Pennsylvania Fracking Site Gets U.S. Scrutiny After Complaints
www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-06/pennsylvania-fracking-site-gets-u-s-scrutiny-after-complaints.html
By Mark Drajem
January 06, 2012
Water from wells in a Pennsylvania town near a gas-drilling site that used hydraulic fracturing will be collected and sampled by U.S. regulators after residents complained, the Environmental Protection Agency said.
Cabot Oil & Gas Co., which in April 2010 said it settled with state regulators over methane contamination in 14 water wells in Dimock, Pennsylvania, has agreed to postpone its drilling there.
“We will evaluate the sampling results and share them with the residents,” Betsaida Alcantara, an EPA spokeswoman, said yesterday in an e-mail. Residents gave the EPA information about the water, although “there are gaps” in the data, she said.
A boom in gas production using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, helped increase supplies, cutting prices 32 percent last year, while raising environmental concerns about tainted drinking water supplies. The EPA is studying the effects of fracking on water and weighing nationwide regulations.
President Barack Obama has said increased drilling for natural gas is a way to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil and coal, which is more damaging to the environment when burned. Officials in his administration have been cautious when discussing possible health effects of fracking.
“Natural gas plays a key role in our nation’s clean-energy future and the Obama administration is committed to ensuring that the development of this vital resource occurs safely and responsibly,” Alcantara said.
Wyoming Tests
The EPA released a report on Dec. 8 tying chemicals in groundwater in west-central Wyoming to fracking, the first time it made that link. Encana Corp., which was operating in that area, said the EPA erred in its draft report.
In addition to the individual studies, the EPA is undertaking a review of groundwater in fracking areas, and said it will propose rules to force chemical makers to disclose products used in the process.
The EPA study of drinking water is set to be completed in 2014.
Fracking is a process that injects water, sand and chemicals into deep shale formations to free trapped natural gas. The process accounts for about a third of the U.S. gas supply, up from 14 percent in 2009, according to the U.S. Energy Department.
Fracking permits are issued by states, the primary regulators of oil and gas operations. Industry groups such as the American Petroleum Institute have said regulation should remain in the hands of state officials who are closest to local concerns and know the most about differences in geology that affect drilling.
A spokesman for Cabot, George Stark, didn’t return a telephone and e-mail message.
Ohio Mayor Buys Quake Insurance as He Seeks Answers on Fracking
www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-05/ohio-mayor-buys-quake-insurance-as-he-seeks-answers-on-fracking.html
January 05, 2012
By Mark Niquette
The mayor of Youngstown, Ohio, says he wonders whether a well used to dispose of wastewater from oil and natural-gas drilling is making his city shake. Just to be safe, he’s bought earthquake insurance.
“You lose your whole house, that’s your life savings, and if you have no money or no insurance to replace it, then what do you do?” Mayor Charles P. Sammarone said in a telephone interview today. “Information is needed to make the homeowner and the residents feel safe.”
There have been 11 earthquakes in this northeastern Ohio city since D&L Energy Inc. began injecting drilling brine, a byproduct of hydraulic fracturing, 9,200 feet (2,804 meters) underground in December 2010. The strongest, magnitude 4.0, hit last week on New Year’s Eve.
Sammarone said he has asked the City Council to pass a resolution tonight supporting state Representative Robert F. Hagan, a city Democrat who has called for a moratorium on so- called fracking and injection-well activity “until we can conclude it’s safe.”
Republican Governor John Kasich and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources consider the earthquakes isolated occurrences that are being addressed, said Rob Nichols, a gubernatorial spokesman. Injections will continue at the other 177 such wells without interrupting shale-gas development that may produce thousands of jobs, he said.
“We are not going to stand by and let someone drive a stake through the heart of what could be an economic revival in Eastern Ohio,” Nichols said yesterday in a telephone interview.
Brick House
The Natural Resources Department said the company agreed to stop operations at the Youngstown well Dec. 30 after data showed the earthquakes were occurring nearby at the depth of the injections. After the Dec. 31 quake, the state ordered work suspended and put on hold proposals for four other wells within a five-mile radius pending further study, Nichols said.
Sammarone said he hopes state officials will give the city more information next week. He decided to buy a policy on his one-story brick house after the Dec. 31 quake because before March, there was no recorded seismic activity in the city.
“About 3 o’clock, there was a loud bang that lasted, I don’t know, a couple seconds, and then all of sudden, the house started shaking and stuff fell off the wall,” he said. “It seemed like it lasted forever, but it was probably eight, 10 seconds. But it was very scary because we’re not used to that.”
“Two days later, on Monday, I called my insurance man and got earthquake insurance.”
Toxic releases rose 16 percent in 2010, EPA says
www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/toxic-releases-rose-16-percent-in-2010-epa-says/2012/01/05/gIQAhbTpdP_story.html
By Juliet Eilperin, Published: January 5, 2012
The amount of toxic chemicals released into the environment nationwide in 2010 increased 16 percent over the year before, reversing a downward trend in overall toxic releases since 2006, according to a report released Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The spike was driven largely by metal mining, but other sectors — including the chemical industry — also contributed to the rise in emissions, according to the new analysis from the annual federal Toxics Release Inventory.
Air releases of dioxin, which is linked to cancer as well as neurological and reproductive problems, rose 10 percent from 2009 to 2010, according to the report. Other releases, such as landfill disposal, increased 18 percent.
Dioxins are formed as a byproduct of some processes with intense heat, such as smelting and recycling metals. The 2010 increase stemmed largely from the hazardous-waste-management and mining industries, according to the EPA.
In a statement Thursday, EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson did not address the specific sources of emissions but said that the public reporting “has played a significant role in protecting people’s health and the environment by providing communities with valuable information on toxic chemical releases.”
According to EPA officials, a handful of metal mining operations helped drive the overall increase in toxic emissions.
“In this sector, even a small change in the chemical composition of the ore being mined — which EPA understands is one of the reasons for the increase in total reported releases — may lead to big changes in the amount of toxic chemicals reported nationally,” the statement read.
Some environmentalists said the new data show why the EPA should swiftly move to release a long-anticipated environmental assessment of dioxin, the first installment of which the agency plans to issue this month. EPA officials say they will issue a report addressing dioxin’s non-cancerous effects first and then later release a cancer-related report.
Some industry groups, including the American Chemistry Council, have urged the EPA to hold off issuing the report in what the trade association’s president and chief executive, Cal Dooley, has called “a piecemeal fashion.” Chemical manufacturers accounted for nearly 64 percent of total disposal of dioxins in 2010, though they reported a 7 percent decrease from 2009 to 2010.
In a letter dated Dec. 20, Dooley wrote Jackson that “it is worth noting that the Agency’s efforts to manage dioxin emissions have been successful. Indeed, as a result of both regulatory and voluntary initiatives, U.S. dioxin emissions from man-made sources have dramatically declined and environmental levels of dioxin have plummeted.”
ACC spokeswoman Anne Kolton noted in an e-mail: “U.S. emissions of dioxin have declined more than 92 percent since 1987 [through 2009] to the point where backyard trash burning is the primary source of dioxin emissions.”
Mike Schade — a campaign coordinator for the Center for Health, Environment and Justice — said the fact that emissions are now on the upswing makes it important for the EPA to release a report it started working on in 1985.
“Communities across America have been exposed to dioxin for decades as EPA has continued to work on this study. Every American has measurable levels of dioxin in their body,” Schade said in an interview, noting that most humans are exposed by eating meat or dairy products from animals that have accumulated the chemical in their bodies. “It’s critically important for EPA to finalize this study so the EPA can protect Americans from this toxic chemical.”
Senate GOP leader sees opportunity to resolve impact fee impasse
citizensvoice.com/news/drilling/senate-gop-leader-sees-opportunity-to-resolve-impact-fee-impasse-1.1252681#axzz1iadrIwtO
By Robert Swift (Harrisburg Bureau Chief)
Published: January 4, 2012
HARRISBURG – A top Senate Republican leader sees a window of opportunity this month to resolve outstanding differences over Marcellus Shale impact fee legislation before state budget and election issues get in the way.
Agreement on a combined impact fee and stronger environmental regulations for drilling activities is one of the unresolved issues carried over by state lawmakers and Gov. Tom Corbett from last year. Senate President Pro Tempore Joseph Scarnati, R-Jefferson County, said Tuesday he hopes final passage of impact fee legislation can be achieved before Corbett’s budget address early next month.
“People want it done,” he said. “If it isn’t done, it’s going to be an issue for 2012.”
With Pennsylvania continuing to face fiscal problems, Scarnati voiced concern that a continuing impasse over impact fees could threaten to delay passage of a state budget by the June 30 deadline as it briefly did last year.
Three-way negotiations between the Republican-controlled House and Senate and the governor have produced nearly complete agreement concerning such issues as protection of water supplies, Scarnati said. The sticking points remain the monetary size of the impact fee and whether it would be structured as a county optional fee provided for in a House-approved bill or the state-administered fee in a Senate-approved bill.
The senator voiced optimism that a fee proposal being discussed to give local municipalities some control over drilling activities yet allow for consistent application will break the impasse.
But he said the decision by five GOP senators from Southeastern Pennsylvania last month to vote for a floor amendment by Sen. John Yudichak, D-Nanticioke, for a higher $75,000 first-year impact fee shows the degree of support for using some fee revenue to meet statewide needs.
The Senate bill levies a $50,000 first-year fee; the House bill levies a $40,000 first-year fee.
The Senate will take a procedural vote to pave the way for a two-chamber conference committee when it reconvenes Jan. 17. The committee’s job is to hammer out a compromise to be presented to lawmakers on an up-or-down vote.
No decisions have been made on the Senate conferees, although Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, D-Pittsburgh, indicated that Yudichak is the point man for his caucus on the issue.
House Speaker Sam Smith, R-Punxsutawney, said no decisions have been made on House conferees.
rswift@timesshamrock.com
New fuel for coal vs. gas debate
www.timesleader.com/news/New_fuel_for_coal_vs__gas_debate_12-27-2011.html
December 27, 2011
By Steve Mocarsky smocarsky@timesleader.com
Wilkes-based group finds natural gas has smaller greenhouse footprint.
A research group based at Wilkes University recently revised its position on whether burning coal or natural gas has a worse impact on the environment and global warming.
Based on several new studies, the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research of Northeastern Pennsylvania concluded that, contrary to findings in an April study by researchers at Cornell University, natural gas produced from Marcellus Shale wells has a lower greenhouse footprint than coal.
According to the institute essay, the use of natural gas and the other fossil fuels for energy releases greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere. Those gases are thought to increase global temperatures.
Studies conducted between 2000 and 2007 suggested that natural gas produces fewer greenhouse gases than coal, especially when used to generate electricity.
But a study by a team of researchers at Cornell University published in April found that extracting natural gas from shale released large quantities of methane – a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
The researchers concluded that when the full life-cycle of energy extraction, delivery and use is considered, shale gas produces up to twice the greenhouse gas emissions compared to burning coal or oil – especially when viewed over a 20-year time span.
However, seven analyses released in the summer and fall of 2011 came to a different conclusion than the Cornell study. All seven found that natural gas produces 20 percent to 60 percent lower greenhouse gas emissions, especially when used for electrical generation and when viewed over a 100-year time span.
The discrepancies between the Cornell and subsequent studies appear to result primarily from the different time frames used (20-year time frame versus 100-year).
Kenneth Klemow
Wilkes professor Kenneth Klemow, one of the authors of the institute essay, was hesitant to rank as more credible either the Cornell study or a study by Carnegie-Mellon University researchers that the energy industry said disputed the Cornell study when the Carnegie-Mellon study came out in August.
Klemow had said the Carnegie-Mellon study tipped the balance more in favor of natural gas, but only “by a little bit.” While the gas industry had claimed the CMU study slam-dunked the Cornell study, Klemow said he wasn’t so sure about that.
He was sure that more research was needed and researchers needed to take more field measurements rather than rely on data from previous studies.
Klemow said last week that because of several new articles and reports that have come out in the past three months, researchers at the institute found it necessary to issue an update on the original position.
“The main message is that seven independent studies now agree that shale gas has a lower greenhouse footprint than coal. That conclusion largely contradicts the findings by a team of researchers at Cornell who published a paper last April that argued shale gas has a higher footprint than coal due to inadvertent releases of methane at gas wells,” Klemow said.
In addition to incorporating the findings of the recent studies, the institute included some graphics to illustrate key trends that have been observed. And in addition to summarizing the research to date, they say they provide “our own synthesis – especially relating to future research needs.”
“Scientists are becoming increasingly convinced that burning fossil fuels releases gases that affect our climate,” Klemow said. “Therefore, studies comparing emissions of natural gas against coal are vital if we want to have informed discussions and make wise choices.”
“While recent analyses generally show natural gas has a lower footprint than coal, the science is far from settled. More studies of methane leakage near Marcellus wells and pipelines are critically needed to give us a more accurate picture,” he said.
Fracking Regulations May Center on Wastewater Disposal
www.ibtimes.com/articles/268912/20111217/natural-gas-drilling-marcellus-shale-fracking-regulations.htm
By Ashley Portero
December 17, 2011
Fracking is currently exempt from the federal Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and almost every other law that protects environmental health as a result of the federal Energy Policy Act of 2005, which contains a provision exempting gas drilling companies from those programs. Moreover, the bill created a loophole for those companies that exempt them from disclosing the chemicals that are injected into the earth via fracking operations.
While hydraulic fracturing has been employed in Western states for years by oil and gas companies seeking to extract valuable natural gas from deep within the ground, the controversial process has remained largely unregulated while simultaneously coming under scrutiny due to concerns about its potentially harmful effects on both the environment and human health.
Marcellus Shale: Large, Valuable, Unconventional Natural Gas Reserves
However, as drilling companies eye the East Coasts’ bountiful Marcellus Shale as its next frontier for hydraulic fracturing, better known as “fracking,” state officials and citizens groups have responded with a bustle of proposed statutory and regulatory frameworks designed to address the many concerns surrounding the extraction process.
The Marcellus Shale is a unit of marine sedimentary rock extending through much of the Appalachian Basin — encompassing sections of New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia and Ohio — containing largely untapped natural gas reserves. Energy companies claim the shale is a valuable source of clean-burning fuel and insist employing hydraulic fracturing in the region would create American jobs while also increasing the nation’s energy independence.
Fracking: Is It Safe?
Jayne Risk, a partner at the law firm DLA Piper who focuses on toxic commercial litigation, told the International Business Times that any comprehensive legislation regulating Marcellus Shale hydraulic fracturing in the near future will likely focus on managing contaminated wastewater. Risk said multiple companies are developing advanced water treatment processes that could theoretically allow drillers to remove some of the toxic chemicals from fracking wastewater, enabling them to reuse the water in drilling operations instead of dumping contaminated wastewater into other water sources or injecting it deep underground.
“We are at the advent of this, but this is a real possibility for the future. If this can be developed and matured it will eliminate a lot of the debate,” Risk said. “Fracking takes a lot of water that has to come from somewhere.”
Fracking involves drilling into deep natural gas wells and then injecting millions of gallons of high-pressured water, sand and hundreds of proprietary chemicals into it to fracture the rock shale, opening fissures that enable gas to flow more freely from the well. Opponents argue that using that method to extract gas from the Marcellus Shale is even more perilous because black shale rock typically contains trace levels of uranium that could potentially become concentrated on drilling equipment, fracking fluid, and other waste that could then be exposed to humans.
In addition, the process produces huge quantities of toxic, radioactive and caustic liquid by-products that pose storage, treatment and disposal hazards that could adversely affect public health as well as the environment, according to Citizens Campaign For the Environment.
EPA Developing Standards for Wastewater Disposal
In October, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it would develop national standards for wastewater disposal produced by shale gas as well as coal bed methane extraction. The agency reports it will explore options for effective wastewater treatment based on “demonstrated, economically achievable technologies.”
Although the EPA previously insisted there was no solid evidence to indicate fracking has polluted drinking water sources, earlier this month the agency released a draft report connecting natural gas drilling to a contaminated aquifer in Pavillion, Wyoming. In the report, the EPA said an analysis of groundwater from the area contained at least 10 organic compounds known to be present in fracking fluid that was likely the result of the “direct mixing of hydraulic fracturing fluid with ground water in the Pavillion gas field.”
The EPA also emphasized that Wyoming was more vulnerable to water contamination than other regions because drilling often takes place much closer to the surface. According to the agency, in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale region — the center of fracking activity in the shale — fracking occurs much farther below water sources, making it less likely pollution from fluids will migrate into aquifers.
However, despite the EPA’s claim, there have also been reports of groundwater pollution in Pennsylvania as a result of fracking. In the town of Dimock (2000 population: 1,398) 11 families sued Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. after their drinking water wells were contaminated with methane from the company’s nearby drilling site. Cabot was ordered to provide the families with daily deliveries of bottled water for drinking, cleaning and bathing as a result, although Pennsylvania regulators ruled last month the company is not required to keep up with deliveries anymore, resulting in outrage from local residents and environmental groups.
In addition to water pollution, some scientists report that individuals who live near fracking wells, compressor stations or even wastewater treatment facilities are likely to be exposed to toxic air pollutants that could cause nosebleeds, chronic fatigue and nervous system damage. A coalition of lawmers, environmentalists and health professionals echoed those concerns in a letter sent to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in October.
Pennsylvania Moves Toward Drilling Impact Fee
Under existing Pennsylvania regulations, natural gas wells drilled in shale deposits are only required to adhere to environmental protection standards that are applicable to all oil and gas wells. After forming the Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale Advisory Committee earlier this year to analyze the impacts of fracking, in October Gov. Tom Corbett announced the state will adopt several of the committee’s recommendations, including an impact fee that would be paid by drillers and then used by local communities to address environmental issues resulting from the drilling.
According to Risk, the regulations implemented in Pennsylvania will influence hydrofracking laws in the rest of country.
The rest of the Marcellus Shale has been relatively free of natural gas drilling at this point. New York state currently has a moratorium on fracking until the state Department of Environmental Conservation completes a review of hydrofracking that will likely be completed by the spring of 2012. State officials are particularly concerned about the impact fracking could have on watersheds that provide drinking water for New York City and Syracuse, which is currently considered to be the cleanest in the nation.
New York City’s Giant Watershed
A mistake or oversight regarding fracking’s/drilling’s impact near the watershed for the New York City reservoir system would be devastating, in terms of scale and scope: the mamouth New York City water system serves more than 8 million residents in New York City’s five boroughs and in Westchester County, N.Y., just north of the U.S.’s largest city. New York City’s water system is one of the unofficial “miracles of the modern world” — providing clean water almost entirely (95 percent) by gravity.
As of now, neither Maryland nor Virginia permit natural gas drilling, although both states are in the process of considering various legislative and regulatory approaches that would ensure fracking is performed responsibly, Risk said. In July, West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin issued an executive order establishing permitting procedures and certain restrictions on fracking — such as wastewater disposal and treatment — while the state legislature drafts permanent legislation. In Ohio, where Marcellus Shale drilling activity is more limited, current regulations require drillers to transport heavily polluted wastewater to deep injection wells, while less contaminated water may be sent to authorized treatment plants.
In wake of new fracking disclosure rule, activists seek still more drilling regulations
coloradoindependent.com/107921/in-wake-of-new-fracking-disclosure-rule-activists-seeks-still-more-drilling-regulations
By David O. Williams
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
In wake of new fracking disclosure rule, activists seek still more drilling regulations
Colorado oil and gas regulators say holding ponds like this one in Pennsylvania cause much more groundwater contamination than hydraulic fracturing (www.industrialscars.com photo).
There was widespread praise Tuesday for a hard-fought compromise deal that led to Colorado’s groundbreaking new hydraulic fracturing chemical disclosure rule, but environmental groups and some politicians have already started pushing for more regulation of the state’s booming oil and gas industry.
“[The disclosure rule] is an important step in creating the necessary protections for Colorado families, but there is more work to be done,” said Mike Chiropolos, lands program director for Boulder-based Western Resource Advocates. < http://www.westernresourceadvocates.org/ >
WRA now wants the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) to implement recommendations (pdf) < http://www.strongerinc.org/documents/Colorado%20HF%20Review%202011.pdf > made in October by a group called the State Review of Oil & Natural Gas Environmental Regulations (STRONGER) < http://www.strongerinc.org/ > suggesting minimum surface casing depths for oil and gas wells that are fracked.
It’s been suggested that the failure to properly case and cement natural gas wells to depths below the groundwater aquifer may have been to blame in Pavillion, Wyo., where a report last week < http://www.epa.gov/region8/superfund/wy/pavillion/index.html > by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) linked fracking chemicals to well-water contamination. < http://coloradoindependent.com/107531/epa-report-pavillion-well-water-tainted-with-chemicals-consistent-with-fracking >
It’s been suggested that the failure to properly case and cement natural gas wells to depths below the groundwater aquifer may have been to blame in Pavillion, Wyo., where a report last week by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) linked fracking chemicals to well-water contamination.
“[STRONGER] recommends that the COGCC work with stakeholders to review how available information is used to determine minimum surface casing depths and how those depths assure that casing and cementing procedures are adequate to protect fresh groundwater,” the October STRONGER report reads.
COGCC director David Neslin said on Tuesday that fracking chemical “disclosure is not our first line of environmental defense. It’s important for transparency, it’s important to build public confidence, but our first line of environmental defense is the integrity of the wellbore. It’s the work that our engineers and environmental staff do in reviewing the permit applications.”
Neslin has long said that disclosure won’t stop spills caused by bad cement jobs of wellbores, pipeline problems or leaks from holding ponds that store fracking and other fluids. On Tuesday he said another line of environmental defense is “groundwater sampling, baseline sampling that we require our operators to do, and the prompt response that our field inspectors make when complaints or allegations of impact arise.”
WRA, however, would like to see another rulemaking on both the STRONGER recommendations and “a mandatory program for baseline testing, monitoring and tracers to protect our water quality.”
“Baseline testing can help eliminate the he said, she said arguments over contamination so that we can focus on keeping people safe,” WRA’s Chiropolos said. “One sick person is one too many. The [COGCC] should continue to be proactive in 2012 in order to protect Colorado families and our water.”
There are approximately 45,000 active oil and gas wells in Colorado, which is in the top five nationally for natural gas production and top 10 for oil. Huge reserves in the Niobrara Shale formation on the state’s populous Front Range have sparked a wave of drilling speculation and local fears about the impacts of fracking.
“Colorado citizens are justifiably worried about the practice of fracking and deserve full confidence that the state is protecting the quality of their air, water and soil,” said Josh Joswick, energy issues organizer of the San Juan Citizens Alliance. Joswick was a La Plata County commissioner when local drilling rules were implemented in that gas-rich area of the state.
Increased drilling activity on the Front Range from Colorado Springs all the way north of Denver to the Wyoming state line will occur where far more Coloradans live than on the sparsely populated Western Slope.
“This [disclosure] compromise means there is no free pass for drilling firms,” state Rep. Deb Gardner, D-Longmont, said in a release. “There is now a greater degree of checks and balances.”
Calls for more COGCC rulemaking on issues ranging from surface casing depth to increased baseline water-quality testing to greater setbacks for oil and gas rigs from homes and public buildings will likely increase along with the drilling.
The WRA Tuesday also called for “increased residential setbacks from the current minimum levels — 150 feet for rural areas; 350 feet for urban areas.” That’s an issue that some observers say was never properly resolved during the last significant revision of the state’s oil and gas drilling regulations.
Those revisions in 2007 and 2008 were so sweeping – including some of the first rules in the nation dealing with fracking – that they required the approval of the State Legislature after months of sometimes bitter debate.
Colorado’s senior member of Congress, Democrat Diana DeGette of Denver, has been trying for years to compel the public disclosure of fracking chemicals at the national level. Her Fracturing Responsibility and Chemical Awareness (FRAC) Act would remove a Safe Drinking Water Act exemption for the fracking process that was granted during the Bush administration in 2005.
She praised the new Colorado rule Tuesday, but also pointed to the Pavillion case.
“The fact that we have a proven case of a connection between hydraulic fracturing and the contamination of an aquifer underscores just how important it is that we take cautionary steps to protect our communities’ water supply,” DeGette said. “That is why I continue to encourage members of Congress to pass my FRAC Act, so communities across the country will have transparency in the drilling process as well.”
EnCana, the Canadian company drilling in the Pavillion area, has disputed the EPA’s findings, and Republican lawmakers and industry trade groups have questioned the agency’s methods and motivations.
Marcellus Shale drilling may take huge chunks out of PA forests
www.bayjournal.com/article.cfm?article=4246
By Karl Blankenship
Loss could heavily impact wildlife habitat, state’s ability to meet TMDL goal
Gas drilling requires miles of roads as well as impervious surface around the well sites. All of that breaks up large tracts of forests, removing crucial bird and reptile habitats. Here, a gas company works a well site in Beech Creek Township near Bald Eagle State Park. (Credit: Dick Martin / Pennsylvania Forest Project)
During the coming two decades, Pennsylvania could lose enough forest land to build a couple of large cities. The forest won’t be lost in a single large chunk, but as thousands of small sites that are cleared to drill natural gas wells and connected with hundreds of miles of new pipelines.
While those impacts will be scattered across the landscape, their cumulative impact on forest habitats could be severe, and it could also complicate the state’s efforts to meet its nutrient and sediment reduction obligations under the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load, or pollution diet.
“It’s not so much that people know it would keep the TMDL from being met,” said Nels Johnson, director of conservation programs with The Nature Conservancy in Pennsylvania. “It’s that no one knows whether or not this really threatens the state’s efforts to meet the TMDL.”
Much of the concern about environmental impacts related to the Marcellus Shale natural gas boom has been related to the water quality impacts of hydraulic fracking, the process of injecting huge amounts of water and chemicals under high pressure deep into the ground to break apart rock and access gas.
Johnson led a team that tackled a different question – how the drilling in the Marcellus Shale formation could affect land use and, ultimately, wildlife habitats in Pennsylvania.
By using information about the depth and thickness of the Marcellus formation in different areas and a variety of other variables, they developed a model to project where the 60,000 wells expected to be drilled in the next two decades will go.
The analysis projects that about 60 percent of the wells will be drilled on forest land – the dominant land cover over much of the Marcellus Shale in the state.
A key factor that affects how much forest will be directly affected by drilling is the number of wells drilled on each drilling pad. A typical pad is about 3 acres but requires about six additional acres for roads and other related infrastructure. Right now, the average is less than two wells per pad, Johnson said, but he expects that to increase to between 4 and 10 wells per pad over time.
While scattered pads may not seem to have great impact, the analysis estimates that, across Pennsylvania, 38,000-90,000 acres of forest may ultimately be cleared for wells seeking to tap the Marcellus Shale formation, which underlies the western and northern portions of the state. Another 60,000-150,000 acres of forest could be lost for new pipelines.
“It’s a cumulative impact,” Johnson said. “Ultimately, that’s why we did this – because we wanted to have a better understanding of the cumulative impact, and how worried we should be about this.”
Pennsylvania’s large tracts of intact forests are important for an array of wildlife, from brook trout to forest interior birds. Forest birds such as the scarlet tanager, which have declined in many areas, have generally held their own in Pennsylvania’s large forests.
That could change as forests are chopped up for wells and pipelines. Many predators, from blue jays to raccoons, thrive along forest edges, from which they forage into the woods, picking off birds or the eggs of wood thrush, ovenbirds and other species that normally rely on large forests for refuge. Not only will forests be directly lost to drill pads and pipelines, but forests near those opening will be rendered uninhabitable for many species.
But the analysis also raises a concern for Chesapeake cleanup efforts. The conservancy estimates that about 46 percent of the drilling would take place within the Bay watershed. That suggests the forest loss within the watershed portion of Pennsylvania could be between 45,000-110,000 acres.
For comparison, that’s enough land to build between 1 to 2.5 District of Columbias.
Because forests absorb more nutrients and retain more sediment than other land uses, their loss could result in more of those pollutants reaching local streams.
Assuming those forests are converted to meadow, and applying loading rates derived from the Bay Program model, rough estimates suggest it could increase the amount of nitrogen runoff reaching local streams between 30,000-80,000 pounds a year; while phosphorus could increase between 15,000-40,000 pounds; and sediment could increase between 18 million to 45 million pounds. The variation depends on whether the amount of forest lost was at the low, or high end of the conservancy’s estimates.
Right now, the land use changes are not included in the state’s watershed implementation plan, which shows how it plans to meet nutrient and sediment limits set in the TMDL.
Kevin Sunday, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection, said sediment and erosion control guidelines would require best management practices to control runoff and well sites would need to be re-vegetated.
Johnson said that, as a practical matter, it is difficult to reforest areas disturbed for drilling as companies need to maintain access to wells and pipelines. Further, a recent study showed that reforestation generally wasn’t taking place at drilling sites, he said.
Katherine Antos, water quality team leader with the EPA’s Bay Program Office in Annapolis, said state pollution limits set in the TMDL were based on land uses in place in 2010. “If there are any changes to that, any increased loads or new sources, states have to be able to offset those increases,” she said.
Antos said the EPA is currently reviewing offset programs for all states in the watershed.
Harry Campbell, a scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said concerns about the impacts related to drilling activities on the Bay TMDL were among the reasons that it and several other organizations petitioned the federal government last year seeking the development of an Environmental Impact Statement to examine the full range of Marcellus drilling impacts in the state.
“We just don’t know enough about all this to get a handle on what the potential impacts are,” he said. “If we don’t have that, then we are flying blind.”
That petition is still pending.
Meanwhile, Johnson said the conservancy has been using its analyses to work with drilling companies to encourage drilling more wells at existing pads to reduce forest loss. It’s also integrating more habitat data into its model to help steer drilling away from sensitive areas. Companies have been “pretty interested,” he said. “We’re pretty confident it is going to help, but we know it is not going to eliminate impacts.”
Revised data good case for severance tax
republicanherald.com/opinion/revised-data-good-case-for-severance-tax-1.1242950
Published: December 12, 2011
In its diligent effort to prevent the natural gas industry from paying a fair tax on the wealth it extracts from Pennsylvania, the Corbett administration often has overstated the positive impact of the industry.
State agencies have overstated job creation and nonseverance tax revenue attributable to the industry as Gov. Tom Corbett unconvincingly has argued against a severance tax.
At one point, the Department of Revenue attributed to the industry millions of dollars in tax payments collected from individual taxpayers who work in drilling and related fields.
Now, the Department of Revenue has acknowledged that it overestimated, by more than 100 percent, the amount of income tax revenue collected from Pennsylvania property owners who receive royalty payments on gas leases.
The Department recently reported that it had received $46.2 million in such payments, 122 percent less than the $102.7 million it had projected.
That, of course, is $46.2 million to the good. But it also illustrates that the administration is willing to accept whatever Marcellus activity happens to generate, rather than ensuring that gas wealth extraction fairly contributes to the government.
Competing bills in the Legislature establish local impact fees that could be implemented by counties that host gas drilling. But the aggregate revenue to be generated by those fees would be far less than amounts generated through severance taxes on the books in every other gas-drilling state. That is all the more true since the gas industry here also gets a pass on local property taxes that most other states assess on the value of properties that produce gas.
There is no doubt that the gas industry has had a positive economic impact on Pennsylvania. The industry and its impact also are likely to grow.
That is for the most fundamental reason of all. It’s not because of the Corbett administration allowing the industry to export as profit as much of the wealth that it possibly can. It’s because the gas is here.
Lawmakers should stop dithering and establish a fair severance tax that puts state revenue on par with that of other states that host the industry.
Webinar to look at the impacts of Marcellus gas play on Pa. forestland
live.psu.edu/story/56772#nw69
Friday, December 9, 2011
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A Web-based seminar sponsored by Penn State Extension and the College of Agricultural Sciences will examine how Marcellus Shale natural-gas development is affecting forestland in Pennsylvania.
The 75-minute webinar will begin at 1 p.m. on Dec. 15. Presenters will be Ellen Shultzabarger, chief of the Forest Resources Planning Section of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, and Tony Quadro, forester and assistant district manager for the Westmoreland County Conservation District.
“We’ll cover the impacts of gas activity on state forestlands and what we’ve done to reduce and minimize the effects of the Marcellus play on our forests,” Shultzabarger said. “Avoid, minimize, mitigate and monitor — that’s our approach.”
Shultzabarger said the session will highlight the policies and management practices the department follows to decrease the fragmentation and impact to state forestlands. “We’ll also discuss the lessons we have learned and practices we recommend for use in communities and on private lands.”
Quadro will focus on the impacts of Marcellus gas drilling on private forestlands and the issues affecting private forestland owners.
“The main topics of discussion will include factors that will impact your forest- management plan, such as the siting of pads, pipelines, waterlines and access roads on your property,” he said.
“I also will cover expectations for payment for standing timber, services of a professional consulting forester, Clean and Green Law status, timing of timber harvests, selling logs, and Marcellus gas development’s longterm impacts on private forestland.”
The webinar is part of a monthly series of online workshops addressing opportunities and challenges related to the state’s Marcellus Shale gas boom. Information about how to register for the session is available on the webinar page of Penn State Extension’s natural-gas website at http://extension.psu.edu/naturalgas/webinars.
Future webinars will center on seismic testing, transportation patterns and impacts from Marcellus development, and municipalities’ roles related to water use and protection.”
Previous webinars, publications and information on topics such as air pollution from gas development; the gas boom’s effect on landfills; water use and quality; zoning; gas-leasing considerations for landowners; implications for local communities; gas pipelines and right-of-way issues; and legal issues surrounding gas development also are available on the Penn State Extension natural-gas website (http://extension.psu.edu/naturalgas).
For more information, contact John Turack, extension educator based in Westmoreland County, at 724-837-1402 or by email at jdt15@psu.edu.