State investigating methane in water near Dimock Twp.
citizensvoice.com/news/state-investigating-methane-in-water-near-dimock-twp-1.1307137#axzz1t9VLaOeL
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: April 28, 2012
State environmental regulators are investigating a possible case of methane migrating into water supplies just north of the 9-square-mile box in Dimock Township where the state halted a gas driller’s operations because of methane contamination in 2010.
Regulators with the state Department of Environmental Protection emphasized that they have not determined the source of elevated methane discovered in two Susquehanna County water wells and whether it is caused by Marcellus Shale drilling or a natural occurrence of gas in the aquifer.
One focus of the investigation is Cabot Oil and Gas Corp.’s Greenwood 1 well, where the company recently squeezed additional cement between steel barriers that are meant to seal off gas and fluids from the aquifer.
The work in late March was an effort to stop the problem, DEP spokesman Kevin Sunday said, even though inspectors have not pinpointed the well as the cause.
“The next step is to determine the effectiveness of the remediation work and to continue water well sampling,” he said.
Regulators began investigating the elevated methane levels in August 2010 after a resident complained about water quality.
The gas wells being evaluated are less than 400 feet from the northern boundary of a section of Dimock where Cabot’s drilling and hydraulic fracturing operations have been on hold since April 2010, when state regulators blamed faulty Cabot wells for allowing shallow methane to channel into 18 private water wells. Cabot disputes the state’s findings in that case.
The current investigation is separate from the ongoing review of Cabot’s wells in the off-limits area.
Cabot spokesman George Stark said Friday that the company “always investigates landowners’ concerns as they are brought to our attention. Cabot has been working closely with the Department of Environmental Protection on this matter and will continue to do so with the best interest of our landowners in mind.”
Neither of the two water wells involved in the current investigation has been vented because one well is buried and has not been located and inspections of the other have not found gas trapped in the open space above the water in the well, Sunday said.
Methane in drinking water is not known to cause any health risks, but at high concentrations it can seep out of water into the air and create an explosion hazard in enclosed spaces.
The state has not reached a determination 20 months into the investigation because a number of factors need to be considered, including the construction of nearby gas wells and identifying features of the methane, DEP spokeswoman Colleen Connolly said.
“It’s not different from any case,” she said. “There are just many issues to deal with.”
The Greenwood 1 well was the first Marcellus Shale well drilled by Cabot in Dimock, in September 2007, according to state records.
Three horizontal wells later drilled on the same pad in November 2009 and May 2010 were among the top-producing wells in the state early last year.
Those wells, the Greenwood 6, 7 and 8, have also been evaluated as part of the investigation. Cabot was cited by DEP for a “failure to case and cement” the three wells “to prevent migrations into fresh groundwater” in January 2011 but Cabot has argued in a letter to the state that the wells were properly constructed and the violations should be rescinded.
Connolly said that DEP is addressing the violations with Cabot. The defects cited by the department “could have been a means of allowing methane to migrate into the fresh groundwater, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the water supply has been impacted,” she said.
llegere@timesshamrock.com
1.8 million gallons of sewage leaks into river in Tamaqua
republicanherald.com/news/1-8-million-gallons-of-sewage-leaks-into-river-in-tamaqua-1.1306715#
By KENT JACKSON (Staff Writerkjackson@standardspeaker.com)
Published: April 27, 2012
TAMAQUA – Contractors on Thursday finished patching a concrete pipe through which workers accidentally drilled, causing up to 1.8 million gallons of sewage to spill into the Little Schuylkill River in Tamaqua a day earlier.
The state Department of Environmental Protection will continue to investigate how the accident occurred about 3:15 p.m. Wednesday during construction of the bridge on state Route 309 and whether any penalties will be assessed, Colleen Connolly, the department’s spokeswoman, said.
Fish didn’t appear to have died from the spill, said Connolly, who estimated the amount of sewage that leaked into the river. She also noted that the section of the river near the bridge is tainted by acid water from mine workings.
Workers pierced the concrete pipe, which is 24 inches wide, while sinking a caisson for a temporary bridge, said Ronald Young of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.
At the Tamaqua wastewater treatment plant a short distance from the bridge, workers noticed flow in the plant plummeted from 1,700,000 gallons a day to 200,000 gallons per day, said Tamaqua Borough Manager Kevin Steigerwalt.
Their observation led to the discovery of the broken pipe.
Steigerwalt heard what happened at the treatment plant at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and went to the bridge with a supervisor from the plant.
“I had a suspicion that the bridge was involved. The plant is just a short distance south of the bridge,” he said.
No workers were on bridge when they arrived, but discharge was flowing from a combined sewer overflow that should have been quiet.
The overflow provided an outlet for the sewage, which otherwise would have backed up into cellars of people’s homes, Steigerwalt said.
He and the plant supervisor contacted the project inspector from PennDOT and telephoned the emergency number for the Department of Environmental Protection.
Early Wednesday morning, officials from the state departments and the borough planned how to make repairs with workers from the contracting firm, Clearwater Construction of Mercer, Mercer County.
Workers built a coffer dam – an enclosure that kept the river water away from the sewage outfall. They rigged pumps to push the sewage to a manhole downstream, Steigerwalt said. That was complete by about 9 p.m. Wednesday, he said.
Young said tanker trucks also hauled away some of the sewage from the broken pipe. Meanwhile, other workers dug a trench to uncover the broken section of the pipe.
They affixed a new section of pipe about 1 a.m. Thursday, Steigerwalt said after checking a timeline prepared by Tamaqua’s public works director, Rob Jones, who stayed at the bridge through the night.
State officials told Clearwater Construction’s crew to remain on the job until the leak stopped. Attempts to contact the company were unsuccessful Thursday. A voice mailbox for a project supervisor was full, and a message left with a receptionist wasn’t returned.
Connolly said DEP wants to know more about how the accident occurred and why four hours passed before the department was notified.
By 10 a.m. Thursday, workers encased the new section of pipe with cement. They let the cement harden and filled in the trench to finish the repairs.
Replacing the bridge is a $3.18 million project for which the contract was awarded in July 2011.
Young said workers will erect a temporary bridge, demolish the existing bridge and build a new permanent bridge.
The work is scheduled to end in May 2013.
Relax, It’s Just a Run-of-the-Mill Nuke Spill
www.counterpunch.org/2012/04/26/relax-its-just-a-run-of-the-mill-nuke-spill/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=relax-its-just-a-run-of-the-mill-nuke-spill
by DAVE LINDORFF
April 26, 2012
The Limerick Incident Wasn’t an “EPPI”
A little over a month ago, back on March 19, at 3:00 in the morning, the Limerick Nuclear Power Station, which runs two aging GE nuclear reactors along the Schuylkill River west of Philadelphia, had an accident. As much as 15,000 gallons of reactor water contaminated with five times the official safe limit of radioactive Tritium as well as an unknown amount of other dangerous isotopes from the reactor’s fission process blew off a manhole cover and ran out of a large pipe, flowing into a streambed and on into the river from which Philadelphia and a number of smaller towns draw their municipal water supplies.
No public announcement of this spill was made at the time, so the public in those communities had no idea that it had occurred, and water system operators had no opportunity to shut down their intakes from the river. There was no report about the spill in Philadelphia’s two daily newspapers or on local news programs.
Only weeks later, after the regional office of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was finally sent an official report by Exelon, the owner of the plant, did a public notice get posted on the NRC’s website, after which some excellent reporting on the incident was done by Evan Brandt, a reporter for a local paper called The Pottstown Mercury.
We contacted the NRC regional office with oversight over Limerick and were told that Exelon had only reported the incident to state authorities — the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA). A call to the DEP elicited a response that the state agency, now in the hands of a Republican governor who has shown open distain for environmental concerns ranging from nuclear waste to regulation of natural gas fracking chemicals, that it did not feel it was necessary to issue any public report on the spill. “Exelon assured us that it was not an EPPI incident,” explained DEP regional office spokeswoman Deborah Fries.
“What’s an EPPI?” she was asked. “It’s an Event of Potential Public Interest,” Fries replied.
In other words, Exelon and the state’s DEP and PEMA officials, meeting behind closed doors, agreed that the spilling of up to 15,000 gallons of radioactive isotope-laced reactor water into a river that supplies drinking water to hundreds of thousands of people was not an event of “potential public interest,” and so they didn’t make it public, thus insuring that it would not become a matter of public interest, or even of public knowledge! The logic is impeccable, though the NRC subsequently protested that Exelon should have reported the incident to the commission, which would automatically have posted it on its website as public notice of a spill.
Read more
Pennsylvania law on fracking worries doctors
www.pennlive.com/newsflash/index.ssf/story/pennsylvania-law-on-fracking-worries-doctors/dd15e865ab528519210b827575117d4f
April 25, 2012, 8:14 a.m. EDT
McClatchy/Tribune – MCT Information Services
AVELLA, Pa. _ About two years ago, Dr. Amy Pare began treating members of the Moten family and their neighbors from a working-class neighborhood less than half a mile from a natural gas well here.
A plastic surgeon whose specialty includes skin cancer, Pare removed and biopsied quarter-size skin lesions from Jeannie Moten, 53, and her niece, only to find that the sores recurred. “The good news is that it wasn’t cancer, and the bad news is that we have no idea what it is,” Pare said.
Determined to understand the illnesses, Pare went last May to the Motens’ neighborhood to collect urine samples from a dozen people. To her dismay, she found chemicals not normally present in the human body: hippuric acid, phenol, mandelic acid.
The Motens and their neighbors suspect their ailments could be tied to the natural gas well. Pare says she is not sure what is causing their problems. But she worries that she may have a hard time determining the exact cause because of a provision in a new Pennsylvania law regulating natural gas production.
The law compels natural gas companies to give inquiring health care professionals information about the chemicals used in their drilling and production processes _ but only after the doctors or nurses sign a confidentiality agreement.
Some physicians complain that the law is vague and lacks specific guidelines about how they can use and share the information with patients, colleagues and public health officials, putting them at risk of violating the measure. But refusing to sign the confidentiality agreement denies them access to information that could help treat patients.
“I just want to make my patients healthy,” Pare said, adding that she might sign an agreement. “And I can’t do that if I don’t know what it is that’s making them sick.”
The possibility that increased natural gas development could threaten public heath lies at the core of resistance to a controversial process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The technique involves high-pressure injection of water and sand laced with chemicals deep underground to break shale formations and unlock oil and gas deposits.
Some people living near well sites have complained that their well water has been contaminated by fracking. The industry asserts that tiny amounts of chemicals are used in fracking and that the water problems are unrelated to the procedure.
Supporters of the Pennsylvania law _ including the gas industry, Republican Gov. Tom Corbett and many legislators _ said it was designed to help health care providers. Environmental groups and opposing lawmakers said the provision was not in the natural gas law’s original version and was slipped in behind closed doors at the last minute by industry-friendly legislators.
Patrick Henderson, the governor’s energy executive, said the new law would increase disclosure. Companies would have to share the chemical composition of fluids they use in natural gas production, including proprietary mixes. The confidentiality agreement would not prevent doctors from sharing information with colleagues or patients, only with the company’s competitors, he said.
Dr. Marilyn Heine, president of the Pennsylvania Medical Society, said her group had been assured by the state that as regulations are developed to implement the law, state officials “will clarify the provisions so that physicians will know what they can do.”
Some doctors, however, want the details in writing before they sign any confidentiality agreements.
“Right now, any physician reading the law would not go anywhere near the issue, because the language of the law has a very chilling effect,” said Dr. Bernard Goldstein, former dean of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and an expert on possible health effects of natural gas development. “I very much hope that the regulations permit” information sharing, he added.
So far, there are no comprehensive, independent studies of the possible health effects of natural gas development.
Dr. Sean Porbin, a family practitioner in Avella, thinks natural gas development could revive many struggling towns in Pennsylvania. “We need to ask questions,” he said. “It’s not about shutting down industry, but fixing it. And if the data show what they’re doing is safe, then we need to defend them.”
Pennsylvania’s new law is not unprecedented, according to the state’s Republican leadership, the natural gas industry and at least two prominent environmental groups. The measure is based on a new rule in Colorado and on two decades-old federal laws from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Health and Safety Administration.
The comparisons between Pennsylvania’s provision and the federal laws, however, are inexact, experts said. According to a statement from OSHA, what doctors can disclose and to whom would come down to “the terms of the agreement between the employer and the health care provider.”
In any case, there is little precedent for how nondisclosure agreements between doctors and companies would work when the patients are residents near a fracking site, not company employees, experts said.
If the state guidelines are stringent, doctors probably will forgo the agreement _ and the information they are seeking from a company, Goldstein and other physicians said. That, too, could imperil doctors.
“It exposes us to lawsuits from our own patients, who might say, ‘Why didn’t you sign the confidentiality agreement?’ or if you did, ‘Why didn’t you share the information with so-and-so?’ ” said Dr. Mehernosh Khan, who has filed suit against the state over the provision. “The law sets up a precedent for doctors not being able to practice medicine properly.”
Geologist to speak in JT on natural gas development
www.tnonline.com/2012/apr/23/geologist-speak-jt-natural-gas-development
Monday, April 23, 2012
Brian Oram, a professional geologist and soil scientist and founder of B.F. Environmental Consultants Inc., will be conducting a community informational session “Marcellus Shale 101” at the Mauch Chunk Museum on Broadway in Jim Thorpe, on Wednesday, April 25, at 7 p.m.
“The work going on today in the area defined by the Marcellus Shale has proven to be a divisive and polarizing topic,” said Oram. “Understanding the risks and benefits these operations pose for residents of the area and the country as a whole requires us to take a much closer look and separate what we know as fact from what we’ve simply been told.
“We need to work as a community and I am honored to help support the education outreach efforts of the Carbon County Groundwater Guardians and the Girl Scouts.”
Oram is a former professor of geology for Wilkes University. In addition to the Marcellus Shale, he will discuss water, wells and the need for baseline water testing for homeowners.
There is no cost to attend the session, which is being hosted by three Ambassador Girl Scouts working toward the Gold Award, the highest award in Girl Scouts. Part of the requirement for the award is to choose a topic and advocate or educate the community about it.
About Carbon County Groundwater Guardians
The Carbon County Groundwater Guardians (CCGG) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, volunteer, environmental education organization which provides homeowners with information on private wells, water quality and quantity, and septic systems. We are dedicated to protecting private well owners from illnesses caused by our drinking water. For more information visit carbonwaters.org.
About B.F. Environmental Consultants, Inc.
B.F. Environmental Consultants, based in Northeastern Pennsylvania and the Poconos, has been providing professional geological, soils, hydrogeological, and environmental consulting services since 1985. The company specializes in the following areas: hydrogeological and wastewater evaluations for siting land-based wastewater disposal systems; soils consulting (soil scientists); environmental monitoring; and overseeing the siting, exploration, and development of community/commercial water supply sources.
Study suggests shale-gas development causing rapid landscape change
live.psu.edu/story/59331#nw69
Friday, April 20, 2012
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — As the Marcellus natural-gas play unfolds in Pennsylvania, several trends are
The greatest amount of Marcellus Shale natural gas development falls within the Susquehanna River basin.becoming increasingly clear, according to researchers at Penn State.
First, most of the development is occurring on private land, and the greatest amount of development falls within the Susquehanna River basin. Second, a regional approach to siting drilling infrastructure is needed to help minimize development in core forest and productive agricultural lands and to decrease the potential risk to waterways.
Patrick Drohan, assistant professor of pedology in the College of Agricultural Sciences, was lead investigator on a study that examined the early effects of Marcellus gas development on landcover change and forest fragmentation in the Keystone State.
Drohan estimates that slightly more than half of the well pads in Pennsylvania occur on agricultural land; most of the rest are on forestland, but many of those are on core forest that is privately owned.
The loss of agricultural land to shale-gas development presents some concern because, in some areas, drilling is now competing with food production for space on the landscape, the study states.
“Our results suggest,” said Drohan, “that shale-gas development could substantially alter Pennsylvania’s landscape. The development of new roads to support drilling could affect forest ecosystem integrity via increased fragmentation.”
The fragmentation of forestland, especially northern core forest, places headwater streams and larger downstream waterways at risk of pollution, the study suggests. Based on the intensity of development in the Susquehanna River basin, future expansion of shale-gas production in this basin could become a significant land- and water-management challenge for Chesapeake Bay water quality and ecosystem services.
The concentration of existing core forest in the northern part of the state — and the focus of drilling in this area, largely on private land — led the researchers to conclude that remaining areas of public land are key refuges for the protection of wildlife, ecosystems and associated ecosystem services.
“These areas should receive further protection,” Drohan said. “An organized effort across government and private entities may be a way to manage development.”
Coauthors of the study, which was published in the March 25 issue of the journal Environmental Management, were Margaret Brittingham, professor of wildlife resources; Joseph Bishop, research associate in geography; and Kevin Yoder, former field assistant in the School of Forest Resources.
The research was sponsored by the Heinz Endowments, Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research and the USDA-NRCS Soil Survey program
Environmental, legal expert speaks about recent ‘fracking’ legislation
www.lehighvalleylive.com/thebrownandwhiteblog/index.ssf/2012/04/environmental_legal_expert_spe_1.html
Published: Monday, April 23, 2012
Michael Krancer, secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), spoke and answered questions about Act 13 —a new state law establishing regulations over the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, process being used to drill natural gas out of the Marcellus Shale deposit in many northern and western Pennsylvania counties— at a town hall meeting in Packard 101 Friday.
Act 13 requires drilling companies to report to the DEP the chemicals they use in the fracking process, including concentrations on a well-by-well basis, as well as publically disclose chemicals on FracFocus.org, according to the website of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, a watchdog group Krancer referenced in his talk.
Questions have been raised about difficulties medical professionals are having under the new law. According to the PEC website, doctors are having trouble getting access to chemical information needed in the diagnosis or treatment of patients. Fracking involves boring a high-pressure mix of water and toxic chemicals into fissures in the ground to force natural gas to the surface.
Evidence that chemicals are leaking from natural gas drilling sites and contaminating private wells and public waterways has turned fracking into a serious environmental and public health concern in Pennsylvania.
The Marcellus shale deposit extends throughout much of northern and western Pennsylvania, and into New York, where a moratorium was placed on drilling in December 2010.
Krancer said that 3 million Pennsylvania residents get their water from private wells — one of the highest proportions of any state in the country. He said 40 percent of the state’s wells have exceeded maximum contaminant levels at some point, regardless of fracking.
Act 13 is the state government’s first attempt to regulate fracking, and Krancer’s talk was intended to reassure residents that the DEP is robustly monitoring the actions of drilling companies.
“We do need to pay attention to what happens at the front end,” he said. “We can’t get the promise of cleaner air through the use of natural gas in transportation without paying attention to what’s happening during the exploration and drilling phase.”
Krancer promised “additional boots on the ground, paid for by permit not taxpayer money” in Bradford county in northeastern Pennsylvania, which has been at the center of the fracking controversy.
“I frankly think we’re getting it right,” Krancer said. “Any form of energy production has aspects that need to be managed. That’s true of coal and oil; it’s true of nuclear power, and it’s true of wind and solar.”
When asked by one audience member how the state can allow fracking to occur in an aquifer, Krancer explained that groundwater supplies usually occur at depths of several hundred feet below the earth’s surface and that natural gas drilling occurs far below those depths —at depths of around 8,000 feet.
Krancer called Act 13 one of the most progressive and environmentally forward-thinking regulations in the country; he said it is modeled on a Colorado law that was hailed by environmental groups nationwide when it was passed.
“We’re going to have increased monitoring during the earthmoving process,” Krancer said. “We have more inspectors than Oklahoma; and if we need more, we’re going to get more.”
Krancer said that the state will take cases of non-compliance seriously, prosecuting where necessary.
“I happen to believe in enforcement and so does the governor,” Krancer said.
He also reminding the audience that Pennsylvania’s Republican Governor, Tom Corbett, served eight years as state attorney general, and as chief U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh before that, where he prosecuted environmental violators.
Krancer called himself a believer in free-market economics. He said drilling companies that don’t comply with the new environmental regulations are trying to “steal a competitive advantage from those that are complying.”
“I have a fundamental idea that cheaters should be called out,” he said.
Regulation and monitoring makes sense from both environmental and economic standpoints, he said.
“The free marketplace is the engine for a lot of research and development, opportunities that don’t exist in other parts of the world,” Krancer said.
Krancer also said “the ethos of compliance has to be in the company.”
He cited his experience as general council for Excelon Corporation, an energy company where, Krancer said, the CEO enforced compliance with a top-down mentality. Ten members of Lehigh’s environmental student group Green Action attended Krancer’s talk.
“We wanted to mobilize for this event because Secretary Krancer takes a strong stance in favor of drilling the Marcellus Shale, and we hoped showing him that well-educated students think he is making a big mistake,” said Green Action president Tyler Tobin, ’12, in an email.
“Natural gas wells emit plumes of methane into the atmosphere contributing to climate change; the well casings are not 100 percent perfect, allowing frack fluids and gases to escape the well shaft and enter ground water,” Tobin said, detailing some of the environmental concerns associated with fracking.
“The lagoons where spent frack fluid are held infiltrate into ground water and run off into surface water; on top of it all there seems to be a huge environmental justice issue where companies pay off poor families for their mineral rights then completely de-value their land and livelihood,” Tobin said.
The meeting was co-sponsored by Lehigh’s Environmental Initiative, the Office of the Vice President and Associate Provost for Research and Graduate Studies and the engineering school.
Story by Brown and White news writer Kirk Greenwood, ’12.
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Lack of snow and rain prompt Pa. officials to discuss drought potential
www.therepublic.com/view/story/33c64dbf097042838eb0ad5d3aa8f9a5/PA–Drought-Fears/
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Just after Pennsylvanians dried off from one of the wettest years on record, professional weather-watchers are becoming concerned about a potential drought in the central and eastern parts of the state.
The state’s Drought Task Force, which includes representatives of the Department of Environmental Protection, the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, the National Weather Service and other government agencies, will meet April 25 to discuss the effects of a winter with little snowfall and a drier-than-usual spring, officials said Tuesday.
It remains to be seen whether that leads to the DEP declaring a drought watch encouraging residents in certain areas to conserve water, as Maryland officials did last week for most of the Eastern Shore.
“At this point we’re not taking any action,” said Ruth Miller of PEMA, which helped direct relief efforts during last year’s historic flooding from Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee, which killed 18 people and damaged or destroyed tens of thousands of homes and businesses.
Now, in contrast to those back-to-back disasters in August and September, the Susquehanna and Delaware rivers are flowing at record low rates for this time of year.
Susan Weaver, a DEP official who serves as the state drought coordinator, said officials assess data on precipitation, surface water, ground water and soil moisture in 90-day increments before deciding whether to issue a drought watch or a more emphatic drought warning.
“The tough part is what’s going to happen tomorrow,” Weaver said.
In August, “we issued a drought watch and I swear to God the next day it started to rain and it didn’t stop,” she said.
On Tuesday, the Susquehanna was flowing at around 14,000 cubic feet per second — less than 20 percent of its normal rate and the slowest flow since 1910, said hydrologist Charles Ross at the weather service office in State College. The average depth was barely half the normal seven feet, he said.
Still, “all it’s going to take is some average rain and we’ll probably be in pretty good shape,” Ross said.
The situation was similar on the Delaware, where the flow in Trenton, N.J., was measured at less than 4,000 cubic feet per second — the lowest for that date in the 98 years it has been measured.
“We’ve actually been setting records for a week or so,” said Clarke Rupert, spokesman for the Delaware River Basin Commission.
Susan Obleski, spokeswoman for the Susquehanna River Basin Commission, said dry conditions along streams that feed the river have led the commission to temporarily suspend permits that allow some natural gas drilling companies to use that water. So far, 14 permits held by eight companies have been suspended.
“They have multiple sources (of water), so it doesn’t mean that (a) particular company would shut down,” she said.
Ex-DEP Official Says All Pa. Oil, Gas Waste Needs Treatment
www.manufacturing.net/news/2012/04/ex-dep-official-says-all-pa-oil-gas-waste-needs-treatment
Mon, 04/16/2012
PITTSBURGH (AP) — A former top environmental official says Pennsylvania’s successful efforts to keep Marcellus Shale wastewater away from drinking water supplies should be extended to all other oil and gas drillers.
“It’s the same industry. It is the same contaminants. And the goal should be the same,” said George Jugovic Jr., who was formerly the Department of Environmental Protection’s southwest regional director. He’s now president of PennFuture, an environmental group.
An AP analysis of state data found that in the second half of 2011 about 1.86 million barrels — or about 78 million gallons — of drilling wastewater from conventional oil and gas wells were still being sent to treatmentplants that discharge into rivers.
The core issue is whether a problem in waterways has been solved, or if more needs to be done.
In 2010 health experts raised alarms when they found soaring levels of ultra-salty bromides in rivers and streams that are major sources of drinking water. The general view was that wastewater from Marcellus Shalegas drilling — polluted with heavy bromides from deep underground — was contributing to the problem.
High levels of bromides can contaminate drinking water with levels that exceed national safety standards and are potentially harmful. Though not considered a pollutant by themselves, the bromides combine with the chlorine used in water treatment to produce trihalomethanes, which may cause cancer if ingested over a long period of time.
Bromide levels were so high in rivers during 2010 that they caused corrosion at some plants that were using the water.
But since the spring of 2011 most Marcellus drillers have been recycling the fluids, or sending then to deep underground wells mostly in Ohio.
The gas-rich Marcellus, which lies thousands of feet underground, has attracted a gold rush of drillers who have drilled almost 5,000 new wells in the last five years. But the state also has about 70,000 older oil and gaswells, according to DEP statistics, that target different, shallower reserves.
Researchers say the bromide levels did drop last summer, but they had also expected even more of a decline after virtually all of the Marcellus Shale drillers stopped disposing wastewater into plants that discharge into rivers.
But conventional oil and gas wells weren’t included in last year’s recycling push — a loophole that state environmental officials downplayed at the time.
Jugovic said DEP secretary Mike Krancer should now take “the next step” and get voluntary compliance from the rest of the gas industry.
“It’s hard scientifically to justify a distinction between treating conventional wastewater differently. The wastewater is being disposed in plants that are not capable of treating those contaminants,” he said.
Dave Mashek, a spokesman for the Pa. Independent Oil & Gas Association, declined to comment.
Kevin Sunday, a DEP spokesman, claimed that the volume of conventional oil and gas waste is “substantially smaller” than the Marcellus amounts.
But the AP found that 78 million gallons of oil and gas wastewater were still being taken to treatment plants in the last half of 2011 — about 33 percent less than the Marcellus quantity that was raising concerns in 2010, but still a substantial amount. If that rate continues, the conventional wells will send about 150 million gallons of the wastewater to treatment plants that discharge into rivers this year.
Sunday said the agency encourages wastewater recycling, “regardless of the industry involved,” and added that the conventional oil and gas drillers don’t produce as much wastewater as the Marcellus drillers.
Sunday also said that the agency has created a new, revised permit to encourage recycling of waste. Ten facilities have applied for the new permit, and if all are approved, that would double the number of such facilities in the state.
David Sternberg, a spokesman for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, didn’t directly answer a question about whether there was any scientific justification for treating the non-Marcellus waste differently. Sternberg said EPA, which urged Pennsylvania regulators last year to halt the dumping, is working closely with state regulators “to ensure that, where wastewater treatment facilities are accepting oil and gas wastewaters, discharges from these treatment facilities are in compliance with the Clean Water Act.”
Jugovic said that some previous assumptions about the non-Marcellus waste turned out to be false. For example, there were suggestions that it generally contained much lower levels of bromides and other contaminants.
He said some of the shallow wells had very high levels of total dissolved solids and other contaminants that can be a problem for drinking water supplies.
Jugovic also said that the fact that 97 percent of Marcellus drillers appear to be complying with the wastewater restrictions raises a fairness issue. Why, he asked, should the conventional oil and gas drillers and the remaining 3 percent of drillers get a pass?
Now, researchers are waiting for expected lower river levels in the summer, to see if the bromide problem has really gone away. The higher flows in early spring dilute any contaminants and make it harder to draw conclusions about the bromides.
New website provides guidance on Marcellus Shale development
live.psu.edu/story/59159#nw69
Friday, April 13, 2012
The 'Marcellus Shale Electronic Field Guide' provides information about mitigating landscape changes as a result of natural-gas development, such as the well-pad construction pictured here.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A new website developed by Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences and Penn State Extension offers assistance in land management at all stages of shale-gas infrastructure development.
The “Marcellus Shale Electronic Field Guide” is an unbiased manual aimed at presenting the best possible options in Marcellus Shale development for Pennsylvania’s future.
“The guide provides a comprehensive overview of how landscapes change during shale-gas development and offers ways throughout the process to minimize adverse effects while maximizing long-term site restoration success,” said Patrick Drohan, assistant professor of pedology and one of the website’s lead authors.
The guide’s sections reflect the questions asked most frequently by landowners and managers and by gas-industry employees.
The field guide introduces ecological concepts relevant to shale-gas development, including habitat fragmentation and restoration and basic wildlife science. It includes sections on predevelopment issues, such as effects of shale-gas development on agriculture and forestland, control of site activity, soil erosion and compaction, and planning for spills, accidents and invasive species control.
Restoration of shale-gas development sites is explored through pages on setting goals for restoration, landscape reconstruction, revegetation options, and restoring or creating wildlife habitat. The site includes detailed analyses of important wildlife species in Pennsylvania: wild turkey, ruffed grouse and white-tailed deer, with more featured species to come.
Landowners looking for general guidance on leasing provisions may benefit from sample leases and a section on best management practices.
The field guide also includes an image gallery and a public forum in which registered users can ask questions and receive feedback from those with on-the-ground experience.
“Exploration and development of natural gas within the Marcellus Shale formation is occurring at an accelerating rate across much of Pennsylvania and may produce large-scale ecological change,” said Margaret Brittingham, professor of wildlife resources and website co-author.
“There is a critical need among public and private landowners for information on how to develop drilling sites and their associated infrastructure so as to minimize ecological damage and allow restoration of sites to predrilling conditions,” she said. “We hope this website helps to fill that need.”
The website is based on work supported by the Heinz Endowments and was designed by Penn State’s Center for Environmental Informatics. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in the field guide are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of the sponsor.
The website, which is also accessible from smart phones and similar devices, can be viewed at http://marcellusfieldguide.org/index.php