Pennsylvania towns often find themselves powerless against gas company practices

By Rona Kobell
Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
Bay Journal
December 2009

There's a reason they call these the Endless Mountains.

Undulating hills of yellow and crimson rise gracefully before disappearing into a blanket of gauze-like fog. For miles, no other cars share the two-lane roads that snake through this tranquil pocket of northeast Pennsylvania.

People visit here for the hiking and the bicycling and the skiing and the leaf peeping; they stay for the quiet.

But natural gas drilling is quickly transforming these rural hamlets into industrial zones. Towns and counties that are sitting atop the gas-rich Marcellus Shale know that the gas companies are coming, and they are trying to prepare. But because of industry practices and current regulations, they may be powerless to control their destinies.

Gas companies play their cards close to their vests. They do not announce they may drill 40 wells; they drill one first and see how it produces. Usually, they approach a private landowner, who does not need permission from his or her municipality to lease. That's how Dimock, a rural hamlet in northeast Pennsylvania, went from one well in 2006 to more than 60 by the end of 2009. That's why visitors who meander down its barely one-lane roads will see the classic tableau of red barn, silver silo and lazing cows - but behind it is often a gas well lit up like a space shuttle.

"There's only so much that they can plan, because when these gas companies decide to come in, it happens rather quickly," said Jerry S. Walls, who was director of the Lycoming County Planning Commission for 37 years.

Many Pennsylvania towns have no zoning ordinances, complicating matters. But even those that do will not necessarily be able to enforce them on drillers. Under the Pennsylvania Gas Act of 1984, state regulations trump local ordinances.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection regulates gas drilling. It approves most permits and relies on the industry to self-report problems, while conducting spot checks for compliance.

"We've got no oversight at the federal level, none at the local level, and the state is in a shambles," said Jim Weaver, the lone planner in Tioga County, a prime location for drilling. "For all intents and purposes, the state legislature has handed the gas industry the Marcellus play to do with whatever they please."

Weaver called the situation "short-sighted and less than strategic" and said he hoped some planning would occur at the state level.

This year, two court cases in Western Pennsylvania clarified the powers of local authorities over drilling. In Oakmont, the state Supreme Court ruled that gas companies could not drill a well where zoning laws forbade it. But in Salem, the court ruled the local laws had no say over where gas companies put infrastructure, such as pipelines, which come under the DEP's permitting process.

Bradford County Planning Director Ray Stolinas has been following the cases, trying to figure out how to apply them in his county. Recently, the county decided not to review plans to build a compressor station on the advice of their attorney.

"The message of these court cases is that you can regulate, to some extent, where, but you can't regulate how," Stolinas said. "I do feel unprepared. We're learning every day as we go along."

While Stolinas worries about stormwater and big trucks on the county's gravel roads, town officials are enjoying the boon. In Towanda, Bradford's county seat, restaurants are full and new businesses are opening.

"I think it's going to be a good thing for the town," said Towanda Mayor Richard Snell.

Sixty miles south, many gas companies have set up offices in Williamsport, breathing life into once-vacant downtown buildings. The renovated Holiday Inn offers world-class food with prices to match: a room, if one is even available, costs at least $145.

"It's like a convention that really hasn't left yet," said Jason Fink, vice president of economic development for the Williamsport/Lycoming County Chamber of Commerce.

Some residents say money is already changing the character of these towns. Linda Nealon, a Wyoming County preschool teacher, does not plan to lease her land. But, with landowners in her county commanding nearly $6,000 an acre and 20 percent royalties, she says, she's in the minority. And because she's aired concerns in public about drilling, she feels hostility from neighbors.

"I always felt very connected to my community. Now I feel very disconnected," she said. "It breaks my heart."

But residents and municipalities in the Marcellus Shale region don't have to throw up their hands, according to Walls, the professional planner. The gas companies will be in the state for a long time, and there is room to negotiate. He suggests local officials meet early with the companies and point out ecologically important areas and other places inappropriate for drilling. He also says local officials should update their land ordinances, talk to officials where drilling is already in full swing for advice, and get zoning if they don't already have it.

Lynn Senick, a Montrose activist who has organized an online forum to discuss drilling risks, is hoping the government can somehow slow down the process.

"It's such a travesty to take these pristine areas and ruin them," she said, "because once you start, you're never going to get them back."

NOTE: This comment posted elsewhere by Damascus Citizens for Sustainability:

In February of this year the PA Supreme Court has ruled in the two consolidated Pennsylvania state court appeals (Huntley v. Borough council of Oakmont and Range et al. vs. Salem Township) that local laws can’t conflict with the state regulations for oil and gas drilling, and so local regulations that govern the same features – defined in the opinion as “pertain[ing] to technical aspects of well functions and matters ancillary thereto (such as registration, bonding, and well site restoration)” – as the state Oil and Gas Act are preempted. However, importantly, the Court also ruled that local officials CAN use zoning to determine where drilling can happen within a municipality, as local zoning “serves different purposes from those enumerated in the Oil and Gas Act”.

Continue reading "Marcellus Shale: Pipe Dreams in Pennsylvania?"

and see the oil and gas timeline "Drilling for Resources" also in the December Bay Journal.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

TEDX: The Endocrine Disruptor Exchange

Chemicals in Natural Gas Operations

Introduction

As natural gas production rapidly increases across the U.S., its associated pollution has reached the stage where it is contaminating essential life support systems - water, air, and soil - and causing harm to the health of humans, wildlife, domestic animals, and vegetation. This project was designed to explore the health effects of products and chemicals used in drilling, fracturing (frac’ing, or stimulation), recovery and delivery of natural gas. It provides a glimpse at the pattern(s) of possible health hazards posed by the chemicals being used. There are hundreds of products in current use, the components of which are, in many cases, unavailable for public scrutiny and for which we have information only on a small percentage. We therefore make no claim that our list is complete.

Toxic chemicals are used at every stage of development to reach and release the gas. ...............

In addition to the land and water contamination issues, at each stage of production and delivery, tons of toxic volatile compounds, including benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene, etc., and fugitive natural gas (methane), escape and mix with nitrogen oxides from the exhaust of diesel-driven, mobile and stationary equipment to produce ground-level ozone. Ozone combined with particulate matter less than 2.5 microns produces smog (haze). Gas field produced ozone has created a serious air pollution problem similar to that found in large urban areas, and can spread up to 200 miles beyond the immediate region where gas is being produced. Ozone not only causes irreversible damage to the lungs, it is equally damaging to conifers, aspen, forage, alfalfa, and other crops commonly grown in the West. Adding to this is the dust created by fleets of diesel-driven water trucks working around the clock hauling the constantly accumulating condensate water from well pads to central evaporation pits.

All meaningful environmental oversight and regulation of the natural gas production was removed by the executive branch and Congress in the 2005 Federal Energy Appropriations Bill. Without restraints from the Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, Clean Air Act, and CERCLA, the gas industry is steamrolling over vast land segments in the West. Exploitation is so rapid that in less than 6 months in one county, 10 new well pads were built on the banks of the Colorado River, the source of agricultural and drinking water for 25 million people downstream. Spacing has dropped from one well pad per 240 acres to one per 10 acres. From the air it appears as a spreading, cancer-like network of dirt roads over vast acreage, contributing to desertification.

For the complete intro, CLICK HERE.

What you need to know about natural gas production

TEDX has produced a video of Dr. Theo Colborn's 47 minute lecture, complete with photos and data slides to illustrate the fact that natural gas is not the 'clean energy' that industry is touting it to be.
CLICK HERE to view.
CLICK HERE to order a DVD.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Bamboozled in Good Faith!

A Susquehanna County PA Resident Speaks Out

Fortuna was the company that was under scrutiny in NY for the
unethical tactics used in obtaining leases– best and safest? What
people do not seem to understand is that this industry comes with a
multitude of "nasty surprises"even when everything goes as expected!
Out here in Dimock when we are looking for some comic relief, we joke about the landman telling us there'll just be a metal "christmas tree" "you'll never know we were even here".
What they did not tell us– we would never drink our water again, diesel fuel would be spilled on a fairly regular basis, traffic would be non stop, loud and dangerously fast, drilling would last for months on a site, there would be 30plus wells in a 4 mile walk, venting fumes would fill our valley, flaring would light our nightsky, pipeline would crisscross the hills and forests would be removed, a compressor station would be built and now the 30 inch pipeline will plow through here next year taking more land and bringing more traffic and heavy equipment, also wells would be refracked if deemed viable.
Best and safest?
Just the other day fracking fluids were sprayed on a well site.
What doesn't get reported?
Understand that NE Pennsylvania is now on the verge (although here in Dimock we are over a year into it) of becoming one huge industrial zone– poorly regulated and operating with few safeguards for the environment. You can have what you think is the greatest lease and
believe me there are pretty impressive leases out there now– but no lease prevents the inevitable spills and leaks or worse.
Clean fuel?
Not clean in its extraction and at the expense of water, water, water.

-Victoria Switzer

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Considering the Impact of Gas Wells and Gas Fields

by Chris W. Burger, Chair
Binghamton Regional Sustainability Coalition

In November of 2008, Broome County government took a courageous stand against unbridled gas drilling. They were soon joined by towns and villages across the region, along with groups like Binghamton Regional Sustainability Coalition (BRSC). The County was not against gas drilling per se. It was simply calling for safety and responsibility in the face of a growing “gas rush fever” where caution was in short supply. BRSC was established, in part, to foster economic development, yet along with the County, we understand that, if not done safely and responsibly, gas drilling could easily undermine the community’s sustainability – its long-term health and economic viability.

Everything about gas drilling cries for caution, due diligence, and patience. Its monetary benefits seem obvious, but the costs and risks are far from fully identified, much less comprehended. If there ever is a time for a serious, hardnosed cost-benefit analysis, this situation surely qualifies. It is hard to understate the disastrous consequences if we get it wrong. It is extremely difficult and expensive to address negative health, socio-economic, and environmental impacts after the fact.

We have been granted an extraordinary gift of time. The gas craze was just getting started in New York when natural gas prices fell and venture capital dried up. A short time before, behind closed doors, the Oil and Gas Industry (O&G) had pressured the Federal government to exempt its activities from most of the laws the public takes for granted to protect them; such laws as the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, storm water rules, and the Safe Drinking Water Act.

At the state level, quiet lobbying by O&G has stripped local communities of “home rule” when it comes to gas drilling. Listed as an industrial activity, the state, in effect, can declare our entire
county an “industrial zone’ for gas drilling activity. O&G now has the power to force landowners into “spacing units” for the purposes of extracting gas from their property. An environmental impact study will not be done for our particular community, but we will be regulated under a “generic” study for the entire state.

Landowner groups have been portrayed as uncaring, money grubbers, but if the truth be told, most landowners feel abandoned by their government and have had to band together for protection. Stripped of protection by law, they are seeking it by lease. Yet, many landowners are uneasy. They have observed a pattern of denial by O&G when it comes to taking responsibility. There is a growing, sickening realization that no matter how tight and comprehensive the lease, they will have to sue for lease enforcement and without the government on their side, they will be hopelessly “out gunned.” Even when landowners are upheld, they have witnessed a pattern of seemingly endless appeals to delay restitution.

Sooner or later, gas prices will rise again and venture capital will
again be available. We have been given time, but we are squandering
it. The NY Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is
supposedly looking at the impact of “horizontal hydofracing” the
technology required to get the gas from tight shale formations like
Marcellus, yet their “scoping document” (list of issues it is
studying) is limited and no one has stepped in to pick up the slack.
No one is volunteering to do the socio-economic cost-benefit analysis
required for good decision making (We feel the counties are best
positioned to do this). As important as looking at individual gas
wells is, no one is looking at the impact of a “gas field;” the more
relevant question from a community perspective.

One does not need to be against gas drilling to ask these basic
questions:

• What well density do we consider acceptable?
• What damage will our drinking water sources sustain?
• How will we dispose of the toxic waste water generated by the drilling and fracing?
• What are the effects on agriculture, hunting, and fishing?
• What are the effects on our wildlife in general?
• How will this affect tourism?
• How will it affect our ability to attract young people to our area?
• What air quality and noise levels do we consider acceptable?
• Already stressed, what are the effects on our infrastructure roads, bridges, sewage treatment plants, emergency responders, etc.?
• What are the effects on our ability to control flooding?
• How will the many natural faults in our geography impact the safety of the technology?
• How can we eliminate liability for the landowner?
• What regulation is needed to hold O&G fully accountable for all costs associated with drilling?

These questions need to be answered in the context of a fully developed gas field, not a single well.

The saddest refrain emanating from our neighbors just to the south is
“if only we knew what we were getting ourselves into.” Families have
lost their water wells to pollution, there have been gas explosions,
and home values have plummeted. We need to ask hard questions because drilling will not be restricted to rural areas. It can occur in our suburbs and cities, just as it is happening now under downtown Fort Worth , Texas. A fully developed gas field will affect us all.

*Don't Miss Chris Burger's excellent video on the Marcellus Shale Play!

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!