Obama Admin Rejects Timeout for Natural Gas Drilling in N.Y., Pa.
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/09/22/22greenwire-obama-admin-rejects-timeout-for-natural-gas-dr-60467.html
Obama Admin Rejects Timeout for Natural Gas Drilling in N.Y., Pa.
By MIKE SORAGHAN of Greenwire
Published: September 22, 2010
The Obama administration has decided against pressing for a temporary halt to Marcellus Shale drilling in Pennsylvania and New York, a key federal official said.
Brig. Gen. Peter “Duke” DeLuca, commander of the North Atlantic Division of the Army Corps of Engineers, last week declined a request from Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) to use the federal government’s vote on the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) to seek a temporary ban on gas production in the Delaware watershed.
Hinchey wants drilling there to wait until the commission completes a “cumulative impact statement,” but DeLuca said that could delay drilling for years.
“The citizens of the basin are counting on the commission to make smart choices that allow for environmental protection to proceed together with economic development,” DeLuca wrote in the Sept. 14 letter (pdf).
The letter was written a day before Lt. Col. Philip Secrist, representing DeLuca and the Obama administration on the commission, voted to continue limited exploratory drilling in the basin. The vote denied a request by environmental groups seeking to block the drilling of test wells that were “grandfathered in” when the commission imposed a de facto moratorium.
Hinchey, a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, is seeking $1 million for the DRBC to study the cumulative effects of drilling in the basin, which provides drinking water to 5 percent of the country’s population (Greenwire, Sept. 13).
Cash for the study has been set aside in the House Interior Appropriations bill, which has not been passed in the Senate. But the spending bill is not likely to be approved before November, because Congress is expected to pass a stopgap “continuing resolution” before leaving Washington to campaign, rather than finish its work on spending bills. And there is no concrete plan for passing the measure after the November election.
Hinchey wrote DeLuca on Sept. 9, saying he was alarmed that the DRBC is preparing to finish regulations — which would allow production to start — this year, before a cumulative impact study could even start. He asked DeLuca to use his seat on the commission to advocate for blocking development until after the study is done.
“It is difficult to understand how the DRBC can consider the release of gas drilling regulations without a comprehensive assessment of the possible impacts in the Delaware River Basin,” Hinchey wrote.
DeLuca said such a study could take years, even if completed promptly.
“The federal family of agencies that I represent on the commission are collectively charged with a requirement to support the economic needs of the region and our nation’s need to secure energy reserves while protecting the environment,” DeLuca wrote.
Hinchey targets, industry defends Army Corps
The Army Corps represents the federal government on the commission, which also includes representatives of the governors of four states, Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. The federal-state hybrid was created in 1961 to address regional water conflicts, and oversees water quality and quantity issues in the 13,539-square-mile basin.
At the Sept. 15 meeting, the corps’ Secrist pointedly noted that he was “representing President Obama” on the commission.
Hinchey, however, aimed his criticism at DeLuca and the corps rather than the Democratic administration.
“The response is deeply troubling and raises a lot of questions about how the ACOE [Army Corps of Engineers] views its role as the federal government’s representative to the DRBC,” Hinchey spokesman Mike Morosi said in an e-mailed statement. “The congressman will be following up on this matter shortly.”
Environmentalists say DeLuca is wrong when he asserts that the DRBC must balance environmental concerns with economic development. Jill Wiener, a leader of an upstate New York group called Catskills Citizens for Safe Energy, said the commission’s mandate is to protect water quality.
“They owe their fealty to the river and the people of the basin,” Wiener said, “not the economic health of a few leaseholders and multinational corporations.”
But industry officials say DeLuca was correct to reject Hinchey’s request.
“Just to be clear here, Hinchey was trying to use a federal agency to direct the actions of a regional water board for the purposes of preventing the development of natural gas in a state where he doesn’t even live,” said Chris Tucker, spokesman for Energy in Depth, a group of independent drillers. “Next thing you know, he’ll be ordering the Army Corps to build levees around our well sites in Wyoming.”
DRBC Executive Director Carol Collier stalled the eastward march of gas rigs across Pennsylvania last year when she asserted jurisdiction over Marcellus Shale drilling and said no production permits would be issued until regulations are complete.
That has upset natural gas producers like Hess Corp. and Newfield Exploration Co., along with landowners expecting money for leasing their land to the companies(Land Letter, July 8).
Environmentalists have cheered the moratorium on production but are fighting the DRBC decision to allow exploratory wells.
Is N.J. pressing for drilling?
Gas companies say the gas in the Marcellus Shale formation under Pennsylvania, New York and adjacent states could power the country for years and allow a switch from coal to a cleaner-burning fuel. Many farmers have reaped big windfalls by allowing drilling on and under their land.
But drilling has contaminated creeks and ruined the water wells of homes near well sites. New York and Philadelphia have rallied against drilling, out of concern it could contaminate their water supply
Hundreds of people attended U.S. EPA hearings this summer in Pennsylvania and New York on “hydraulic fracturing,” an essential process for drilling in shale that involves injecting millions of gallons of chemical-laced water thousands of feet underground. Most of those testifying called it a dangerous process that needs federal regulation. The industry says it is an established, safe technology.
Environmentalists have also said that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) is pressuring the DRBC to speed up drilling in Pennsylvania, despite worries about upstream water contamination (Greenwire, Sept. 16).
Christie’s Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin wrote a letter in July urging the DRBC to enact its drilling regulations by the end of September (the DRBC now says a draft proposal won’t be ready until next month, with a goal of finalizing by the end of the year). It also said that the DRBC should cede its authority over natural gas development to Pennsylvania once it develops water quality regulations.
But Martin says he was just trying to get the regulatory process moving.
“New Jersey is not trying to expedite drilling,” Martin said in an interview this week. “What we’re trying to do is avoid duplication.”
Groups rally for Marcellus Shale gas drilling restrictions
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10265/1089281-454.stm
Groups rally for Marcellus Shale gas drilling restrictions
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
By Tom Barnes, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau
HARRISBURG — Susquehanna County resident Victoria Switzer came to an anti-Marcellus Shale gas drilling rally here Tuesday, and she was angry.
Since 2003, Ms. Switzer has lived in the small town of Dimock, in the state’s northern tier between Scranton and the New York border. In the summer of 2009 — after deep underground drilling for natural gas began in her area — she said the water that came from her well turned “bubbly, smelly and foamy” and was undrinkable.
Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., which is drilling in dozens of locations in the county, insisted it didn’t cause the problem. But Ms. Switzer said Cabot did start trucking in bottled drinking water last October for her and 22 other families whose wells also were fouled. Ms. Switzer said that in her opinion, there has to be some connection between the underground drilling and the “methane migration” that has ruined so many water wells in the area.
And lately, she added, other chemicals, such as ethyl benzene, xylene and toluene have shown up in her water. She thinks the “fracking” process used to extract natural gas, where chemicals are mixed with large amounts of water and pumped underground to force out the gas, is responsible.
“How did these chemicals get into my water?” she said. “I didn’t have this problem before the drilling started.”
She got a lot of support from the dozens of environmental groups who rallied at the Capitol in support of several Marcellus-related bills — one that would impose a tax on gas extracted from the hundreds of wells around the state, another that would direct state environmental officials to more closely monitor the effect of drilling on streams and underground water, and a third bill that would impose a one-year moratorium on drilling any new wells.
The activists demanded that the Legislature act on the bills before leaving in mid-October to go home and campaign for the Nov. 2 election, but time for action is growing short. So far legislators haven’t been able to agree on specifics for a gas severance tax, which could generate $100 million to be split among state agencies and municipalities that are facing higher costs related to gas drilling.
In a statement Tuesday, Cabot denied that its drilling is causing water problems for Susquehanna County residents. In its fracking process, Cabot said, it hasn’t used any of the chemicals that Ms. Switzer complained about.
Cabot said it has examined water samples taken from the area in 2008, before drilling began. “These sample results confirm the presence of many of the chemicals in water samples taken [from Dimock properties] prior to gas well drilling in the area,” Cabot said. The firm said it “remains committed to safe and secure operations in Susquehanna County.”
The Marcellus Shale Coalition, a group of natural gas producers, also released a statement by Department of Environmental Protection official Scott Perry, who said, “A lot of folks relate the problem in Dimock to a fracking problem. I just want to make sure everyone’s clear on this — that it isn’t. We’ve never seen an impact to fresh groundwater directly from fracking.”
At the rally, the environmentalists released their “platform of state action” with 13 demands, such as a Marcellus Shale gas severance tax and “a moratorium on further drilling on both private and public lands” so regulations can be developed to “fully protect our environment, health and communities.”
The groups also want the Legislature to prohibit what they called “forced pooling.” If pooling is allowed, one landowner who refuses to sign a lease for drilling under his property could be forced to do so just because all the nearby property owners have signed such leases.
The groups also want distance requirements between wells, so they can’t be clustered together.
“There should be reasonable laws and best practices put in place during the drilling into Marcellus Shale,” said Rep. Phyllis Mundy, D-Luzerne, a moratorium proponent. “People are frustrated, confused and flat-out angry about the [drilling] accidents that have occurred and about the lack of [General Assembly] action to protect them.”
The environmental groups at the rally, who chanted “No Free Pass for Oil and Gas,” included Clean Water Action, the Sierra Club, the Gas Accountability Project, the Delaware Riverkeeper Network and Penn Environment.
Also at the rally was Josh Fox, creator of the controversial documentary film “Gasland,” which is critical of the gas drilling industry.
Also Tuesday, another critic of gas companies, Gene Stilp of Harrisburg, brought his 25-foot-high, inflatable pink pig back to the Capitol, where he had used it in 2005 to protest legislative pay raises. This time he hung a banner on it reading “Rendell Fire Powers.”
He was calling for Gov. Ed Rendell to fire James Powers Jr., director of the state Office of Homeland Security, who had distributed “anti-terrorism bulletins” that warned law enforcement agencies against a number of protest groups, including those opposed to gas drilling.
And in yet another action Tuesday, House Republicans unveiled a four-part plan to promote the use of natural gas instead of gasoline. They called on state agencies to “transition” the 16,000 gasoline-powered vehicles in the state fleet to vehicles that run on natural gas. That would “reduce the commonwealth’s reliance on oil and create a tremendous demand for the natural gas available right here in Pennsylvania,” said Rep. Stan Saylor, R-York.
Republicans also called for tax credits for companies that convert their fleets to natural gas and for financial incentives to local governments and mass transit agencies that do the same. Those three changes would cost about $60 million, they estimated.
The GOP also called for building natural gas stations at every other service station along the Pennsylvania Turnpike so it’s easier for drivers to refuel their gas-powered cars.
Bureau Chief Tom Barnes: tbarnes@post-gazette.com or 1-717-787-4254.
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10265/1089281-454.stm#ixzz10H06fPq6
Drought warning
http://www.tnonline.com/node/135919
Reported on Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Drought warning
Shortage of rain must be taken seriously
Last week, the Pa. Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued a drought warning for our newspaper’s entire coverage area – Carbon, Lehigh, Monroe, Northampton, and Schuylkill Counties.
The combination of lower rain than usual with the excessive summer heat has resulted in stream levels being well below normal.
One only has to see the receding shore line at Mauch Chunk Lake Park to understand how critical the water level has become.
The National Weather Service says rainfall is four inches below normal for the past 90 days in the Lehigh Valley. Carbon County has a 4.5 inch deficit for 90 days while in Monroe County, there is a 5.2 inch rainfall shortage for the three-month period.
The DEP is asking people to conserve water. One of the most common sources of waste water is a leak within your residence, such as a toilet. DEP says a leaking toilet can waste up to 200 gallons of water per day. Although many households are strapped for cash right now, fixing such a leak should be a priority since it can also reduce your monthly water bill.
DEP encourages residents to conserve water by taking showers instead of baths.
Also, keep water in the refrigerator to avoid running water from a faucet until it is cold.
Run your dishwasher only when it is full.
Water is a precious resource and we can’t ignore the fact that levels at our storage facilities are being reduced by the lack of rain. Generally, the water lines aren’t fully restored until spring when a good snow pack melts. A dry winter will make things very critical, so it’s best to start conserving now.
This is especially true if you rely on wells rather than city water.
The DEP could do more to help the situation by making its Web site more user friendly with drought advice, suggestions, and information. Very little is stated on the DEP site about the drought conditions.
After all, it is the DEP which issues drought warnings.
We agree that there is a drought. We have to think ahead, though, to assure that if the drought continues, we’ll still have enough water to meet our every day needs.
By Ron Gower
rgower@tnonline.com
Sides of gas drilling debate split on fracturing study
http://standardspeaker.com/news/sides-of-gas-drilling-debate-split-on-fracturing-study-1.1022577
Sides of gas drilling debate split on fracturing study
By LAURA LEGERE (Staff Writer)
Published: September 21, 2010
Binghamton, N.Y. – Hundreds of people gathered in this Southern Tier city on last week to advise the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on how to conduct a multiyear study of hydraulic fracturing and the impact it may have on drinking water.
Despite the New York setting, many of the speakers at the first sessions of a two-day hearing about the gas drilling technology turned their attention south of the state border to describe evidence of the promise, or peril, of Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania.
The meeting is the last of four being held in the United States this year to gather public input about the scope and shape of the study, especially where to find appropriate places for case studies of the interaction – or lack thereof – of hydraulic fracturing and drinking water supplies.
Dimock Township in Susquehanna County was offered repeatedly as a perfect place to examine: It is an epicenter of Marcellus Shale gas activity in Pennsylvania, and state regulators have determined that water wells there were contaminated by methane associated with the drilling.
Victoria Switzer, a Dimock resident, testified that water from her household well was recently found by an independent lab to contain ethylene glycol, propylene glycol and toluene – all chemicals frequently used in the hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” process.
“EPA, do your job,” she said. “Please demand accountability. I offer you a case study: myself, Dimock.”
The commonwealth was also invoked as an example of the benefits of natural gas drilling by New Yorkers who support the development of the industry in their state, which has a moratorium on Marcellus Shale exploration while it develops rules for regulating it.
“Drilling is safe and will bring prosperity to New York,” said Lorin Cooper, a member of the Steuben County Landowners Coalition. “The evidence is in Pennsylvania, Wyoming and everywhere else drilling has been allowed to proceed.”
The sides of the drilling debate were split at the hearing in their advice to federal environmental regulators.
Those in favor of drilling tended to ask for a narrow study – one that looks at the specific moments when a gas-bearing formation is fractured by high volumes of water mixed with sand and chemical additives. The industry and state regulators say there has not been a single documented case of groundwater contamination in the United States that can be attributed to that process.
“All that we ask is that this study be focused and not take forever to complete,” said Broome County Executive Barbara Fiala, who supports drilling and hydraulic fracturing. “I hope the EPA is not going to study the entire natural gas drilling cycle.”
Those opposed to the drilling asked for an expansive study – one that covers everything from how water for fracturing is withdrawn from rivers to the disposal of the salt- and metals-laden wastewater that returns from the wells. Some also encouraged the agency to cover other associated impacts, including air pollution.
“The EPA study must look cradle to grave,” said Barbara Arrindell of Damascus Citizens for Sustainability, a Wayne County-based anti-drilling group.
Prior to the afternoon session, pro- and anti-drilling groups gathered on opposite ends of Washington Street shouting competing slogans of “Pass the gas” and “No fracking way.”
At the anti-drilling rally, where the props included a large plywood derrick, a Mother Earth puppet and a person dressed as “Frackin’stein,” the prop presented by Dimock resident Craig Sautner – a milk jug of brown water drawn from his well after intensive gas drilling occurred nearby – garnered the most response.
“I can’t say this is going to happen to your well. I’m not sure,” he said. “But do you want to take that chance?”
Down the road, Jim Riley, a landowner from Conklin, N.Y., said he does not have a gas lease, but would like one.
“First thing I’d do, I’d fix my house up,” he said. “I’d spend my money right here in the community.”
“I’m not afraid of the drilling,” he said.
The EPA meeting continues today, with two sessions from noon to 4 p.m. and 6 to 10 p.m. The agency is also accepting written comments on the study at hydraulic.fracturing@epa .gov through Sept. 28.
llegere@timesshamrock.com
Lawsuit: Gas drilling fluid ruined Pa. water wells
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/business/7202580.html
Lawsuit: Gas drilling fluid ruined Pa. water wells
By MICHAEL RUBINKAM and MARY ESCH Associated Press Writers © 2010 The Associated Press
Sept. 15, 2010, 5:13PM
ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Thirteen families in the heart of the gas-rich Marcellus Shale say their water wells have been contaminated by poisonous fluids blasted deep underground by a drilling company using a technique at the center of a fierce nationwide debate.
A faulty gas well drilled by Houston-based Southwestern Energy Co. leaked toxic fracking fluid into local groundwater in northeastern Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna County, exposing residents to dangerous chemicals and sickening a child, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday.
The lawsuit — one of the first in the nation to link hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to tainted groundwater — said the well’s cement casing was defective. It also cites spills of industrial waste, diesel fuel and other hazardous substances.
“The fracking fluid leaked into the aquifer and contaminated wells within several thousand feet, if not more,” said plaintiffs’ attorney Peter Cambs of Port Washington, N.Y.
A Southwestern official denied any problems with the well and state environmental officials said they found no link between the well and any contamination.
Fracking is the process by which natural gas is extracted from dense shale deposits, including the vast Marcellus Shale in the Northeast. Millions of gallons of water, mixed with chemicals and sand, are pumped at high pressure thousands of feet underground to create fissures in the rock and release the gas.
Pennsylvania and West Virginia have seen thousands of wells drilled in recent years as the riches of the Marcellus Shale have become more accessible with the fracking technique. Some geologists estimate the Marcellus, which also lies beneath New York and Ohio, contains more than 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
The oil and gas industry says hydraulic fracturing has been used safely for decades and that there has never been a proven case of groundwater contamination caused by fracking. Environmentalists fear otherwise.
The Susquehanna County claims come as the Environmental Protection Agency — just 40 miles away in Binghamton, N.Y. — holds the last of four national hearings on the impact of fracking on water and public health. Fracking is currently exempt from EPA regulation; the agency is considering how to structure a study requested by Congress, where bills are pending that would reverse the exemption.
The environmental group Riverkeeper released a report to EPA on Wednesday summarizing more than 100 cases of contamination related to natural gas drilling around the country. The report cites cases where federal and state regulators identified gas drilling operations as the known or suspected cause of groundwater, drinking water, and surface water contamination.
Riverkeeper documented more than 20 cases of tainted drinking water in Pennsylvania; more than 30 cases of groundwater and drinking water contamination in Colorado and Wyoming; and more than 10 surface water spills of drilling fluid in the Marcellus Shale region. Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection has logged 1,435 violations of the state’s oil and gas laws in the Marcellus Shale in the last two and a half years, the report says.
The report also documents more than 30 investigations of stray gas migration from new and abandoned wells in Pennsylvania and five explosions between 2006 and 2010 that contaminated ground or surface water.
“Despite industry rhetoric to the contrary, the environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing are real,” said Craig Michaels, an author of the report.
The lawsuit filed in Susquehanna County said water wells became contaminated with high levels of barium, manganese and strontium after Southwestern, in 2008, drilled its Price No. 1 well in Lenox Township. The contaminated water wells are less than 2,000 feet from the gas well.
The plaintiffs seek monetary damages, environmental cleanup and medical monitoring. The suit said the child who has been sickened has shown neurological symptoms “consistent with toxic exposure to heavy metals.” A lawyer would not elaborate on the child’s ailments.
John Nicholas, who oversees Marcellus development for Southwestern, told The Associated Press that the well is mechanically sound and that there’s no evidence its drilling operations have harmed water supplies.
He said the company and state environmental regulators investigated complaints by residents living near the well, “and we failed to find any tie between our operations and these local water problems.” He said the company tested the Price No. 1 well and found that “the mechanical integrity of the well is good.”
Nicholas declined comment on the suit itself, saying the company has not seen it.
The Pennsylvania DEP sampled a plaintiff’s well about two years ago and found an elevated level of manganese. DEP told the resident it was unable to establish that drilling “contributed to the degradation of your water supply,” according to a letter from DEP provided by Cambs, the plaintiffs attorney.
“The data that we had from our samples did not allow us to conclude that the well had been contaminated by gas well drilling,” DEP spokeswoman Helen Humphries said Wednesday.
More recent testing of the plaintiff’s well by an independent lab, Appalachia Hydrogeologic and Environmental Consulting of Hallstead, Pa., found elevated levels of barium, iron, manganese and strontium.
“Appalachia recommends that water from the potable well NOT be used as a drinking water source until the barium and strontium levels are remedied,” according to Appalachia’s report.
Plaintiff Mary Donovan, 39, said she’s drunk nothing but bottled water since Appalachia’s April tests.
“The only thing I can do (with well water) is bathe with it and wash my clothes, and God knows if that’s harmful to me,” she said.
“These people don’t care what they’re doing to the environment and to people,” she said.
The Lenox Township developments recall the situation in nearby Dimock Township, where state regulators say Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. drilled faulty wells that allowed methane gas to escape into residential groundwater supplies. More than a dozen families in Dimock have filed suit. Cabot claims the high levels of methane detected in the wells might be naturally occurring.
Some of the cases in the Riverkeeper report were also included in a report submitted to the EPA last year by the Cadmus Group, hired by the agency to analyze reports of contamination believed to be related to hydraulic fracturing.
The Cadmus report identified 12 cases in six states — Colorado, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wyoming — that may have such links. The report said there was insufficient information to definitively confirm or rule out hydraulic fracturing as the cause.
Online: http://www.riverkeeper.org/
Riverkeeper releases First-of-its-kind Report on Environmental Impacts of Gas Drilling
http://www.riverkeeper.org/news-events/news/safeguard-drinking-water/report-on-environmental-impacts-of-gas-drilling/
09.13.10 :: Latest Developments :: Safeguard Drinking Water
Riverkeeper releases First-of-its-kind Report on Environmental Impacts of Gas Drilling
Fractured Communities is a follow-up to the 2009, Riverkeeper Case Studies report presented to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation in an attempt to dispel myths from state regulators and gas industry executives that drilling was always safe and that reports of contamination were inaccurate. This report highlights some of the environmental impacts that hard working Americans have had to deal with as we strive to work with government agencies and industries to take the lead in creating long-term energy solutions and sustainable economies of scale that do not require the sacrifice of clean air and water. It also provides recommendations that may help to alleviate some of the problems documented across the country, including legislative and regulatory actions that would be necessary in order to prevent and control further environmental contamination.
EPA Escalates Debate Over Gas Fracturing on Water Quality Concern
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-09/epa-asks-nine-companies-to-disclose-chemicals-for-gas-extraction.html
EPA Escalates Debate Over Gas Fracturing on Water Quality Concern
Federal regulators asked companies including Halliburton Co. to disclose chemicals used to dislodge underground natural gas after residents in two states where the practice is widespread were warned not to drink well water.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency asked nine oil service companies to identify chemicals they employ in hydraulic fracturing for a study on potential threats to drinking water, the agency said yesterday in a statement. In fracturing, millions of gallons of chemically treated water are forced into underground wells to break up rock and allow gas to flow.
The EPA action is likely to heighten the debate over drilling for gas locked in shale formations, which is accelerating along with concern over possible health and environmental risks. Such production may produce 50 percent of the U.S. gas supply by 2035, up from 20 percent today, according to IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates.
“EPA is taking seriously its charge to examine the risks associated with hydraulic fracturing,” Kate Sinding, senior attorney with the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council, said in an interview. “As EPA goes forward with its studies, we may well see recommendations about what the states can and should be doing better, as well as plans for more federal oversight.”
Wyoming, Pennsylvania
On Aug. 31, the EPA told residents of Pavillion, Wyoming, not to drink water after benzene, methane and metals were found in groundwater. Pennsylvania regulators issued a similar warning to residents near Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s gas wells after reports on Sept. 2 of water bubbles in the Susquehanna River. States have taken the lead in overseeing the boom in hydraulic fracturing after the EPA’s oversight role was limited by a 2005 energy bill. Congress is debating legislation to give the EPA explicit authority over the process.
Since 2008, 1,785 wells have been drilled in Pennsylvania’s portion of the Marcellus Shale, a gas-rich rock formation from New York to West Virginia. New York regulators have placed a moratorium on new gas drilling and the state senate voted in August to prohibit new permits until May 15.
The EPA will hold public hearings on the issue in Binghamton, New York, next week.
“The companies have different views on whether or not they should be providing this information,” Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners LLC, a Washington-based policy analysis firm, said in an interview. “The EPA is nudging in everywhere they see what looks like state accommodation.”
Halliburton Statement
Houston-based Halliburton said it would comply with the request.
“Halliburton supports and continues to comply with state, local and federal requirements promoting the forthright disclosure of the chemical additives that typically comprise less than one-half of one-percent of our hydraulic fracturing solutions,” Teresa Wong, a Halliburton spokeswoman, said yesterday in an e-mailed statement.
EPA’s request for companies to volunteer the information also went to Schlumberger Ltd.; BJ Services Co., which was acquired this year by Baker Hughes Inc.; Complete Production Services Inc.; Key Energy Services Inc.; Patterson-UTI Energy Inc.; RPC Inc.; Superior Well Services Inc. and Weatherford International Ltd., according to the agency’s statement.
“We are pro-actively evaluating all of our wells in the area and we are prepared to take all necessary steps to remedy the situation,” Chesapeake spokesman Brian Grove said in an e- mail. “Based on comprehensive field testing, the issue does not pose a threat to public safety or the environment.”
‘Misinformation’ Campaign
Gas drilling is safe and will benefit residents and produce tax revenue, the Hamburg, New York-based Independent Oil & Gas Association of New York, an industry group whose directors include representatives from Halliburton and Talisman Energy Inc., said in a statement. Critics of fracturing in New York have waged a “a calculated campaign of misinformation and ignorance,” said IOGA executive director Brad Gill.
“Our position is generally we have no qualm with disclosing what it is we’re adding to the water we’re pumping,” Joe Winkler, chief executive officer for Houston-based Complete Production Services, said in an interview.
Since 2009, the EPA has been investigating complaints of tainted groundwater in Pavillion, Wyoming, in Fremont County, about 100 miles (161 kilometers) west of Caspar. While the latest round of tests detected petroleum hydrocarbons, including benzene and methane, in wells and in groundwater, the agency said it could not pinpoint the source of the contamination.
More Tests
Further tests are planned. The EPA is working with Calgary- based EnCana Corp., the primary gas operator in the area, according to a statement.
Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake was issued a notice of violation and is working with Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection to determine the source of gas detected in the Susquehanna River and at six private water wells this month. The Chesapeake wells haven’t been fractured with water and chemicals and aren’t producing gas.
“This scientifically rigorous study will help us understand the potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water, a concern that has been raised by Congress and the American people,” EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a statement.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jim Efstathiou Jr. in New York at jefstathiou@bloomberg.net.
EPA Gets an Earful at Coal Ash Disposal Hearings
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/sep2010/2010-09-09-092.html
EPA Gets an Earful at Coal Ash Disposal Hearings
DALLAS, Texas, September 9, 2010 (ENS) – Concerned about the health and environmental dangers of coal ash dumps, hundreds of residents from four states packed a U.S. EPA hearing in Dallas Wednesday, urging the agency to adopt the stronger of two plans to regulate the waste from coal-fired power plants.
The agency’s proposed regulation is the first national effort to ensure the safe disposal and management of ash from coal-fired power plants, which generate some 136 million tons of coal ash every year.
Texas burns more coal than any other state and also produces more coal ash. Power companies can bury it in landfills or store it in impoundment ponds, or they sell it as a component of building materials, roads or pavement.
“EPA must protect the public health by regulating this waste.” said Travis Brown of the Neighbors for Neighbors group in Texas. “Because coal ash is being dumped into unlined mining pits in our community, we are concerned that the groundwater we depend on may become contaminated.”
“Without federal oversight,” he said, “the state of Texas will continue to put profits before people and allow companies to escape cleaning up their own messes.”
“Doctors and scientists are just beginning to learn how the hazardous substances found in coal ash detrimentally affect human health,” said Dr. J.P. Bell, an emergency room physician from Fort Smith, Arkansas.
Coal ash is composed primarily of oxides of silicon, aluminum, iron, calcium, magnesium, titanium, sodium, potassium, arsenic, mercury, and sulfur plus small quantities of the radioactive elements uranium and thorium.
“I learned that radioactive coal ash dumps are like sleeper cells, causing chaos down the road,” said Dr. Bell. “The health of citizens not affected until they become patients 20 years later.”
“In my personal experiences with citizens in Arkansas and Oklahoma battling against these huge waste pits, I have seen the negative consequences firsthand. Common sense dictates that the EPA should protect citizens when industry and the states refuse to.”
Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said, “It’s been an inspiring day, seeing so many people from the region taking action to protect their air, their water, their health.”
The public hearing is one of seven the EPA is holding across the nation through the end of September on its plan to regulate coal ash. EPA will hold one additional public hearing in Knoxville, Tennessee during the week of October 25, 2010, the exact date to be announced.
The need for national management criteria and regulation was highlighted by the December 2008 spill of coal ash from a surface impoundment at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston Fossil Plant in Roane County, Tennessee. TVA, a public utility owned and operated by the federal government, local, state and federal agencies continue to work on recovery and cleanup of the millions of tons of ash that buried a valley and spilled into the Clinch and Emory rivers.
EPA has proposed two main coal ash management approaches. The stronger one treats coal ash as a hazardous waste. It would phase out surface impoundments and move all coal ash to landfills. Each state would have to individually adopt this version of the rule, which would be enforced by state and federal governments.
Protective controls, such as liners and ground water monitoring, would be required at new landfills to protect groundwater and human health, under the stronger proposal. Existing landfills would have no liner requirements, but groundwater monitoring would be required.
The weaker proposal would continue to allow coal ash to be disposed in surface impoundments, but with stricter safety criteria. New impoundments would have to be built with liners.
Existing surface impoundments would also be required to install liners and companies would be provided with incentives to close these impoundments and transition to safer landfills which store coal ash in dry form. Existing impoundments would have to remove solids and retrofit with a liner or close the dump within five years of the rule’s effective date.
This weaker proposal would apply across the country six months after final rule takes effect, but there would be no state or federal enforcement. Citizens or states would have to enforce this version of the rule through the courts.
The coal industry prefers the weaker proposal, which treats the ash as as a non-hazardous product.
Thomas Adams, executive director of the American Coal Ash Association, told the EPA hearing in Denver last week that by labeling it as a toxic, the EPA would jeopardize a successful recycling industry for coal ash products such as bricks and concrete that uses nearly half the coal ash produced.
In advance of the public hearings, the Environmental Integrity Project, Earthjustice and Sierra Club issued an extensive report on the nationwide scope of the coal ash disposal problem.
The report, “In Harm’s Way” pinpoints 39 previously unreported sites in 21 states where coal waste has contaminated groundwater or surface water with toxic metals and other pollutants.
Their analysis is based on monitoring data and other information available in state agency files and builds on a report released in February of 2010, which documented similar damage at 31 coal combustion waste dumpsites in 14 states.
When added to the 67 damage cases that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has already acknowledged, the total number of sites polluted by coal ash or scrubber sludge comes to at least 137 damaged sites in 34 states.
“At every one of the 35 sites with ground water monitoring wells, on-site test results show that concentrations of heavy metals like arsenic or lead exceed federal health-based standards for drinking water,” the report states.
“For years nobody, including the Environmental Protection Agency, has had a full picture of how much of this toxic waste is out there, where it is, or if it is safely contained. It has been dumped with no federal oversight, and utterly inadequate state policies,” said Dr. Neil Carman, Clean Air Program director with the Lonestar Chapter of Sierra Club. “Now that we’re aware, we are finding contamination everywhere we look.”
Hydraulic Fracturing Reports
For a better sense of what is going on with hydraulic fracturing, read these two reports.
Dimock Municipal Water
http://www.newschannel34.com/news/local/story/Dimock-Municipal-Water/nQ3hhSe3YkOkC1NQvgqwgw.cspx
Dimock Municipal Water
Last Update: 9/17/2010 10:15 pm
Pennsylvania’s top environmental regulator is proposing that residents in Dimock, PA who have had their drinking water wells contaminated by nearby hydro-fracking, be connected to municipal water supplies six miles away.
John Hanger says the best and only solution is to connect residents to the water system in Montrose at a cost of more than $10 million. The state DEP determined that the residential wells were contaminated with methane as a result of nearby natural gas drilling by Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas. Cabot has been supplying the homes with bottled water and the residents have launched a lawsuit against the company. Hanger says that if Cabot balks at paying the tab, the state will pay for the work itself, then go after Cabot for the money.