Pennsylvania County’s Dreams of Wealth Didn’t Work Out
www.businessweek.com/news/2012-06-07/pennsylvania-countys-dreams-of-wealth-didnt-work-out
By Roben Farzad on June 07, 2012
Four years ago, as the economy was entering a devastating recession, swaths of rural Pennsylvania were booming.
Energy companies were using hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking, to tap the vast natural gas reserves of the Marcellus Shale underlying much of the Keystone State. In Wayne County, these corporations offered struggling farmers lucrative leases for mineral rights.
“Land here became a whole different asset class,” says Tim Meagher, a real-estate broker whose family settled in the area in the 1840s.
Today there is no drilling in Wayne County, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its June 11 issue. The Delaware River Basin Commission, a regional regulatory agency, has declared a moratorium while it studies the environmental impact. Gas companies have invoked force majeure clauses to put their contracts with property owners on hold.
Investors who bought farmland are stuck, and farmers who expected to retire on gas royalties are back to eking out a living from agriculture.
Meanwhile, fracking opponents are brandishing the example of Wayne County as they fight shale energy exploration across the country.
The number of drilling permits issued in Pennsylvania soared from 122 in 2007 to 3,337 in 2011, according to the Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research at Penn State University. Much of the activity was concentrated in the western and central parts of the state, which have a history of energy exploration and geology conducive to gas production.
Fresh Land
As the price of gas climbed, drillers looking for fresh land started eyeing the verdant, rolling pastures of Wayne County in (26452MF) the northeastern part of the state.
Companies such as Hess, Chesapeake Energy (CHK) (CHK), and Cabot Oil & Gas (COG) (COG) dispatched “land men” to go door to door to persuade homeowners to sign mineral leases. Farmers were getting $250 to more than $3,000 an acre to allow drilling on their property, says Meagher. Land that sold for $2,000 to $3,000 an acre in 2004 was going for as much as $10,000 an acre by 2009. Meagher says he often got calls from prospective investors in Manhattan, Boston, and beyond. To encourage more, he put property ads in the New York Post, New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.
“I wanted to get my clients here the highest possible bid,” he says.
By the summer of 2009, a joint venture of Hess and Newfield Exploration (NFX) (NFX) had secured leases for 80,000 acres with the Northern Wayne Property Owners Alliance, a group of 1,500 landowners formed to negotiate with the gas companies.
’People Here Struggle’ Read more
Pipeline company won’t pay for Dallas Twp. well testing
www.timesleader.com/stories/Pipeline-company-wont-pay-for-Dallas-Twp-well-testing,159997
SARAH HITE
June 6, 2012
Drilling operations resulted in drilling mud spills at sites in early May.
DALLAS TWP. – PVR Partners will not pay for water testing at sites where a contractor of the company spilled drilling mud within the township, supervisors announced Tuesday.
Jeffrey Malak, attorney for PVR Partners, formerly Chief Gathering LLC, stated in a letter the company would not provide water testing for property owners in the vicinity of two drilling mud spills that occurred near Kunkle-Alderson and Upper Demunds roads in early May.
Supervisor Bill Grant, who lives on Hildebrandt Road and plans to test his own water, said the township will provide interested residents with information about water testing.
Supervisor Liz Martin said she spoke to George Turner, a professional geologist, who estimated the tests required for the chemicals involved in the spills would cost between $450 and $500 per sample.
Martin said the boring for the pipeline should be done soon, and those kinds of issues are not likely to occur again.
Supervisors also addressed residents’ concerns about PVR Partners’ contractor working at the pipeline work site after hours.
Grant said he received one complaint and another official received three complaints about the pipeline contractor working beyond normal hours of operation last Sunday.
Malak wrote that the company’s work hours are 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. six days a week, but because of deadlines, some work during off-hours has been necessary.
Grant said he understands the company will be finishing up the work soon and will not be working out of normal operating hours again.
PVR Partners is in the process of building a 30-mile pipeline to flow natural gas from wells in Susquehanna County to the Transco pipeline, located near the Dallas School District campus.
The company will also build a gas metering facility off Hildebrandt Road.
DCNR to collect money from drillers who harvest gas under public streams
republicanherald.com/news/dcnr-to-collect-money-from-drillers-who-harvest-gas-under-public-streams-1.1324563
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer llegere@timesshamrock.com)
Published: June 4, 2012
Natural gas drillers have to sign leases and compensate the state if they plan to collect gas trapped deep beneath publicly owned streams and rivers, according to a policy developed recently by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
The policy applies to gas gathered from pads on neighboring properties – away from the streams and their banks – where wells are drilled vertically before turning and boring laterally underground.
Waterways in the commonwealth are considered publicly owned if they are, or have ever been, used for commercial trade or travel. The list and maps of the waterways compiled by DCNR include hundreds of streams throughout the state’s Marcellus Shale region.
Where the state owns the streambeds, it also owns the mineral rights beneath them.
DCNR spokeswoman Christina Novak said the state is developing a standard agreement for companies who either want to drill horizontal wellbores under streams or who will, through hydraulic fracturing, draw gas from rock formations deep under the waterways. Unlike standard lease agreements for drillers who operate in state forests, the leases will not address surface impacts because there won’t be any on state property, she said.
“This would just allow an operator to access underneath a navigable waterway from nearby but to compensate the commonwealth because it is the owner of the resource,” she said.
The agency alerted gas drillers in March that the state would begin seeking compensation through lease payments and royalties for gas removed under the waterways.
The issue emerged because the mineral rights beneath publicly owned waterways were either impeding natural gas development or drilling was taking place without the state being appropriately compensated, Novak said.
DCNR has not determined how many miles or acres of public waterways will be included in the leasing effort or how much Pennsylvania might make from current or future gas leases. It is also still exploring if it can collect money from any companies that might already have pulled gas from under the waterways.
DCNR has created an interactive map to help operators determine which streams are considered publicly owned, but the agency also cautions in a policy summary that the list of waterways is neither official nor final.
The list developed so far is based primarily on statutory declarations of navigable waterways from as early as the 18th century, but a declaration is not required for a waterway to be considered navigable and the state says it reserves the right to add or drop streams from the list.
Publicly owned waterways in the heart of Northeastern Pennsylvania’s shale region include the Susquehanna and Delaware rivers; Tunkhannock, Bowman and Mehoopany creeks in Susquehanna and Wyoming counties, and Wyalusing, Wysox, Wappasening, Sugar and Towanda creeks in Bradford County.
Washington County families sue over fracking, water testing
www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/marcellusshale/washington-county-families-sue-over-fracking-water-testing-637631/?p=0
By Don Hopey / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
May 26, 2012
Three Washington County families claim in a lawsuit that they face serious health problems, including a heightened risk of cancer, due to exposure to toxic spills, leaks and air pollutants from a Range Resources Marcellus Shale gas site.
The 182-page lawsuit, filed Friday in Washington County Common Pleas Court, alleges that Range and two commercial water testing laboratories, Microbac Laboratories Inc. and Test America, conspired to produce fraudulent test reports that misrepresented the families’ well water as good and contributed to their exposure to hazardous chemicals and a multitude of health problems.
Filed by attorneys John and Kendra Smith, the lawsuit seeks unspecified punitive damages and is based on information contained in hundreds of pages of water test reports and documents, many subpoenaed from Range and other defendants. In addition to Range, defendants named in the suit include 12 of the drilling company’s subcontractors or suppliers, two individuals and the two water testing laboratories. A jury trial is requested.
According to the lawsuit, Range Resources knew its shale gas development operation on the Yeager farm property on McAdams Road in Amwell had contaminated the groundwater with chemicals from a leaking drilling waste pit and a 3 million-gallon hydraulic fracturing fluid flowback impoundment as early as November 2010. But, the suit states, the company told the plaintiffs that tests showed their well water was safe to drink, shower and bathe in, cook with, and provide to farm animals and pets. Some of those animals were sickened, and some died.
The suit says the plaintiffs developed health problems that included nose bleeds, headaches and dizziness, skin rashes, ear infections, nausea, and numbness in extremities.
“It’s unfortunate that our clients had no choice but to file a civil action due to damage not only caused to their water and property, but to their health,” said Mr. Smith in a written response to a request for comment. “Had the [state Department of Environmental Protection] protected these people, it may have been a different outcome.”
Mr. Smith said the lawsuit is the first he knows of in Pennsylvania to allege that a Marcellus Shale gas drilling company didn’t provide complete and fully accurate water test results to residents and state regulators.
Range Resources spokesman Matt Pitzarella issued a statement saying the company cares about the quality of its operations and stands by testing that “has repeatedly proven that our operations have had no adverse impacts in this instance.” His statement went on to attack the motives of the law firm and attorneys representing the Amwell residents, and its tactics, which he characterized as “fear-mongering.”
“This isn’t about health and safety; it’s unfortunately about a lawyer hoping to pad his pockets, while frightening a lot of people along the way,” he said.
Mr. Smith said it’s easier to attack the messenger than to refute facts.
Range Resources has maintained for years that its Yeager operations, which include one “fracked” well and two drilled wells, condensate tanks, the flowback fluids impoundment and drill cuttings pit, have not contaminated groundwater.
The suit says full and complete test results, subpoenaed from Range but never revealed to residents near the Yeager well site, show that chemical contaminants similar to those found in the fracking flowback impoundment and the drill cuttings pit were also found in water samples from wells and springs.
Range showed or sent to the plaintiffs and the DEP less detailed test reports but, the lawsuit claims, omitted results for others, including several semi-volatile organic compounds that were present in the groundwater samples and the company’s impoundment and pit, and that showed the water was contaminated.
DEP spokesman Kevin Sunday declined to comment because the matter is in litigation.
Due to continuing health problems, three of the plaintiffs, Stacey Haney and her children have, on the advice of their doctor, moved out of their home on McAdams Road, about 1,500 feet from the Yeager flowback-water impoundment.
Toxicity testing of urine from all the Haney family members has measured higher than safe levels of toulene, benezene, arsenic, cobalt and cadmium. Benezene and arsenic are known carcinogens.
Plaintiffs Beth, John and Ashley Voyles, who live about 800 feet from the impoundment and drill site, and Loren Kiskadden and his mother, Grace Kiskadden, who live in separate homes about 3,100 feet from the Yeager impoundment, have had similar health problems and urine test results.
The filing alleges that in September 2011 Range provided incomplete drinking water test results from Test America to the DEP that omitted findings showing a high concentration of nitrate — which can cause cancer — plus fracking fluid, flowback water, uranium and silicon.
Mrs. Voyles sued the DEP in Commonwealth Court in May 2011, claiming the department wasn’t properly investigating odor and water complaints related to the Yeager impoundment. That case is pending.
Today both the Voyles and Haney properties are receiving replacement water supplied by Range.
But Range has denied Mr. Kiskadden’s request that it supply him with an alternative water source, based on the water test results that the company and the DEP said shows his well water was not contaminated by its drilling operations. He has appealed that determination by the DEP to the state Environmental Hearing Board.
The lawsuit also says Range used the Yeager drill cuttings pit to dispose of hazardous drilling waste from at least three other gas drilling sites in Washington County, and the pit leaked and contaminated groundwater.
In April 2010, DEP issued a notice of violation against Range for “failing to control/dispose of production fluids properly,” and a month later Range drained the pit, replaced the pit liner and excavated contaminated soil. Range has not been fined for that violation.
It’s the only violation DEP has issued to Range for its Yeager operations or to any of the defendants in the lawsuit, which alleges the defendants committed various violations of the Pennsylvania Clean Streams Law, the state Solid Waste Management Act, and the Hazardous Sites Cleanup Act.
Don Hopey: dhopey@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1983.
First Published May 26, 2012
Shale-gas development creates demand for environmental graduates
live.psu.edu/story/59790#nw69
Friday, May 18, 2012
The College of Agricultural Sciences' Environment and Natural Resources Institute recently held a Marcellus Shale Info-Fest for students.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Marcellus Shale natural gas play is having a significant impact on Pennsylvania’s economy, and Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences is helping to position students to benefit from associated employment opportunities.
Recently the college’s Environment and Natural Resources Institute held a Marcellus Shale Info-Fest for students in the College of Agricultural Sciences in environment-related majors to show them what the specialized industry has to offer in the way of jobs.
This year, in particular, there are many opportunities, according to James Ladlee, extension educator and director of special initiatives for the Marcellus Education and Training Center, which is a collaboration between Pennsylvania College of Technology in Williamsport and Penn State Extension.
“In 2011, roughly 1,900 Marcellus Shale wells were drilled, likely requiring more than 25,000 direct employees and nearly 45,000 indirect employees,” said Ladlee. “State data show that since 2008, core jobs related to shale-gas development have increased by nearly 17,000 just in Pennsylvania.”
Ladlee said College of Agricultural Sciences’ students often represent the strong work ethic, the interest in experiential learning and the creative problem-solving skills needed for the jobs in the shale-gas arena.
“They are among those who best understand the importance of using science-based information to create a better future,” he said. “All these skills are directly transferable to oil and gas exploration companies or businesses and government agencies that support or regulate gas development.”
The Marcellus Shale Info-Fest touched on a wide variety of jobs and careers related to environmental implications for shale development. Those jobs can be in the gas industry, government agencies, private firms and academia.
Shale gas is emerging as a significant economic driver in many places across the country, so students have many chances to get involved, Ladlee noted. It’s a relatively new industry to the East, so here the job opportunities are widely available.
“Although changes appear to be occurring, over the last several years the scale of shale-gas development in the northern tier of Pennsylvania and the southwestern part of the state was unprecedented,” Ladlee said. “Those areas have been hot spots. Thousands of jobs were created just in Pennsylvania, either directly related to drilling or indirectly related to the shale-gas industry.
Penn State College of Ag Sciences students are uniquely positioned to tackle all aspects of oil and gas development, Ladlee pointed out. Students with an education or background in environmental sciences, forestry, engineering, construction, geology, biology, agricultural law, energy business or information sciences are qualified.
“If a student wants to be on the front end of an industry or regulatory system that is growing and dynamic, there are opportunities,” he said. “Students can be a part of the foundation for a strong regulatory system or help to transform and create even better oil- and gas-management practices for industry from the inside.
“Students need to understand that there are opportunities. There are literally tens of thousands of jobs being created as a result of this particular energy development throughout Pennsylvania.”
Job and career information provided at the Marcellus Shale Info-Fest is posted online. Click here to watch a video and see resources for potential jobs related to shale gas development.
Bradford County water wells tested for methane
www.stargazette.com/article/20120521/NEWS11/205210388/Bradford-County-water-wells-tested-methane?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE&nclick_check=1
May. 21, 2012
Pa. officials, Chesapeake try to determine cause of gas migration
Pennsylvania officials and Chesapeake Energy are investigating a possible methane gas migration issue in Leroy Township in Bradford County.
The Department of Environmental Protection’s Oil and Gas Program received the initial report on Saturday evening, said Daniel Spadoni, the agency’s community relations coordinator.
Methane was detected in the headspace of two private drinking water wells. Both wells have been vented, DEP says. There have also been reports of gas bubbling documented in nearby wetlands.
Chesapeake’s Morse well pad — which contains two wells — is about one-half mile from the affected private wells. DEP has sampled four private wells in the area and a Chesapeake consultant is screening all private wells within a 2,500 foot radius of the Morse pad.
Brian Grove, Chesapeake’s senior director of corporate development, said the company was alerted Saturday to a complaint regarding residential water supplies and nearby surface water. The company, Grove said, is “working cooperatively with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to investigate the situation.”
More information will be released as the investigation proceeds, the company said.
Methane migration, when methane gas leaks into water wells, happens when a gas well hits a pocket of naturally occurring methane gas in the earth, allowing the methane to seep into the soil. In the cases where it can be proved the contamination has been caused by natural gas drilling, gas companies can be made responsible for any remediation methods — installing new water wells, providing bottled fresh water or installing equipment to vent the methane.
Although the DEP strengthened its drilling regulations in February 2011 by mandating a higher grade of cement be used in the well casings, pressure testing the wells and more inspections, the methane migration problem has persisted.
In May 2011, DEP fined Chesapeake Energy for a series of water contamination incidents and a well-site fire that injured three workers. The company agreed to pay $900,000 for allowing methane to migrate up faulty wells in Bradford County and contaminate 16 families’ drinking water beginning in 2010.
In January, DEP sent a violation notice to Chief Oil & Gas for three gas wells in Wyoming County’s Nicholson Township saying there is 100-percent combustible gas between the cemented steel casings, which the agency uses as a sign of flaws in construction of the well. The investigation began after a nearby resident complained of high methane levels in well water supplies.
Methane levels above 28 milligrams per liter are a cause for concern because at that point, water can no longer hold the gas and it begins to escape to the air.
Meanwhile, DEP’s Spadoni said, and no methane has been detected inside any of the homes near the Morse well pad.
One of the wells being tested provides drinking water for a niece of Patricia Klotz, of Rome, Pa. Her niece lives near Rockwell Road in Leroy Township, and Klotz said her niece’s water is being tested every 12 hours and that the testing has been going on for a couple of days.
“But she and her neighbors are afraid to say anything, for fear of repercussions,” Klotz said.
The investigation is continuing and no determination has been made as to the source or sources of the methane, DEP says.
Pa. health care company seeks gas drilling facts
www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-05/D9USIMM83.htm
BY KEVIN BEGOS
May 20, 2012
Some people are absolutely sure gas drilling threatens public health, while others are absolutely sure it doesn’t.
Geisinger Health Systems is looking for more facts on the debate.
“Our concern is getting reliable data so we know what to do for our patients,” said David Carey, director of Geisinger’s Weis Center for Research in Danville, Pa.
Geisinger serves many patients who live in areas that have seen a recent boom in Marcellus Shale gas drilling. The gas-rich formation thousands of feet underground has generated jobs, billions of dollars and concerns about possible environmental and public health impacts from thousands of new wells.
“There’s a real need for reliable information for policymakers,” Carey said, yet some of the debate on the issue has been more emotion-driven than science-driven.
“Lack of data has not led to a lack of opinion,” Carey noted.
But with state and federal budgets under intense pressure, there hasn’t been much money available for serious medical research. Then over the last year, executives at Geisinger realized they had a big head start.
“We have a very long history of caring for patients in this region,” Carey said, noting the company serves 2.6 million patients and operates hospitals, clinics, and an insurance program in 44 north central and north eastern counties. That means they have vast troves of health care data, concerning everything from cancer to car accidents to asthma attacks.
“We can map the clinical data in both space and in time,” Carey said, meaning they can compare health in areas with gas drilling to similar areas where it isn’t happening.
Carey said the company isn’t presuming anything about the issue, though it is aware of both concerns and the economic value of the shale boom.
“Our position is, let’s collect the data and find out,” he said.
It may fall to private companies to do some of the work.
Until a few months ago, Pennsylvania public health officials had expected to get a share of the revenue being generated by the state’s new Marcellus Shale law, which is projected to provide about $180 million to state and local governments in the first year.
But representatives from Republican Gov. Tom Corbett’s office and the state Senate cut the health appropriation to zero during final negotiations, so now the state Department of Health is left with a new workload but no funding to examine whether gas drilling impacts health.
Many federal and state regulators say hydraulic fracturing is safe when done properly, and that thousands of wells have been drilled with few complaints of pollution. But environmental groups and some doctors assert that regulations still aren’t tough enough and that the practice can pollute groundwater and air.
The claims and counterclaims have been so extreme that some health experts feel the fear and confusion that’s been generated among the public is a problem by itself. Bernard Goldstein, a professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, said experience has shown that patient trust is a key component in health care.
Goldstein said Pitt is also looking at ways to use health care data to answer questions about gas drilling and possible public health impacts.
Despite all the controversy over the issue, Carey hopes Geisinger can stay above the fray.
“To the extent possible, we’re trying to stay clear of any political land mines,” he said.
“We see this unfolding in phases. I could see a batch of early studies that might focus on some diseases. Asthma is a good example,” he said, since people with that disease would be very sensitive to possible changes in air quality due to gas drilling.
Geisinger hopes to issue some preliminary results of its data analysis within the next year, Carey said, while other aspects of the research will unfold over five, 10 or 15 years.
Residents: Pa. health dept. lacks in investigating claims of illness.
www.timesleader.com/stories/Residents-Pa-health-dept-lacks-in-investigating-claims-of-illness,149927
By KEVIN BEGOS
May 13, 2012
Inquiry finds several other shortcomings by agency concerning gas drilling.
PITTSBURGH — The Pennsylvania Department of Health says it investigates every claim by residents that gas drilling has caused health problems, but several people say the agency’s actions don’t match its words.
Two western Pennsylvania residents told The Associated Press that health officials have fallen short in responding to their health complaints.
The AP also found that the toll-free number the agency gives out for gas drilling complaints doesn’t mention the issue in its automated menu, and the agency’s website doesn’t have a specific place for people to file such complaints.
And the AP inquiry showed that the agency didn’t begin keeping track of possible health complaints tied to gas drilling until 2011, several years after a surge of activity in the gas-rich Marcellus Shale.
“Everybody kind of just passed the buck,” said Sheri Makepeace, a northwestern Pennsylvania resident who said that starting last year she tried calling the Department of Health and other agencies over fears that nearby drilling created health problems. “I’ve talked to so many different people and have gotten so many different stories.”
Christine Cronkright, a spokeswoman for the agency, said the agency stands by earlier statements that it responds to, investigates and issues a formal response to all complaints about gas drilling and public health. Officials are working on how and where to share information on the issue with the public and expect to release details in the near future, she said.
The AP also found that previous responses from the Department of Health about the numbers of complaints it has received about drilling and health have been at best confusing and at worst misleading.
The agency first told the AP that it had received a total of about 30 complaints, and then modified that to being 30 over the last year. Now, the agency says it didn’t even begin recording such complaints until 2011.
Cronkright also told the AP that the agency has no current investigations regarding people who claim gas drilling has impacted their health.
That puzzles Janet McIntyre, one of Makepeace’s neighbors.
She made a formal complaint by phone in late February and said a health department employee replied that he would get back to her in a few days. McIntyre said she purposefully waited 30 days for a response but none came.
“He sounded as if he wanted to get right on it. And that I would have people calling me,” she said. “I was very frustrated. I was getting nowhere. That was disheartening.”
The AP started asking the health department about problems in responding to complaints in April, and then in early May McIntyre sent a letter to the agency, outlining her experience.
On Thursday, a health official called her to apologize, she said, adding that “they dropped the ball. But at least they picked it up again.”
One public health expert who’s working on gas drilling complaints in Pennsylvania said the health agency is in a difficult position.
“I’m not surprised that their protocols are a little difficult to get in place. The response to something like this is really hard,” said David Brown, a former head of environmental epidemiology in Connecticut who is now working with the nonprofit Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project to examine complaints about gas drilling.
Until a few months ago, Pennsylvania health officials had expected to get a share of the revenue being generated by the state’s new Marcellus Shale law, which is projected to provide about $180 million to state and local governments in the first year.
But representatives from Republican Gov. Tom Corbett’s office and the state Senate cut the health appropriation to zero during final negotiations, so now the agency is left with a new workload but no funding for the job.
Five spills reported at gas pipeline sites
citizensvoice.com/news/five-spills-reported-at-gas-pipeline-sites-1.1313538#axzz1uZEq4r00
By Elizabeth Skrapits (Staff Writer)
Published: May 11, 2012
DALLAS TWP. – The state Department of Environmental Protection is monitoring a series of drilling mud spills at a natural gas pipeline installation.
Chief Gathering LLC, recently bought out by PVR Partners, hired contractors to install a pipeline to connect natural gas wells in Susquehanna County to the Transco interstate pipeline in Dallas Township.
Since May 1, there have been five spills of more than 6,000 gallons of water containing bentonite, a type of clay used in drilling operations, at two different Dallas Township sites: Leonards Creek on Kunkle Road and Upper Demunds Road and Goodleigh Road, outside Goodleigh Estates, according to a report from DEP. On Thursday, crews sucked up the mud at the Upper Demunds Road site using vacuum trucks.
Chief’s Vice President of Industry Affairs Kristi Gittins said releases of mud at pipeline boring sites are not uncommon and “we plan for them and we deal with them.” No chemicals or additives were used, she said.
DEP has been to the site and approved remediation plans, Gittins said. She said Chief is providing information to DEP and the agency does regular follow-up visits.
The DEP report shows five “inadvertent return to surface” incidents involving drilling mud with bentonite coming up from the ground at two horizontal drilling sites.
The first occurred at 8:30 a.m. May 1, with 50 gallons of mud released at a wetlands next to Leonards Creek on Kunkle Road. It was contained at the site. The next day at the same site 20 gallons escaped containment but did not impact the creek. Then again on May 2, 200 gallons overflowed at the site. It was also cleaned up, DEP reported.
In the fourth incident, on Monday, about 1,000 gallons of bentonite was spilled and drilling mud was discovered coming from an old springhouse between Kunkle Road and Leonards Creek. Not all the bentonite was contained at the time, and DEP reported the creek was cloudy. By Thursday, most of the bentonite was cleaned up.
The fifth incident occurred Saturday, when 5,000 to 6,000 gallons of bentonite was lost in wetlands about 200 feet off Upper Demunds Road, according to DEP. The drilling mud was contained on the site with hay bales and is being removed by a vacuum truck.
The Upper Demunds Road spill occurred outside an upscale development where the pipeline installation created controversy.
Several Goodleigh Estates residents sued their neighbors for leasing Chief a right-of-way, asking Luzerne County court to stop the pipeline construction on the grounds it violated the development’s covenants and would create a nuisance.
Chief was not named in the suit, but the company sued the residents, claiming their efforts to delay the pipeline could cost the company from $683,000 to $18 million or more. Chief also asked them to pay damages for making “defamatory and malicious” statements about the company in local media and on Facebook.
Chief and the residents came to an agreement in November that dismissed the suits.
Under the undisclosed terms of the agreement, the residents are prohibited from commenting about Chief.
eskrapits@citizensvoice.com, 570-821-2072
Water testing lab in PA to pay fine, surrender accreditations
www.waterworld.com/index/display/article-display/2696067775/articles/waterworld/drinking-water/water-quality/2012/05/Water-testing-lab-in-PA-fined.html
WILKES-BARRE, PA, May 10, 2012 — Northeastern Environmental Laboratory (NEEL) of Scranton will pay a $20,000 fine and voluntarily surrender the majority of its accreditations for drinking water and wastewater management and testing after Pennsylvania DEP inspectors found several violations.
Discovered during non-routine visits in September 2011, violations included failure to properly train staff; failure to oversee and supervise testing of water samples; failure to maintain records; and failure to adhere to proper collection, receipt and handling of samples.
The lab’s certificate of accreditation expired on April 1, and the business subsequently notified DEP that it will not seek re-accreditation.