Gas co. may be liable for water quality
Federal judge rules in favor of Lenox Twp. families whose well pad was contaminated.
SCRANTON – For the time being, at least, a natural gas drilling company may be held strictly liable for drinking water contamination near one of its well sites, a federal district judge ruled Wednesday.
Lawyers for Southwestern Energy Production Co., Houston, Texas, moved to dismiss a count of strict liability in the civil lawsuit filed against the company by 13 Susquehanna County families in federal court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
The families filed a federal class-action lawsuit in September against the drilling company, saying that hydraulic fracturing at a Lenox Township well pad has contaminated drinking water and damaged the health and quality of life of area residents.
Southwestern maintains the alleged water contamination has no factual basis.
Judge A. Richard Caputo ruled Feb. 3 that though strict liability has not been found in analogous cases, the court will wait until after evidence has been presented in the trial’s discovery phase to determine Southwestern Energy’s liability.
Parties may be held to strict liability for damages caused to other persons, land or property when their activities are determined to be abnormally dangerous.
All but two of the plaintiffs live along state Route 92 in the township between 700 and 1,700 feet from the Price No. 1 Well Pad, which is operated by a wholly owned subsidiary of Southwestern Energy Production Co., Houston, Texas. Two other families do not live in the area but state in the suit that they regularly drank contaminated water at the residences of two other families listed as plaintiffs.
The plaintiffs claim their drinking water supplies were contaminated by improper or insufficient cement casings around the Price No. 1 well pad, which allowed industrial waste, including hydraulic fracturing fluid, to enter drinking water wells.
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, fluid is the mixture of water, sediment and chemicals injected into the ground to create fissures and release the natural gas being extracted from Marcellus Shale.
http://www.timesleader.com/news/Gas_co__may_be_liable_for_water_quality_02-11-2011.html
MATT HUGHES mhughes@timesleader.com
Posted: February 12, 2011
Rise in Childhood Cancers Parallels Toxic Chemical Proliferation
WASHINGTON, DC, January 26, 2011 (ENS) – Bipartisan legislation was introduced in Congress today to help communities determine whether there is a connection between clusters of cancer, birth defects and other diseases, and contaminants in the surrounding environment.
Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, introduced the bill with Senator Mike Crapo, an Idaho Republican and cancer survivor.
Senator Boxer said, “Whenever there is an unusual increase in disease within in a community, those families deserve to know that the federal government’s top scientists and experts are accessible and available to help, especially when the health and safety of children are at risk.”
“As a two-time cancer survivor, I know that cancer can come from many sources,” said Senator Crapo. “Through increasing federal agency coordination and accountability and providing more resources to affected communities, families will have more information and tools to maintain health and well-being.”
The bill would authorize federal agencies to form partnerships with states and academic institutions to investigate and help address disease clusters.
A coalition representing more than 11 million Americans is urging Congress to do more, specifically to update the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act without delay.
The Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition warned today in a teleconference that cancer in American children has increased since 1975, while exposure to toxic chemicals has also intensified.
Environmental public health expert Dr. Richard Clapp told reporters on the call, “The incidence of childhood cancers has unequivocally been going up for last 20 years, at about a one percent increase per year.”
“We know a lot more than we did in 1975 about the causes of childhood cancers. One compenent is environmental chemical exposures, which produce damage at the cellular level,” said Dr. Clapp, professor emeritus of environmental health at Boston University School of Public Health, who served as director of the Massachusetts Cancer Registry from 1980-1989.
“Mortality has been going down because some treatments are more effective, and fewer people are dying at a childhood age from the cancer they were originally diagnosed with,” said Dr. Clapp, but he emphasized that there are many more known carcinogens in the environment now that there were in 1975.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer, a part of the World Health Organization, this year looked at over 900 chemicals and identified 107 that are known to cause cancer, said Dr. Clapp. “In 1975 there were about a dozen things known to cause cancer in humans.”
As incidences of childhood leukemia and brain cancer have increased, Dr. Clapp pointed to exposure to chlorinated solvents such as trichlorethelyene and carbon tetrachloride in drinking water as a factor in childhood cancer clusters found in Woburn, Massachusetts and Tom’s River, New Jersey.
Chlorinated solvents are used for a wide variety of commercial and industrial purposes, including degreasers, cleaning solutions, paint thinners, pesticides, resins and glues.
These are only some of the 80,000 chemicals have been produced in the United States to create commonly-used products, which include known carcinogens such as asbestos, formaldehyde, lead, cadmium, and vinyl chloride, with virtually no government oversight, warns the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition.
Last year the President’s Cancer Panel report provided confirmation that exposure to toxic chemicals is an important and under-recognized risk factor for cancer, and recommended that the government take immediate action to reverse this trend. The Panel advised Congress to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act, commenting that this law is “the most egregious example of ineffective regulation of chemical contaminants” and noting that weaknesses in the law have constrained the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from being able to properly regulate known and suspected carcinogens.
“We see cancers increasing and other diseases in kids to be increasing, and we know some of this increase is due to the increase in chemicals,” said Sean Palfrey, MD, professor of clinical pediatrics and public health at Boston University.
“We can eat them or drink, breathe them, and absorb them through our skin. They harm the blood cells related to leukemia or brain cells and show up years later,” said Dr. Palfrey.
“Cigarettes are related to cancer, so is radiation from natural sources and from radiation therapies used to treat the very cancers we are trying to cure, chemicals in food, in our houses, environmental chemicals,” he said. “These chemicals are not changing human genetics but are handing down chemicals that can affect the genetic functions of mothers and children.”
Dr. Palfrey said doctors are worried that some of the chemicals being released into the environment are untested in adult humans and in even more vulnerable children. “People like myself have been tested to see if we have them in our blood and urine – and sure enough we do,” he said.
“The problem is we are putting so many new chemicals out into our children’s environment, and our bodies have never seen these things before. Our bodies don’t know how to protect themselves, so our bodies store them, and then when woman gets pregnant those stored chemicals may be released circulated to fetal blood or breast milk,” Dr. Palfrey explained.
There are things people can do to limit their chemical exposure. Dr. Palfrey advises people to wash all produce, eat local organic produce, not use pesticides in homes and gardens, and to ask doctors if that CT scan, which subjects patients to radiation, is really necessary.
Dr. Palfrey, who has been medical director of the Boston Lead Poisoning Prevention Program, advises that renovating a house may stir up asbestos or lead, and he advises people not to buy or rent near high voltage power lines, which emit electro-magnetic frequencies.
The two doctors and Andy Igrejas, national campaign director of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, are among those advocating for legislation that helps prevent chemical exposure. They are urging the EPA, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Consumer Product Safety Commission to take a close look at chemicals being put into the environment.
“We should have full information on all chemicals on the market,” said Christine Brouwer, who founded Mira’s Movement in 2008 after her daughter, Mira, died at the age of four from complications of treatment for brain cancer. The organization supports and advocates on behalf of children with cancer and their families.
“I believe Mira’s brain cancer was caused by toxic chemical exposure,” Brouwer told reporters on the call.
“There are so many possible multiple sources of exposure,” she said, “baby products, bath products, household products. Lindane is used to treat lice, parents put it on their childrens’ heads. Do they know it causes cancer?”
In 2009, nine chemicals, including lindane, were added to a list of toxic substances that are to be eliminated under the Stockholm Convention, an international treaty.
“In Europe, the burden of proof of safety lies with the chemical companies, said Brouwer, “while here the company’s right to make a profit is paramount.”
New types of tumors are emerging due to exposure to new chemicals, Brouwer said. “Most people believe the government regulates chemicals, but it doesn’t,” she said, urging Congress to quickly reform the Toxic Substances Control Act.
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jan2011/2011-01-26-01.html
Testimony given on frack water treatment plant
A standing-room-only crowd of 60 people attended a meeting Thursday of the Wyalusing Township supervisors, which was held to hear testimony on an application for a conditional use permit to construct three plants on a 26-acre site in the Browntown section of the township, including a plant to process the waste water from hydraulic fracturing of natural gas wells, a plant to manufacture asphalt for paving, and a plant to manufacture synthetic drilling mud.
The supervisors had their first meeting on the matter on Dec. 1, and they continued to take testimony related to the application at Thursday’s meeting.
The site would be served by the Lehigh Railway line, which runs along the Susquehanna River, but the applicants said there would be no discharge from any of their operations to the river.
Carl Bankert, an engineer with Glenn O. Hawbaker Inc., which would build the asphalt plant, said that for all three operations at the site combined, it is estimated that a total of 163 trucks would come to the site each day.
Ground/Water Treatment & Technology of Rockway, N.J., is proposing a plant for the site that would be able to treat 400,000 gallons per day of waste water from hydraulic fracturing, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
Bob Kunzel, the executive vice-president for Ground/Water Treatment & Technology, said the treatment of the frack water would take place inside a building using a system of tanks.
Lime would be added to the waste water from hydraulic fracturing to precipitate out calcium, magnesium, barium and strontium as a sludge, Kunzel said.
The sludge would be de-watered before it was taken to the White Pine Landfill in the Wilkes-Barre area, he said.
After the frack water is treated at the plant, it would be returned to gas well sites for further hydraulic fracturing, he said.
The cycle of bringing waste water to the site, reinjecting the treated water into well bores for further hydraulic fracturing, and bringing the flow-back water from hydraulic fracturing to the plant, could be repeated indefinitely, Kunzel said.
There are no current plans to bring waste water from hydraulic fracturing to the site by rail, Kunzel said.
However, the other two operations at the site would use the rail line, the applicants said.
During the first 1 1/4 hours of the meeting, which began at 7 p.m., the supervisors asked questions of the applicants.
As of 8:15 p.m., the supervisors were continuing to ask questions of the applicants.
At the beginning of the meeting, 22 people said they wanted to speak at the meeting, but by 8:15 p.m. none of them had had a chance to speak yet.
At the meeting, Catherine Sherman represented Fluids Management, which is the company that is seeking to construct the facility for manufacturing synthetic drilling mud.
BY JAMES LOEWENSTEIN (STAFF WRITER)
Published: February 11, 2011James Loewenstein can be reached at (570) 265-1633; or e-mail: jloewenstein@thedailyreview.com.
http://thedailyreview.com/news/testimony-given-on-frack-water-treatment-plant-plans-for-the-26-acre-site-also-include-plants-to-manufacture-asphalt-and-drilling-mud-1.1103328
U.S. House Battles Over U.S. EPA Greenhouse Gas Regulations
WASHINGTON, DC, February 9, 2011 (ENS) – The Republicans and Democrats massed their forces today in the House of Representatives in a fight over the ability of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate the emission of greenhouse gases.
A different House from the Democratic-led body that passed a carbon dioxide cap-and-trade bill in June 2009, this Republican-led body is considering a bill that would prevent the U.S. EPA from regulating the emission of greenhouse gases from stationary sources such as power plants and refineries.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee today held its first hearings on the draft discussion bill from the new chairman, Republican Congressman Fred Upton of Michigan.
The bill, the Energy Tax Prevention Act, states its purpose as: “To amend the Clean Air Act to prohibit the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from promulgating any regulation concerning, taking action relating to, or taking into consideration the emission of a greenhouse gas due to concerns regarding possible climate change, and for other purposes.”
Upton said today that his bill is designed to “to protect jobs and preserve the intent of the Clean Air Act.”
The bill would overturn the EPA’s December 2009 finding that the emission of greenhouse gases endanger the public health and welfare.
Along with a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that greenhouse gases are pollutants and the EPA has the duty to regulate them, this endangerment determination is the basis for EPA regulation of greenhouse gases.
Far from being an invention of the Obama administration’s EPA, the Bush-era EPA administrator also supported a positive greenhouse gas endangerment finding.
The committee’s top Democrat, Congressman Henry Waxman of California, Tuesday released a private letter that former EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson wrote to President George W. Bush on January 31, 2008.
“It addresses the same issue as your legislation: whether carbon emissions endanger the public,” Waxman wrote Friday in his own letter to Upton, in which he shares the contents of Johnson’s private letter to President Bush.
“Administrator Johnson wrote: ‘the latest science of climate change requires the Agency to propose a positive endangerment finding, as was agreed to at the Cabinet-level meeting in November.'”
“The latest climate change science does not permit a negative finding, nor does it permit a credible finding that we need to wait for more research,” Johnson wrote.
“Administrator Johnson also wrote: ‘A robust interagency policy process involving principal meetings over the past eight months has enabled me to formulate a plan that is prudent and cautious yet forward thinking. … [I]t … creates a framework for responsible, cost-effective and practical actions.'”
“He added that actions to reduce carbon emissions ‘should spur both private sector investment in developing new, cost-effective technologies and private sector deployment of these technologies at a large scale.'”
Administrator Johnson released an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking in July 2008, which solicited public comment on an endangerment finding. The final endangerment finding was made by the Obama admininstration’s EPA head Lisa Jackson in December 2009.
Jackson testified today before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Chairman Upton’s draft bill to eliminate portions of the Clean Air Act.
“The bill appears to be part of a broader effort in this Congress to delay, weaken, or eliminate Clean Air Act protections of the American public,” Jackson said. “I respectfully ask the members of this Committee to keep in mind that EPA’s implementation of the Clean Air Act saves millions of American children and adults from the debilitating and expensive illnesses that occur when smokestacks and tailpipes release unrestricted amounts of harmful pollution into the air we breathe.”
“Last year alone, EPA’s implementation of the Clean Air Act saved more than 160,000 American lives; avoided more than 100,000 hospital visits; prevented millions of cases of respiratory illness, including bronchitis and asthma; enhanced American productivity by preventing millions of lost workdays; and kept American kids healthy and in school,” Jackson told the committee.
Jackson emphasized that the Clean Air Act itself creates jobs, particularly in the growing U.S. environmental technologies industry. “In 2008, that industry generated nearly 300 billion dollars in revenues and 44 billion dollars in exports,” she said.
“Yesterday,” said Jackson, “the University of Massachusetts and Ceres released an analysis finding that two of the updated Clean Air Act standards EPA is preparing to establish for mercury, soot, smog, and other harmful air pollutants from power plants will create nearly 1.5 million jobs over the next five years.”
Chairman Upton said his bill, “allows states to continue setting climate policy as they please, but prevents those actions from being imposed or enforced nationally.”
The bill leaves in place the tailpipe standards for cars and light trucks from model years 2012 through 2016, and allows National Highway Transportation Safety Administration to continue to regulate fuel economy after 2016.
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2011/2011-02-09-01.html
Md. lawmakers warned of natural gas drilling woes in Pa.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/green/bs-gr-marcellus-20110209,0,6104108.story
Md. lawmakers warned of natural gas drilling woes in Pa.
Former Pa state official cites spills, well contamination, urges caution
By Timothy B. Wheeler, The Baltimore Sun
8:17 p.m. EST, February 9, 2011
A former top Pennsylvania official warned Maryland lawmakers to go slow in allowing drilling for natural gas in Marcellus shale deposits underlying the state’s western mountains or risk the environmental and social problems his state is now experiencing from a poorly regulated wave of energy exploration.
John Quigley, who until two months ago was secretary of Pennsylvania’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, urged members of the House Environmental Matters Committee to “take a deep breath” and require more study of the immediate and long-term consequences of opening Western Maryland to drilling for natural gas using a controversial technique known as hydraulic fracturing. The method, also known as “fracking,” involves injecting water and lubricating chemicals thousands of feet underground to fracture rock layers and release gas trapped there.
“We have much to learn about the technique and ample reason for caution,” Quigley said during a briefing for lawmakers on Marcellus shale gas exploration in Western Maryland.
At least two bills dealing with hydraulic fracturing have been introduced in the General Assembly. One submitted by Western Maryland legislators would require the Maryland Department of the Environment to adopt new regulations by the end of the year governing fracking, to guard against spills and groundwater contamination. The other measure, offered by Montgomery County lawmakers, would bar such drilling until further study is done and new regulations adopted.
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Samson Resources of Tulsa, Okla., and Chief Oil & Gas of Dallas are seeking permits to drill a total of three wells in Western Maryland. But the two companies have signed leases granting them the rights to any gas found under 89,000 acres in Garrett and western Allegany counties, according to Robert M. Summers, Maryland’s acting secretary of the environment.
Officials from both companies say they intend to take every precaution in drilling in Maryland.
Summers told committee members that regulators are still reviewing the companies’ drilling requests and have no timeline for deciding whether to grant them and under what conditions. He said officials are considering requiring safeguards not currently mandated under state drilling regulations.
“If you have time to do additional studies up front, I would recommend it,” said Quigley, now a senior fellow with a Pennsylvania environmental group. The former manager of Pennsylvania’s state forests said his state has experienced major problems with contamination of drinking water wells, mainly from improperly drilled gas wells.
In one instance, Quigley said, a poorly drilled well caused natural gas to seep a mile underground and bubble up in the middle of the Susquehanna River. There also have been spills of diesel fuel and of the fluid used in fracking, he said.
While much of the fluid remains underground, some is pumped back out and must be treated because it is very salty and contains minerals and other contaminants from the shale, including radioactive substances.
Well blowouts, explosions and fires also have occurred, and groundwater has been tainted, Quigley said. The contamination stemmed from poor well construction and operations, he said, rather than directly from fracking. Quigley said experts haven’t been able to assure him that Pennsylvania’s groundwater will remain safe years from now, given the scale of drilling and the fluids being injected into the ground.
Quigley, who served under Democratic Gov. Edward G. Rendell, noted that his administration moved to hire more inspectors and adopted tough new regulations to address the problems. The new administration of Republican Gov. Tom Corbett is reviewing those rules, but Quigley said there are still gaps in Pennsylvania’s oversight, including a failure to levy a severance tax on natural gas extraction to help pay for its regulation and for remedying environmental problems it has caused.
Del. Maggie L. McIntosh, the Baltimore Democrat who chairs the Environmental Matters Committee, said lawmakers see great economic potential in exploitation of the Marcellus shale deposits, which some believe might hold the largest natural gas reserves in the country. The shale deposits cover 95,000 square miles, from New York through Pennsylvania and Western Maryland to West Virginia and Ohio.
But while the gas might be cleaner-burning than coal and may yield income to landowners who lease mineral rights, McIntosh said lawmakers want to be sure Maryland does not experience problems like those in Pennsylvania.
“If we’re going to do it,” she said, “we want to do it right.”
tim.wheeler@baltsun.com
Program set on safe drinking water
http://www.neagle.com/news/x167304228/Program-set-on-safe-drinking-water
Posted Feb 09, 2011 @ 05:13 PM
Homeowners and business people often take it for granted that the water coming out of their tap is safe for drinking. There are a number of potentially harmful substances that can harm your family or customers. These include bacteria, nitrates, iron and manganese. Some of these substances have health effects and others can cause unwanted stains and odors.
If you depend on your own well or spring for your drinking water, it is your responsibility to have your water tested periodically at a certified water testing lab. NO government agency is going to require you to have your water tested.
Penn State Cooperative Extension in Pike County will be conducting a Safe Drinking Water program on Saturday, February 26 from 9 to 11 a.m. at the Pike County Conservation District office on 556 Route 402 in Blooming Grove. There is a registration fee of $7/person or couple for handouts.
In addition, Penn State Cooperative Extension is offering water testing for a discounted fee through Prosser Labs on March 2, 9 and 16. In order to participate in the water testing, you must attend the Safe Drinking Water program to receive your test bottles. Four different sets of water tests will be offered ranging from coliform bacteria/e coli bacteria to a test of 7 other parameters including coliform bacteria. Test bottles need to be returned by 12 noon on March 2, 9 or 16.
Pre-registration, including payment, is required by February 22, 2011. Make checks payable to: PSCE Program Account and mail to Pike County Cooperative Extension, 514 Broad St., Milford, PA 18337.
Visit http://tinyurl.com/yycbns3
<http://pike.extension.psu.edu/Community/2011/Water022611.pdf>
to download a program brochure.
For more information on the Safe Drinking Water program or water testing, contact Peter Wulfhorst at the Penn State Cooperative Extension office at (570)296-3400.
House Democrats renew severance tax pitch
HARRISBURG – Facing an uphill political climb, a group of House Democrats said Tuesday that a state facing a $4 billion deficit can’t afford not to levy a severance tax on natural gas production.
They gathered at a press conference to revive legislation that at one point appeared close to passage last year, but whose prospects have faded greatly with a Republican-controlled statehouse. The measure sponsored by Rep. Greg Vitali, D-166, Havertown, would levy a tax at 5 percent of the value of each 1,000 cubic feet of gas produced, plus 4.6 cents per thousand cubic feet extracted. An estimated $245 million in first-year revenue would be distributed in one-third chunks to environmental programs, local governments and the state general fund.
Republican Gov. Tom Corbett is opposed to a severance tax, while Senate GOP leaders have floated the idea of giving local governments authority to levy impact fees on natural gas firms to offset the cost of drilling activities on public infrastructure and the environment.
However, Rep. Dan Frankel, D-23, Pittsburgh, said it makes no sense given the deficit not to consider tapping revenue from a severance tax.
“The revenue could also help alleviate some of the devastating state budget cuts that are expected to be proposed by Gov. Corbett,” said Sid Michaels Kavulich, D-114, Taylor.
Senate Republican leader Joseph Scarnati, R-25, Jefferson County, is willing to support an impact fee as part of a package addressing a number of Marcellus Shale drilling issues, said Scarnati aide Drew Crompton.
While not commenting directly on the severance tax issue, the Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry trade group, said it wants policies that encourage capital investment in the natural gas industry and create jobs.
by robert swift (harrisburg bureau chief rswift@timesshamrock.com)
Published: February 9, 2011
http://republicanherald.com/news/house-democrats-renew-severance-tax-pitch-1.1102254
Who owns the natural gas?
Owning land doesn’t guarantee you own what lies hundreds or thousands of feet below the surface.
Mineral rights – ownership of coal, gas or other valuable resources – doesn’t automatically come with the deed.
“I never even gave that any thought,” Bonnie Minnich, 2225 E. Grand Ave., Porter Township, said Tuesday.
The Minnichs were one of nine households that received letters in December from Rausch Creek Land LP, a Valley View company that hopes to begin extracting up to 100,000 gallons of water each day from an abandoned strip mine pit in Porter Township. The company’s stated purpose would be “to supply water for drilling and hydrofracturing of proposed Marcellus Shale natural gas wells which are to be drilled and developed on property owned by Rausch Creek Land,” but many questions remain and the company has refused to speak about its plans.
J. Scott Roberts, former deputy secretary for mineral resources management at the state Department of Environmental Protection, said last week that the language surrounding mineral rights is often “bewildering” in estate records, wills, deeds and other documents.
“The amount of money that’s at stake here, the land owner may want to read it one way” and the drilling company another way, Roberts said.
Those differences in interpretation sometimes are not resolved until they reach a courtroom.
Further complicating matters, Ross Pifer, professor and director of the Agricultural Law Resource and Reference Center at Penn State Law, said Pennsylvania law does not always define natural gas as a “mineral.”
“In some respects, oil and natural gas are considered to be minerals and in some respects, they aren’t,” he said.
That could mean that if natural gas or oil were never mentioned in a deed – even one that addresses “mineral rights” – the original property could still hold the rights.
The nine households in Porter Township that received the letters regarding water usage border the land from which water may be extracted, if Rausch Creek Land’s plans are approved by the Susquehanna River Basin Commission.
Experts said last week they believe someone will eventually drill an exploratory well to see if Marcellus Shale reserves lie beneath Minnich’s home and others nearby.
Minnich knows her family does not own the rights to natural gas, coal or other minerals underground.
Paul Ruth, 56, of 1002 Colliery Ave., Tower City, who also got the letter, said he knows he doesn’t own the mineral rights, but is unsure who does.
Finding out who holds the mineral rights for a particular parcel can be an arduous process usually left to attorneys and title insurance companies.
“Very few people own their mineral rights (in Schuylkill County). You could be doing research for days” to find out, county Recorder of Deeds A. Matthew Dudish said Tuesday as he looked through decades of deed information.
That information sometimes raises more questions than it answers. For example, there are instances of an owner selling the surface property but reserving the rights to all minerals up to 500 feet below the surface. Such a clause was valuable in Schuylkill County because of the abundance of anthracite coal.
However, it may not spell out who owns substances farther down, such as shale gas, which can lie many thousands of feet underground. “It’s possible to sever the subsurface rights by substance, by depth or by geologic strata, which means it’s possible that you can have several parties claiming ownership of a mineral interest,” Pifer said. “It could put a land owner in a situation where it’s difficult to tell what he owns.”
During property transactions, land owners usually retain what they perceive to be valuable at the time. Therefore, Schuylkill County deeds may have extensive language on coal rights and not mention natural gas.
“That’s not uncommon. You have to presume when people bought their parcel, they were not putting any value in that. If it were that important, they would have gotten an answer” to who owns natural gas rights, Pifer said.
Drilling companies, Pifer said, will be dealing with the natural gas owner, not the surface property owner, unless it turns out the same person owns both. Pennsylvania case law also gives the owner of the subsurface the ability to undertake “reasonable use” of the surface property to get to the minerals – coal, gas or otherwise – contained underground, according to Pifer.
He said surface property owners are entitled to very little say in mineral extraction beneath their property.
Marcellus Shale drilling technology makes the surface property owner even less relevant.
“One of the big distinctions … is the horizontal drilling portion of it. Quite honestly, they can reach out a mile or more on either side of that well without disturbing that surface,” Roberts said.
Roberts is now an adviser for L.R. Kimball, an Ebensburg-based architecture, engineering and communications technology company.
“It (drilling technology) allows the well paths to be located on less sensitive areas. You can avoid environmental resources … and can still get the gas underneath it,” he said.
http://republicanherald.com/news/who-owns-the-natural-gas-1.1102282
BY BEN WOLFGANG (STAFF WRITER bwolfgang@republicanherald.com)
Published: February 9, 2011
Analysis of Marcellus Shale gas tax issues offered in Feb. 16 webinar
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — An online seminar offered by Penn State Cooperative Extension at 1 p.m. on Feb. 16 will cover what Pennsylvania residents who benefit financially from natural-gas wells on their properties need to know about tax implications.
In his presentation, “Dealing with Gas Tax Issues: What You Need to Know,” Associate Professor of Forest Resources Mike Jacobson will address primarily landowners who want to understand the basic issues. However, he also will provide financial advisers, accountants and tax preparers with some useful information.
“Landowners who lease gas rights will receive an up-front bonus payment and then receive royalty payments when production begins,” Jacobson said. “Dealing with this new-found wealth requires careful financial and tax planning.
“The tax law surrounding gas leases and royalties is complex with its own specific rules,” he said. “By understanding these rules, landowners possibly can save money by avoiding unnecessary taxes.”
The webinar will address mainly the tax consequences of gas income, Jacobson noted. It will cover issues such as types of income, how to report income, depletion and expensing opportunities, wealth and family planning, and property and severance taxes.
The tax-issues webinar is part of an ongoing series of workshops and events addressing circumstances related to the state’s Marcellus Shale gas boom. Information about how to register for the webinar is available on the webinar page of Penn State Extension’s natural gas impacts website at http://extension.psu.edu/naturalgas/webinars.
Another one-hour webinar, “Natural Gas Well Development and Emergency Response and Management,” will be held at 1 p.m. on March 17.
Previous webinars, publications and information on topics such as water use and quality, zoning, gas-leasing considerations for landowners and implications for local communities also are available on the Extension natural-gas impacts website (http://extension.psu.edu/naturalgas).
For more information, contact John Turack, extension educator in Westmoreland County, at 724-837-1402 or jdt15@psu.edu.
http://live.psu.edu/story/51221#nw69
Friday, February 4, 2011
Heinz Endowments awards Marcellus Shale research grant to Penn State
University Park, Pa. — The Heinz Endowments recently awarded a team of Penn State researchers a $412,000, three-year, grant to identify and mitigate the effects of Marcellus Shale natural gas exploration and development on the forest ecosystem. The interdisciplinary research team, led by Margaret Brittingham, professor of wildlife resources, and Patrick Drohan, assistant professor of pedology, both faculty members in the College of Agricultural Sciences, also will develop land management practices and a monitoring program to reduce the Marcellus disturbance footprint.
Focusing on the north-central region of Pennsylvania, the research incorporates four broad components. First, researchers will use a database to evaluate landscape change as a result of gas exploration disturbances. Second, they will assess local and landscape-scale changes to the forest ecosystem utilizing birds, invasive plant species, and soils as indicators of broader environmental effects. The team will also develop an electronic field guide for onsite remediation and wildlife habitat enhancement at Marcellus drilling sites and pilot a long-term citizen-science based monitoring program to track changes to the physical landscape and biotic communities across the Marcellus shale formation in Pennsylvania.
“Exploration and development of natural gas within the Marcellus Shale formation is occurring at an accelerating rate across much of Pennsylvania and has the potential for large-scale ecological change,” said Brittingham. “There is a critical need among public and private landowners for information on how to develop drilling sites, and their associate infrastructure, in a way that minimizes ecological damage and that can restore sites to pre-drilling conditions.”
The project addresses a central goal of the endowments’ Environment Program, to support sustainable communities within a sustainable region by promoting environmentally responsible land use and by protecting and restoring terrestrial ecosystems.
“We are grateful to The Heinz Endowments for funding this research, which was initiated with a seed grant from the Penn State Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research (MCOR),” said Brittingham. “The funds from Heinz will enable us to begin to document and monitor how Marcellus-related exploration and development is changing the landscape of Pennsylvania and to develop mitigation and remediation strategies to minimize negative environmental impacts.”
The University has been at the forefront of research and outreach efforts since advances in horizontal drilling technology sparked interest in unconventional gas shales. Through MCOR, Penn State scholars and researchers are working on many of the most critical technical aspects of Marcellus Shale development, providing science-based programming on the Marcellus and other unconventional gas shales, and protecting the Commonwealth’s water and forest resources. Penn State researchers also are exploring community, family, health and population impacts of Marcellus development; effects on the transportation infrastructure; and labor issues such as the housing, job creation and training needed to develop and sustain a local workforce.
The Heinz Endowments’ mission is to promote progress in economic opportunity, arts and culture; education; children, youth and families; and the environment. The Endowments supports efforts to make southwestern Pennsylvania a premier place to live and work, a center for learning and educational excellence, and a region that embraces diversity and inclusion.
http://live.psu.edu/story/50857#nw69
Monday, January 31, 2011