operating at an excellent level,' state official says

2010-08-04T13:00:00.003-04:00

DONALD GILLILAND, The Patriot-News
Wed., August 4, 2010

There are too many spills, too many leaks, and too much natural gas migrating into people’s drinking water wells due to drilling in the Marcellus Shale, said John Hanger, Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Environmental Protection.

“The industry as a whole is not operating at an excellent level,” he said. “We are not demanding perfection, but we are demanding excellence.”

Hanger’s comments were made in response to a report from the Pennsylvania Land Trust that Marcellus Shale drilling companies had been cited for 1,435 regulatory violations in the last two and a half years.

“The report disproves the claim made by some that this industry is not regulated in Pennsylvania,” Hanger said. “All of those violations were written by DEP personnel and are an indication we are regularly at drilling sites.”

Hanger responded to criticism that his agency wasn’t doing enough and had been hamstrung by budget cuts.

“I don’t think the public knows a lot of what’s actually been happening,” he said.

Despite budget cuts, he said, the agency has actually more than doubled its oil and gas inspection staff. By the end of this month, DEP will have hired 105 additional oil and gas inspectors, for a total of 193.

“We have more inspectors than the state of Louisiana,” Hanger said. “There’s no state in the country that has come anywhere close to having our oil and gas staff.”

Money for those new hires has come from raising permit fees for Marcellus drillers from $100 to a sliding scale that averages between $5,000 to $10,000 per well, Hanger said. Those increased fees have generated $10 million so far.

He said DEP has opened new offices in Williamsport and Scranton to put inspectors closer to where the drilling is taking place. The agency has equipped them with better technology, like infrared cameras to better detect leaks.

An ongoing review of agency rules and regulations has resulted in new water quality standards that require drilling companies to treat wastewater to drinking water standards before returning it to a commonwealth stream.

Getting that regulation into effect has taken two years, during which time, “the industry has been looking at other options, and they now reuse a large proportion of drilling wastewater,” Hanger said.

“Range Resources publicly say they are a zero discharge company now. That’s major progress as a result of tightening the rules.”

More stringent rules for well construction are also in the works.

“It’s not the case we’re just starting today,” Hanger said. “We’ve been working at it for two years.”

Some of the violations in the report involved serious consequences for companies, he said, because sometimes it’s appropriate “to take out a regulatory two-by-four and hit companies over the head with it.”

However, it would have been helpful, he said, if the report had also included a top 10 list of companies with the least violations per well drilled.

“In attempting to move this industry to a standard of excellence ... It’s useful to identify companies that are doing it well,” Hanger said.

“This industry requires strong oversight; there’s no question about that,” he said, but the record of some companies — like Anadarko — “really points out it’s possible to operate in a manner that creates few problems.”

“At the end of the day, what’s really going to determine if the industry maintains public confidence or loses it entirely — and at best it’s shaky right now — is their safety record and their environmental record,” Hanger said.

“We are creating strong incentives for safe operations, but it’s absolutely true that the government doesn’t run these wells and doesn’t drive the trucks. ... There are limits to what government can do. The companies themselves are writing their own safety record, and that record in Pennsylvania is going to be public.

“This industry has a huge amount at stake to create a true culture of safety,” Hanger said.
LINK

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Marcellus Drillers Amass 952 Violations Likely To Harm The Environment

2010-08-02T13:40:00.003-04:00

ConserveLand.org
August 2, 2010

Harrisburg, PA (8/2) The Pennsylvania Land Trust Association has reviewed environmental violations accrued by Marcellus Shale drillers working in Pennsylvania between January 2008 and June 25, 2010. The records were obtained via a Right to Know Request made to the PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

DEP records show a total of 1435 violations of state Oil and Gas Laws due to gas drilling or other earth disturbance activities related to natural gas extraction from the Marcellus Shale in this 2.5-year period. The Association identified 952 violations as having or likely to have an impact on the environment. 483 were identified as likely being an administrative or safety violation and not likely to have the potential to negatively impact the environment.

The report breaks the violations down by type. For example, of the 952 violations:

268 involve improper construction of waste water impoundments
10 involve improper well casing
154 involve discharge of industrial waste
16 involve improper blowout prevention

The report lists the 25 companies with the most violations as well as the 25 companies with the highest average number of violations per well driller.

Download the report HERE.

LINK

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

DEP Fines Talisman Energy USA for Bradford County Drilling Wastewater Spill, Polluting Nearby Water Resource

2010-08-02T12:31:00.005-04:00

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
Dept. of Environmental Protection
Commonwealth News Bureau
Room 308, Main Capitol Building
Harrisburg PA., 17120

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
08/2/2010

CONTACT:

Daniel T. Spadoni, Department of Environmental Protection Northcentral Regional Office

570-327-3659

WILLIAMSPORT -- The Department of Environmental Protection has fined Talisman Energy USA Inc., of Horseheads, N.Y., $15,506 for a spill of used natural gas drilling fluids last November at its Klein gas well pad in Armenia Township, Bradford County that polluted a small, unnamed waterway.

The spill involved hydraulic fracturing flowback fluid, which is the substance that returns to the surface after a company injects the pressurized fluid underground to fracture, or “frack,” a geologic formation and extract natural gas.

“DEP’s investigation in late November 2009 determined that Talisman spilled between 4,200 to 6,300 gallons of fracking flowback fluids when a pump failed and sand collected in a valve,” said DEP North-Central Oil and Gas Program Manager Jennifer Means.

The fluids flowed off the well pad and toward a wetland, and a small amount ultimately discharged to an unnamed tributary to Webier Creek, which drains into the upper reaches of the Tioga River, a cold water fishery.

Talisman successfully completed DEP’s Act 2 process for spill cleanup activities.

The fine will be deposited into the fund that supports DEP’s oil and gas permitting and enforcement programs.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Department of Environmental Protection Unlawfully Permitting Water Withdrawals For Marcellus Shale Gas Drilling in Western Pennsylvania

2010-08-01T22:26:00.004-04:00

Allegheny Defense Project
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 26, 2010
Contact: Cathy Pedler – (814) 454-7523
Bill Belitskus – (814) 778-5173
Ryan Talbott – (503) 887-7845

Only riparian owners can make use of water in streams and rivers

Natural gas companies have descended on Pennsylvania’s forests and farmlands to drill into the Marcellus Shale. Each Marcellus Shale gas well requires millions of gallons of water for the drilling process. That water is taken from Pennsylvania’s streams and rivers under the alleged authority of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). The DEP, however, does not have the authority to permit water withdrawals in Pennsylvania.

In central and eastern Pennsylvania, water withdrawalsare managed by the Susquehanna River Basin Commission and Delaware River Basin Commission. Congress created the two commissions as federal interstate compacts with the authority to permit water withdrawals within their respective basins. The rest of Pennsylvania, most of which is in the Ohio River basin, is governed by riparian rights common law, which allows only the owner of property along a watercourse to withdraw water for use on their land. There is no state law regulating water withdrawals other than for municipal drinking water supplies.

In a letter sent to DEP Secretary John Hanger, the Allegheny Defense Project (ADP) outlined the current state of Pennsylvania law regarding water withdrawals and charged the DEP with operating an unauthorized water withdrawal program that allows natural gas companies to take water that they have no legal right to fortheir Marcellus Shale gas drilling operations. (LINK to source.)

“The fact is, the DEP has absolutely no authority to permit water withdrawals in Pennsylvania,” said Cathy Pedler, ADP’s forest watch coordinator. “Outside of the Delaware and Susquehanna River watersheds, water withdrawals are governed by riparian rights common law, which means only those who live adjacent to the water can make reasonable use of the water on their land. A gas company cannot take water that flows through property it does not own.”

Nevertheless, documents obtained by ADP reveal that the DEP is unlawfully authorizing water withdrawals from western Pennsylvania streams and rivers. On March 31, 2010 the DEP approved a Water Management Plan for Hanley & Bird, Inc. The Water Management Plan allows Hanley & Bird to withdraw 1.44 million gallons of water a day from the Redbank Creek in Jefferson County for five years.

Under the Water Resources Planning Act of 2002, the DEP is required to develop Water Management Plans for the entire state. That law, however, does not provide any authority to the DEP to authorize water withdrawals.

“The Water Resources Planning Act is just that, a planning act,” said Bill Belitskus, ADP’s board president. “That law provided no substantive authority to the DEP to regulate or permit water withdrawals from Pennsylvania’s surface waters. Each time the DEP approves a water management plan and tells a natural gas company that it can withdraw surface water for their drilling procedures, it is acting without authority and encouraging illegal conduct.”

Visit ADP’s website to see the documents we obtained from recent file reviews at the DEP’s Northwest Regional Office: http://alleghenydefenseproject.wikispaces.com/Marcellus+Shale

LINK

WRITE LETTERS! SPEAK OUT!

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

As water worries mount, researcher says Marcellus Shale poses risk to air

2010-07-31T09:33:00.006-04:00

By David Falchek (Staff Writer)
thetimes-tribune.com
July 31, 2010

Protecting watersheds in the Marcellus Shale region and forcing driller disclosure of fracking chemicals are the foremost demands of those concerned about potential environmental harm from natural gas activity.

The focused attention leaves out potentially greater threats, said Conrad "Dan" Volz, Ph.D., director and principal investigator of University of Pittsburgh's Center for Healthy Environments and Communities. The region's air could face a so far undetected threat, he said.

While a spill at a natural gas drilling site that contaminates water is catastrophic, air pollution can be a more insidious problem - one he said he feels is being overlooked.

While environmental groups and citizens scour lists of chemicals added to hydraulic fracturing fluid used to break up the shale formation, the greater threat may come from toxins that come to the surface as flowback, said Mr. Volz. He said state air-monitoring stations tend to be located in urban areas, away from rural areas where much of the drilling would be taking place.

He said the flowback is a slurry that can contain naturally-occurring benzene, strontium and arsenic. The flowback is often stored in uncovered fracking ponds where volatile organic compounds evaporate into the air. Condenser stations, wells and pipelines also discharge VOCs.

VOCs, both manmade and naturally occurring, are emitted into the air by certain liquids and solids. Some can adversely affect health in cases of chronic exposure, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

VOCs emitted by a single well pad may not be that significant, and Dr. Volz said there's debate over the risk to air quality and health. But as drilling intensifies, however, air quality will become an issue, he said.

Dr. Volz delivered his comments at a rollout of his group's Marcellus Shale website, www.fractracker.org, to a group of stakeholders that included economic development officials, environmental groups and academics in Danville on Thursday.

He hopes Fractracker.org will help inform policymakers on issues such as where to place permanent air-monitoring stations.

Compounding air quality unknowns is the lack of state Department of Environmental Protection air-monitoring stations in many parts of the Marcellus Shale region. The stations tend to be in urban areas with historically high industrial activity. Stations are in Swiftwater, Peckville, Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and Nanticoke. None are in Wayne, Wyoming, Susquehanna or Bradford counties, where drilling activity is more common.

The DEP has a mobile air-quality lab collecting data around natural gas activity. The data has not been released, said DEP spokesman Mark Carmon. But Mr Carmon said it can provide a snapshot of the impact of natural gas activity on air quality.

Chris Tucker, spokesman for Energy In Depth, an oil and gas producers' association, said open fracking pits are increasingly being replaced by closed loop systems such as one being used by Anadarko Petroleum Corp., reducing the release of VOCs.

He also said that unlike natural gas in Southwestern Pennsylvania, natural gas coming from the Northeast is so- called "dry gas," nearly pure methane, with fewer condensates and VOCs.

University of Scranton chemistry professor Michael C. Cann said thousands of different chemicals come out of the earth in fracking fluid, but without research or testing, it's hard to assess the impact of the process.

"Certainly there are dangerous, naturally-occurring volatile organic compounds, but without research and testing, there's no way to know the risk," Dr. Cann said.
LINK

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Fracking With Food: How the Natural Gas Industry Poisons Cows and Crops

2010-07-31T00:22:00.005-04:00

AlterNet
by Byard Duncan
July 30, 2010

Natural gas drilling operations have mucked up food from Colorado to Pennsylvania. So why is no one paying attention?

On the morning of May 5, 2010, nobody could say for sure how much fluid had leaked from the 650,000-gallon disposal pit near a natural gas drill pad in Shippen Township, Penn. -- not the employees on site; not the farmers who own the property; not the DEP rep who came to investigate.

But there were signs of trouble: Vegetation had died in a 30’ by 40’ patch of pasture nearby. A “wet area” of indeterminate toxicity had crept out about 200 feet, its puddles shimmering with an oily iridescence. And the cattle: 16 cows, four heifers and eight calves were all found near water containing the heavy metal strontium. Strontium is preferentially deposited in cows’ bones at varying levels depending on things like age and growth rates. Since slaughtering 28 cattle on mere suspicion can devastate a farmer financially, nobody knows what, if anything, the cows ingested. They're now sitting in quarantine.

The Shippen Township incident isn’t the first time hydraulic fracturing, a controversial gas extraction technique that involves shooting water, sand and a mix of chemicals into the ground to release gas, has been blamed for livestock damage. But for farmers in the northeast whose land sits atop the gas-rich Marcellus Shale formation, it is a wake-up call – an event that raises questions about fracking’s compatibility with food production.

“I’ve already heard from a couple of customers that they’re concerned about the location of a drill site near my farm – in terms of the quality and safety of my food,” said Greg Swartz, a farmer in Pennsylvania’s Upper Delaware River Valley. Swartz, who sells all his products locally, fears that leaked fracking fluid could seep into his soil, bioaccumulate in his plants and cost him his organic certification. “There very well may be a point where I am not comfortable selling vegetables from the farm anymore because I’m concerned about water and air contamination issues,” he said.

Air contamination – specifically the production of ozone – is what worries Ken Jaffe, another farmer in Meredith, NY. When excess methane gas, coupled with volatile compounds like benzene, toluene and xylene, are released into the air in a process the gas industry calls “venting,” it can inhibit lung function and wreak havoc on plant life. In Sublette County, WY, fracking has been blamed for ozone levels that are comparable to those in Los Angeles.

Without healthy pasture, Jaffe said, his cows won’t grow. Which means his beef won’t sell. “The economics of my operation are in part based on how many animals I can graze per acre and get them to grow fat,” he told me. “And if I have less grass and less protein and less clover, then I have a problem.”

Over the past two years, horizontal hydraulic fracturing has garnered a lot of attention. Advocates of the practice believe the staggeringly high amounts of gas it makes accessible could serve as a “cleaner-burning” bridge between fossil fuels and renewable energy sources. But critics blame fracking for a whole range of problems -- house explosions, flammable drinking water, chronic sickness, crop failure and air contamination, to name a few. In 2005, the Bush administration introduced the Energy Policy Act, which exempted hydraulic fracturing from several key environmental regulations, including parts of the Clean Water Act and CERCLA (Superfund). Since then, drilling operations (along with corresponding environmental problems) have begun to extend like spiderwebs across states like Colorado, Wyoming, Texas, and Pennsylvania.

For all their concerns, farmers like Swartz and Jaffe comprise only one side of a larger debate over drilling. Leasing one’s land, after all, carries the promise of a comfortable retirement -- sometimes even millions of dollars. And with milk prices making small-scale dairy operations harder and harder to maintain, many farmers are looking for the light at the end of the pipeline.

Some have found it. According to one Penn State study, Pennsylvania made a $2.95 billion profit from drilling in 2008 alone; the state also gained 53,000 new jobs. And in the Windsor/Deposit area of New York, 300 property owners have signed a lease with XTO Energy that covers 37,000 acres and is worth $90 million (notably, the lease contains a provision that indemnifies drillers against damage to livestock). Though New York is still waiting on its Department of Environmental Conservation for the go-ahead to start horizontal drilling, much of the state’s topography has already been carved, cordoned and auctioned off to eager gas companies.

“The way things are now financially, it would be hard to turn [leasing] down,” said Richard Dirie, a dairy farmer near Youngsville, NY. “Farming is definitely a physical occupation. You definitely reach an age where -- I don’t care if you want to do it or not -- you just can’t do it anymore.”

Dirie has not yet leased his land. But at 59, he’s not sure he would reject an offer if it came his way. “I keep saying, ‘I hope they don’t come and talk to me.’ That way I don’t have to make a decision, you know?”

Gas drilling raises a lot of questions for farmers short on options. Is it worth the risk to retire comfortably? What are the implications for future use of the land? Perhaps most importantly: How does fracking affect crops, livestock and, by extension, the people who consume them? Answers are scarce.

“There’s a lot going on out there and we don’t know most of it,” Swartz said.

The Knowledge Vacuum

It’s with good reason that Jaffe describes fracking’s relationship to food as “a knowledge vacuum.” Pennsylvania’s Department of Agriculture can’t say for sure whether or not any cows in the state came into contact with fracking fluid before the Shippen Township incident in May. Nor can it guarantee similar things won’t happen in the future. “We hope that this is the exception rather than the rule,” said spokesman Justin Fleming. “We hope that this is an extraordinarily rare occurrence.”

A representative for the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service -- the organization in charge of testing milk and meat for chemicals – neglected to comment on whether or not heavy metals like the strontium found in Shippen Township were considered “adulterated” under the Federal Meat Inspection Act. He also did not immediately comment on whether naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORMS) -- known to surface after a well has been fractured – fall under the act’s clause banning meat from being “intentionally subjected to radiation.”

Scientists, too, are grappling for information. Though there exists an increasingly comprehensive catalog of knowledge about water problems related to fracking, little work has been done to determine how the practice affects animals and crops.

“I see very little research being done on cows,” said Theo Colborn, founder of the non-profit Endocrine Disruption Exchange. Because animal testing with many chemicals known to be involved in fracking has historically failed to deal with instances of a) limited exposure and b) prolonged exposure, no one really knows what the potential health effects are – for cows or humans.

“It’s very difficult to deal with this problem,” Colborn said. “Who has the money? Who can perform the tests?”

Certainly not the federal EPA. Earlier this year, it announced plans to launch a two-year study of hydraulic fracturing’s effects on water. According to an EPA spokesperson, no part of that study will deal with plants or animals.

And yet, there is significant anecdotal evidence that suggests fracking can seriously compromise food. In April 2009, 19 head of cattle dropped dead after ingesting an unknown substance near a gas drilling rig in northern Louisiana. Seven months before that, a tomato farmer in Avella, Penn. reported a series of problems with the water and soil on his property after drilling started: he found arsenic levels 2,600 times what is recommended, as well as dangerously high levels of benzene and naphthalene – all known fracking components. And in May 2009, one farmer in Clearview, Penn. told Reuters he thought that gas drilling operations had killed four of his cows.

Occurrences like these aren’t just limited to the eastern U.S. In Colorado, a veterinarian named Elizabeth Chandler has documented numerous fertility problems in livestock near active drill sites, including false pregnancy, smaller litters and stillbirths in goats; reduced birth rates in hogs; and delayed heat cycles in dogs.

In another case, Rick Roles, a resident of Rifle, Colorado, reported that his horses became sterile after three disposal pits were installed near his home. Like those in Chandler’s study, Roles’ goats began yielding fewer offspring and producing more stillbirths. Roles himself suffered from swelling of the hands, numbness and body pain – symptoms, he said, that subsided when he stopped eating vegetables from his garden and drinking his goats’ milk.

Actual scientific studies are few and far between, but what’s out there paints a pretty damning picture. One, titled “Livestock Poisoning from Oil Field Drilling Fluids, Muds and Additives,” appeared in the journal Veterinary & Human Toxicology in 1991. It examined seven instances where oil and gas wells had poisoned and/or killed livestock. In one such case, green liquid was found leaking from a tank near a gas well site. The study’s authors found 13 dead cows, whose “postmortem blood was chocolate-brown in color.” Poisoning cases involving carbon disulfide, turpentine, toluene, xylene, ethylene, and complex solvent mixtures “are frequently encountered,” the study concluded.

Another study, this one conducted in Alberta, Canada in 2001, investigated the effects of gas flaring on the reproductive systems of cattle near active gas and oil fields. Its conclusions: “One of the most consistent associations in the analysis was between exposure to sour gas flaring facilities [as opposed to “sweet” ones, which contain more aromatic hydrocarbons, aliphatic hydrocarbons and carbon particles] and an increased risk of stillbirth. In 3 of the 4 years studied, cumulative exposure to sour flares was associated with an increased risk of stillbirth.”

'Rare Cases'

When questioned about fracking and food, America’s Natural Gas Alliance, an organization composed of the nation’s leading gas production and exploration companies, neglected to get into any specifics. Instead, it offered this response:

“In rare cases where incidents have occurred, companies have worked with the appropriate regulatory authority to identify, contain and correct the issue, and to implement measures to ensure they don’t recur. ANGA member companies understand and respect people’s concerns about the safety of their water and air, and we are committed to engaging in dialogue with community members, policymakers and stakeholders to talk about the safety of natural gas production and the opportunities natural gas offers communities across our country.”

Environmental groups have a markedly different perspective on the issue. “There’s a lot of violations that happen out there that are never documented,” said Wes Gillingham, program director of Catskill Mountainkeeper.

When we talked, Gillingham took out an enormous aerial photo of a drill rig. One disposal pit was surrounded by gray blotches of moisture: leaked fracking fluid. “The stuff that’s coming up – this stuff is getting into the environment,” he said, pointing at the blotches. “You’ve got heavy metals and normally occurring radioactive materials, all of which bioaccumulate in a grazer. That stuff is coming up in the grass where the grass is growing.”

So what sorts of concerns should people have about eating animals that have themselves ingested xylene, benzene, heavy metals, radioactive material? Gillingham, like so many farmers, federal officials and industry reps, can’t say for sure.

“It’s a serious issue in terms of potential contamination getting to market and nobody knowing about it,” he said. “It’s an important piece of research that needs to be done.”

LINK

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

UN General Assembly passes historic Human Right to Water and Sanitation resolution

2010-07-30T16:35:00.004-04:00

Council of Canadians E-Newsletter
& Media Release
July 30, 2010

On July 28, 2010, the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly agreed to a resolution declaring the human right to “safe and clean drinking water and sanitation.”

After over a decade of hard work, the global water justice movement achieved a major victory today as the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favour of recognizing water and sanitation as human rights. The resolution – put forward by Bolivia and co-sponsored by 35 states – passed overwhelmingly with 122 states voting in favour and 41 abstaining.

For more than a decade the water justice movement ... has been calling for UN leadership on this critical issue. Right now nearly 2 billion people live in water-stressed areas of the world and 3 billion have no running water within a kilometre of their homes. Every eight seconds, a child dies of water-borne disease – deaths that would be easily preventable with access to clean, safe water. ...

While the resolution is a solid victory for water justice for people around the world, the battle is not entirely won.

“This resolution has the overwhelming support of a strong majority of countries, despite a handful of powerful opponents. It must now be followed-up with a renewed push for water justice,” says Anil Naidoo, Blue Planet Project organizer. “We are calling for actions on the ground in communities around the world to ensure that the rights to water and sanitation are implemented.

Governments, aid agencies and the UN must take their responsibilities seriously.”

As a result of this vote, the human right to water and sanitation is now explicitly and formally recognized at the UN.

LINK

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Shale's Shameless Shill

2010-07-30T14:55:00.005-04:00

A Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial
July 30, 2010

Former governors can choose many career paths. Some of them become college presidents. Some go on the lecture circuit.

And then there's Tom Ridge, who is set to become a paid shill for the natural-gas drillers swarming his native state.

The Marcellus Shale Coalition, which represents natural-gas companies, has been negotiating to hire Ridge's lobbying firm. The industry wants the ex-governor's help with a campaign to educate the public about the benefits of drilling.

It's unclear how much Ridge will be paid, but he doesn't come cheap. The tiny impoverished nation of Albania, for example, reportedly paid Ridge nearly $500,000 per year to lobby for its membership in NATO.

Ex-governors are free to enrich themselves however they choose. But there's something obnoxious about a former governor talking up an industry that poses serious environmental risks, and has already spent millions on lobbying to forestall paying its fair share of state business taxes.

The industry does have a positive story to tell as well. It provides jobs at a time when jobs are scarce. Landowners have become financially secure from leasing to drillers. Natural gas is a relatively clean fuel, and the vast deposits beneath Pennsylvania should help this nation become less reliant on foreign oil.

Those factors argue in favor of proceeding with drilling in Pennsylvania. But the potential environmental hazards associated with hydraulic-fracture drilling, or "fracking," require a robust array of regulations to protect drinking water supplies. The state, which had outdated laws governing oil and gas drilling, is still trying to catch up.

In a new energy bill in Washington, Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.) has included a needed provision that would require drillers to disclose the chemicals used in fracking.

The oil and gas industry's safety record certainly needs improving. Pennsylvania ranks sixth with 114 significant accidents in the past decade, according to a new report by the National Wildlife Foundation. Most of them weren't caused by Marcellus drillers.

But fracking does carry risks, such as the methane pollution of 14 drinking wells in January 2009 in Dimock Township, Susquehanna County, by Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. Cabot paid a $360,000 fine. And the state temporarily banned Cabot from fracking after three chemical spills at a site in Dimock polluted a wetland and killed fish.

So as the former governor prepares to tell a story for hire, let's all start on the same page: This industry bears greater oversight, not less.

LINK.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Drilling Accountability Bill Would Regulate Fracturing Too

2010-07-29T15:17:00.006-04:00

by Abrahm Lustgarten
ProPublica
July 29,2010

Tucked inside the Senate bill aimed at cracking down on oil drillers after the Gulf spill is a long-sought measure to protect groundwater from natural gas drilling.

The bill, called The Clean Energy Jobs and Oil Company Accountability Act, would require that drilling companies make public a complete list of chemicals injected underground in proprietary formulas to break up rock deep underground and extract natural gas, a process called hydraulic fracturing.

It would not, however, reverse the exemption that prohibits the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating the fracturing process like other forms of underground injection, another important regulatory change that was initially proposed in House and Senate bills last June along with the chemical disclosure.

That bill, called the Frac Act, was sponsored by Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., who pushed for its inclusion in the accountability bill now being considered.

(See flaming Splashdown sidebar at left. Write letters now!)

"Proper regulation is another essential element in protecting drinking water and public health. That is a battle that we still need to fight," Casey told ProPublica in an e-mail. But he emphasized that disclosing the chemical names "is an important step toward informing the public and building accountability for oil and gas companies."

A push for disclosure and stricter regulation of the fracturing process began in earnest last year after a series of articles by ProPublica reported more than a thousand cases of ground and surface water contamination in drilling areas where the process was being used. The articles examined drilling records in more than seven states, and found both a consistent pattern of water contamination in drilling areas, and a gap in scientific knowledge about the way hydraulic fracturing affects underground layers of rock and aquifers.

Problems were severe in Casey's home state, where fast-paced development of the Marcellus Shale natural gas deposit quickly led to dozens of reports of drinking water well contamination in places where hydraulic fracturing had been employed. Residents reported flammable tap water, and state investigations found that methane had seeped into water supplies underground as a result of the drilling activity.

Investigating the cause of such incidents has been difficult in part because the EPA does not have the jurisdiction to regulate fracturing the way it does other injection processes, and because the chemical makeup of the fracturing fluids has been guarded as a trade secret.

Several states, including New York, Colorado and Wyoming, have recently passed disclosure laws of their own, and industry representatives have begun to support the notion. But the language of the Senate bill is the most specific, and would apply to all of the states where oil and gas is produced.

The disclosure proposed today would still allow companies to withhold the exact recipes they use, meaning they wouldn't have to disclose the concentrations to the public. But they would -- in case of emergencies -- be required to share that information on a confidential basis with doctors and hospitals responding to an accident.

It's not clear how far the bill will get in the face of Republican opposition. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who added the disclosure component to the accountability bill, has said he hoped to bring the bill to a vote next week. Even if it passes, it will need to be reconciled with a House version that does not include the fracturing disclosure language.

LINK

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

RED ALERT! Bad Water in Paradise!

2010-07-28T21:50:00.012-04:00

Cain Chamberlin
Rocket-Courier
July 29, 2010

Mike Phillips holds the contaminated water that he discovered in his well on July 12 in his left hand, and in his right hand a sample of bottled water. Phillips is concerned that the disturbance in his well is due to gas drilling operations that have taken place near his home.
Photo by Cain Chamberlin

Bad Water in Paradise? Terry Twp. Residents Await Answers

Click here for video of gas igniting from bathroom sink faucet at Phillip's neighbor, Scott Spencer's home.

When Michael and Jonna Phillips woke up on Monday, July 12, they expected it to be like any other day…until they turned on their water.

They noticed that it was an odd, murky, brownish color. For obvious personal safety and health reasons, they decided against tasting it to figure out why.

Since the Phillips’s home, located along Paradise Road in Terry Township, was built in 2002, they have never had any trouble with their water. Their well is approximately 140 deep. They had their water tested in April of this year, and the results came back clear of any contamination, so the sudden change seemed extremely peculiar to them.

The Phillipses were aware that their next-door neighbors, Jared and Heather McMicken, had the same disturbance in their water, although the discoloration of their water started in early June when no one else had the problem, making them think it was just bad luck. The McMicken well is at approximately the same depth as that of the Phillips’s. Soon after the McMickens started having water trouble, Scott Spencer, another nearby resident, made a major discovery in his water as well; he could light it on fire.

“Spit and Sputter”
“All the faucets started to spit and sputter, so we were curious as to what was going on,” said Spencer.

A Chesapeake drilling site no further than a quarter-mile away from the three homes struck the curiosity of Phillips. Even though all three residents have signed on to lease their land to gas companies, none of their properties has been subject to any operations so far. It made Phillips wonder if the nearby drilling was the culprit.

Phillips finally reached Greg Garrison, an Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) Field Specialist for Chesapeake Energy, after several attempts. Garrison brought a couple of cases of water to their home and looked at the problem for himself. Phillips said that after Garrison saw the disturbance with his own eyes, he told them that they should keep all their receipts dealing with any water purchases or testing and repairs to the well; if the DEP could prove that Chesapeake was at fault, they would be reimbursed.

“He told us that he or someone from Chesapeake would be back on a daily basis,” said Phillips. They have not seen nor heard from anyone at Chesapeake in over a week, while the McMicken family has only seen a Chesapeake representative twice since reporting their water problems.

A representative of the DEP ran a test in the water systems on both the Phillips and McMicken properties on July 15 and again on July 21. According to the DEP, the full results will not be available for about 40 days, but they immediately found rising levels of methane in the water. The reports show the Phillips’s water had minimal amounts of methane in the first test, but rose to three percent six days later. The McMickens’ level rose from three percent to four percent in the same time period.

DEP Offers Advice
DEP advised them, as well as Scott Spencer and his family, not to drink the water. Heather McMicken, who was diagnosed with Lyme disease, had been drinking close to 25 glasses of tap water per day since the spring until her family’s water problems began. Her children were drinking several glasses every day as well, which concerns her deeply.

“Our kids’ health is number one priority,” she said.

Phillips contacted Thomas Dunn, a local water well specialist, who almost immediately after removing the well cap on July 18 told them that there was gas in the water. Once again, they were advised not to drink the water and told that there was a definite disturbance. According to Mrs. Phillips, who is due to have their second child in October, Garrison told her that she could bathe in the water, although the family doctor advised her not to.

She now has to take her twice-daily showers at a friends’ house about two miles away. Mrs. Spencer, who is also pregnant with their second child, has been bathing in the water because she has no other option. The DEP told the Spencers that the water did contain some effervescence but appeared to be fine, although they shouldn’t drink it, just as a precaution. According to Spencer, the DEP claimed that they would be stopping by on a weekly basis to run water tests but have yet to come back.

“Chesapeake told us that it could be from something five or six years ago that we didn’t realize was happening,” said Spencer, “Basically that the problem was just natural causes.”

Alternate Sources

The Phillipses have purchased a water cooler system, while the Spencers and McMickens are buying bottled water on a regular basis. The children in each family are getting very impatient wondering when they will be able to drink their own water or swim in their plastic kiddie pools again during the current summer heat.

“We don’t know if it will end soon or not, we don’t know what to expect,” Spencer said.

Last week, Phillips wrote several letters in order to address the situation of his family and neighbors. He contacted Chesapeake’s Director of Corporate Development Brian Grove, Sen. Gene Yaw, State Rep. Tina Pickett and Congressman Chris Carney, as well as an environmental lawyer from Washington, DC. Phillips says that he is determined to find answers and to make sure that his drinking water is restored to its original condition.

“No one is immune to this and this is ruining our beautiful place to live,” said Phillips, “All we wanted was a nice, peaceful community. These are young families in new homes, and we just want this problem taken care of.”

(Editor’s Note: Brian Grove, Chesapeake Energy’s Director of Corporate Development, responds to concerns expressed in this article in a statement released on Wednesday, July 28. That statement is published in this issue of the Rocket-Courier.)

Click here for video of gas igniting from bathroom sink faucet at Phillip's neighbor, Scott Spencer's home.

LINK to article.
(BULLSHIT image for Splashdown post courtesy of Google.)

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

DEP has proposed tougher standards for Oil & Gas drilling

2010-07-28T21:16:00.002-04:00

From the FORESTcoalition:

The Public Comment Meetings are finished and there are only about ten days to get in your comments by e-mail.

These regulations call for more stringent standards for O&G drilling operations.

These regulations are vital. They upgrade requirements for testing, well casing, welding, cementing and other steps to prevent blowouts, migration of gas and release of fluids which could contaminate our waterways and aquifers.

The public comment period will end on 8/09/10.

If you missed the hearings, please submit your official written testimony via RegComments@state.pa.us

or via USPS at:
Environmental Quality Board
P.O. Box 8477, Harrisburg PA 17105-8477

• Be sure to use subject heading “CH 78 Regulations”
and include your full name and address.

Talking points – Choose the topics most important to you:

• Safety - Marcellus depths and pressures are so far beyond what was “normal” in the 1980’s, we must upgrade the Oil & Gas regulations to ensure safety.

• Prevent stray gas migration [ contaminating local waterwells]

• Cementing – Use Texas standards
DEP’s definition for cement sets a 24-hour compressive strength standard of at least 500 psi; however, other states, such as Texas, have found that standard insufficient to prevent vertical migration of fluids or gas behind pipe. Texas requires an additional 72-hour compressive strength standard of at least 1,200 psi across critical zones of cement.

• Cementing – Upgrade the details
Ensure better cementing by documenting the chemical composition of the mixture. Expand the “cement ticket” definition to include:

(a) a requirement for the operator to test the mixing water pH and temperature and note it on the cement ticket (this is standard industry practice and aids in determining cement quality);

(b) a record of the Waiting on Cement [WOC] time, which is the time required to achieve the calculated compressive strength standard before the casing is disturbed in any way. Allow no shortcuts.

• Protection of Water Supplies -

DEP must clarify §78.51 to explain what constitutes an adequately restored or replacement water supply for homeowners. There should be a set timeframe for acting upon a complaint filed by a landowner.

Revise §78.51(c) to read: Within 24 hours of the receipt of the investigation request, the Department will send a technical team to the field site to examine the situation and determine whether immediate action is needed to shut down operations.

• Blowout Preventer –
Blowouts are very serious work safety, and environmental situations. Blowouts may result in human injury, fire, explosion, oil spills and gas venting. Suggestion: Require all wells to be drilled with a Blow-Out Preventer once the surface casing is installed and cemented. No exceptions.

§78.72 (c) requires BOP controls to be accessible during an emergency; this is logical. However, the regulation should also require that the operator to place the BOP controls on the rig itself. BOP controls need to be accessible both on the rig and at a location a safe distance away from the drilling rig. Recent accidents show the need for this.

“Safe” = absence of risk. While it is not possible to eliminate all the risks inherent in drilling, we have to ensure that the standards are as bullet-proof as we can make them. There should be no “weasel clauses” that allow misinterpretation, no omissions, no compromises because of industry arm-twisting or whining that DEP is “unfriendly”.

Your statements are needed so the IRRC can see strong public support for the new DEP CH 78 regulations.

Remember, it is the Department of Environmental Protection.

=========================

DEP’s proposed regulations are at:
http://www.pabulletin.com/secure/data/vol40/40-28/1248.html

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Shale Report: PA considering new casing regulations

2010-07-28T14:15:00.004-04:00

Current regulations set in 1989, state says industry is meeting expectations

BY ERIC LIDJI
GREENINGOFOIL.com
July 28, 2010

Opponents of hydraulic fracturing blame it for spoiling water supplies. Proponents say the technology is separated from drinking water supplies by thousands of feet of impermeable rock. One possible link between those contradictory statements is well construction. In a poorly designed well, gas from below escapes into water from above.

That’s not the only way gas can migrate into water supplies, but it’s the main one the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is targeting with proposed changes to the regulations for oil and gas wells, recently released for public comments.

Many of the current regulations haven’t been updated since July 1989, according to the state. While Pennsylvania isn’t new to drilling — in fact, it’s been producing oil and gas longer than any other state — the current drilling boom in the Marcellus Shale is new.

The revisions would change how wells are constructed and inspected, and set guidelines for responding to gas migration and replacing water supplies spoiled by drilling.

“It was determined that many, if not all, Marcellus well operators met or exceeded the current well casing and cementing regulations,” the DEP said in its proposed regulations. “However, it was also determined that the current regulations were not specific enough in detailing the Department's expectations of a properly cased and cemented well.”

The new standards would bring Pennsylvania in line with other producing states, like Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, particularly for the amount of pressure allowed on surface casing, the shallow length of pipe that protects underground drinking water sources.

The standards require operators to inspect wells for pressure, corrosion and signs of escaping gas every three months and report the results to the DEP for five years.

If gas were believed to have migrated into nearby soils and waters, the proposed regulations would require the operator to immediately notify the state and begin an investigation, filing a report by phone within 12 hours and in writing within three days.

The proposed regulations also codify current case law on water supplies damaged by drilling. The regulations would require drillers to replace polluted water supplies to safe drinking water standards, unless the supplies didn’t meet those standards in the first place. It also requires drillers to pay for any increased operations and maintenance costs.

The Environmental Quality Board, an agency within the DEP, held five public hearings across the state on the proposed regulations and is taking comments through Aug. 9.

...

LINK to complete article.

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Most speak out against shale gas production at Pennsylvania forum

2010-07-26T14:06:00.006-04:00

Jim Magill
Platts
Pittsburgh, PA
July 23, 2010

Highlighting concerns over its possible effects on groundwater, most of the 150 speakers at a US Environmental Protection Agency forum in southwestern Pennsylvania spoke out against shale gas production in the state.

The meeting Thursday night in the small town of Canonsburg, which drew 1,200 people, was the third in a series of four to be held by the EPA in shale gas-producing basins across the US to gather public input ahead of a two-year study it plans to examine the impacts of hydraulic fracturing could have on groundwater.

The Pennsylvania meeting site sits in a region that in recent years has seen a boom of gas drilling targeting the Marcellus Shale.

While a handful of speakers -- most identifying themselves as being currently or formerly employed in the gas industry or representing pro-industry organizations -- defended the use of fracking as a safe and efficient technology for unlocking the gas trapped in shale, the vast majority -- mostly area residents, scientists and conservationists -- demanded greater regulation or, in some cases, an outright ban on the practice.

Many of the latter group called on the EPA to expand the study beyond just looking at the impacts of fracking and to study what happens to the water and chemicals used in fracking before, during and after the work is done. Others wanted the study to be expanded still further, to include impacts of gas drilling on air quality, vehicle traffic and quality-of-life issues such as crime.
...

JOBS TO TEXANS

Although a definite link has never been established between fracking and contamination of groundwater, dozens of speakers claimed to be victims of such a link. One woman who said her family buys drinking water because her well became contaminated with styrene, which she blamed on nearby gas drilling.

Another speaker, representing a local environmental group, Clearville Citizens for Sustainability, said it tested groundwater quality prior to the onset of gas drilling and found the water to be of good quality. "After drilling we have pollution," she said.

A member of the Steel Valley Trail Council, said when the gas industry came into the Marcellus Shale, drillers touted the benefits of clean-burning natural gas and "identified oodles of jobs" for local residents. "The jobs have gone to Texans," he said. Many of the speakers said they thought that a moratorium should be imposed on new in the Marcellus drilling in Pennsylvania, similar to the one called by the state of New York as it develops new drilling guidelines.
...

Several pro-industry speakers dismissed the complaints of the anti-fracking speakers as alarmist and called for the EPA study to "focus on science, not emotion." A speaker who identified himself as a Halliburton employee said the agency should limit the scope of the study to what Congress asked it to focus on and to "avoid wasting time" in expanding the scope beyond that congressional mandate.
"The EPA will find that fracking poses no significant threats to health," he said.

'NO NEGATIVE EFFECTS'

Lou D'Amico, president of the Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association, said fracking was "neither new nor controversial." He cited a study the EPA undertook during the Clinton administration on the impacts of fracking in coalbed methane wells, which found "no negative effects of fracking from coalbed methane drilling."

D'Amico added that most CBM wells are drilled to much shallower depths than Marcellus Shale wells, placing them that much closer to groundwater aquifers. The EPA should avail itself of the "huge database" of information available through industry players and state regulatory agencies in pursuing its study, he said.

EPA plans to continue the scoping process through the end of the year and begin the study itself in early 2011, the EPA officials said. Preliminary results of the study should be available by the end of 2012, they said.

LINK

E.P.A. Considers Risks of Gas Extraction
By TOM ZELLER Jr.
Published: July 23, 2010
nytimes.com

CANONSBURG, Pa. — The streams of people came to the public meeting here armed with stories of yellowed and foul-smelling well water, deformed livestock, poisoned fish and itchy skin. One resident invoked the 1968 zombie thriller “Night of the Living Dead,” which, as it happens, was filmed just an hour away from this southwestern corner of Pennsylvania.

The culprit, these people argued, was hydraulic fracturing, a method of extracting natural gas that involves blasting underground rock with a cocktail of water, sand and chemicals.

Gas companies countered that the horror stories described in Pennsylvania and at other meetings held recently in Texas and Colorado are either fictions or not the companies’ fault. More regulation, the industry warned, would kill jobs and stifle production of gas, which the companies consider a clean-burning fuel the nation desperately needs.

...

The Environmental Protection Agency has been on a listening tour, soliciting advice from all sides on how to shape a forthcoming $1.9 million study of hydraulic fracturing’s effect on groundwater.

With the steep environmental costs of fossil fuel extraction apparent on beaches from Texas to Florida — and revelations that industry shortcuts and regulatory negligence may have contributed to the BP catastrophe in the gulf — gas prospectors are finding a cold reception for their assertions that their drilling practices are safe.

“The industry has argued there are no documented cases of hydraulic fracturing contaminating groundwater,” said Dencil Backus, a resident of nearby Mt. Pleasant Township, at Thursday night’s hearing. “Our experience in southwestern Pennsylvania suggests that this cannot possibly be true.”

Matt Pitzarella, a spokesman for Range Resources, a Texas-based natural gas producer, acknowledged that the gulf spill had increased public concern about any sort of drilling activity. “However, when people can review the facts, void of the strong emotions the gulf elicits, they can see the stark contrast between high-risk, deep offshore oil drilling and much safer, much lower risk onshore natural gas development,” he said by e-mail.

In this part of the country, the potentially enormous natural gas play of the Marcellus Shale has many residents lining up to lease their land to gas prospectors. Estimates vary on the precise size of the Marcellus Shale, which stretches from West Virginia across much of Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio and into the Southern Tier of New York. But by any estimate, the gas deposit is huge — perhaps as much as 500 trillion cubic feet. (New York State uses a little over 1.1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas each year.)

An industry-financed study published this week suggested that as much as $6 billion in government revenue and up to 280,000 jobs could be at stake in the Marcellus Shale region.

Fracking has been around for decades, and it is an increasingly prominent tool in the effort to unlock previously unreachable gas reserves. The oil and gas industry estimates that 90 percent of the more than 450,000 operating gas wells in the United States rely on hydraulic fracturing.

Roughly 99.5 percent of the fluids typically used in fracking, the industry says, are just water and sand, with trace amounts of chemical thickeners, lubricants and other compounds added to help the process along. The cocktail is injected thousands of feet below the water table and, the industry argues, can’t possibly be responsible for growing complaints of spoiled streams and wells. But critics say that the relationship between fracking fluids and groundwater contamination has never been thoroughly studied — and that proving a link has been made more difficult by oil and gas companies that have jealously guarded as trade secrets the exact chemical ingredients used at each well.

Several other concerns linger over fracking, as well as other aspects of gas drilling — including the design and integrity of well casings and the transport and potential spilling of chemicals and the millions of gallons of water required for just one fracking job.

The recent string of accidents in the oil and gas industries — including the gulf spill and a blowout last month at a gas field in Clearfield County, Pa., that spewed gas and wastewater for 16 hours — has unnerved residents and regulators.

“There is extraordinary economic potential associated with the development of Marcellus Shale resources,” said Representative Joe Sestak, Democrat of Pennsylvania, in a statement Friday announcing $1 million for a federal study of water use impacts in the Delaware Water Basin. However, “there is also great risk.” He said, “One way to ensure proper development is to understand the potential impacts.”

Amy Mall, a senior policy analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the scrutiny was long overdue. “I think it’s all helping to shine a spotlight on this entire industry,” she said. “Corners are sometimes cut, and regulations simply aren’t strong enough.”

Fears of fracking’s impact on water supplies prompted regulators overseeing the Delaware Water Basin to curtail gas exploration until the effects could be more closely studied. New York State lawmakers are contemplating a moratorium.

At the national level, in addition to the E.P.A. study, a Congressional investigation of gas drilling and fracturing, led by House Energy and Commerce Committee, intensified last week with demands sent to several companies for details on their operations — particularly how they handled the slurry of water and chemicals that flowed back from deep within a well.

A renewed, if unlikely, push is also under way to pass federal legislation that would undo an exemption introduced under the Bush administration that critics say freed hydraulic fracturing from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Last month, Wyoming introduced some of the nation’s toughest rules governing fracturing, including provisions that require companies to disclose the ingredients in their fracturing fluids to state regulators — though specifically not to the public.

Gas drillers, responding to the increased scrutiny and eyeing the expansive and lucrative new gas plays in Appalachia, are redoubling their efforts to stave off federal oversight, in some cases by softening their rigid positions on fracking-fluid disclosure. Last week, Range Resources went so far as to announce its intent to disclose the contents of its fracking fluids to Pennsylvania regulators and to publish them on the company’s Web site.

“We should have done this a long time ago,” said Mr. Pitzarella, the Range spokesman. “There are probably no health risks with the concentrations that we’re utilizing. But if someone has that concern, then it’s real and you have to address it.”

Environmental groups welcomed that, but said that clear and broad federal jurisdiction would still be needed.

“Any one accident might not be on the scale of the Deepwater Horizon disaster,” said Ms. Mall. “But accidents are happening all the time, and there’s no regime in place that broadly protects the health of communities and the surrounding environment where drilling is being done.”

That was a common theme at the meeting Thursday night.

“I can take you right now to my neighbors who have lost their water supplies,” Mr. Backus said to the handful of E.P.A. regulators on hand. “I can take you also to places where spills have killed fish and other aquatic life.”

“Corporations have no conscience,” he added. “The E.P.A. must give them that conscience.”

LINK

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Tragic Gas Well Explosion TODAY Kills Two People

2010-07-23T18:52:00.005-04:00

Kate Sinding's Blog
SWITCHBOARD
Natural Resources Defense Coucil
July 23, 2010

Tragically, two people were killed on Friday when a gas well exploded in Indiana Township, Pennsylvania. Black smoke belched from the well for hours, and firefighters are still at the scene trying to salvage the area. The well is situated in a rural, wooded area-albeit only 15 miles northeast of Pittsburgh-keeping the human toll of this tragic accident thankfully low.

But this explosion is not an anomaly. Rather, it is the third explosion of the summer in the Marcellus Shale, and only one incident in a long list of accidents, spills, leaks, and unexplained health complaints. On June 3, a gas well in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, erupted into a 75-foot geyser of gas, wastewater, and sludge. It could not be controlled until after the well had spewed 35,000 gallons of waste, over the course of 16 hours. The company didn't install an appropriate pressure-control system-a basic safety requirement. Four days later, a Marcellus gas well in West Virginia, just southwest of Pittsburgh, exploded and severely burned seven people.

The gas industry is expanding voraciously in Pennsylvania, drilling more and more wells every day. Well pads, condensate tanks, waste pits, pipelines, and access roads are often placed only a few hundred feet from residential homes. A single well pad can contain 16 wells, spaced as little as 10 feet apart - shale gas drilling has industrialized countless acres of rural landscape and is already starting to encroach upon neighborhoods and schools. Reports of air pollution, water contamination, fish kills, livestock deaths, and health problems are piling up in Wyoming, Ohio, Colorado, West Virginia, Arkansas, Texas, and right (here) in Pennsylvania.

... The BP Gulf disaster serves as a potent reminder of the risks associated with unchecked, unregulated fossil fuel extraction. When drillers screw up, tragedies ensue.

CLICK HERE to read more.

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New DEP Marcellus Shale Examiner Newsletter

2010-07-23T18:41:00.002-04:00

The Department of Environmental Protection is launching a new weekly e-newsletter on Marcellus Shale natural gas issues called the Marcellus Shale Examiner. The following is from the sign-up webpage just put online--
In the past three years, Pennsylvania has become the epicenter of natural gas exploration with dozens of companies seeking to capitalize on the abundant natural resources in the Marcellus Shale formation. The consequences of this rapidly growing industry affect us all.
In the coming months, policy makers will be working on important issues related to drilling in Pennsylvania. From enacting a severance tax so large drilling firms pay their fair share, to writing laws that could affect landowners’ rights when it comes to drilling on or under their property, there will be a tremendous amount of focus on drilling-related issues.
To follow all of these developments, register now for the Marcellus Shale Examiner. This weekly e-newsletter will chronicle the latest news on Marcellus Shale activities, including:
-- How county and local governments and emergency responders are handling the drilling rush taking place in their backyards;
-- How state agencies are working to protect Pennsylvania's natural resources and keep communities safe;
-- How the public and landowners are responding to pressures to lease their land or tracts in their neighborhoods for drilling;
-- How drilling companies operating in Pennsylvania have received billions of dollars from foreign nations and large multinational corporations that are anxious to get a piece of the action; and
-- How state officials are addressing the issues associated with drilling.
Whether you are a citizen, public official, business leader, environmentalist or emergency responder, it's important that you understand the impact drilling into the Marcellus Shale has on our communities today and what it will mean for our state tomorrow.
LINK

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State rule targets chloride levels

2010-07-18T21:35:00.004-04:00

By Robert Swift (Harrisburg Bureau Chief)
citizensvoice.com
Published: July 17, 2010

HARRISBURG - A proposed state rule to limit the concentration in waterways of a salt compound produced by the Marcellus Shale drilling process is under challenge.

The proposal by the Department of Environmental Protection would align the state standard for allowable chloride levels with national criteria used to protect freshwater plant and animal species. The existing state chloride standard was developed mainly to protect water supplies.

Fish and aquatic life can't survive when high levels of chloride are present. Chloride can corrode metals and affect the taste of food products.

The rule is being considered by the Environmental Quality Board as environmentalists warn that increased drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale formation will produce wastewater contributing to high levels of chloride to streams and groundwater.

Chloride occurs naturally in ancient rock formations that once formed seabeds and are reached by the drilling for deep gas pockets.

But chloride can also contaminate waterways through agricultural runoff and discharges from industries and wastewater treatment plants.

The chloride rule is a separate issue from a broader rule to limit pollution in wastewater from natural gas drilling in the final stages of regulatory action. The rule gives drillers several options to treat wastewater.

Under the chloride rule, the DEP would follow toxicity data on the impact of chlorides on plant aquatic life set by the federal Environmental Protection Agency in a 1988 study.

Both environmental and industry groups argue the 1988 data is outdated.

A coalition of environmental groups, including Clean Water Action and the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, note that DEP has the authority to adopt standards more stringent than federal criteria. They want new studies on chloride contamination that focus on aquatic life in Pennsylvania.

The Pennsylvania Coal Association suggests other industries are adversely affected by the focus on Marcellus Shale drilling.

"The proposed regulation does have the potential to again sweep in a wide range of many other Pennsylvania industries, including the mining industry, who to date have not been generally required, to sample for, or treat, chloride in their wastewater discharges," the association said.

This week the state Independent Regulatory Review Commission urged DEP to rewrite the proposal.

"We agree that basing the new criteria on outdated data when more recent data is available is not reasonable," the commissioners said.

LINK

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Posting and Bonding: PennDOT’s Solution to Protecting Roads

2010-07-18T20:40:00.006-04:00

photo: Splashdown!

by Wes Skillings
Rocket-Courier
7/15/2010

You may have noticed all the secondary state roadways posted with weight restrictions in this area. In Bradford County, there are sections of 112 different state roads ranging in length from a quarter of a mile to more than 17 miles. That’s more than 600 miles of state roads with restricted weight limits, and PennDOT claims about 515 miles of posted roads in Susquehanna County.

PennDOT was burned this spring, as were local motorists who found themselves trying to negotiate roads that, through the combination of excess gas well traffic, oversized trucks and the spring thaw, were virtually impossible to drive. That doesn’t even count the many miles of township roads affected in the various counties.

“What happened last winter/spring will not happen again this year,” vowed PennDOT engineers in District 4-0, which includes Susquehanna and Wyoming Counties, in recent presentations to gas drillers.

(See Splashdown post: "PennDot Websites Offer Gas Drilling-related Road Info")

The options for those oversized vehicles that have been bonded for posted roads are simple, according to PennDOT: rebuild the roads or don’t use them between November and April. That sentiment is no doubt echoed in District 3-0, which includes Bradford and Sullivan Counties.

The sprouting of literally hundreds of 10-ton weight limit signs has some local residents and business owners confused. The gas drillers and their contractors know the story and are familiar with both posting and bonding and the road maintenance agreements preferred by some municipalities. The gas companies prefer the latter and many townships are happy to rely on that option. However, PennDOT relies strictly on posting and bonding for its roads and bridges.
...

The good news is that there is a “local traffic” provision under PennDOT’s Rules & Regulations Governing the Use of Weight Restricted (Posted) Highways. The applicable chapter and section of the Vehicle Code states it thusly: “Over-posted-weight local traffic may exceed posted weight limits unless the posting authority determines that an over-posted-weight vehicle or vehicles being driven to or from a particular destination or destinations are likely to damage the highway.”

Unfortunately, there is some subjectivity involved in this assessment, but it seems unlikely that a backhoe on a flatbed, for instance, would be deemed as likely to damage the highway.

Prove You’re Local

You may need to provide proof of local traffic status if your load exceeds 10 tons, and that may require a shipping order or bill of lading which shows a destination on a posted highway. The business or company that is contracting the hauler might have to certify “the local traffic nature of the activity” on paper with the company letterhead for the hauler to exhibit if stopped by state or local police.

If your vehicle does not comply with the definition of local traffic, you will require a permit as an over-posted-weight vehicle. There are various types of permits covering specific roads and destinations to multiple roads and destinations. There is also the excess maintenance agreement, which requires a response within 24 hours from written notification. That means maintenance or restoration must begin within 24 hours of that notification or the permit may be revoked. This has already happened to gas drillers in this area, as has the closing of roads until they are adequately repaired.

PennDOT has informed gas drillers in this region of the following expectations: 1.repair of all outstanding roadway damage; 2. “development and implement a process” in which they can respond to “necessary road repairs” within 24 hours, and 3. a written plan must be submitted to PennDOT by Oct. 1 of this year “addressing how the user will prevent road damage and facilitate necessary repairs in the winter.”

And what, besides excess maintenance, permit revocation, base repair, “rough road” signage and a permitting and revocation process is regarded as the “standard of care” for a bonded road? It is known as the Safe and Passable Road Criteria, and here are the main questions PennDOT asked to determine if that standard has been compromised:

Will the road condition cause an accident?

Is road condition likely to cause damage to vehicles or personal property?

Does the roadway meet driver expectations?

Does a driver have to decrease speed or travel in the opposite lane to avoid road damage?

Can a passenger car or motorcycle traverse the state route?

Local Posted Roads

... The posting of roads is a way of requiring heavy haulers to be responsible for excess maintenance of roads that were not designed to support that kind of traffic. As for the bonding part, it is essentially a performance bond through an insurer, letter of credit, certified or cashier’s check that will ensure that excess maintenance costs will be paid.

The amount of security required depends on a number of factors, but it is generally $12,500 per linear mile of paved highway and $6,000 per linear mile of unpaved. Township roads may be posted and bonded, too.

Exempt from posting and bonding are emergency vehicles, school buses, government- and utility-owned vehicles and vehicles owned by their contractors when constructing or maintaining a posted highway. Then there are “vehicles including farm trucks and implements of husbandry, traveling to or from a residence, commercial establishment or farm located on a posted highway or on a route which can be only reached by using a posted highway… unless they cause excess damage to the highway.”

Most of the information for this article came from PennDOT sources, including Title 75 Vehicles (Vehicle Code) under Chapter 49.

CLICK HERE for complete article.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Sunday Matinee: BENZENE TOXICITY

2010-07-18T13:51:00.002-04:00

Thank you Elizabeth Burns, ThePolylineLawsuit.com

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

2 NEW REPORTS

2010-07-16T13:06:00.003-04:00

PEC Releases Report on Marcellus Shale Development

Recommendations and Findings on Environmental Policy Needs for Pennsylvania

July 13, 2010- The Pennsylvania Environmental Council (PEC) released a report calling for swift action on new regulations and greater oversight of drilling and extraction of natural gas from the Marcellus Shale formation, a major gas field that lies deep beneath much of Pennsylvania.

Called "Developing the Marcellus Shale," the report challenges state government and the natural gas industry to adopt more stringent standards for drilling and extraction to prevent the kind of environmental impacts that have occurred throughout Pennsylvania's industrial past.

The report also includes a number of specific legislative and regulatory changes that PEC believes should be made to minimize the risk of accidents, environmental damage, and public health hazards stemming from drilling operations.

DOWNLOAD Developing the Marcellus Shale

LINK

Beneath the Surface: A Survey of Environmental Risks from Shale Gas Development | Worldwatch Institute

7/16/2010
Washington, D.C.- Improved drilling techniques have unlocked vast new reserves of shale gas, a resource that could be large enough to displace significant amounts of coal, and an energy source that emits less than half the carbon dioxide. But growing shale gas development has raised both environmental questions and public controversy. A new independent assessment by the Worldwatch Institute concludes that improved adherence to drilling best practice and better regulatory oversight are essential to assure environmental and public protection as shale gas production continues to expand.

The report, Addressing Environmental Risks from Shale Gas Development, details what happens beneath the surface during horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing in deep shale formations, evaluating the risks to local water quality and the environment, as well as the technologies and policies needed to overcome them.

"Microseismic data have shown us that a properly designed hydraulic fracture job stimulates gas production only within the shale formations, which are typically hundreds of feet thick and thousands of feet deeper than drinking water supplies," says Mark Zoback, a geophysicist at Stanford University and a report co-author. "For this reason, the risk of fractures propagating from deep shale formations to underground sources of drinking water, which has been the subject of much debate, appears to be extremely low."

The report concludes that faulty well construction, in particular poorly cemented steel casings needed to isolate the gas from shallow formations, as well as above-ground contamination due to leaks and spills of fracturing fluids and waste water, pose more significant risks to the environment. In addition, continued study and improved communication of the environmental risks associated with both individual wells and large scale shale gas development are essential for society to make well-informed decisions about its energy future.

"Although the technologies, best practices, and regulations that can help minimize these risks exist, they have not yet been universally adopted," says Worldwatch Fellow and co-author Saya Kitasei. "Experiences in Colorado, Wyoming, Pennsylvania, and New York demonstrate that strong public pressure exists for stricter oversight."

The report, authored by Mark Zoback of Stanford University, Saya Kitasei of the Worldwatch Institute, and Bradford Copithorne of Environmental Defense Fund, is the second in a series of briefing papers from Worldwatch's Natural Gas and Sustainable Energy Initiative, which examines critical environmental and policy issues surrounding natural gas.

Download Addressing Environmental Risks from Shale Gas Development by Mark Zoback, Saya Kitasei, and Bradford Copithorne.

LINK

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

$400,000 fine for Marcellus Shale blowout

2010-07-15T12:41:00.004-04:00

By Andrew Maykuth, Staff Writer
The Philadelphia Inquirer
July 14, 2010

HARRISBURG - In the heftiest fine levied thus far against a Marcellus Shale natural-gas driller, state environmental officials socked a Texas company Tuesday with a $400,000 penalty for failures that caused last month's well blowout in central Pennsylvania.

John Hanger, secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), sharply rebuked EOG Resources Inc. for failing to maintain control of the Clearfield County well, which erupted June 3 and spewed natural gas and toxic wastewater for 16 hours before it could be capped.

Hanger said that EOG had employed only one mechanism to keep the high-pressure gas well under control and that that measure had failed at the hands of employees who were not certified in well-control techniques.

He also said EOG, which is based in Houston, wasted valuable hours by failing to promptly notify officials about the blowout.

Rather than calling DEP's 24-hour emergency line, the driller left three phone messages at night with a DEP employee who was on vacation. Then, the Texans twice tried calling the county sheriff, who in Pennsylvania is not responsible for emergency response. Finally, three hours after the blowout, EOG called 911.

"This incident was preventable and should have never occurred," Hanger said at a news conference Tuesday at which he presented the findings of an independent oil-industry consultant.

John G. Vittitow Sr., a Fort Worth, Texas, petroleum engineer hired by the DEP to investigate the accident, blamed it on human error and procedures that fell short of the industry's best practices.

"I don't know any company that would cut corners like this, on this kind of well," Vittitow said.

The DEP, in addition to the penalties aimed at EOG and a contractor, C.C. Forbes L.L.C., also issued an industry-wide edict Tuesday setting stricter well-closure procedures aimed at preventing similar accidents.

Gary L. Smith, EOG's regional vice president, said in a statement that the company regretted the accident.

"EOG has worked cooperatively with the PADEP to resolve all issues," he said. "We will be implementing the new operational procedures as defined in the letter to all gas well operators and look forward to resuming our activities in the Commonwealth."

The DEP, after being criticized for accommodating the natural-gas industry as the Marcellus Shale frenzy took hold, has adopted a more stern tone this year as criticism has mounted about the industry's practices. About 1,600 Marcellus Shale wells are expected to be drilled this year.

The EOG fine surpassed the $240,000 penalty that the DEP levied in April against Cabot Oil & Gas Co., a Texas driller whose wells in Susquehanna County were blamed last year for polluting an aquifer supplying drinking water to at least 14 households in Dimock Township.

By contrast, the EOG blowout at a rural Clearfield County hunting club resulted in modest damage: There were no injuries; the well did not ignite; and the site has been cleaned up. Though some of the 35,000 gallons of wastewater that the DEP says gushed from the well contaminated a nearby spring, Hanger said that the pollution appeared to be dissipating and that he expected no permanent damage.

But Hanger, who repeatedly has called on the industry to adopt "world-class" standards to match the magnitude of the Marcellus resource, said he intended to send a strong signal to the industry with Tuesday's announcement.

"It's vital, in my mind, that this industry has strong oversight for its own good and for the good of the people of Pennsylvania," he said.

Vittitow, DEP's consultant, said the accident occurred during a well-completion phase, when a contractor - C.C. Forbes - took over the site to clean out obstructions left in the well after the drilling process was finished.

Rather than having multiple barriers to prevent high-pressure gas from escaping from the well, Vittitow said, EOG employed a blowout preventer that had only one fail-safe mechanism. That device, a pipe ram, is designed to clamp around the drilling pipe, sealing off the well bore.

As gas began to leak, the pipe ram was closed. But EOG's on-site supervisor ordered the drill pipe to be pulled up through the clamped closure, damaging the pipe ram's rubber seal. Over the next 90 minutes, the drillers lost control of the well. With no other backup, gas and wastewater shot as high as 75 feet into the air.

"This was just a bad decision, and it caught up with them," said Vittitow. "They were just doing what they've done in other places."

The DEP's order to the industry Tuesday includes a directive requiring operators to have at least two functioning barriers in place during completion operations.

The Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry trade group, said that most operators have already incorporated the new practices. "Our industry is committed to continuously enhancing and improving our operations, and leveraging the opportunities of the Marcellus in a manner that's safe, efficient, and beneficial to all Pennsylvanians," said Kathryn Z. Klaber, the coalition's executive director.

State Rep. Camille "Bud" George (D., Clearfield), chair of the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, who has called for more rigorous oversight of the industry, said he was troubled by EOG's "apparent disregard" of best industry practices.

"No human endeavor is going to be mistake-free," he said, "but the report suggests disregard for basic safeguards, which should trouble everyone."

Coincidentally, the DEP's announcement occurred the same day as the Pennsylvania Environmental Council released a 47-page report calling for a severance tax on gas production and greater regulation of the industry to avoid the state's experiences from unregulated extraction of coal and timber.

"We have to get this right," said Don Welsh, the council's president. "Pennsylvania has been through a whole lot of resource extraction in the past, and we were left a big bill to clean it up."

LINK

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

GAS FIRES

2010-07-15T11:56:00.010-04:00

In Pennsylvania:
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

Commonwealth News Bureau
Room 308, Main Capitol Building
Harrisburg PA., 17120
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

07/14/2010

CONTACT:

William Rathbun, Department of Environmental Protection

717-787-1323

DEP Investigates Fire at Susquehanna County Natural Gas Well Pad

HARRISBURG -- Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Hanger said his agency is looking into the cause of a July 13 fire at a natural gas well pad in Susquehanna County.

The fire occurred at a separator tank at a site operated by Chesapeake Energy in Auburn Township. The tank ignited at approximately 8 p.m. and was extinguished at around 10 p.m. by local emergency responders working with the company. The well was producing natural gas from the Marcellus Shale formation through a pipeline away from the wellhead to a production unit where a valve failed, leaked natural gas and caught fire.

“Fortunately, this incident does not appear to have caused any significant environmental contamination thanks to the prompt response efforts of the local emergency responders and the company,” said Hanger, noting that no injuries or evacuations were reported as a result of the incident. “We’ll be investigating this operation closely to see what can be learned by both the department and gas well operators.”

Chesapeake notified the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency of the fire at approximately 8:30 p.m. DEP dispatched an oil and gas inspector immediately to the scene to assess the conditions. The site will remain closed until repairs can be made and DEP completes its investigation.

Chesapeake Energy has been issued 698 permits to develop natural gas in Pennsylvania, 697 of which are located within the Marcellus Shale. The company operates 187 wells in the state, 182 of which are in the Marcellus Shale.

For more information, visit www.depweb.state.pa.us and click on “Oil & Gas.”

In West Virginia:
Gas drilling fire burns 7 workers in W. Virginia
July 15, 2010
Science News

A fireball and explosion burned seven members of a crew drilling for natural gas at an abandoned coal mine in West Virginia on Monday, the second big fire at an energy formation known as the Marcellus Shale in less than a week, a government worker said.

Local media reports said the injuries were not life-threatening.

“Seven workers were taken to the hospital for burns,” Prentice Cline, an Occupational Safety and Health Administration assistant in Charleston, West Virginia said.

AB Resources PA LLC of Brecksville, Ohio is the operator of the well, while privately-held Chief Oil & Gas, holds responsibility to drill and complete the well, local media reports said.

Cline said five of the workers work for Union Drilling, Inc, headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, and two work for BJ Services Co of Houston.

The vast Marcellus Shale field runs through West Virginia and Pennsylvania. On Thursday, a well operated by EOG Resources Inc in Pennsylvania blew out when a drilling team lost control of it while preparing to extract gas using the hydraulic fracturing technique.

Chief was unavailable for comment.

Local media reports said the natural gas drilling operation near Moundsville was less than a week old.

Kevin Book, an analyst at ClearView Energy Partners, said it appeared West Virginia fire was also caused by workers getting ready to use hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” to get to the gas.

Critics of fracking say domestic water supplies are contaminated by chemicals that are forced into the ground along with sand and millions of gallons of water to free gas from fissures in the shale a mile or more underground.

Union Drilling, Chiefs site contractor, had drilled the first 1,000 feet of a second well on the property and was preparing to install surface casing when crews apparently hit and ignited the methane, local reports said.

LINK

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Rendell advisers getting jobs with shale gas firms

2010-07-13T10:40:00.004-04:00

By Andrew Maykuth and Angela Couloumbis
Inquirer Staff Writers
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Tues., July 13, 2010

Another member of Gov. Rendell's inner circle has left to work for a Marcellus Shale natural gas producer, the third high-ranking administration official in the last year to move directly into the fast-growing industry.

Sarah Battisti, one of Rendell's five deputy chiefs of staff, has taken a government affairs position with BG Group, a British gas company that recently bought a stake in Pennsylvania's natural gas business, Steve Crawford, Rendell's chief of staff, said Monday.

With seven months remaining in Rendell's term, Battisti's departure could signal a migration of experienced administration aides into the natural gas industry, which is regulated by the state Department of Environmental Protection and is deeply enmeshed in a legislative debate over proposals to tax gas extracted from the Marcellus Shale formation.

"One thing the industry appears to have at their ready disposal is money, so they're hiring lots of people to help with their lobbying or permitting problems," Crawford said.

Battisti's departure comes two months after Barbara Sexton, the executive deputy secretary of environmental protection, left to work in governmental affairs for Chesapeake Energy Corp., an Oklahoma company that is one of the nation's largest gas exploration firms.

And last fall, K. Scott Roy, Rendell's executive deputy chief of staff, raised eyebrows when he went to work for Range Resources Corp. Roy was chief liaison between the governor's office and the gas industry and environmental groups, and his hiring came soon after Rendell dropped efforts last year to enact a natural gas tax. The governor said Roy's new job had nothing to do with his decision.

...

Natural-gas drilling has increased dramatically in Pennsylvania in the last two years as operators have tapped into the mile-deep formation that underlies much of Pennsylvania and several surrounding states. The drilling is contributing to an economic boom in rural Pennsylvania, but also triggering environmental protests.

Unlike Roy's, Battisti's departure comes as relations between the administration and the industry have become frosty amid Rendell's campaign to enact a severance tax on gas production. In recent months, state agencies have churned out a stream of news releases about enforcement actions against gas operators for environmental violations.

Crawford said that there had been a "distinct chilling of the industry's willingness to work with the administration. At the same time, there have been a series of chilling events that have disastrous implications for the industry's image."

In one of the latest incidents, a well operated by EOG Resources Inc. blew out on June 3 in Clearfield County and spewed out of control for 16 hours. DEP is scheduled to release an investigator's "very disturbing" findings about the incident Tuesday, Crawford said.

Under Pennsylvania's so-called revolving-door law, state officials who leave government service are barred from lobbying their former agencies for one year.

Crawford said Battisti would not be permitted to lobby the governor's office or the Departments of Environmental Protection and Conservation and Natural Resources.

Dispute has industry, mineral owners nervous

2010-07-11T00:01:00.000-04:00

BY JOHN-LAURENT TRONCHE

July 07, 2008
Ft. Worth Business Press
July 10, 2010

One name above all others strikes fear into the hearts of Texas oil and gas operators: Garza, or more specifically, the Supreme Court of Texas case No. 05-0466, Coastal Oil & Gas Corp. and Coastal Oil & Gas USA LP v. Garza Energy Trust, et al.

The lawsuit stems from a 2005 Hidalgo County dispute in which Garza Energy Trust was granted $14 million for the court's findings that the trust had been the victim of subsurface trespass due to hydraulic fracturing.

Hydraulic fracturing is a process in which a sand-water mixture is pumped down the well-bore, thousands of feet down to crack and split the shale, providing access to the natural gas stored within the formation. Without hydraulic fracturing, little gas can be retrieved.

The problem is, however, that fracture stimulation isn't a precise science, and doesn't always crack the shale in equal portions. In some ways, cracking the shale evenly could be thought of as trying to hammer a dinner plate into equal pieces - it's not easy.

"You may plan a fracture that will go 1,000 feet, and it might go 2,000 feet or 400 feet," said John S. Lowe, a professor of energy law at Southern Methodist University's Dedman School of Law.

In the Garza case, the 332nd District Court of Hidalgo County determined in 2005 that Garza had been the victim of subsurface trespass when Mission Resources Inc. (later acquired by Coastal) fractured the rock below and, in doing so, crossed over into property belonging to Garza.

In an appeal to the Texas Appellate Court of Corpus Christi, the pro-Garza ruling was upheld, prompting a second appeal that has made its way to the top of the judicial dog pile, the state's Supreme Court in June 2005, where it has remained for several years awaiting a decision. Industry officials say a decision could come at any time.

No matter which way it goes, that forthcoming decision could have far-reaching repercussions.

Trouble down below

The issue at hand is a difficult one to address, said John Holden, a partner at Dallas-based Jackson Walker LLP.

The burden of proof lies in the hands of both Garza and Coastal. Garza must prove Coastal knowingly trespassed whereas Coastal must prove the opposite, or show that Garza sustained no damages in the process.

But knowing what has happened thousands of feet below isn't easy.

"How do you prove any fracing was correct or incorrect in an area that is not precise to begin with?" asked Holden, who has practiced natural resources and energy law for more than 30 years. "Either side has to prove what's going down below, and that's hard for both sides."

Lowe agrees the case is a tricky nut to crack.

"It's possible to ascertain [the trespass]," Lowe said. "You can bring the scientific evidence, the scientific testing to see whether or not a trespass has occurred but I'm not sure you can rely on it 100 percent."

In short, the situation presents a Catch-22 dilemma in which no ruling would present a clear winner.

Should the court rule in favor of Coastal, reversing the two lower courts' decisions, then it deviates from standard, above-ground trespassing cases, Lowe said. But if the Supreme Court again rules in favor of Garza, then post-decision drilling will become significantly more conservative.

"The next guy who plans a frac job in Fort Worth is going to be told by his bosses, "You better be damn careful that you do not cross over the property line," Lowe said. "So how do you do that? Well, you just hold back. So that means you're less likely - maybe - to efficiently fracture, and then society pays because we will leave more oil and gas in the ground."

Big oil and gas weighs in

In July 2005, Chesapeake Energy Corp.'s Raymond Roush, senior attorney, sent a letter to the state's Supreme Court on behalf of some of the oil and gas industry's heaviest hitters to express deep concern "over the potentially devastating impact" a ruling in favor of Garza could have.

"The effect on the economy of the state of Texas if the decision in this case is left to stand will be devastating," Roush wrote in the statement, "and the impact on the nation's developed reserves of oil and gas put into question at a time when the United States of America needs more than ever to be as energy self-sufficient as it can."

Writing for the Independent Producers Amicus Group, Roush predicts nothing short of Judgment Day for the industry should the ruling stand.

"The decision of the trial court and the Thirteenth District Court of Appeals must not be allowed to stand," Roush said. "The decision is wrong, and portends nothing short of chaos and disaster for oil and gas operators in the state of Texas but conceivably in every other oil and gas producing state as well."

The Railroad Commission of Texas' Victor Carrillo doesn't share Roush's dire prediction, but does believe the effect could have a chilling effect on a hot industry - one whose record levels haven't been seen since 1985.

"Some folks say it would end exploration of the Barnett Shale," said Carrillo, commissioner of the organization that oversees all drilling statewide. "I don't go quite that far but it would certainly slow things down. We would see fewer wells drilled and ultimately a decrease in oil and gas production for the state."

Like Lowe, Carrillo said a pro-Garza ruling could put increased restrictions on hydraulic fracturing, which is the most-popular method of breaking the shale for the retrieval of natural gas.

"Without the ability to fracture those wells, the Barnett Shale trend would not be economic," Carrillo said. "You have to fracture the wells to economically drill and produce the minerals."

Waiting impatiently

Despite the oil and gas industry's malaise, Lowe said above-ground precedent could supercede its grim predictions of a lawsuit-heavy future.

"There's no reason not to be consistent and to apply the ordinary rules of trespass just like we would to you and me," Lowe said. "If the facts show there was bad dealing by a company or that there was substantial damage, then hammer them."

The other side of the coin involves the argument that "if there was property beneath you, and you aren't using it then I can go in and use it," he said.

Ultimately, the Supreme Court's decision is anything but predictable.

"As so often the law is, you have reasonable positions on both sides," Lowe said. "This is a very hard case for the Texas Supreme Court to decide."

Carrillo puts it simply.

"Yea," he said. "It's a big, big case."

LINK

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Concerns Spread Over Environmental Costs of Producing Shale Gas

2010-07-09T12:35:00.004-04:00

"What legacy will we leave? Will we continue to burn the furniture to heat the house?"
-John Quigley, PA secretary of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources
By JOEL KIRKLAND of ClimateWire
nytimes.com

Published: July 9, 2010

PITTSBURGH -- Around suppertime on June 3 in Clearfield County, Pa., a geyser of natural gas and sludge began shooting out of a well called Punxsutawney Hunting Club 36. The toxic stew of gas, salt water, mud and chemicals went 75 feet into the air for 16 hours. Some of this mess seeped into a stream northeast of Pittsburgh.

Four days later, as authorities were cleaning up the debris in Pennsylvania, an explosion burned seven workers at a gas well on the site of an abandoned coal mine outside of Moundsville, W.Va., just southwest of Pittsburgh.

The back-to-back emergencies were like a five-alarm fire for John Hanger, secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. For a brief moment, the cable news channels turned their attention away from the BP PLC oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico to the apparent trouble in the nation's expanding onshore natural gas fields.

The events added force to a tough public debate in Pennsylvania and New York and across northern Appalachia about how the environmental impacts of gas drilling balance against the economic benefits of gas and the role it could play in helping electric utilities transition to cleaner fuels.

When used to fire up a power plant, natural gas produces less air pollutants and half of the greenhouse gas emissions produced by conventional coal plants. But extracting the gas from deep sedimentary rock and shipping it to consumers is an industrial process. It requires massive amounts of water and reliable cement and pipe jobs. It also has wastewater-disposal issues and generates air pollution.

"This is a test for people in public life," Hanger says. "Do you get into public service to treat the gas industry fairly and protect our resources, or not? You don't have to choose between producing the gas and protecting our water."

The extent to which U.S. utilities will burn natural gas to slash carbon dioxide emissions tied to global warming is a national issue. But on the ground, where it's being produced, all politics is very local.

To continue reading, CLICK HERE.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

FracTracker.org !!!

2010-07-08T10:02:00.006-04:00

Health/environmental groups create a one-stop shop for Marcellus Shale-related data.
By Steve Mocarsky
timesleader.com
July 8, 2010

Two health and environmental organizations have teamed up to host a new website with a web-based tool for tracking and visualizing data related to gas extraction in the Marcellus Shale region.

FracTracker.org, hosted by the Foundation for Pennsylvania Watersheds and managed by the Center for Healthy Environments and Communities, or CHEC, of the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health, officially launched on June 29.

The site is a one-stop shop for uploading and downloading data about practically anything related to Marcellus Shale development, from well site locations to well blow-outs, and well drilling permit locations to well wastewater spills.

“It’s useful to researchers in that they can upload data to a common place to share. People can log on to see if there’s drilling near their home or school. And you can visualize the data – think Google Maps for Marcellus Shale,” said Samantha Malone, a communications specialist for CHEC.

Malone said anyone who registers for the website can upload data that can be overlaid on pre-existing maps.

AN INVALUABLE RESOURCE!

“One of the problems we find between academia and the public is that data doesn’t get translated in a way that is meaningful and understandable to the public. Here, you can literally see where gas well blowouts and drilling are occurring. And you can save those visualizations and share them,” Malone said.

Health data, such as incidences of cancer, can also be uploaded and overlaid on maps, Malone said.

Serious economic, environmental and public health concerns surround the natural gas extraction process, including road degradation, explosions and blowouts, agricultural, hunting and fishing impacts, water contamination and human exposure to volatile organic compounds, according to a press release from Pittsburgh-based Rhiza Labs, the software company that designed the website tools.

“For the first time ever, people across many disciplines will be able to collaborate directly with communities and citizens in the collection and analysis of data that track these impacts across the Marcellus Shale play,” the release states.

The website also hosts a blog on which to provide a forum for various groups to discuss drilling issues and “use data as a basis to collaborate and advocate for the health of communities in the Marcellus Shale region,” said John Dawes, executive director of the watersheds foundation.

Four meetings/training seminars are scheduled throughout the region during the next two months to acquaint researchers with using the website and assist in forming a data-sharing network. They are scheduled for Pittsburgh on July 22, Danville on July 29, Ithaca, N.Y., on Aug. 10 and Charleston, W. Va., on Aug. 13.

Space will be limited, but anyone interested in attending can make a request for an invitation by calling Malone at 412-624-9379 or e-mailing chec@pitt.edu.

LINK

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Governor Rendell Says Marcellus Shale Development Provides Economic Benefits; Severance Tax Must Provide Fair Share to Local Governments

2010-07-06T23:00:00.002-04:00

Says Work to Develop Fee on Natural Gas Extraction Should Begin Immediately

TOWANDA, Pa., July 6 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- During a visit to the most active county for Marcellus Shale drilling this year, Governor Edward G. Rendell today outlined the state's commitment to enacting a severance tax on natural gas extraction, saying such a levy should give a fair share to communities where drilling is taking place.

The Governor made his remarks as he signed Senate Bill 1042, the state's fiscal code. The bill allows for transfers into the General Fund to balance the state's fiscal year 2010-11 budget. The bill also contains language that affirms the commonwealth's intent to enact a severance tax by Oct. 1.

"The rich natural gas deposits in the Marcellus Shale represent a tremendous opportunity in the form of new jobs and economic stimulus to mostly rural communities across the commonwealth," said Governor Rendell. "Today, there are 1,300 more jobs in Bradford County in mining and other parts of the economy than there were a year ago.

"We have a responsibility to ensure that the economic benefits are balanced with the need to protect the local environment and the residents of communities where the work is being done.

"Along with the economic boom, the burgeoning natural gas industry is also creating a lot of new responsibilities and concerns that carry enormous costs for local communities," said Governor Rendell.

"The local and county governments where this drilling is taking place do not have the financial resources they need to address these concerns. That's why it is absolutely essential that the severance tax we enact pay these host municipalities their fair share. The drilling activity is going on now, so we need to start working on this tax now so there's no delay in getting them the financial resources they need."

To date this year, 1,164 natural gas wells have been drilled in Pennsylvania. Of that total, 564 have been drilled to access gas deposits in the Marcellus Shale, with 143 of those wells being drilled in Bradford County—the most of any county in the state this year.

The Department of Environmental Protection has also issued nearly 2,900 drilling permits this year, of which 1,172 were for Marcellus development. By comparison, 1,984 Marcellus permits were issued in all of 2009.

For more information on the fiscal year 2010-11 budget, visit www.pa.gov. For more information about natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania, visit www.depweb.state.pa.us.

Media contact: Gary Tuma; 717-783-1116

SOURCE Pennsylvania Office of the Governor

LINK

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Penn State Admits Gas Study Flaws

2010-07-03T11:57:00.005-04:00

Jon Bogle, Responsible Drilling Alliance

NorthcentralPA.com
July 1, 2010

WILLIAMSPORT-- In a response sent by Penn State Dean William Easterling to the Responsible Drilling Alliance (RDA), a non-profit organization based in Williamsport, the University admits that the original version of a natural gas industry study was flawed.

In the Penn State letter, Easterling states that in that initial version, “we found flaws in the way the report was written and presented to the public.” Easterling replies that the first report did not identify the sponsor of the research and he suggests, “…the authors may well have crossed the line between policy analysis and policy advocacy.”

Earlier this month, in a letter initiating correspondence between the two parties, RDA called on the university to disavow publicly papers conducted by Penn State researchers and funded by the Marcellus Shale Committee, a coalition of gas industry representatives.

RDA claims that the papers use the university’s reputation to portray the coalition’s greatly exaggerated claims of economic impact as legitimate research. In a continuation of this correspondence, RDA has released a follow-up letter to Penn State emphasizing the extent to which the industry group has touted the publication as “the Penn State report,” and used its widely contested findings to influence public opinion and political debate in favor of gas drilling in Pennsylvania. Once again, RDA asks the university to repudiate the methods the industry report represents and publicly disavow its findings.

Note: The initial correspondence prompted an Associated Press article, "PSU Drilling Study Questioned Over Industry Tie" Associated Press, Genaro C. Armas, June 14th, 2010. http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=10912385 Since then, the words "Penn State Report" have suddenly disappeared from industry internet sites but the various versions of the reports are still offered carrying the Penn State shield logo on their cover.

PSU's original study on Marcellus Shale
Letter to President Spanier
Dean Easterling's reply
RDA's response

To read these lettters, please download the attached PDFs below:

Attachment	Size
PSUStudyMarcellusShale072409.pdf	1.9 MB
openletter.pdf	30.48 KB
DeanEasterling.pdf	49.25 KB
Easterling-RDAletter.pdf	1.4 MB

responsibledrillingalliance@comcast.net
www.responsibledrillingalliance.org
LINK

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

RED ALERT! RED ALERT! Cattle from Tioga County Farm Quarantined after Coming in Contact with Natural Gas Drilling Wastewater

2010-07-01T15:40:00.004-04:00

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
Dept. of Environmental Protection
Commonwealth News Bureau
Room 308, Main Capitol Building
Harrisburg PA., 17120

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
07/1/2010

CONTACT:

Justin Fleming, Department of Agriculture

717-787-5085

HARRISBURG -- The Department of Agriculture announced today that it has quarantined cattle from a Tioga County farm after a number of cows came into contact with drilling wastewater from a nearby natural gas operation.

Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding said uncertainty over the quantity of wastewater the cattle may have consumed warranted the quarantine in order to protect the public from eating potentially contaminated beef.

“Cattle are drawn to the taste of salty water,” said Redding. “Drilling wastewater has high salinity levels, but it also contains dangerous chemicals and metals. We took this precaution in order to protect the public from consuming any of this potentially contaminated product should it be marketed for human consumption.”

Redding said 28 head of cattle were included in the quarantine, including 16 cows, four heifers and eight calves. Those cattle were out to pasture in late April and early May when a drilling wastewater holding pond on the farm of Don and Carol Johnson leaked, sending the contaminated water into an adjacent field where it created a pool. The Johnsons had noticed some seepage from the pond for as long as two months prior to the leak.

The holding pond was collecting flowback water from the hydraulic fracturing process on a well being drilled by East Resources Inc.

Grass was killed in a roughly 30- x 40-foot area where the wastewater had pooled. Although no cows were seen drinking the wastewater, tracks were found throughout the pool. The wet area extended about 200-300 feet into the pasture.

The cattle had potential access to the pool for a minimum of three days until the gas company placed a snow fence around the pool to restrict access.

Subsequent tests of the wastewater found that it contained chloride, iron, sulfate, barium, magnesium, manganese, potassium, sodium, strontium and calcium.

Redding said the main element of concern is the heavy metal strontium, which can be toxic to humans, especially in growing children. The metal takes a long time to pass through an animal’s system because it is preferentially deposited in bone and released in the body at varying rates, dependent on age, growth status and other factors. Live animal testing was not possible because tissue sampling is required.

The secretary also added that the quarantine will follow the recommended guidelines from the Food Animal Residue Avoidance and Depletion Program, as follows:
• Adult animals: hold from food chain for 6 months.
• Calves exposed in utero: hold from food chain for 8 months.
• Growing calves: hold from food chain for 2 years.

In response to the leak, the Department of Environmental Protection issued a notice of violation to East Resources Inc. and required further sampling and site remediation. DEP is evaluating the final cleanup report and is continuing its investigation of operations at the drilling site, as well as the circumstances surrounding the leaking holding pond.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Marcellus drillers want "forced pooling" to accompany severance tax

2010-06-29T08:53:00.005-04:00

by laura legere (staff writer)
thetimes-tribune.com
Published: June 29, 2010

Gas tax law could OK 'forced pooling'

Firms would drill from nearby site

The Marcellus Shale natural gas industry wants to see legislation attached to any severance tax adopted by the state that would force property owners who refuse leases to allow drillers to gather the gas beneath their land, an industry coalition leader said Monday.

Calling it the most economical and conservative land-use approach to drilling for gas, David Spigelmyer, Chesapeake Energy's regional vice president for government relations, said in a Times-Tribune editorial board meeting that "forced pooling" is a key element of any legislation the state's Marcellus drillers could support and is actively being discussed during budget negotiations in the capital.

Mr. Spigelmyer said he does not expect forced pooling to be adopted in the coming days as part of budget talks, but he said "an agreement" likely will emerge with the budget "to talk about (the severance tax) holistically" with other industry-supported legislation on forced pooling.

The Marcellus Shale Coalition, an organization of the state's Marcellus drillers, "has not said, 'Hell no'â€‰" to a severance tax, said Mr. Spigelmyer, the group's vice chairman. "We've said there needs to be a broader discussion."

A forced pooling statute would require landowners without gas leases to allow a company to drill under their land from a nearby leased property, and it would define the amount of royalties those holdout landowners are owed for their gas.

Eminent domain

Such a statute would help avoid an unnecessary proliferation of wells, Mr. Spigelmyer said, but critics say it is a form of eminent domain.

In May, State Rep. Camille "Bud" George, D-74, Houtzdale, Clearfield County, called it a "controversial, ugly provision" through which "an intrusive government would be depriving an individual's property rights to benefit private companies."

Limit zoning laws

As part of severance tax discussions, the industry also wants to limit municipal ordinances that attempt to regulate where gas drilling can occur - a development spurred by a state Supreme Court decision last year that opened the door for municipalities to have some control over where gas wells are located through zoning.

"We're willing to work with municipalities, but we're seeing ... an extraordinary number of ordinances that are coming into play that basically zone out development completely," Mr. Spigelmyer said. "We want to make sure we don't have ordinances in place that basically remove your rights."

Negotiations over a severance tax are at the center of ongoing state budget decisions, and Mr. Spigelmyer said Monday a Pennsylvania tax needs to look like those in other, competing shale-gas producing states.

Pennsylvania has benefitted from increased drilling without a severance tax, he said, but an unfair tax and recently introduced legislation to halt drilling in the state will deter development.

"I've already seen where companies have walked away from joint venture opportunities to invest in Pennsylvania because of the mere inference of a moratorium," he said.

"It has the potential to, and I think it already has, limited capital investment in the commonwealth."

LINK

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

According to an APNewsBreak: Strong chemicals used in Pa. drilling

2010-06-28T21:21:00.003-04:00

This week state environmental officials will publish, online, the first complete list of chemicals being used to hydraulically fracture natural gas wells in Pennsylvania.

The list was compiled using information drilling companies are required to provide.

Compounds associated with neurological problems or other serious health effects are on the list.

Environmentalists are concerned the chemicals are poisoning underground drinking water sources, while industry officials say the chemicals pose no threat because they are handled safely.

LINK to Marc Levy's AP article.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

State Enforcement Blitz Focuses on Trucks Hauling Drilling Waste Water

2010-06-25T08:56:00.002-04:00

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
Dept. of Environmental Protection
Commonwealth News Bureau
Room 308, Main Capitol Building
Harrisburg PA., 17120

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

06/23/2010

CONTACT:

Lt. Myra A. Taylor

717-783-5556

250 Vehicles Put Out of Service Due to Violations

HARRISBURG -- The Pennsylvania State Police placed 250 commercial vehicles out of service during a three-day enforcement effort last week that focused on trucks hauling waste water from Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling operations across the state, Commissioner Frank E. Pawlowski announced today.

Pawlowski said state troopers worked in partnership with personnel from the Department of Environmental Protection, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission and the federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration as part of Operation FracNET. In total, 1,137 trucks were inspected from June 14-16.

“Pennsylvania has experienced significant increases in heavy truck traffic in areas where Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling operations are taking place, particularly in Bradford, Clearfield, Susquehanna, Tioga and Washington counties,” Pawlowski said. “The process of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, requires significant amounts of water to be delivered to the sites and later trucked away.”

He said the enforcement effort centered on identifying commercial vehicle safety deficiencies that could lead to crashes.

Pawlowski said 131 of the 250 vehicles placed out of service were trucks hauling waste water. He said 669 traffic citations and 818 written warnings were issued as the result of waste water truck inspections. In addition, 23 of the 45 drivers placed out of service during the operation were waste water vehicle operators.

“As activities at natural gas sites continue to increase, it is important that everyone involved, including the waste transportation industry, understands Pennsylvania’s environmental and traffic safety laws and complies with them,” said DEP Secretary John Hanger.

The enforcement effort was conducted in areas covered by Pennsylvania State Police troops B, C, F, P and R.

For more information, visit www.psp.state.pa.us or call 717-783-5556.

Media contact: Lt. Myra A. Taylor, 717-783-5556

Editor’s Note: The following is a breakdown, by state police troop area, of the number of inspections conducted, number of vehicles placed out of service, and number of citations issued during Operation FracNET:

• Troop B (Allegheny, Fayette, Greene and Washington counties), 227 inspections; 57 vehicles placed out of service; 241 citations issued;
• Troop C (Clarion, Clearfield, Forest, Elk, Jefferson and McKean counties), 260 inspections; 29 vehicles placed out of service; 111 citations issued;
• Troop F (Cameron, Clinton, Lycoming, Montour, Northumberland, Potter, Snyder, Union and Tioga counties), 239 vehicles inspected; 33 vehicles placed out of service; 205 citations issued;
• Troop P (Bradford, Sullivan, Wyoming and part of Luzerne counties), 166 inspections; 66 vehicles placed out of service; 358 citations issued;
• Troop R (Lackawanna, Pike, Susquehanna and Wayne counties), 142 inspections; 25 vehicles placed out of service; 141 citations.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Methane concerns felt in Terry Twp.

2010-06-25T05:50:00.005-04:00

BY ERIC HRIN (STAFF WRITER)
thedailyreview.com
Published: June 25, 2010

TERRY TWP. - Roslyn Bohlander of Terry Township said she knew something was wrong when her cows wouldn't drink water from her family's well this past March.

"I drew water in the barn, and the water came out muddy looking," she said. "I gave all the animals water, thinking that it was simply a mud issue, that something had stirred up the well for some reason."

She called her sister, Jacqueline Place, to tell her about the problem. Place's residence is located along North Street near Spring Lake in Terry Township. Her sister, Bohlander, lives next door and operates a 190-acre farm.

They share a water well, located on Place's property, and the women said they believe that their water problems are being caused by the John Barrett natural gas well, operated by Chesapeake. It's located across from their property on the other side of Spring Lake. Place said it's about a half-mile away.

"I called Jackie, and said, 'there's something wrong with the well because it's muddy,'' Bohlander said. "But my animals wouldn't drink the water, and animals are not particularly averse to drinking muddy water. They'll drink muddy water out of the stream, so that told us there's probably something more wrong with the water."

In addition, Place said the color of the water during the incident was red-orange, and it was so dense that you couldn't see through it. She also said globules of an oily-looking substance were clinging to the sides of her toilet bowl at that time.

Then, on April 1 of this year, the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) collected samples from their water supply, which were submitted to the department's laboratory in Harrisburg to be analyzed. Place and Bohlander had called DEP the day they noticed the problems with their water, which was March 23, Place said.

In a June 8 letter to Place from DEP, Caleb Woolever, geologic specialist, oil and gas management, informed her of the results.

He wrote that the results showed two problems. In the letter, he stated that the turbidity in the water was being caused by elevated levels of iron. In addition, he said that the sample results show that methane gas was present in the well at that time at 19.2 milligrams per liter.

The DEP then collected a second sample on April 21, which showed that turbidity and iron decreased in concentration, Woolever said. Noting that turbidity and iron are typically temporary effects of disturbances in shallow aquifer systems, he wrote that presently the source of the turbidity in their well can't be determined.

That analysis also showed methane present at 5.0 milligrams per liter, he said. Place said this reading was done after a venting stack had been placed on her well.

Woolever also told Place that a water analysis that she had done on Dec. 11, 2008 had shown that methane was present at 0.010 milligrams per liter at that time. Place said she had done this analysis because she knew at that time that drilling was going to be taking place in her area in the future.

"While natural fluctuations in methane concentrations are expected, the significant increase in methane in your well warrants further investigation by the department," he wrote. "The department's investigation is ongoing into potential sources of methane in the area."

When asked for comment, Brian Grove, director of corporate development for Chesapeake, issued this statement, noting that "Chesapeake places the highest priority on health, safety, and environmental protection in our operations."

"When Ms. Place approached Chesapeake with concerns about water quality in her well, Chesapeake quickly took action to investigate the matter," Grove said in his statement. "Test results provided by a DEP-certified independent laboratory have shown no constituents that can be related to gas-drilling activities in Ms. Place's water, and furthermore, DEP has found the water to be of sufficient quality to recommend reconnecting the well to Ms. Place's home."

Grove also noted that Place's well is thousands of feet away from any drilling activity, and no other nearby landowners have raised concerns about water quality. But Place said other landowners she knows are concerned.

Place said she had been provided bottled water from Chesapeake through Chemung Spring Water Co. Inc. She said Chesapeake also provided two large tanks, or water buffaloes, to provide water to their cows and for household uses such as washing.

In addition, the pumping equipment had been disconnected from Place's well by Chesapeake. Place said she had given her permission for this. Also, methane monitors were set up in her home by Chesapeake, she said.

Chesapeake also installed the vent on her water well to abate the risk of methane build-up, according to Woolever's letter.

Chesapeake has since been seeking permission from Place to restore the well's connection to her home, Grove said. "While Chesapeake doesn't believe gas-drilling activity has had any effect on her water quality, we have been working proactively with DEP to bring resolution to this matter," Grove said.

When interviewed, Bohlander and Place also brought up concerns about a letter they said they received from Chesapeake on June 15 that their bottled water and the water in their water buffaloes would be taken away, if they didn't consent to their well being reconnected and redeveloped. According to Place, The letter, dated June 14, reads, "Specifically, if we don't have your consent by the stated time, Chesapeake will immediately remove all of its equipment from your water well and stop providing you water."

Bohlander said David Bohlander, her husband, called state Sen. Gene Yaw and the DEP because they were concerned that their cows would be without drinking water if the water buffaloes were removed.

On June 17, Place said, their bottled water had been taken away. She said that she learned about a week later from a representative of Chemung that Chesapeake had reinstated her bottled water later that afternoon on June 17, however.

Bohlander said she feels this happened only because Yaw intervened so that the water wouldn't be taken away. According to Place, she came home from errands on June 21 and found a temporary supply of bottled water on her porch, consisting of a cooler and two five-gallon bottles. She said she assumed it was from Chesapeake. And on June 24, Place said, a representative of Chemung came to her home and provided a regular supply of bottled water.

When asked for comment, Chesapeake provided this statement from Grove: "Chesapeake is continuing to supply water to Ms. Place until the situation is resolved. There should be no interruption in service. It's unclear why that would have occurred - even as briefly as she indicates - but if it did, it was a mistake. Chesapeake is pleased to know the oversight has been resolved and is glad Ms. Place continues to receive the water the company has been supplying as a courtesy."

Place said she has given Chesapeake permission to reconnect her well and test the water, with certain stipulations. This includes a provision that the water doesn't re-circulate into her home. She said she is concerned about the risks posed by methane.

In his letter, Woolever discussed the dangers of methane gas. He said, "there is a physical danger of fire or explosion due to the migration of natural gas into water wells or through soils into dwellings where it could be ignited by sources that are present in most homes/buildings."

Place said she is going to continue using bottled water to drink.

Place said she hopes that her water can get back to "the same standards before anyone drilled around here."

LINK

See also Splashdown's May 26th post,"Beyond Burlington".

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Wastewater recycling poses risks of odors, leaks and spills

2010-06-22T14:28:00.004-04:00

by laura legere (staff writer)

thetimes-tribune.com
Published: June 22, 2010

Range Resources dug a pit the size of a football field in the grassy acres just beyond June Chappel's property line last year, yards from the pen where she keeps her beagles and past the trees that shade the porch on her family's small southwestern Pennsylvania home.

Range used it, at first, to store the fresh water needed to produce gas from the seven Marcellus Shale natural gas wells it drilled next door.

But when the company began to fill it with the salt- and metals-laden waste fluids that came back up from the wells, Chappel found odors like that of gasoline and kerosene forced her inside. The rising dew left a greasy film on her windows, she said, and one November day a white dust fell over the yard.

Resources:

DEP gas drilling violations database
Search natural gas leases in our online database
Complete coverage of natural gas drilling

She called the company to complain about the smell and workers came to skim booms across the pit, sopping up odor-causing residue and bacteria.

Throughout all of it, her husband, David, was inside the house, sick with and later dying of cancer at age 54.

"We've gone without," she said in January, standing by the pit with a hood over her head and her beagles nearby in coats. "We don't have a lot here. Now, I feel like it's ruined."

Like the wastewater pits increasingly used by the gas industry in Pennsylvania - the largest of which can hold the equivalent of 22 Olympic-size swimming pools full of contaminated fluid - the problem of what to do with the liquid waste from Marcellus Shale drilling is enormous.

The average Marcellus Shale well requires 4 million gallons of water mixed with sand and chemicals to break apart - or hydraulically fracture - the rock formation and release the gas.

About 1 million gallons of that fluid, now saturated with the salts, metals and naturally occurring radiation that had been trapped in the shale, returns to the surface to be treated, diluted, reused or pumped underground in deep disposal wells.

There has been significant progress in determining what exactly is in the waste and how to reuse it over the last two years - from when the state's environmental regulatory agency belatedly discovered that drillers were sending the fluids to publicly owned sewer systems incapable of treating it, to last week, when the state Independent Regulatory Review Commission endorsed strict restrictions on how much of the waste can be discharged into Pennsylvania's streams.

There has also been a surge in entrepreneurial activity from companies proposing to treat the waste, which can be up to 10 times saltier than sea water.

...

But even as the state tries to push the stricter treatment standards into law, there are not enough treatment plants in Pennsylvania to remove the salt from the more than a half-million gallons of wastewater that is produced from Marcellus Shale drilling every day.

Those challenges raise what Conrad Dan Volz, director of the Center for Healthy Environments and Communities at the University of Pittsburgh, said is the most obvious of the unanswered questions about the current scale of Marcellus Shale gas production in the state: "Why would we ever start doing this drilling in this kind of intensive way if we didn't have some way to handle and properly dispose of the brine waters?"

Promise and problems with recycling

The problematic pit behind Chappel's home was also part of a pioneering development in the early life of Marcellus Shale gas extraction.

In October, Range Resources was the first company in the commonwealth to claim to be able to reuse all of the waste that flowed back from a well after it was hydraulically fractured. Using the pits, called centralized impoundments, Range discovered that it could dilute Marcellus Shale wastewater with fresh water and reuse it in the next well.

The seemingly simple solution had a dramatic impact: As Range doubled the number of gas wells it drilled between 2008 and 2009, it cut the amount of water it needed to discharge in half because of its reuse program, a spokesman said.

The company shared the information with the other Marcellus operators, and now 60 percent of the wastewater produced in the state is being reused, according to the Marcellus Shale Coalition, a cooperative of the state's Marcellus drillers.

But recycling alone will not cure the industry of a need to dispose of the waste.

In defining the need for strict discharge rules for Marcellus Shale wastewater in April, the Department of Environmental Protection wrote that even with recycling and reuse, "it is clear that the future wastewater return flows and treatment needs will be substantial."

Because the gas development is so new, it is still unclear how much wastewater will be created immediately and over time by the 50,000 new wells that are expected to be drilled in the next two decades.

The waste that flows back slowly and continuously over the 20- to 30-year life of each gas well could produce 27 tons of salt per year, the department wrote. "Multiply this amount by tens of thousands of Marcellus gas wells, and the potential pollutional effects ... are tremendous."

Recycling using centralized pits also has its downsides, from the intrusive to the dangerous:

- Chappel and her neighbors lived with the noxious odors from the pit behind their homes until they hired an attorney and Range agreed to remove it.

- Two of the Marcellus Shale violations for which Range has been cited and fined by the DEP have been for failures of the lines that transfer the waste fluids, sometimes up to seven miles between a wastewater pit and a well site.

- And the potential for the pits to emit chemicals or hazardous elements called volatile organic compounds into the air has been cited in studies in other states and is being monitored by DEP at sites throughout Washington County.

Matt Pitzarella, a Range Resources spokesman, admitted the decision to put the pit behind Chappel's house was "not a good choice" and the company has worked hard to correct it, including removing the pit, reclaiming the hill and even painting Chappel's house.

The company's eight or nine other impoundments in Washington County were built for longer-term use, he said, in areas farther away from people's homes.

Another Range spokesman at an April meeting with neighbors upset about the pit's smells said the impoundments hold "a lot of hydrocarbons," brine, and bacteria "from the water just sitting out there" and that can create odors.

"The warmer it gets, the more putrid it's going to get," he said.

The smell is "not dangerous or harmful. It's annoying."

But complaints of odors from pits helped spur DEP to conduct an air quality study around gas well sites in the region that is expected to be completed this month.

And in its review of the environmental implications of Marcellus Shale gas drilling, New York state determined that the threat posed by the pits may go far beyond annoyance.

An environmental impact statement under review there describes a "worst case scenario" for hazardous air pollutants - especially methanol used by drillers in fracturing fluids and as an antifreeze - escaping from large wastewater impoundments.

According to the report, a centralized impoundment that holds the wastewater from 10 wells could theoretically release 32.5 tons of methanol into the air each year - meaning it could qualify as a "major" source of toxic air pollutants under federal rules.

Because of the risk of leaks and other failures, New York also proposed to ban the use of such centralized impoundments within the boundaries of its most productive aquifers, which underlie about 15 percent of the state.

Broken pipes

The sheer volume of the wastewater and the number of trucks, pits, pipes and people necessary to move it over often long distances, has also increased the probability of leaks and spills, which have already occurred in Pennsylvania. Accidents described in DEP documents reviewed by The Times-Tribune show that the above-ground lines used to pipe the wastewater to and from impoundments and tanks are susceptible to leaks, even when companies take care to prevent them.

In October, an elbow joint came unglued in a PVC line carrying diluted wastewater from one of Range's pits and spilled about 10,500 gallons into a high-quality stream, killing about 170 small fish and salamanders.

According to Range, the company successfully tested the line with fresh water in the week before the wastewater transfer to make sure it could hold the pressure. It was the second transfer line failure for the company in five months.

In a separate incident, a water transfer line used by Chesapeake Appalachia in Bradford County failed five times in five places over five days in December. On one occasion, the pipe burst where it had been weakened from being dragged on the ground. Another time it failed because of a faulty weld, and another because bolts were loose on a valve.

In correspondence with DEP, Chesapeake said it was its policy to transfer only fresh water in its above-ground lines and to use only a more expensive "fused poly pipe" to minimize the risk of spills.

But an estimated 67,000 total gallons of the water did spill and DEP tests of the water found that it was not fresh. Instead, it had elevated levels of salts, barium and strontium - indicators of Marcellus wastewater that the company suspected may have mixed with its fresh water in one of its contractor's tanks, which may have been improperly cleaned between uses.

Brian Grove, Chesapeake's director of corporate development, said the incident did not pose a threat to the public and it did not result in any negative environmental impact. The company has since adopted new procedures for handling, storing and transporting water, he said, and held a meeting with all of its employees and contractors to reiterate its "commitment to safety and environmental stewardship."

Scott Perry, the director of the Department of Environmental Protection's Oil and Gas Bureau, said the above-ground pipelines might be addressed in upcoming revisions to the state's oil and gas regulations, which may also include an evaluation of the construction standards for centralized impoundments and other elements of the industry's handling of wastewater.

The current regulatory standard for the pipelines is that they cannot leak, he said.

"Maybe that's good enough," he said. "There's an absolute prohibition against getting a single drop of it on the ground."

He emphasized that the regulatory agency has to find a way to permit the pipelines so it both protects the environment and encourages their use in order to remove excessive truck traffic from rural roads.

"In a practical sense, if you want to eliminate 100,000 trucks, this is the way to do it," he said.

Radisav Vidic, chairman of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh, said a better way to minimize the risk of environmental damage is for companies to stop moving the wastewater so much.

Current industry practice for recycling the waste is to fracture a well and then drive or pipe the water to an impoundment or tanks, over and over, he said, "until they move 6 million gallons of water back and forth" to fracture multiple wells on one pad, creating an opportunity for spills with each trip.

Dr. Vidic is studying how to take the wastewater from one well, mix it with acid mine drainage, and use it to fracture subsequent wells on the same multi-well pad - research that is being funded in part by a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.

He has found that the sulfates in acid mine drainage - one of the biggest sources of pollution in current and former coal mining regions of the state - interact with problem metals like barium and strontium in the wastewater and turn them into solids that can be discarded.

An obstacle to research, though, is how little some gas companies are willing to collaborate, both with him and each other to solve the wastewater problem, he said.

"Every company thinks they know it best, and they keep it to themselves, and they think they're going to get a competitive advantage," he said.

"I'm thinking, who cares? We can all sink together because we're hiding the information, or we can all swim together and everybody's going to get a little bit rich in the process, not filthy rich."

Contact the writer: llegere@timesshamrock.com.

LINK

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Moratorium on new drill permits sought

2010-06-22T10:47:00.003-04:00

Mundy proposes pause
By Andrew M. Seder aseder@timesleader.com
Times Leader Staff Writer
June 22, 2010

LEHMAN TWP. – State Rep. Phyllis Mundy on Monday told a cadre of natural gas drilling opponents that she would introduce two bills and one resolution later this week to help protect public water supplies and strengthen laws governing gas drilling during a proposed moratorium on the issuing of new drilling permits. ...

click image to enlarge

State Rep. Phyllis Mundy, right, announces co-sponsorship of three pieces of legislation intended to ‘better protect the public health and safety’ in regard to Marcellus Shale drilling at a press conference Monday morning in Lehman Township. BILL TARUTIS/for the times leader

Mundy told a crowd of about 75, many holding signs and wearing shirts with slogans advocating for a freeze on drilling and urging Harrisburg to take regulatory action, of her intentions. They cheered and applauded at what they heard.

“As a representative of the people and longtime advocate for the environment, I am deeply concerned about the potential for harm from drilling and the hydraulic fracturing process,” Mundy said. “While I certainly recognize the benefits that Marcellus Shale drilling is bringing to landowners and to our local economy, I also recognize the threat of irreparable harm that it poses without appropriate legislative, regulatory and monetary safeguards in place.”

One bill would amend current law to prohibit companies from drilling wells within 2,500 feet of a primary source of supply for a community water system, such as a lake or reservoir. The current state restriction is only 100 feet.“Thousands of my constituents rely on Huntsville and Ceasetown reservoirs for drinking water. Contamination of one or both would equate to a serious public health crisis,” Mundy said. “This bill seeks to protect our community water supplies to prevent such a disaster from taking place.”

A second bill calls for establishing a one-year moratorium on the issuance of new natural gas drilling permits. Mundy also is working on a resolution that calls on the U.S. Congress to repeal a provision in the federal Safe Drinking Water Act that exempts oil and gas drilling industries from restrictions on hydraulic fracturing operations located near drinking water sources, a provision known as the “Halliburton Loophole.”

The Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act also would require oil and gas industries to disclose all hydraulic fracturing chemicals and chemical constituents. That information currently is considered proprietary to the company.

Mundy’s bills are in the process of garnering co-sponsors, and she said they should be introduced later this week.

“Given the speed and breadth of the industry, government is currently at a severe disadvantage to fully evaluate the implications of dangerous drilling so close to home,” Mundy said. “This package of bills will help us begin the long overdue task of properly regulating Marcellus Shale drilling in our state.”

Mundy said that “for some, it’s all about the money, the jobs, the economic development. For me it’s about the quality of life. Go to Dimock and tell me that jobs and money are the most important thing.” The reference to the small Susquehanna County community was understood by those listening, as it has become the poster child in the region for problems in gas drilling.

Gas seepage spread into nearby water wells in Dimock, affecting drinking water for about a dozen homes, and in 2008, methane buildup caused a water well to explode.

The state Department of Environmental Protection earlier this year ordered Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. to close and remove an earthen pit that holds drilling fluids. The black water had impacted a private unused drinking water well, a wetland and two springs, DEP said.

Mundy said 3,100 well permits have been issued statewide, and while her proposal would not halt operations at those sites, it would temporarily stop new permitting and give the General Assembly more time to enact regulatory protections.

“The moratorium would provide us with the time we need to better understand and address scores of unresolved issues,” she said. But she said many representatives and senators have been “very slow to react” and are worried about curtailing an industry that shown signs of creating jobs, generating work in areas that desperately need it and bringing money to property owners.

“Many of my colleagues see this as a job issue,” Mundy said, raising a warning that she will need help getting a majority of state House and Senate members on board.

Michelle Boice, of Harveys Lake, spoke up from the back of the crowd, and urged those who could hear her to “get busy and contact every state official and start yelling and demanding for a moratorium.”

This means YOU, Pennsylvania! -Splashdown

One of Mundy’s colleagues who heard the message loud and clear and said he favors all three of Mundy’s measures is state Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski, D-Wilkes-Barre Township.

Pashinski, who was in the crowd Monday, said the Legislature has a chance now to do something that in hindsight it perhaps should have done earlier.

“No one knew of the dangers involved in the fracking process,” Pashinski said. He said that until very recently he was unaware of just how many permits had been issued and how close well sites are to drinking water supplies.

“What happened is the floodgates opened,” he said. “I don’t think any of us knew how many well sites were leased out. The oil companies had a head start. What we’re trying to do is pull back the reins … put a hold on this. Let’s evaluate wherever we’re lacking and let’s address it.”

Dr. Tom Giunta, a podiatrist from Lehman Township and founder of the Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition, said “legislation is too little too late” and called for a complete end to drilling, not just a moratorium on additional drilling. John Nowak Sr., of Lake Township, held up a sign asking motorists to “honk your horn to stop the gas drilling.” Quite a few drivers heeded his plea during the 45-minute event. He said about half of those gathered around him were new faces to him at events. He said it shows the message is getting out, the public is becoming better educated and residents were finding their voice.

Mundy is the third local legislator this past month to announce she is preparing bills related to the gas drilling.

State Rep. Karen Boback, R-Harveys Lake, on Friday said she plans to introduce legislation that will provide additional protections for public drinking water supplies, as the natural gas drilling industry continues to grow in Pennsylvania. ...

“I am introducing this legislation to put additional safeguards in place for the drinking water sources we all share and on which we rely. As we have seen from the catastrophe in the gulf, once an accident occurs, it is difficult to restore our natural resources. I believe the best approach is to proceed with caution.”

State Sen. Lisa Baker, R-Lehman Township, announced she is preparing a trio of bills with the same intent as Boback.

In order to protect aquifers and determine any adverse consequences attributable to drilling, one bill would require testing at three times – before drilling, at the completion of drilling and six months afterwards – at three different depths. A second bill would rule out drilling at sites too close to drinking water sources such as reservoirs. A third bill would require DEP to ensure that the operators of wastewater treatment facilities are properly trained and sufficiently monitored to lessen the chances of human error creating a major problem.

LINK to complete article.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

RED ALERT! Senate Plans to Scuttle DEP Regulations

2010-06-21T13:43:00.003-04:00

Although IRRC voted 4-1 to approve the rules protecting HQ streams and limiting the salts & other dissolved solids allowed to be dumped in our rivers, there is one last hurdle.

The Senate Environmental Resources & Energy Committee intends to pass a “Resolution of Disapproval”.

Lincoln said it best:
“Much good work is lost for the lack of a little more.”

So we have one last task to do.

Please write to Senators Pileggi, Scarnati and the Senate ER&E Committee, demanding that they allow the new DEP regulations to be enacted.

We should not allow the Senate to scuttle this – they are thumbing their noses at what their constituents have endorsed.

The members of the Senate ER&E Committee are listed at:
http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/cteeInfo/cteeInfo.cfm?cde=15&body=S

Senator Joe Scarnati [President of the Senate ] contact information is at:
http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/member_information/senate_bio.cfm?id=283 jscarnati@pasen.gov

Senator Dominic Pileggi [Majority floor leader ] contact info is at:
http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/member_information/senate_bio.cfm?id=974 dpileggi@pasen.gov

Talking points – choose 2 or 3 that are important to you, or add your own:
* Taxpayers can’t afford a repeat of a cleanup after the O&G industry like we were stuck with after the coal industry.
* The public overwhelmingly endorsed these DEP regulations. You must respect the wishes of your constituents.
* Our coldwater fisheries are at risk. We need stream buffers to protect our trout streams.
* This is not a partisan issue, this is preserving our fishing heritage.
* Even the industry representatives at the IRRC hearing admitted that the capacity of our streams to handle TDS is limited.
* These CH 95 and CH 102 regulations are reasonable.
* You do not want to be remembered as the legislator who allowed industry to pollute our streams.
* These regulations have been approved by the EQA, IRRC and endorsed by the PA Fish & Boat Commission.
* Fishing is a $4.7 billion dollar industry in Pennsylvania, supplying 43,000 jobs.
* Texas allows NO frackwater at all in their streams. 500 mg/L is a reasonable compromise.
* The solution for pollution is not dilution. If public water plants downstream have to remove TDS to make it drinkable, we end up paying for the removal via higher water rates.
* We should be encouraging the new PA industry of frackwater treatment plants to treat the TDS from O&G drilling.
* We cannot take the chance on trusting industry with caring for our streams – too much is at stake.

You do not have to put your address in the message. Some legislators will ignore your comments if they see that you are not in their home district. ...Leave them guessing.

This message is from Dick Martin, Coordinator www.PaForestCoalition.org

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Hazards posed by natural gas drilling not always underground

2010-06-21T11:46:00.007-04:00

by laura legere (staff writer)
thetimes-tribune.com
Published: June 21, 2010

(click to enlarge)

Fear about environmental damage from Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling is often trained on what could happen deep underground, but some of the gravest hazards posed by the process are driven in trucks, stored in tanks, carried through hoses and left in pits on the surface of natural gas well sites.

Concentrated chemicals, as well as wastewater containing toxic levels of salts and metals, are stored, produced or transported in large quantities at each well site, creating the potential for tainting drinking water or seeping into local ponds and streams.

While recent incidents at Marcellus Shale wells involving explosions, blowouts and methane-contaminated drinking water have drawn attention to the dangerous potential of the activity, information about the industrywide frequency and impact of spills and leaks has not been reported publicly.

Department of Environmental Protection files made available to The Times-Tribune through a Right-to-Know request reveal hundreds of examples of spills at natural gas drilling sites in the state during the last five years, recorded by at least 92 different drilling companies.

The documents show that many of the largest operators in the Marcellus Shale have been issued violations for spills that reached waterways, leaking pits that harmed drinking water, or failed pipes that drained into farmers' fields, killing shrubs and trees.

The frequency of violations has kept the state's gas inspectors on the run.

After a Marcellus Shale hearing last week, DEP produced a list for state legislators of 421 violations found by inspectors at Marcellus Shale wells this year through June 4.

At least 50 of the violations - recorded by 15 different Marcellus operators - involved a spill to soil or water. Generic descriptions used by the department to characterize the violations make it impossible to determine the exact number of spills.

"It goes from an accident to negligence," DEP Secretary John Hanger said at the hearing, and attributed the problems to "poor management" and "not proper oversight" by the companies.

"This industry's got to look in the mirror," he said.

Kathryn Klaber, the director of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, a Pennsylvania industry group, said shale drilling is an industrial activity, like many others.

"Any spill is a problem," she said. "For PR (public relations) reasons, for fines, for reputation, stock price - there's no good reason to have one."

(Notice she doesn't even mention environmental harm... just PR, fines, reputation and stock price!)

But, she added, "I think if we were looking across multiple industries ... the question I'd like to pose is, is it worse or better than others?"

(THE INCREDIBLE ARROGANCE OF THIS KIND OF THINKING NEEDS TO BE REDRESSED! ...Comparison to greater destruction is no excuse, it's just inexcusable! -Splashdown)

The following list highlights examples of spills, seeps and accidents as described in DEP documents that have been committed by an array of Marcellus Shale operators.

It illustrates that none of the companies currently pulling gas from the shale has been able to avoid potentially harmful accidents and errors.

Spills and leaks near a state forest

An accident at a Marcellus Shale well in early June caused a geyser of gas and wastewater to erupt for 16 hours on property owned by a private hunting club in the middle of a state forest frequented by campers and anglers.

The well is one of 44 permitted or pending Marcellus Shale wells operated by Houston-based EOG Resources on the hunting club land in Clearfield County, and the nearly catastrophic rupture was a dramatic demonstration of the hazards of natural gas drilling.

But months before that incident, a seemingly invisible plume of contamination affected water sources around the same EOG lease, prompting months of investigation by DEP.

Beginning in late August 2009, inspectors found evidence that Marcellus Shale waste fluids had impacted Alex Branch, a wild trout stream and high-quality fishery, and damaged the drinking water at a nearby hunting camp, where water tests found barium that was four times above the state and federal drinking water limits - an amount that can cause vomiting, diarrhea and muscle weakness after drinking it for even a short period of time.

DEP inspectors had not noticed any evidence of a spill from the nearest EOG well site and could see nothing wrong with the earthen pit where the company stored the well's waste, but it was determined that undetected seeps from one pit, and maybe several, most likely caused the wastewater to contaminate the stream.

An accident in early August may also have contributed to the damage when a small hole in a hose carrying wastewater from the well sprayed a fine mist for several days that landed on nearby plants and a small wetland. A heavy rain swamped the pad, likely washing the fluids downhill to the hunting camp and stream.

In response to the leaks, EOG excavated the suspected faulty pit and another nearby pit, backfilled other unused pits on the lease and transitioned to a system in which drilling fluids and waste drawn from a well are piped to closed tanks rather than pits, which helps to minimize the risk of seeps and overflows. In an e-mail to DEP, the EOG environmental safety administrator said the company would transition to the safer systems, which are not required by Pennsylvania law, because "we don't want to risk anything."

In a separate incident, on Oct. 12, 2009, a leak in a tank used to store a fluid mixture of water and hydraulic fracturing chemicals spilled about 7,980 gallons, most of which was absorbed into the ground.

It caused a nearby tributary to Alex Branch to turn cloudy and suds when agitated.

An EOG spokeswoman said the company "regrets these incidents occurred and took immediate steps to address the issues," including adopting new operating procedures and hiring outside contractors to perform water sampling after both events.

Acid leaks and unlabeled tanks

Twice in two months, hydrochloric acid spilled at two wells sites operated by Chesapeake Appalachia in Bradford County - including once when the company used a tank that was not meant to store the acid.

Alarmed notes from an inspector's telephone conversation with the tank's manufacturer at the time of the first spill, at the Chancellor well site in Asylum Twp. in February 2009, showed the tank was not designed or lined to hold 36 percent hydrochloric acid, and that even less concentrated acid should only have been held for a day and a half.

"Somebody messed up big time to put 14,000 gall. 36% HCL in a frac tank for 30 days!!" the note stated.

DEP records also show the same inspector pursuing concerns about the proper labeling of the tank, which was one among between 25 and 50 identical 500-barrel, corrugated wall storage tanks on site without placards to differentiate it.

"It's bad enough dealing with unlabeled 55 gallon drums in our line of work," he wrote in an internal e-mail, "but having to contend with unlabeled 21,000 gallon acid 'frac' tanks in the boondocks, on properties that have unrestricted access, is a bit much."

The second acid spill, at the Vannoy well site in Granville Twp., may have contributed to the contamination of a private pond and a 30-foot swath of dead or stressed vegetation, including several evergreen trees.

The 420-gallon acid spill was one of several accidents at the site DEP thought might have caused the damage, including a spill of several thousand gallons of water on March 3, 2009, that was never tested for metals and salts, the hallmark constituents of Marcellus Shale wastewater.

The acid spill, on March 20, also flowed into the pond. Chesapeake neutralized the acid and removed the contaminated soil, but a cleanup plan commissioned by the company in December said some of the acid likely percolated through the pad and may have remained perched on the shallow bedrock causing additional contamination.

In July, DEP inspectors found stained areas at the base of a waste pit where the company left rock cuttings and drilling fluids in direct contact with the ground, and said the stain was a sign that drilling fluid "either has or is seeping from the pit."

DEP fined Chesapeake $27,271.93 and its hydraulic fracturing contractor BJ Services $8,598.46 for the second hydrochloric acid spill in February 2010, a fine the agency never announced publicly.

Brian Grove, Chesapeake's director of corporate development, said the company "responded proactively to both situations" and "learned very valuable lessons from the incidents." It turned those lessons into new operating practices, including requiring secondary containment for all materials brought to a pad, he said.

Hydrochloric acid on public roads

A worker for Fortuna Energy (now called Talisman Energy USA) drove a tanker leaking hydrochloric acid about 2½ miles over public roads between two of the company's well sites in Troy Twp., Bradford County, on June 30, 2009.

At the second site, the driver, wearing an acid-resistant suit and a respirator, tried to put a catch pan under the leak, passed out from inhaling the fumes and was taken by helicopter to Robert Packer Hospital in Sayre. The tanker lost between 100 and 200 gallons of acid and contaminated soil was later removed from both sites.

Talisman did not report the spill to DEP until late the next day, a delay DEP officials called "unacceptable."

A February 2010 press release from DEP announced a $3,500 fine for some incidents at one of the pads involved with the acid spill, but it did not address that spill. It also did not address three drilling wastewater spills in July and August 2009 on the same two well pads.

Efforts to reach a Talisman spokesman were unsuccessful. In the company's written response to DEP after the acid spill, the operations manager said it "takes the issue very seriously" and he visited each well site to emphasize to workers "the importance of our zero spill approach."

Mud eruption in a wetland

Crews for Chief Gathering - the pipeline subsidiary of driller Chief Oil and Gas - were boring a path for a pipeline 13 feet under a stream, wetland and road in Penn Twp., Lycoming County, on December 12, 2009, when the muds used to drill the hole erupted to the surface, spilling between 3,000 and 6,000 gallons into the wetland.

Initial reports from the company estimated the spill to be only about 100 gallons and to have stopped at least 10 feet away from the stream, but the DEP inspector who was called two days later found sandbags and a silt sock right at the water's edge and the barrier did not prevent some of the mud from reaching the stream.

Efforts to clean up the spill were slowed, first because the muds clogged the suction hoses the company used to try to remove it from the wetland, and later because the fluids froze solid.

While he was on site, the inspector also saw evidence of muds in a roadside ditch and was told that there had been another, unreported spill on December 10 of about 110 gallons.

The inspector noted that chemical safety sheets provided by the company for the mud, "Hydraul-EZ," listed the ingredients bentonite, a kind of clay, and a "bentonite extender," but the manufacturer "claims that any further details about these substances is proprietary" making it "difficult" to determine the potential of the mud to cause pollution.

Kristi Gittins, a Chief spokeswoman, said that the spilled mud is "not hazardous. It's dirt."

"There were no chemicals, and the DEP knows that," she said.

The remedy for such a spill is to "let it settle," she said, which is what the company was told to do.

Overflowing waste pit 1

More than 30,000 gallons of diluted wastewater overflowed a waste pit, rushed over a barrier and soaked a pasture on June 3, 2009, when workers transferring the fluid to the site owned by East Resources in Tioga County accidentally dumped too much into the pit.

The spill was first noticed by DEP inspectors, who happened to stop by the well pad.

The fluid was diluted enough, and cleaned up quickly enough, not to kill or stress vegetation, and the fluid did not appear to reach a stream.

The pit was among four at East Resources well sites in Tioga and Potter counties that discharged the wastewater they were holding. The three other pits all leaked and at least one was concentrated enough to kill or stress nearby vegetation.

East is finalizing a consent order with DEP that covers those and about 30 other violations at its sites, according to a violation notice posted on a DEP database that indicates the company will pay a $29,000 fine.

Stephen Rhoads, East's director of external affairs, said the spill was an "unfortunate accident" with no long-term impact.

"Working with DEP, we took care of it immediately," he said.

Overflowing waste pit 2

A 750,000-gallon pit holding a mixture of fresh water and wastewater overflowed off a well pad run by Atlas Resources in Washington County, through a drain and into a small tributary in a high quality watershed on December 5 and 6, 2009.

The spill was reported to DEP by the property owner, who noticed the spill before Atlas saw or reported it. It apparently was caused by a pump that turned on automatically but had no mechanism for turning off automatically when the pit was full.

The spill, for which the company has not been fined, is one of several violations the company has recorded in southwestern Pennsylvania. In January, DEP fined Atlas $85,000 for violations at 13 well sites between December 2008 and July 2009, including improper erosion controls and site remediation, and spills of diesel fuel and wastewater.

In late March, on the same Hopewell Twp. farm as the pit overflow, liquid hydrocarbons called condensate on the surface of a 400,000-gallon wastewater pit caught fire, engulfing the pit and burning its plastic liner, causing a plume of black smoke that was visible for miles.

Atlas, a Pennsylvania company, also drills non-Marcellus Shale natural gas wells, including one near Kushequa, McKean County which DEP found to have caused explosive levels of methane and ethane to seep into residential water supplies and triggered a small explosion in the village's public well in late 2007.

Efforts to reach an Atlas spokesman were unsuccessful.

Hydraulic oil leak

An oil leak from a hydraulic line in March 2008 spilled onto a field and into natural springs surrounding a Range Resources - Appalachia well in Washington County. The oil mixed with water and flowed 100 yards downhill, contaminating soil and killing vegetation.

Range excavated the contaminated soil and paid a $21,200 fine in June 2009 for the spills at that site and for 16 other violations, an enforcement action that was never publicized by DEP.

DEP also investigated whether a Marcellus Shale well drilled by Range on the same property affected an old abandoned well, causing gas to contaminate private water supplies and bubble up through the soil.

Matt Pitzarella, a Range spokesman, said the gas migration was a preexisting issue that was only discovered once Range's activities started on the site. The company capped and remediated the old well, he said.

The oil leak he called a mechanical error, and said the other violations included many that were administrative.

"Fortunately it was an incident that had minimal if any environmental impact, but you have to take care of every little detail," he said.

"Since that time we've increased efforts to keep spills on location."

Two months, two diesel spills

Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. had two 800-gallon diesel spills in five weeks in 2008 at some of its earliest Marcellus Shale sites in Dimock Twp.

On June 3, off-road diesel spilled from a break in a fuel line to a drilling rig, ran down a hill and into a roadside swale and pooled in a flooded wetland near Meshoppen Creek.

On July 11, a dump truck driver working to build an access road to a well backed into a 1,000-gallon tank of off-road diesel, panicked and dragged the tank about 30 feet before it tipped over and spilled onto the ground. Crews dug pits and vacuumed up about 170 gallons of the visible diesel, then removed contaminated soil and stone from the site. When two of nine soil tests showed continued contamination, contractors dug a foot deeper and excavated more soil. A total of 272 tons of contaminated soil was taken from the site.

The company was fined $4,915.30 for the first spill after the site was cleaned up.

According to DEP records, Cabot was ned for the second spill.

Cabot spokesman George Stark said the company "works hard to ensure that we have a plan in place to control and maintain any accidental release."

LINK

Meanwhile, also by LAURA LEGERE, in today's Times-Tribune:

State lacks consistent record keeping for natural gas drilling contamination, leak incidents

To read that excellent companion article, CLICK HERE.

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New case of benzene-contaminated drinking water linked to hydraulic fracturing in Texas

2010-06-20T12:58:00.002-04:00

According to Amy Mall's Blog on NRDC's Switchboard:

The Scoma family in the Barnett Shale area of Texas is suing Chesapeake Energy, claiming the company contaminated their drinking water with benzene and petroleum by-products after hydraulic fracturing of natural gas wells near the Scoma home. ...

Read more here: LINK

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Fracking a danger to communities

2010-06-20T12:52:00.003-04:00

Three incidents in one week

By Betsey Piette

Published Jun 19, 2010 8:01 AM

Will the rapid, unregulated expansion of hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas give way to the next major disaster in the oil and gas industry? Three separate accidents in just one week signify that this could happen.

On June 3 a blowout of a Marcellus gas well in Clearfield County, Pa., sent a gusher of natural gas and chemical-laced drilling fluid 75 feet into the air. The gusher leaked wastewater for 16 hours, spilling an estimated 1.5 million gallons of toxic fluid. Campers were evacuated when the fluid seeped into a small stream in Moshannon State Forest. The well was owned by EOG Resources Inc. — formerly Enron Oil and Gas Co.

Precious hours were lost because a blowout control team had to be flown in from Texas. A virtual media ban on coverage followed the incident; a reporter who attempted to take pictures of the toxic flow was told he’d be shot.

On June 7 seven workers were burned in an explosion caused when drillers hit a pocket of methane in an inactive deep mine near Moundsville, W.Va. The resulting fire flared 50 feet high for four days.

The drilling operations were under subcontract to Union Drilling, headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas. In the past five years, Union Drilling has had more than two dozen violations of Occupational Safety and Health Administration rules and been fined a total of $226,000 at sites in five states.

A gas line explosion on June 7 in North Texas killed one person and injured seven more. The resulting blaze could be seen from 30 miles away.

These are just the latest incidents stemming from the questionable process of using a chemical mix to drive natural gas from shale levels deep below the surface. The mix used in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, contains more than 85 toxic chemicals, including known carcinogens. Yet state and local government officials across the U.S. seem more interested in the money to be made from gas well leases than in implementing regulations to safeguard residents.

Pennsylvania state officials allowed EOG Resources to restart drilling June 11. Clearwater County Commissioner Mark B. McCracken said the county still wanted a share of the gas boom’s benefits. Commissioners acknowledged that more blowouts were to be expected.

The Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates industry in that state, has reported 102 blowouts of oil and gas wells since 2006, resulting in 10 fires, 12 injuries and two deaths. (Philadelphia Inquirer, June 13) Yet in Fort Worth, wells continue to be built in urban areas, often close to residential areas and even schools.

Upon investigating the natural gas industry, filmmaker Josh Fox encountered Pennsylvania landowners struggling for income in small, rural communities, who gave in to industry pressure and lived to regret their decisions. His investigation led to the documentary “Gasland,” which will air June 21 on HBO.

In western Colorado, Fox found a formerly rural area that had rapidly industrialized, with more than 5,000 wells drilled. Medical researchers from the University of Colorado conducted studies on the air and water and found acute problems as a result of toxic emissions from gas development.

In a March 27 interview, Fox described the pressure the natural gas industry has put on politicians to trade “a short term energy fix and money for the future of our water in America.” (NOW on PBS) More than 200,000 wells are proposed in Pennsylvania and New York state, with 50,000 in the New York City watershed alone, with no additional restrictions placed on drillers.

Fox noted: “I could take a car battery and throw it into a watershed and go to federal prison, but these guys can take the same chemicals and inject them by the thousands of gallons and they’re exempt.”

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Gulf oil spill worsens -- but what about the safety of gas fracking?

2010-06-18T23:25:00.006-04:00

Los Angeles Times
Margot Roosevelt
June 18, 2010

Imagine a siege of hydrocarbons spewing from deep below ground, polluting water and air, sickening animals and threatening the health of unsuspecting Americans. And no one knows how long it will last.

No, we’re not talking about BP’s gulf oil spill. We’re talking about hydraulic fracturing of natural gas deposits. And if that phrase makes your eyes glaze over, start blinking them open. Fracking, as the practice is also known, may be coming to a drinking well or a water system near you. It involves blasting water, sand and chemicals, many of them toxic, into underground rock to extract oil or gas.

"Gasland," a compelling documentary on HBO airing Monday, June 21 ( 9 p.m. ET/PT), traces hydraulic fracturing across 34 states from California to Louisiana to Pennsylvania. The exposé by filmmaker Josh Fox, alternately chilling and darkly humorous, won the 2010 Sundance Film Festival’s special jury prize for documentary.

It details how former Vice President Dick Cheney, in partnership with the energy industry and drilling companies such as his former employer, Halliburton Corp., successfully pressured Congress in 2005 to exempt fracking from the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Air Act and other environmental laws.

And it highlights the battle in Congress today over whether to repeal the provision that allows gas companies to conceal which chemicals they inject into the ground as "trade secrets." Each well requires the high-pressure injection of a cocktail of nearly 600 chemicals, including known carcinogens and neurotoxins, diluted in 1 million to 7 million gallons of water.

Some 450,000 wells have been drilled nationwide.

Coincidentally, a month before the blowout of the gulf oil well, Energy and Environment Daily, an independent publication, published a draft of proposed language to exempt fracking from chemical disclosure rules in pending Senate energy and climate legislation. The primary author? BP America Inc.

Fox's HBO film shows rural residents in Colorado and other states flicking on cigarette lighters next to their kitchen faucets and watching their drinking water, infused with gas and chemicals, ignite in flames as high as 3 feet. Fox interviews scores of residents suffering from neurological damage and other ailments after their water went bad.

Many said they were pressured by drilling companies into signing nondisclosure agreements in exchange for paltry settlements.

Policymakers often tout gas as a cleaner fuel than oil or coal, one that emits less pollution when burned, and thus a possible “bridge” to renewable energy. Gas companies say the fracking process is safe and has resulted in few contamination accidents. And they say that states have sufficient regulatory power over fracking, so federal oversight is unnecessary.

Gas companies are seeking drilling rights to the vast Marcellus Shale Field, dubbed “the Saudia Arabia of natural gas” below New York and Pennsylvania. But the field sits beneath the last unfiltered watershed in the U.S. serving tens of millions of residents of New York City, Philadelphia and the surrounding area. Fox, who grew up in rural Pennsylvania, was approached by a gas company to sell the rights under his family's land -- an offer that prompted his curiosity and ultimately his cross-country investigation, toting a banjo in his beat-up car and weaving his personal story through the documentary.

Contaminated drinking water isn’t the only issue. In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, roughly 10,000 gas wells spew more pollution into the air than all the cars and trucks in the region, the film reports.

The Environmental Protection Agency in March announced it will conduct a comprehensive $1.9-million peer-reviewed study on the “potential adverse impact that hydraulic fracturing may have on water quality and public health.”

Meanwhile, although BP's oil spill has pushed other energy issues off the public radar, this HBO film, also showing on June 24, 26 and 30, and July 5, is a reminder that offshore drilling is not the only energy-related hazard worth thinking about.

Photos: Scenes from "Gasland" by filmmaker Josh Fox. Water from faucets in homes near fracking sites ignite when touched by flame. Credit: HBO

LINK

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Gas well incident injures two workers in Tioga County

2010-06-18T19:08:00.006-04:00

This brief report, by Cheryl R. Clarke, just in from the Williamsport Sun-Gazette:

WATROUS - Two natural gas workers were reported injured as the result of a gas well incident this morning at an Ultra Resources well in Gaines Township.

At around 11 a.m. Galeton emergency personnel were dispatched to a reported gas well "explosion" on the Lick Run Road off the Elk Run Road in Gaines Township, directly south of here.

The 911 center dispatch reported two injuries.

A Guthrie Air medical helicopter was dispatched to the scene. The state Department of Environmental Protection officials said an inspector had been dispatched to the scene, but had no further information, other than the company reported everything was under control. ...
(!!!)

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EPA Announces a Schedule of Public Meetings on Hydraulic Fracturing Research Study

2010-06-18T14:52:00.002-04:00

August 12 Meeting to be Held in Binghamton, N.Y.

Contact: Elias Rodriguez, (212) 637-3664, rodriguez.elias@epa.gov

(New York, N.Y. – June 18, 2010) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is hosting four public information meetings on the proposed study of the relationship between hydraulic fracturing and its potential impacts on drinking water. Hydraulic fracturing is a process that drills vertical and horizontal cracks underground that help withdraw gas or oil from coalbeds, shale and other geological formations. By pumping fracturing fluids (water and chemical additives) and sands into rock formations, fractures are created in the formation from which natural gas or oil can be more easily extracted. The meetings will provide public information about the proposed study scope and design. EPA will solicit public comments on the draft study plan.

The public meetings will be held on:
• July 8 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. CDT at the Hilton Fort Worth in Fort Worth, Texas
• July 13 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. MDT at the Marriot Tech Center’s Rocky Mountain Events Center in Denver, Colo.
• July 22 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. EDT at the Hilton Garden Inn in Canonsburg, Pa.
• August 12 at the Anderson Performing Arts Center at Binghamton University in Binghamton, N.Y. for 3 sessions - 8 a.m. to 12 p.m., 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., and 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. EDT

Natural gas plays a key role in our nation’s clean energy future and hydraulic fracturing is one way of accessing this vital resource. However, serious concerns have been raised about hydraulic fracturing’s potential impact on drinking water, human health and the environment. To address these concerns, EPA announced in March that it will study the potential adverse impact that hydraulic fracturing may have on drinking water.

To support the initial planning phase and guide the development of the study plan, the agency sought suggestions and comments from the EPA Science Advisory Board (SAB)—an independent, external federal advisory committee. The agency will use this advice and extensive stakeholder input to guide the design of the study.

Stakeholders are requested to pre-register for the meetings at least 72 hours before each meeting.

More information on the meetings: http://www.epa.gov/safewater/uic/wells_hydrofrac.html

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Governor Rendell Praises Regulatory Panel Vote Protecting PA’s Stream, Rivers from Drilling Wastewater

2010-06-17T17:36:00.003-04:00

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
Dept. of Environmental Protection
Commonwealth News Bureau
Room 308, Main Capitol Building
Harrisburg PA., 17120

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

06/17/2010

CONTACT:

Tom Rathbun, DEP

717-787-1323

Gary Tuma, Governor’s Office

717-783-1116

IRRC Also Votes to Enhance Erosion and Sediment Control, Stormwater Regulations

HARRISBURG -- Governor Edward G. Rendell today praised two votes by members of the Independent Regulatory Review Commission that he said will protect Pennsylvania’s streams and drinking water supplies against total dissolved solids pollution from Marcellus Shade drilling wells and other sources from stormwater runoff.

The new total dissolved solids, or TDS, rules the commission approved today will ensure that rivers and streams in Pennsylvania do not exceed the safe drinking water standard of 500 milligrams per liter, the Governor said. The rules also will protect businesses by grandfathering all existing discharges and allowing businesses to use a stream’s ability to absorb those discharges while not exceeding drinking water standards.

“Today’s IRRC vote is a great step forward in our efforts to protect one of the state’s greatest natural and economic assets—our waterways,” said Governor Rendell. “Millions of Pennsylvanians rely on the state’s rivers and streams for drinking water; countless numbers of our residents and visitors from out-of-state come here to fish these waters or use them for recreation; and some of our largest industrial employers wouldn’t be able to operate here if not for the clean, reliable supply of water they offer. So, we cannot allow new, heavily polluted sources of wastewater to contaminate them.

“That’s why these regulations are so important,” added the Governor, who noted the approved regulations now await review from the environmental resources and energy committees in the state house and senate.

“As the natural gas industry expands to access the Marcellus Shale reserves in Pennsylvania, the volume of wastewater returned to our streams could increase exponentially, and the only way to protect our water resources is to implement new wastewater treatment standards for the drilling industry,” said Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Hanger. “The National Association of Water Companies and many other individuals and groups across the state strongly support the adoption of this rule and I commend the Independent Regulatory Review Commission for taking this action. All other industries are responsible for the waste they generate and the drilling industry should be no exception.”

Hanger noted that drilling wastewater contains very high levels of total dissolved solids – chlorides and sulfides – that must be removed before discharging into surface waters. High TDS levels have damaged industrial equipment, caused drinking water companies to issue drinking water advisories and even led to a massive fish kill on Dunkard Creek. Some of Pennsylvania’s rivers are near their capacity to absorb and dilute additional levels of TDS.

The proposed regulations will require drillers to treat drilling wastewater to 500 mg/l or to drinking water quality at the discharge pipe if they choose to return drilling wastewater to rivers and streams. Drillers have several options to dispose of wastewater in Pennsylvania, including: reuse or recycling; disposal in deep caverns when permitted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; or full treatment to the 500 mg/l for TDS standard.

The last option will only work if polluted water is properly treated to reduce high TDS levels. Several states, including Texas, Oklahoma, New York, Iowa, Virginia, Arkansas and Tennessee, prohibit returning any drilling wastewater to streams.

The panel also approved new regulations to enhance existing rules governing erosion, sediment control and stormwater to protect streams from the effects of new development, reduce localized flooding during heavy storms, and cut sediment and nutrient pollution. The new rules, which also include an updated permit fee structure, bring Pennsylvania into compliance with federal requirements for:

• Erosion and sedimentation controls and post-construction stormwater runoff;
• Creating mandatory requirements for establishing and protecting existing streamside and riverside buffers in high quality and exceptional value watersheds; and
• Enhancing agricultural stormwater management provisions beyond plowing and tilling to include animal-heavy use areas.

For more information, visit www.depweb.state.pa.us.

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Drilling Poses Risk To Pennsylvania Water Supplies

2010-06-17T12:16:00.012-04:00

"Gas drilling wastewater is exceptionally polluted.
It's nasty, nasty stuff," says DEP's John Hanger. ...
"The public's right to know should trump the business need of a company to keep something secret."

Listen Up!

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A Look at Bradford County, PA

2010-06-16T23:07:00.012-04:00

(click to enlarge these images)

Just outside Towanda

Why these water tanks at a Spring Lake residence?

Why the video monitoring?

Word locally is that DEP has ordered the Otten Wells shut down and cleaned up. Note the black plastic covered soil. The road is closed down on either side of this site for no apparent reason, and as shown in the signage photo above, the site warns of video surveillance!
Why haven't we heard about this???

THE OTTEN WELL SITE A YEAR AGO on SPLASHDOWN:
Thursday, July 16, 2009

SLUDGE PITS: Noxious, Toxic, Evaporating into the Atmosphere, Seeping into the Earth

From 5/18/09: Sludge pit at Otten Well Site, Asylum Twp. Bradford Co., PA
Note toxic water seeping into soil where liner has fallen into the pit.

7/8/09: Same Pit: Otten Well Site, Asylum Twp. Bradford Co., PA
Current Condition
Note partially exposed remnants of pit liner...

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Congressman Sestak Commends the Delaware River Basin Commission for Protecting Pennsylvanians' Water Supply

2010-06-15T20:54:00.004-04:00

Commission Extends Important Policy to Include Natural Gas Exploratory Wells
The Hellenic News of America
June 15, 2010

Media, PA —Congressman Joe Sestak (PA-07) applauded the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) for effectively ensuring that parts of the Marcellus Shale within its jurisdiction will only be drilled when we can best ensure the safety of our communities. In a decision publicized Monday, the Commission ruled that companies wishing to drill exploratory wells to tap into Marcellus Shale – done through a specialized method known as fracking – will need approval of the DRBC. The Commission has further determined that it will not issue more permits until proper safety regulations are put in place. DRBC had previously established this policy for production wells, which are drilled when a location is known to contain natural gas.

Earlier this month, a blowout of a natural gas well in Clearfield County resulted in gas and harmful drilling liquids being let loose for 16 hours before they were contained. Since 2004, methane related to the natural gas industry has contaminated water wells in at least seven Pennsylvania counties.

“Recent events, from the tragic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to the fraudulent activity that contributed to the collapse on Wall Street, have reminded us all that we cannot depend on industry to police itself when our quality of life, present and future, is at stake,” said Congressman Sestak. “The resources of the Marcellus Shale have given us a tremendous economic opportunity, but we must be certain that the environmental, health, and property safeguards in place are strong enough to protect Pennsylvanians. I commend Executive Director Carol R. Collier for recognizing the pragmatic approach needed on this issue, which is a path to drilling that most benefits Pennsylvanians, not just the oil and gas companies. As an added benefit, we need some time to train workers in our state to qualify for Marcellus Shale jobs.”

To read more, including the DRBC Executive Director Determination, CLICK HERE.

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Sucking Up the Susquehanna

2010-06-11T21:29:00.004-04:00

Just across the river bridge at Ulster, PA, a seemingly endless stream of trucks

(labelled FRESH WATER or RESIDUAL WASTE, doesn't seem to matter)
arrive empty and depart filled with water from the hydrants at this pumping station.

Does anybody know... are there meters on these hydrants?

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Live Streaming Video of Gulf Oil Spill from PBS

2010-06-10T15:09:00.003-04:00

BP's Disregard

ProPublica investigative reporter Abrahm Lustgarten uncovered a series of internal documents indicating BP repeatedly disregarded safety and environmental rules. His findings, published Tuesday in The Washington Post, indicate that BP was well aware of safety and maintenance issues as early as 2001.

"[The documents are] strikingly consistent, which was the first thing that jumped out to us ..." Lustgarten tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "You start to see a couple central themes. And those were: internal criticism for a lack of accountability in the company, lack of support for workers at BP and at BP's contractors. ... [There was also] a consistent emphasis of profits over production over safety and maintenance and environmental compliance, meaning they were putting profits ahead of safety. And finally, a systematic disregard for maintenance of their equipment. It's a process that they call 'run to failure' where they would use the equipment for as long as possible while investing as little effort and money in maintaining it as possible." ...

CLICK HERE to read Abrahm Lustgarten's full Fresh Air/NPR report.

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Chilling Images of Drilling’s Perils, Met by Numbed Eyes

2010-06-09T23:46:00.003-04:00

PETER APPLEBOME
New York/Region
nytimes.com
June 9, 2010

WALTON, N.Y.- The occasion was the screening of “Gasland,” a polemical and quite frightening documentary on the impact of the new generation of gas drilling coming to upstate New York. But, given the news, there was also plenty of talk about that huge well explosion everyone had heard about.

No, not that one far away in the Gulf of Mexico. Closer to home was the natural gas blowout last week in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania that shot gas and water polluted with drilling fluids as high as 75 feet into the air until it was finally shut down 16 hours later.

As our numbed eyes witness every night on the news, stuff happens, particularly when it comes to extracting hydrocarbons. So here in the far reaches of the Catskills the issues in the film weren’t abstract, and the gulf wasn’t so far away. They were the stuff of daily politics, pitting neighbor against neighbor, revolving around two questions: Is the risk worth the reward? What’s the alternative?

For this crowd, overwhelmingly antidrilling, the first answer was easy. The second, well, we’re all waiting. ...

“Gasland” is the product of Josh Fox, a 37-year-old theater director who lives over the border in Milanville, Pa. In 2008, he received a leasing offer from a gas company. He set out to find the effects of gas drilling and captured harrowing footage from places like Dimock, Pa.; Pavillion, Wyo.; and Weld County, Colo., documenting polluted air, tap water that catches fire, tainted well water and families claiming to be sickened by drilling on their property. The film won the special jury prize for documentaries at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and will air on HBO on June 21.

It’s one-sided, flawed and personal in the Michael Moore mode, and it jibes completely with the stories told by people from out west who offered cautionary tales at an information session at the same theater two years earlier, when the leasing frenzy upstate was just beginning.

Many people have signed leases hoping to get rich. Not many of them were at the screening. Most of those on hand were more concerned with the environmental risks. Gas is not oil. The Catskills region is not the gulf. But that endless underwater gusher, the oil-soaked pelicans in full cry, seemed just outside the door.

“What they have in common is that they’re working on the hairy edge of the possible,” said Laurie Spaeth of the Chenango Delaware Otsego Gas Drilling Opposition Group, whose Web site, un-naturalgas.org, tracks drilling issues. “As impressive as the technology is, there are going to be accidents. What they’re doing here is not quite as extreme as what they were doing in the gulf, but it clearly has the same potential for devastation.”

Apparently others agree. The advocacy group American Rivers put the Upper Delaware River at the top of its annual list of the nation’s 10 most endangered rivers, citing gas exploration and the millions of gallons of water used in the hydraulic fracturing of each well. Thousands of wells are projected to be drilled in New York, and a drilling boom is well under way in Pennsylvania.

At this point the voice of reason is supposed to add, Yes. But. We need the energy from somewhere. What’s the least bad alternative: Offshore or Middle Eastern oil? Gas? Nuclear? Coal? A conventional answer is gas. Only you look at those sickening images from the gulf and the shimmering green canvas of hills, lakes and dairy farms upstate and you add another “Yes. But.” If there could ever be an event that would set our hair on fire, send us running a million miles an hour toward full-bore efforts at conservation and alternative energy, what else could it be if not this one?

Or maybe there’s no such thing. We look at the images from the gulf, feel ill, click to another channel. Leno and Letterman tell oil-spill jokes. Half comatose, half engaged, we gravitate toward whatever silos make us happy. Maybe New York has gotten ahead of the curve on regulation. Maybe the optimists hope it all works out — some get rich, some get run over, life goes on.

LINK to complete article.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

DEP Orders Clearfield County Well Contractor to Halt Activities Statewide as Part of Ongoing Investigation

2010-06-09T14:48:00.004-04:00

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
Dept. of Environmental Protection
Commonwealth News Bureau
Room 308, Main Capitol Building
Harrisburg PA., 17120

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

06/9/2010

CONTACT:

Neil Weaver, Department of Environmental Protection

717-787-1323

C.C. Forbes Ordered to Produce Records, Witness Names

HARRISBURG -- The Department of Environmental Protection today ordered C.C. Forbes, of Washington, PA, to suspend all post-hydraulic fracturing activities on Marcellus Shale wells in the state immediately as it continues its investigation into a June 3 well blowout in Clearfield County.

DEP Secretary John Hanger said EOG Resources—the company that owned the well in Lawrence Township—hired C.C. Forbes as a contractor to provide post-hydrofracturing services at the site.

Hanger said DEP’s order also requires C.C. Forbes to provide site and equipment records specific to the well, including any written, photographic and video documentation.

The company must also furnish the names of its employees who were working at the site or have knowledge of the equipment used there. The secretary said those employees must be made available to the department for questioning.

“We need to fully investigate the equipment used by this company to ensure that other sites in Pennsylvania are not in danger of experiencing similar blowouts that could place the public or our environment at risk,” said Hanger. “This was a serious incident that could have resulted in the loss of life or significant damage to our natural resources and the department is prepared to use all means necessary to find the cause of the blowout.

“It is imperative that C.C. Forbes provide all records related to the equipment it used, as well as access to its employees that were present when the incident occurred.”

The order requires C.C. Forbes to cease its operations until receiving DEP’s written consent to resume.

The Punxsutawney Hunting Club 36H well, owned by EOG Resources Inc., began leaking Thursday evening, June 3, when employees at the site lost control of it while preparing to extract gas after fracking the shale. As a result, natural gas and flowback frac fluid was released uncontrollably onto the ground and 75 feet into the air. The well was capped at around noon on June 4.

For more information, visit www.depweb.state.pa.us.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Tompkins Legislative Committee Advised on Potential Future Gas Drilling Effects

2010-06-09T11:21:00.007-04:00

New York State Preppers Network
June 9, 2010

Members of the Legislature’s Public Safety Committee were told today that local natural gas drilling in the Marcellus shale will likely produce more above-ground emergency incidents—many stemming from human error—and social effects arising from an influx of drilling workers.

Dr. Theodore Them, MD, Chairman of Occupational Medicine at the Guthrie Health Care System in Sayre, PA, also holds Masters degrees in Science and Public Health and a PhD. In an hour-long presentation to the committee, he spoke not only from his background in occupational medicine, but also from many years of experience as a geologist, who is familiar with drilling operations throughout the country and with Marcellus hydraulic fracturing operations during the past decade in nearby Pennsylvania. Public Safety chair Nathan Shinagawa invited Dr. Them to advise the committee on public safety and emergency preparedness issues related to drilling in the Marcellus shale.

The gas drilling, Dr. Them said, boils down to a matter of risk versus benefit. With the highly concentrated natural gas supply in the Marcellus shale, he cautioned that too much political pressure exists for the gas not to be extracted: “The question is not ‘if’, it’s ‘when’,” he said, “…the trick is getting it out safely.” While much focus has been on chemical hazards, the doctor suggested that “most problems will be above ground”—related to aspects includin transportation, deliveries, and dilution of substances. And he predicted that most hazards “are going to be people, rather than chemicals” related to human error, since “mistakes kill.” He advised that the drilling will produce “what you have now, but a lot more of it”—more people, traffic, movement, trucks, and accidents.

Based on his experience in other locations, Dr. Them advised that an
influx of new workers will create social issues such as increased
crime, drug and alcohol problems, traffic, housing shortages, school
overcrowding, poaching, and the related effects to an infusion of new
money to landowners, including an increased number of scam artists. Of the workers who will come in to drill the gas, Them said, “These are hardened, tough, heavy-duty people who are used to a hard life,” with “enough bad apples to create a problem.” ...

LINK to complete post.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Re: Major drilling accident in NW PA.: Media banned from site. Threats of shooting, arrest

2010-06-08T12:57:00.007-04:00

A Personal Testimony
by Michael Morrill
reported on Daily Kos
Mon Jun 07, 2010

An explosion at a natural gas well in northwest Pennsylvania resulted in a spill of at least a million gallons of oil and chemicals mixed with water. According to the AP report, there was a shower of gas and chemical-laden water shooting 75 feet into the air. The leak continued for at least 16 hours. The accident was so severe that the area was evacuated and the Federal Aviation Administration prohibited flights in the area.

When I heard of the accident on Friday afternoon, I immediately left the meeting I was attending in Washington, DC and headed for the site with my trusty Flip Camera in hand.

So where are the photos and video showing the extent of the pollution?

They don’t exist, because EOG Resources, the owner of the wells, won’t allow anyone on the site, especially with a camera. When I tried to shoot some video, they not only wouldn’t let me on the site, they told me I might be shot for being on their property and then sent thugs to chase me and threaten me.

Link to Michael Morrill's Daily Kos diary

I arrived around 7:30 PM and drove around the area trying to find the site. I asked a number of locals if they knew the site of the explosion. No one knew what I was talking about, so it wasn’t until about 9:00 that I finally stumbled upon the site. It’s about 5 ½ miles from the entrance to S.B. Elliott State Park in Clearfield County.

As I approached the site a man got out of a pickup truck and told me I would have to leave. I told him I just wanted to get some video of the cleanup. He said he couldn’t allow me on the grounds and I didn’t leave right away I would be arrested for trespassing.

In the morning I tried again and got the same answer from another man in a pickup truck.

I could see through the forest that there was work going on in the distance, but my little flip Camera couldn’t get anything but trees. I decided that maybe a hike through the woods was in order, so I drove a few miles to a point on the other side of the spill site. I chose an entrance point that was not marked as private property and hiked toward the site.

Along the way I saw still and flowing water with oily residue. Some of it may be from the spill, but most of it was uphill from the accident site. That means the water in this area is likely contaminated from the numerous gas wells being drilled.

I found a road on a ridge that appeared to head close to the accident site and walked about a half mile on that road when I was stopped by two men in a Gator. They asked me what I was doing out there and I said I was just taking a hike. They told me that I was on property owned by the Punxsutawney Hunt Club and the members didn’t appreciate trespassers. They told me, in a veiled threat, that I should leave now and as long as I was heading out I would probably not get shot.

I’m not one to back down easily, but I wasn’t ready to take a bullet for a grainy video of the spill site. I wished them a good day and turned back to my car, a couple of miles and bridgeless brook away. As I crossed the brook barefoot I noticed another pickup truck parking on the opposite hill, blocking the path. When I approached the truck two men got out. The older man got in front of me and said “Show me some ID.”

I asked him who he was and he grabbed my arm and told me I was on private property. I shook his hand off and continued walking. Without looking back, I told him there was nothing posted that indicated the land I was on was private property. He yelled to me, “We know where your car is. We called the police. You’ll be arrested when you get back to your car.” He then added, “We know you’re taking water samples.”

The truth is, I had filled up some drinking water bottles with samples of water from various sites along my hike. I’m not sure what use they will be, but I thought it was important to at least get something that could be independently tested.

When I got a few hundred yards from my car I could hear the last two men who confronted me. As I approached my car the older man took out an old disposable film camera and took my picture. I tried to get my Flip Camera to take some video of them, but the battery was dead and I only got a few seconds.

They tried to get me to stay and wait for the police to come, but I wasn’t about to test the fairness of the local criminal justice system. I told them to back off or be charged with assault, and susprisingly they complied.

As a parting shot the younger one said,” Don’t come back.” I replied, childishly, “I’ll do what I want.” He said, “If you come back you won’t leave.”

I got in my car and started to leave the way I came in. They passed me and I drove a safe distance behind them. Then I realized that I may be driving into a trap. When they turned a corner toward the spill site, I stopped and turned around. I drove a few miles in the wrong direction, but eventually found a connection to Route 153. And then home.

I have some video that I’ll be posting later today and tomorrow. It’s not very expository, but it’s all I could get. I’ll also be trying to find an independent lab that can identify the chemicals and oily residue in the water samples I took. I’ll post the results of those tests as I get them.

In the meantime, it’s important for the public to know what’s really going on at the spill site.

There has been very little news coverage of this major accident and part of the reason is the lack of access to the site. It’s hard to report when you have no information. It’s harder when the perpetrators are in full control of what little information has been released. “Nothing to see here,” EOG Resources assures us. “It was only a million gallons and we took care of it.”

If that’s the truth, it’s a huge accident that threatens local waterways that flow into the Susquehanna River and Chesapeake Bay. But what if it’s worse than that? We don’t know because there are no independent eyes and ears on the site. Haven’t we learned yet that we should never rely on the word of the people who caused the problem?

I’m calling on Governor Ed Rendell and Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Hanger to use their offices to grant access to the spill site to the media, environmental organizations and the local population. It’s probably too late to see anything damning, but it will at least give us a picture of where the accident occurred so we can begin to ask the right questions and make sure any investigations are accurate and complete.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

More Bad News from a Haphazard Industry

2010-06-08T11:03:00.006-04:00

Worker killed when natural gas pipeline explodes in fireball
WFAA TV/Dallas/Fort Worth
WFAA.com
June 7, 2010

LINK

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

New case of drinking water contamination after hydraulic fracturing in Texas

2010-06-08T09:00:00.000-04:00

PHOTO OF SMITHS' WATER COURTESY OF AMBER SMITH

In her blog on June 7th, Amy Mall, NRDC Senior Policy Analyst reports:
According to recent reports, an underground source of drinking water in the town of DISH, Texas, was contaminated after hydraulic fracturing of nearby natural gas wells last year. At first, the Smith family noticed that its water turned gray and was filled with sediment. There were changes in the water pressure. The Smiths installed a water filtration system, but over a year later, it was useless and clogged.

To read more about the toxicity, CLICK HERE.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Sestak Calls on EPA to Step Up Oversight of Marcellus Drilling

2010-06-08T01:12:00.003-04:00

Gant Team
gantdaily.com
June 7, 2010

MEDIA – Following a blowout at a Pennsylvania natural gas well, Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Congressman Joe Sestak called on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today to increase its oversight of Marcellus Shale development.

The blowout at the natural gas well in Clearfield County last week, apparently caused by a failed blowout preventer, spewed polluted drilling water and natural gas 75 feet in the air and on the ground before being capped 16 hours later. The drilling liquid from the well’s hydraulic fracturing activities, whereby the liquids are shot underground at high pressure to break up shale and release its natural gas, flowed off the site and toward tributaries to Little Laurel Run.

While the situation was eventually contained, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Hanger said the accident could have resulted in a “catastrophic incident that endangered life and property.”

The circumstances of the accident are similar to those that led to the BP oil rig explosion in April at the Deepwater Horizon Rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Joe wrote a letter to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson to ask that the Marcellus Shale development be monitored by the EPA to ensure that drilling does not harm Pennsylvania’s water resources.

“This accident highlights the significant dangers of these drilling operations, which are expanding in Pennsylvania at an unprecedented rate and scale,” wrote Sestak, noting that American Rivers has declared the Upper Delaware River the most endangered in the country due to Marcellus Shale development. “Proper regulations are not in place to manage them and protect the public.”

Sestak asked Jackson to increase EPA’s authority “to the maximum extent possible” to oversee the development of the Marcellus Shale as he and Sen. Bob Casey work on efforts to protect Pennsylvania’s natural resources. For example, Pennsylvania must have proper investigation and testing of groundwater and air contamination and the EPA has the technical expertise to help put the safest possible procedures in place.

Sestak has co-sponsored the FRAC Act, a companion to a Casey-sponsored Senate bill, that would repeal the “Halliburton Loophole,” a Bush-era special-interest deal that allows drillers to skirt the Safe Drinking Water Act.

“It is critical that the EPA play a role in assessing and minimizing industrial risk so that our citizens do not sacrifice their health, safety, livelihoods, and environment to irresponsible development of our nation’s vast natural wealth,” Sestak said. “Development of natural gas in the Marcellus Shale can be a boon for ailing local economies, but we must be vigilant in taking all necessary steps to protect our commonwealth’s precious natural resources.”

Here is the full text of the letter:

The Honorable Lisa Jackson
Administrator
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Ariel RiosBuilding
1200 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC20460-0001

Dear Administrator Jackson,

Last week, Pennsylvania experienced a serious accident in a natural gas drilling operation in the Marcellus Shale. A ruptured mine spewed explosive gas and contaminated wastewater into the environment for 16 hours before being brought under control. The accident appears to have been caused by a failed blowout preventer — an alarming similarity to the tragedy of the Deepwater Horizon rig. According to Secretary John Hanger of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, this accident could have been even worse, and could have resulted in a “catastrophic incident that endangered life and property.”

This accident highlights the significant dangers of these drilling operations, which are expanding in Pennsylvania at an unprecedented rate and scale. Proper regulations are not in place to manage them and protect the public. American Rivers has declared the Upper Delaware River the most endangered in the country due to natural gas extraction activities in the Marcellus Shale, and the state DEP has recently had its budget cut by more than 25 percent.

In April, my colleague Senator Bob Casey wrote to you requesting greater EPA involvement in Pennsylvania to protect its citizens from the detrimental effects of hydraulic fracturing. This accident underscores the need, and urgency, for the EPA to take action.

Recent events, from the tragic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to the fraudulent activity that contributed to the collapse on Wall Street, have reminded us all that we cannot depend on industry to police itself when our quality of life, present and future, is at stake. It is critical that the EPA play a role in assessing and minimizing industrial risk so that our citizens do not sacrifice their health, safety, livelihoods, and environment to irresponsible development of our nation’s vast natural wealth.

I will continue to work with Senator Casey to provide even greater authority to the EPA in oversight of hydraulic fracturing operations through passage of the FRAC Act. As that legislation moves through the legislative process, I request that the EPA use its current authority to the maximum extent possible to protect the health, safety, and environment of Pennsylvania and our neighboring states.

Sincerely,
Joe Sestak
Member of Congress

LINK

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

W.Va. Gas Well Explosion Injures Seven Workers

2010-06-08T01:02:00.004-04:00

By KRIS MAHER
WSJ.com
June 7, 2010

Seven workers drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale formation were injured in an explosion Monday in a northwest corner of West Virginia.

A crew had drilled about 1,000 feet from the surface and hit a pocket of methane gas in an abandoned coal mine. A spokeswoman for Dallas-based Chief Oil & Gas, which has an interest in the well, said a methane ignition was the most likely cause of the explosion, which occurred about 1:30 a.m. Monday. By Monday afternoon, emergency teams were still working to contain a 40-foot high flare. The drill site is in a rural area in Marshall County, W.Va., and company officials said no residents or structures were in danger. ...

Ms. Gittins said she had reports that all seven workers had been taken to area hospitals and none had life-threatening injuries. ...

CLICK HERE to read further.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

DEP Orders EOG Resources to Halt All Natural Gas Drilling Activities in PA

2010-06-08T00:51:00.001-04:00

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
Dept. of Environmental Protection
Commonwealth News Bureau
Room 308, Main Capitol Building
Harrisburg PA., 17120

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

06/7/2010

CONTACT:

Neil Weaver, Department of Environmental Protection

717-787-1323

HARRISBURG -- The Department of Environmental Protection today ordered EOG Resources Inc. to suspend its natural gas well drilling activities in Pennsylvania after a June 3 blowout at one of the company’s Clearfield County wells sent natural gas and at least 35,000 gallons of drilling wastewater into the sky and over the ground for 16 hours.

DEP Secretary John Hanger said that while the order bans all drilling and hydrofracturing, or fracking, operations for specified periods of time, the suspension will remain in effect until DEP has completed a comprehensive investigation into the leak and the company has implemented any needed changes.

“DEP staff, along with an independent expert, will conduct a detailed investigation of not just the incident that occurred last week in Clearfield County, but of EOG Resources’ drilling operations, as a whole, here in Pennsylvania,” said Hanger. “The Clearfield County incident presented a serious threat to life and property. We are working with the company to review its Pennsylvania drilling operations fully from beginning to end to ensure an incident of this nature does not happen again.”

The order prohibits EOG Resources from drilling activities up to seven days; from engaging in fracking operations up to 14 days; and from completing or initiating post-fracking operations for 30 days in any wells throughout the state. These actions and operations cannot resume until the department agrees that the investigation has been fully completed.

The results of the investigation will also help determine whether DEP should take additional enforcement action against the company, such as fines or penalties.

Hanger added that EOG Resources has been fully cooperative and in agreement with the department’s ongoing investigation and order.

The leak began at approximately 8 p.m. on Thursday, June 3, when the well’s operators lost control of it while preparing to extract gas after fracking the shale. As a result, natural gas and flowback frack fluid was released uncontrollably onto the ground and 75 feet into the air. The well was capped at around noon on June 4.
The EOG well pad is located in a rural area near the Penfield/Route 153 exit of Interstate 80 in northwestern Clearfield County, near Moshannon State Forest.

The department’s Emergency Response and Oil and Gas programs responded to the incident, along with the Pennsylvania State Police, the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, and local fire and police departments.

PEMA elevated its activation level to coordinate resources among multiple state agencies and worked with PennDOT and the Federal Aviation Administration to institute a temporary airspace restriction above the well. The restriction was lifted at approximately 1:45 p.m. on June 4.

“Fortunately, the well did not ignite and explode, and there were no injuries to the well crew or emergency responders,” said Hanger. “Our preliminary assessment is that the environmental damage was modest as the frack fluid was contained and did not appear to reach any streams, but DEP is continuing its monitoring efforts because sometimes the impacts of a spill like this are delayed. We have noted that a spring in the area has shown a spike in conductivity and that discharge is being collected by EOG for proper disposal.”

The secretary noted that the company expects to have a more accurate estimate of the amount of fracking water that was leaked after it finishes draining the pits and waterboxes it deployed to collect the fluids. As of June 7, initial estimates totaled 35,000 gallons, although more was certainly released and the company believes this accounts for a majority of the leaked water.

DEP’s preliminary investigation has determined that a blowout preventer on the well failed, but the agency does not yet know if that failure was the main cause of the incident. The blowout preventer has been secured and will be one piece of the investigation.

EOG Resources, formerly known as Enron Oil & Gas Co., operates approximately 265 active wells in Pennsylvania, 117 of which are in the Marcellus Shale formation.

For more information, visit www.depweb.state.pa.us.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Tax won't scare away gas companies

2010-06-06T09:00:00.001-04:00

OPINION
Published: June 3, 2010
citizensvoice.com

As energy companies have expanded their operations across the Marcellus Shale natural gas field, the industry also has vastly expanded its political activity.

Common Cause reported in May, for example, that the industry vastly has expanded its lobbying activity while entities related to the industry significantly have stepped up their political contributions.

The study found, for example, that industrywide lobbying costs in the state nearly tripled from $579,000 in 2007 to $1.7 million in 2009.

That increase coincides with the growth of the industry and with the Legislature's deliberations on major policy matters relative to Marcellus Shale. It's always difficult to tie lobbying expenditures and campaign contributions directly to policy decisions. But the Common Cause study points out that the 33 House members who recently voted against a moratorium on further drilling leases of state forest land received 3.4 times as much in campaign contributions from industry-related sources as the 42 cosponsors of the moratorium.

Much of the debate that the industry has sought to influence is the question of whether to impose a "severance" tax on gas extracted from the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania. Such taxes are standard in gas-producing states.

The principal argument by tax opponents is that the levy would hinder the industry's development.

That, however, is not likely. And the place that tax advocates should look to prove it is not campaign contributions or lobbying costs, but to the energy industry itself.

Some of the world's largest energy companies have begun to buy up other companies with major interests in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania.

Royal Dutch Shell PLC recently announced the acquisition of East Resources Inc., of Warrendale, for $4.7 billion. East Resources has gas rights for 1.25 million acres from northern West Virginia, across Pennsylvania into New York.

Earlier, ExxonMobil announced the purchase of XTO Energy, another company with substantial Marcellus Shale holdings in Pennsylvania, for $31 billion.

Neither of those global energy giants had invested significantly in shale gas until ongoing exploration and early production across the Marcellus Shale proved its viability and potentially high profitability.

The notion that such companies would invest billions of dollars in the Marcellus Shale, then not exploit the field for fear of a modest severance tax, itself has the substance of gas.

Lawmakers should accept the reality that the people of Pennsylvania should share in the development of the wealth underlying the commonwealth. The debate should about the size of the severance tax, not whether there should be one.

LINK

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Robert Kennedy Jr., environmentalists hear of gas woes in Dimock

2010-06-05T10:27:00.004-04:00

by laura legere (staff writer)
thetimes-tribune.com
Published: June 4, 2010

DIMOCK TWP. - Residents' complaints about spills, leaks and drinking-water contamination from Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling drew several high-profile environmentalists to Susquehanna County on Thursday.

They included Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of the nation's foremost environmental attorneys, who called the natural gas industry "just completely and utterly untrustworthy."

Mr. Kennedy was joined by attorneys and activists with the Natural Resources Defense Council, a national environmental group for which he is senior attorney, Catskills Mountainkeeper and Riverkeeper, including actor Mark Ruffalo and former New York Rangers goalie Mike Richter.

The group gathered in the home of one resident among 14 in the township whose drinking water was found by state environmental regulators to have been contaminated with methane from natural gas drilling.

The group then took a tour of the concentrated area where more than 60 wells have been drilled.

The residents told stories about the persistence of methane contamination in their drinking water and inadequate solutions to remove or replace it. They also talked about spills on or around their properties and assurances they said the gas companies made and broke.

Mr. Kennedy, who believes natural gas is an important bridge fuel on the way to developing greener energy alternatives, said most of the problems caused by the industry are solvable, "but you need really tough oversight by the regulatory agencies" and for best practices to be required by law.

He referred to his work to restrict or clean up dirtier energy extraction processes, including a lawsuit he filed against BP for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. He was driving back to New York after spending most of the day in Dimock in order to speak about the spill on CNN on Thursday night.

"I see the coal industry blowing up mountains, and I filed the first lawsuit in the Gulf," he said. "I'm saying, gas has got to be better than this."

Foremost among his concerns about the shale gas extraction process, he said, is the industrialization of landscapes where drilling occurs, like the hills and valleys of Dimock.

But there are models in other areas, including Arkansas, where well development is restricted to one pad per square mile in order to avoid unnecessary roads, pipelines and development, he said. Advances in horizontal drilling, where the drill bit turns and burrows laterally through the shale, have allowed companies to extract gas from up to seven miles underground from one well pad.

But he cautioned the Dimock residents that his experiences have taught him never to trust "any of these gas companies."

"They all seem to be pathological liars," he said. "You can make deals with them, and they're going to break the deals. You've seen that happen at the local level; I've seen it at the national level."

Victoria Switzer, the resident who hosted the meeting, said advances in the industry's technology and best practices are encouraging, but it will not change what she and her neighbors suffered because of laxer practices, some of which are still allowed by law.

"Why don't we stop them behaving this way?" she said.

LINK

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Gas, fluids spew for hours from blown-out Pa. well

2010-06-05T07:54:00.012-04:00

By MARC LEVY and JENNIFER C. YATES
Associated Press Writer
KansasCity.com

A blowout at a natural-gas well in a remote area shot explosive gas and polluted water as high as 75 feet into the air before crews were able to tame it more than half a day later, officials said Friday.

The gas never caught fire, and no injuries were reported, but state officials worried about an explosion before the well could be controlled. The well was brought under control just after noon Friday, about 16 hours after it started spewing gas and brine, said Elizabeth Ivers, a spokeswoman for driller EOG Resources Inc.

Pennsylvania, historically an insignificant source of natural gas, is trying to adapt its laws to respond to a furious rush to tap a gas-rich shale formation under its land. The blowout could test the ability of state regulators, who promised an aggressive investigation into the accident. (see DEP Press Release below)

"The event at the well site could have been a catastrophic incident that endangered life and property," Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Hanger said in a statement. "This was not a minor accident but a serious incident that will be fully investigated by this agency with the appropriate and necessary actions taken quickly."

If the agency finds that mistakes were made, it will take steps to prevent similar errors, he said. It was too early to tell the extent of any environmental damage, he said.

Details about the accident were still sketchy, but the agency was told that unexpectedly high gas pressure in the new well prevented the crew from containing it, said Dan Spadoni, a spokesman for the Department of Environmental Protection.

EOG declined to explain how the accident happened, citing the ongoing investigation. Public safety and protection of the environment are of the utmost importance, the company said in a statement.

President Barack Obama and others have touted exploration of shale as a major new source of clean, homegrown energy. However, lawmakers who are battling for more stringent oversight of such drilling to protect clean drinking water quickly seized on the accident.

"Incidents like this blowout are a reminder that there are dangers and that precautions must be taken to protect the health and well-being of Pennsylvanians," U.S. Sen. Bob Casey said in a statement.

Casey has sponsored a bill to require the industry to comply with the Safe Drinking Water Act and force it to disclose the chemicals it uses in its hydraulic fracturing processes - in which millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals are blasted underground to shatter tightly compacted shale and release trapped natural gas.

Amy Mall, Senior Policy Analyst, writes on Switchboard, the staff blog of the Natural Resources Defense Council:
"Today a natural gas well blew out in a Pennsylvania state forest during a hydraulic fracturing operation. Officials have estimated that one million gallons of hydraulic fracturing fluid, including chemical additives, plus an undetermined amount of wet natural gas, has blown out of the well. Wet natural gas can contain highly flammable hydrocarbons, like propane and butane, and hazardous substances, such as hydrogen sulfide. These are separated out before natural gas makes its way to your stove or furnace.

Campers and others in the forest were evacuated. While no one wants this kind of toxic explosion in a state forest, imagine if it were near a school or hospital? In this case, the Federal Aviation Administration even had to issue flight restrictions. These hazardous substances will be carried by the air and will settle on land and vegetation. It will be very important to know what chemicals were being used in this hydraulic fracturing operation. Will the company doing the hydraulic fracturing disclose this information to the public?"
LINK

David Rensink, the incoming president of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, said gas well blowouts are very rare and can be very dangerous to control, since a spark can set off an explosion.

Typically, a blowout preventer - a series of valves that sit atop a well - allows workers to control the pressure inside, he said.

Just such a device figured into the massive oil spill off the coast of Louisiana. The oil rig's blowout preventer was supposed to shut off the flow of oil in the event of a catastrophic failure but failed to do so.

The Pennsylvania well is on the grounds of a hunting club in a heavily forested section of Clearfield County, near Interstate 80 and about 90 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.

Houston-based EOG, formerly part of Enron Corp., was drilling into the Marcellus Shale reserve, a hotly pursued gas formation primarily under Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York and Ohio that some geologists believe could become the nation's most productive natural gas field.

There are more than 1,000 Marcellus Shale wells in Pennsylvania alone, some of them within view of homes, farmhouses and public roads.

There were no homes within a mile of the well, and polluted drilling water was prevented from reaching a waterway, said Spadoni, the department spokesman.

On Friday afternoon, a worker blocked a dirt road to the site, while trucks hauling tanks to remove the polluted water streamed past him. He said he was not allowed to talk about what had happened.

The accident happened just after the crew finished hydraulic fracturing. The crew was clearing out debris from the well when gas shot out of it, Spadoni said.

Workers evacuated the site and contacted county authorities before 10 p.m., said John Sobel, a Clearfield County commissioner. A Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency spokeswoman said the agency got word after midnight and within the hour notified the DEP. The DEP said it wasn't notified until 1:30 a.m., more than five hours after the blowout.

The polluted water flowing out of the well and into the woods was stopped by a trench and a pump installed by a contractor, Spadoni said. Companies that specialize in securing blown-out wells were called in, he said. ...

LINK to complete report

DEP Plans Thorough Investigation in to Marcellus Shale Well Blowout in Clearfield County

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
06/4/2010

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
Dept. of Environmental Protection
Commonwealth News Bureau
Room 308, Main Capitol Building
Harrisburg PA., 17120

CONTACT:
Neil Weaver, Department of Environmental Protection
717-787-1323

EOG Resources Well Released Fracking Fluid, Natural Gas for 16 Hours

HARRISBURG -- Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Hanger said today that his agency intends to investigate aggressively the circumstances surrounding a blowout at a Marcellus Shale natural gas well in Lawrence Township, Clearfield County, and take the appropriate enforcement action.

At approximately 8 p.m. on Thursday, June 3, the operators of the well, which is owned by EOG Resources, Inc., lost control of it while preparing to extract gas after hydrofracturing the shale. As a result, the well released natural gas and flowback frack fluid onto the ground and 75 feet into the air. The well was eventually capped around noon on June 4.

“The event at the well site could have been a catastrophic incident that endangered life and property,” said Hanger. “This was not a minor accident, but a serious incident that will be fully investigated by this agency with the appropriate and necessary actions taken quickly.

“When we arrived on scene, natural gas and frack fluid was flowing off the well pad and heading toward tributaries to Little Laurel Run and gas was shooting into the sky, creating a significant fire hazard. That’s why emergency responders acted quickly to cut off electric service to the area.

“Right now, we’re focused on limiting any further environmental damage, but once that work is complete, we plan to aggressively look at this situation and see where things went wrong and what enforcement action is necessary. If mistakes were made, we will be certain to take steps to prevent similar errors from happening again.” (Once again... -Splashdown)

DEP learned of the leak at approximately 1:30 a.m. on Friday after it was informed by the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency. DEP immediately dispatched its Emergency Response and Oil and Gas program staff to the site.

PEMA, which elevated its activation level to coordinate resources among multiple state agencies, also worked with PennDOT to initiate an airspace restriction above the well, which the Federal Aviation Administration authorized on a temporary basis earlier today. The restriction prohibits flights at and below 1,000 feet of ground level within a three nautical mile radius of the well site. The restriction is in effect until further notice.

The EOG well pad is located in a rural area near the Penfield/Route 153 exit of Interstate 80 in northwestern Clearfield County. Three other wells on the same pad that have been drilled and fractured remain plugged and are not in danger.

EOG Resources, formerly known as Enron Oil & Gas Co., operates approximately 265 active wells in Pennsylvania, 117 of which are in the Marcellus Shale formation.

For more information, call visit www.depweb.state.pa.us.

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