Clarks Summit business conducts independent testing

http://citizensvoice.com/news/clarks-summit-business-conducts-independent-testing-1.915898

Clarks Summit business conducts independent testing

BY ELIZABETH SKRAPITS (STAFF WRITER)
Published: August 2, 2010

Concern about the potential for drinking water contamination by natural gas drilling is keeping Andy Goldberg busy.

Goldberg, owner of Independent Water Testing in Clarks Summit, travels throughout Lackawanna, Luzerne, Susquehanna, Bradford and Wayne counties to do baseline testing on drinking water wells, and has had inquiries about his service from as far away as West Virginia and Michigan.

“My office is my car. I do between (600 to 800) miles a week,” he said.

Goldberg said he graduated from Harvard and worked in health care in New York for 16 years. Independent Water Testing is a new business and he’s the sole employee – so far.

“There is a huge need for the service,” he explained. “People have a lot of questions about what’s going on, what do they need to be concerned about, how to protect themselves and from what.”

Natural gas companies have been leasing land throughout Northeastern Pennsylvania, and exploratory wells are being drilled in southern Wyoming and northern Luzerne counties.

“It’s happening very fast. People have lots of questions,” Goldberg said. “I try to, in addition to providing this service, be a source of information and to help people as they educate themselves on this issue.”

Goldberg said he tests water with the three-tiered system developed by Penn State Cooperative Extension to find contaminants most likely to be caused through natural gas drilling. He uses a state-accredited laboratory.

“The business first and last revolves around making sure you can stand up in court and support the work you did .… to provide that backing for your homeowner against, potentially, a large gas company,” he said.

He advises homeowners to get their wells tested before any earth disturbance, and retested on an annual basis to check for problems such as bacterial contamination, which is a fairly easy fix.

Goldberg’s Web site, IndependentWaterTesting.com, has educational resources including a map showing where gas well permits were issued so people can judge how close they are and whether their homes are above or below the well site.

“Proximity is hard to address, because you might be very near a well and still not drawing water from a source affected by drilling; you might be very far away and are affected,” he said. “It’s one of those unknowns, or something you can’t be sure of. That’s why there’s a benefit a comfort baseline water testing can provide.”

Hydraulic fracturing, also called fracking, involves shooting millions of gallons of chemical-treated water thousands of feet underground to crack the shale and release the natural gas. Not only is there concern about the chemicals used in the process, but also about the deeply buried substances that surface with the drilling wastewater.

“I liken it to releasing a cork. You’re puncturing the earth, and there’s stuff that’s been down there for millions of years. There are ancient seawater deposits which are very salty and very contaminated, salty to the point of eight to 10 times saltier than typical seawater. And that comes back up in the flowback water, which is all of those brines, plus the compounds and the water and the sand that’s used in the fracking process,” Goldberg said.

“The challenge is you also don’t know how far your well is drawing water from. And depending on the contaminant, there’s the element of solubility. Some contaminants can travel with the water, others travel slower, and you just don’t know.”

Goldberg said he tests for a “comprehensive list” of things likely to identify contamination from gas drilling, including heavy metals and volatile organic compounds. Petroleum distillates are commonly used in fracking, and an elevated level of them in a water well is a “flashing red light” that indicates the need for further, more specific testing, he said.

The state Department of Environmental Protection has released a list of chemicals most commonly found in fracking solutions used in Pennsylvania, and the Penn State tiered tests can help identify contaminants from gas drilling, Goldberg said.

However, “There are only so many things you can practically test for, and economically test for,” he said.

Goldberg says he gets all kinds of customers and inquiries, from the person who has just leased mineral rights to the person who is never going to lease.

“This is a broad-based concern. I have people who call me when they’re on community water or city water or municipal water,” he said.

“They ask if they should have a baseline test. It’s hard to say because there are so many steps between the potential gas well contamination and their faucet. I don’t think it’s going to have much weight in a legal setting.  My hope is that the water utilities are doing similar work to protect their water supplies.”

eskrapits@citizensvoice.com, 570-821-2072