Researchers Concerned About Chemical In The Monongahela River
http://kdka.com/local/chemical.monongahela.river.2.1919015.html
Sep 17, 2010 8:02 pm US/Eastern
Researchers Concerned About Chemical In Mon River
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ―The Monongahela River is the source for 13 different water companies.
The drinking water comes out of taps in homes and businesses in the better part of southwestern Pennsylvania.
Now researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are raising concerns about the level of bromide in the Mon River – something they detected in July and August.
“Bromide itself is not a concern,” says Dr. Jeanne VanBriesen, director of CMU’s Water Quality In Urban Environmental Systems Center. “We’re concerned that when the bromide gets into the drinking water plants there’s a reaction that takes place.”
And that reaction comes when the river water is disinfected with chlorine and forms byproducts. The byproducts are always present in our water at different levels, but continuous high levels are linked to health problems, says Dr. VanBriesen.
“Particularly cancer and reproductive outcomes,” she said.
There is not a lot that water companies can do. The bromide contamination has to be stopped at its source. They must find out how it’s getting into the river.
“We initially started researching it because the Marcellus Shale produced-water does have a significant amount of bromide,” Dr. VanBriesen said.
But the bromide levels only spiked this summer and a lot of other industries are capable to producing bromide.
“It’s crucial for people to understand that we’re concerned about this, but the water is safe to drink,” Dr. VanBriesen said.
It’s the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s job to monitor contaminants in the rivers.
“Going back and using our data to look at all the dozens of facilities along the Mon that discharge into the river,” is what the watchdog department is doing says spokesperson Katy Gresh.
DEP detectives will be looking at three categories of potential bromide polluters.
“Deep mining, oil and gas as you mentioned and other heavy industry like power plants and steel plants,” Gresh said.
Finding a source may take six months to a year to sample bromide levels, but for now the DEP agrees that our water meets all federal standards.
The increased bromide levels have nothing to do with the musty taste and smell that some water company customers were experiencing last month due to stressed algae in the rivers.
Battle lines drawn over drilling in Delaware watershed
http://standardspeaker.com/news/battle-lines-drawn-over-drilling-in-delaware-watershed-1.1017453
Battle lines drawn over drilling in Delaware watershed
BY STEVE MCCONNELL (STAFF WRITER)
Published: September 18, 2010
The battle lines among pro and anti-natural gas drilling groups are being drawn in the Delaware River watershed amid the development of new regulations by an obscure federal-interstate agency that has jurisdiction over the industry and has put the clamps on it.
Both groups have been firing salvos recently hoping to shape gas drilling policy here, a 13,539-square mile area draining into the Delaware River that has been mostly off-limits to gas drilling including a ban on producing gas wells enacted in May.
But environmentalists were dealt a major blow Wednesday to convince the Delaware River Basin Commission to conduct an cumulative impact study of natural gas drilling.
Seventy-seven organizations issued a joint letter to the commission, a five member-board that manages water resources in the four-state area, urging them to vote at their Wednesday meeting in West Trenton, N.J. to undertake the substantial environmental study prior to adopting new natural gas regulations.
That request, however, never came to fruition – giving pro-drillers some relief because it would have extended the drilling moratorium that is in place while the commission develops its regulations, a process that began this year.
Peter Wynne, a spokesman for the Northern Wayne Property Owners Alliance, a landowners group that has secured at least 80,000 acres in Wayne County for gas development, said Thursday it is not sensible to conduct a major environmental study before even knowing if there is a viable Marcellus Shale gas reserve in the watershed.
“The whole think would be an exercise in futility,” said Wynne, whose group signed a land lease agreement late last year with Newfield Exploration Company and Hess Corp.
Tracy Carluccio, deputy director of Delaware Riverkeeper Network, said the commission’s lack of action on the study was a considerable setback, however, since the commission could use it to create effective regulations to protect the watershed.
“We really can’t develop regulations that would prevent pollution” without the study, Carluccio said. “You can’t develop regulations in a vacuum. We know it’s not safe now.”
Carluccio and other environmentalists remain concerned that a massive, industry-scale gas drilling operation could cause irreparable damage to the watershed and the Delaware River, which is part of the U.S. National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, home to the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, and provides drinking water to an estimated 15 million people.
A U.S. House subcommittee has appropriated $1 million for the study, conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey and limited to the watershed. If and when that money will be available is not known.
Commmission spokesman Clarke Rupert said that even if such a study is funded today, “it could still be several years before final results … are known.”
The commission will move ahead with developing and adopting draft regulations regardless of whether the study is or is not done, he added.
Meanwhile, draft regulations – which were expected to be finished this month by commission staff – have been pushed back to mid-October.
Industry opponents had also asked the commission to halt exploratory well drilling – four wells are either in development or have been drilled in Wayne County – until the new regulations are put in place.
The commission denied the request by vote Wednesday.
The matter will, however, go before a retired federal U.S. district court judge in December who will make a recommendation whether the agency should regulate these wells before its gas rules are adopted or be included in the current moratorium.
24 counties on state’s drought warning list
http://www.tnonline.com/node/134746
Reported on Friday, September 17, 2010
24 counties on state’s drought warning list
Pennsylvania environmental officials have put 24 counties including Carbon, Schuylkill, Northampton and Monroe under a drought warning and the rest of the state under a drought watch.
Meager rainfall and high temperatures prompted the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to issue the warnings Thursday. DEP Secretary John Hanger says a hot, dry summer has led to steadily declining ground and surface water levels.
A drought warning asks residents to voluntarily reduce water use by 10-15 percent.
DEP said rainfall deficits over the past 90 days are currently as great as 5.6 inches below normal in Somerset County and 5.5 inches in Bucks County.
Other counties under a drought warning include Philadelphia, Allegheny, Lehigh, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Bucks, Montgomery and Washington.
A drought watch is the lowest of three advisory levels and a drought warning is the second-most severe condition. No counties in the state are under a drought emergency.
DEP is sending letters to all water suppliers statewide, notifying them of the need to monitor their supplies and update their drought contingency plans as necessary. It monitors a statewide network of groundwater wells and stream gauges that provide comprehensive data to the state drought coordinator.
DEP offers the following tips for conserving water around the home:
Ÿ Install low-flow plumbing fixtures and aerators on faucets
Ÿ Check for household leaks a leaking toilet can waste up to 200 gallons of water a day
Ÿ Take short showers instead of baths. Kitchen/laundry areas
Ÿ Replace older appliances with high efficiency, front-loading models that use about 30 percent less water and 40-50 percent less energy
Ÿ Run dishwashers and washing machines only with full loads
Ÿ Keep water in the refrigerator to avoid running water from a faucet until it is cold.
The department also offers water conservation recommendations for commercial and industrial users, such as food processors, hotels and motels, schools and colleges, as well as water audit procedures for large water customers. Water conservation tips and drought information can be found online at www.depweb.state.pa.us, keyword: drought.
Gas Drilling Report Details 100+ Contamination Incidents
http://www.newsinferno.com/archives/24079
Date Published: Friday, September 17th, 2010
Gas Drilling Report Details 100+ Contamination Incidents
An environmental group has compiled a report detailing more than 100 instances of environmental contamination linked to the gas drilling operations around the country. The group, Riverkeeper, is urging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to examine these incidents as it studies the gas drilling process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
The report, Fractured Communities, highlights case studies where federal and state regulators identified gas drilling operations, including those that utilize hydraulic fracturing, as the known or suspected cause of groundwater, drinking water, and surface water contamination.”
“Despite industry rhetoric to the contrary, the environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing are real,” Craig Michaels, Watershed Program Director for Riverkeeper and an author of the report, said in a statement. “The case studies highlighted here represent just a sample of problems that regulators, landowners, municipalities, and communities across the country continue to uncover. We trust that EPA will assist state agencies in monitoring and investigating these problems as the agency continues its scientific study of the impacts of hydraulic fracturing.
Specifically, the report documents:
• More than 20 cases of drinking water contamination in Pennsylvania;
• More than 30 cases of groundwater and drinking water contamination in Colorado and Wyoming;
• More than 10 cases of surface water spills of drilling fluid in the Marcellus Shale region;
• More than 30 investigations of stray gas migration from new and abandoned wells in Pennsylvania;
• Dozens of illegal operations and permit violations by gas drilling companies;
• Five explosions that occurred between 2006 and 2010 that contaminated groundwater and/or surface water.
According to Riverkeeper, state regulators have assessed over $3.6 million in penalties against gas companies as a result of these violations.
Riverkeeper’s mission is to protect the ecological integrity of New York State’s Hudson River and its tributaries, and to safeguard the drinking water supply of New York City and the lower Hudson Valley. Gas drillers have been eyeing massive deposits in New York’s Marcellus shale region, which includes the entire Catskills watershed that provides New York City with all of its drinking water. People there are worried that drilling could pollute the watershed. The state’s Department of Environmental Conservation has had gas drilling permit approvals on hold since 2008 while it conducts an environmental review of fracking.
The EPA announced its fracking study in March, following an order from the US Congress. The agency had issued a report on hydraulic fracturing in 2004, but it was criticized as flawed due to heavy industry influence on the panel that reviewed that study. The 2004 study ostensibly found that fracking posed no threat to water quality, but an EPA whistleblower claimed findings that showed benzene and other toxic chemicals in fracking fluid could migrate into ground water had been suppressed in the final report.
It was that report that convinced Congress to exempt fracking from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act. As a result, regulation of the industry is left up to the states, and drillers are not required to disclose the chemicals they use in their fracking fluids.
Government puts monitoring advocacy groups above protecting drinking water
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/ksinding/government_puts_monitoring_adv.html
Posted September 15, 2010 in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment
Government puts monitoring advocacy groups above protecting drinking water
Another scandal surfaced in the Pennsylvania drilling world today – this time with a twist: in an email he accidentally sent to an anti-drilling advocate, the head of the state’s Office of Homeland Security revealed he has been monitoring groups fighting to protect against health & environmental risks associated with fracking and reporting back to gas companies. You read that right.
To quote State Homeland Security Director James Powers’ email directly: “We want to continue providing this support to the Marcellus Shale formation natural gas stakeholders, while not feeding those groups fomenting dissent against those same companies.”
The irony here is painful. The government won’t protect Americans from health & environmental risks associated with natural gas drilling, but they will protect gas companies from those Americans. It can’t regulate this heavy industrial activity that transforms communities and threatens grave health & environmental risks – but it can let the gas companies know which public meetings concerned citizens plan to attend.
If there is a concern about violence, of course, that would be one thing. The official did indicate the groups are being monitored because there have been “five to 10” incidents of vandalism related to the industry – and that’s not an act we support. But meanwhile, hundreds of residents have reported concerns – that many could themselves interpret as violent – that gas drilling may be tied to home explosions, flammable tap water and health issues. Yet the comapnies are still operating, right in their backyards. Who’s watching them?
This raises so many (more) questions about how gas companies are operating in Pennsylvania and perhaps even around the country. As an advocate for protecting against threats from gas drilling – I can’t help but wonder:
-Whose idea was this in the first place?
-Has any of this information been reported to the federal government?
-Is this really just a ploy to spy on advocacy groups concerned about drilling’s risks?
-What information did the PA Office of Homeland Security give to the government?
-Who exactly are they monitoring and how? Are they tapping our phones? Reading our email?
-Why can’t they figure out a way to protect citizens instead?
-What’s next?
EPA to Hold Public Hearing in Pittsburgh on Proposed Coal Ash Regulations
EPA News Release (Region 3): EPA to Hold Public Hearing in Pittsburgh on Proposed Coal Ash Regulations
Contact: Donna Heron 215-814-5113 / heron.donna@epa.gov
EPA to Hold Public Hearing in Pittsburgh on Proposed Coal Ash Regulations
When: Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2010 – 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Where: Omni Hotel, 530 William Penn Place, Pittsburgh, Pa.
What: This is one of eight public hearings on the agency’s proposal to regulate the disposal and management of coal ash from coal-fired power plants. EPA’s proposal is the first-ever national effort to ensure the safe disposal and management of coal ash from coal-fired power plants.
Each hearing will begin at 10 a.m. and continue until 9 p.m. with a break at noon and 5 p.m. The hearing will continue past 9 p.m. if necessary. Walk-in requests to speak will be accommodated as time permits. Written comments will be accepted at the hearing. The agency will consider the public’s comments in its final decision.
The need for national management criteria and regulation was emphasized by the December 2008 spill of coal ash from a surface impoundment near Kingston, Tenn. The proposal will ensure for the first time that protective controls, such as liners and ground water monitoring, are in place at new landfills to protect groundwater and human health. Existing surface impoundments will also require liners, with strong incentives to close these impoundments and transition to safer landfills which store coal ash in dry form. The proposed regulations will ensure stronger oversight of the structural integrity of impoundments and promote environmentally safe and desirable forms of recycling coal ash, known as beneficial uses.
EPA has proposed two main management approaches, one of which phases out surface impoundments and moves all coal ash to landfills; the other allows coal ash to be disposed in surface impoundments, but with stricter safety criteria.
More information about the proposed regulation: http://www.epa.gov/coalashrule
To view the chart comparing the two approaches: http://www.epa.gov/coalashrule/ccr-table.htm
Lab finds toxic chemicals in Dimock Twp. water
http://citizensvoice.com/news/lab-finds-toxic-chemicals-in-dimock-twp-water-1.1014270
Lab finds toxic chemicals in Dimock Twp. water
BY LAURA LEGERE (STAFF WRITER)
Published: September 16, 2010
Michael J. Mullen / times-shamrock
Victoria Switzer of Dimock Township presents an array of photographs depicting environmental problems caused by gas drilling in the area to Scranton Mayor Chris Doherty in March. Water testing by a private environmental engineering firm has found widespread contamination of drinking water by toxic chemicals in an area of Dimock Township already affected by methane contamination from natural gas drilling.
Reports of the positive test results first came Monday when Dimock resident Victoria Switzer testified at an Environmental Protection Agency hearing on hydraulic fracturing in Binghamton, N.Y., that the firm Farnham and Associates Inc. had confirmed ethylene glycol, propylene glycol and toluene were present in her water.
The firm’s president, Daniel Farnham, said this week that the incidence of contamination is not isolated.
Instead, he has found hydrocarbon solvents – including ethylbenzene, toluene and xylene – in the well water of “almost everybody” on and around Carter Road in Dimock where methane traced to deep rock formations has also been found.
The chemicals he found in the water in Dimock generally have industrial uses, including in antifreeze, gasoline and paint – except propylene glycol, which is also used in food products.
All of the constituents are also frequently used as chemical additives mixed with high volumes of water and sand to fracture gas-bearing rock formations – a crucial but controversial part of natural gas exploration commonly called “fracking.”
Farnham’s findings could cast doubt on the safety of the practice, which state regulators and the gas industry say has never been definitively linked to water contamination during the 60 years it has been used.
Critics say compelling anecdotal evidence, like that from Dimock, indicates otherwise.
Farnham stopped short of attributing the contamination to natural gas activity.
“Do I have enough information to say that this stuff came from fracking? I can’t prove that,” he said. “I don’t think anybody can. But it certainly is interesting.”
Residents in Dimock began raising concerns about their water nearly two years ago, when they began to notice changes in odor, color, taste and texture.
The Department of Environmental Protection determined that Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. allowed methane from a deep rock formation to seep into 14 residential drinking water supplies through faulty or overpressured casing in its Marcellus Shale gas wells.
But the department also determined in March 2009 that hydraulic fracturing activities had not impacted the water wells after it tested for indicators of fracturing impacts, including salts, calcium, barium, iron, manganese, potassium and aluminum.
In April of this year, Switzer and two of her neighbors who live at the bottom of a valley along Burdick Creek noticed that their water ran soapy. A DEP specialist came to test the water three days later, she said, but by that time the foam was gone.
DEP results from its April tests for ethylene glycol and propylene glycol found no trace of the chemicals, DEP spokesman Tom Rathbun said.
But over the spring and summer, with routine testing, Farnham noticed a pattern of troubling spikes: “After a heavy rain, certainly these things seem to crop up as the aquifer is disturbed,” he said.
“What I found was hydrocarbons – ethylbenzene, toluene – in almost everybody who was impacted in the area,” he said. “Oddly enough, if I were to go due east or due west of the affected area, I found nothing.”
In August, Farnham shared the results with Cabot during a meeting concerning a lawsuit many of the affected families have filed against the company. During a second meeting that month with the families in Dimock, Farnham told DEP Secretary John Hanger and Oil and Gas Bureau Director Scott Perry what he had found.
Rathbun, the DEP spokesman, said the agency is currently testing for toluene throughout the affected area and will be able to evaluate Farnham’s findings once its own widespread round of testing is done. “To date, DEP’s lab analyses do not support his findings,” he said.
Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. spokesman George Stark said pre-drill testing performed by Farnham when he was contracted by land agents of the company in May 2008 showed the hydrocarbon solvents and glycols pre-existed in some wells.
Farnham said Wednesday he never tested for the constituents in 2008, let alone detected them.
Farnham’s investigation into the contaminants is ongoing: He has more samples to analyze and more spikes in the test results to research and confirm. But he is certain that his findings so far are correct.
“I double- and triple-checked everything to make sure the evidence is irrefutable,” he said.
llegere@timesshamrock.com
Marcellus job portal now online
http://standardspeaker.com/news/marcellus-job-portal-now-online-1.1013914
Marcellus job portal now online
FROM STAFF REPORTS)
Published: September 16, 2010
The Marcellus Shale Coalition has launched a website intended to connect job seekers with its members – natural gas companies and related businesses.
The “job portal” at [ www.marcelluscoalition.org ] offers descriptions of job opportunities and what the required qualifications are, from equipment operators and well tenders to geophysicists and market research analysts, and have links to the employment pages of companies’ websites.
“The responsible development of the Marcellus Shale’s abundant, clean-burning natural gas resources continues to expand throughout the region, helping to fuel a robust and growing supply chain network – the ‘Marcellus Multiplier’ – across the commonwealth,” Marcellus Shale Coalition Executive Director Kathryn Klaber noted in a prepared statement.
“Our industry is committed to putting Pennsylvanians to work, strengthening our workforce and our economy, and putting our nation on a path toward a cleaner and more secure energy future,” she said.
Pennsylvania Families Sue Southwestern Energy on Shale Drilling
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-15/pennsylvania-families-sue-southwestern-energy-on-alleged-shale-pollution.html
Pennsylvania Families Sue Southwestern Energy on Shale Drilling
Thirteen families in northeastern Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit against Southwestern Energy Co. alleging that the company’s drilling for natural gas has contaminated drinking water.
Southwestern spoiled water wells by hydraulic fracturing, a process that uses blasts of water and chemicals to free natural gas from shale rock, according to the complaint filed yesterday in the civil division of the Court of Common Pleas of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania. The company used fracturing in October 2008 on a gas well in Lenox Township, Pennsylvania, according to Mark Boling, Southwestern’s general counsel.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is studying the drilling technique, known as fracking, to determine its effect on underground water supplies. Gas from shale may produce 50 percent of the U.S. gas supply by 2035, up from 20 percent today, according to IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates.
“We actually had the chemicals associated with fracking fluids leaking into wells,” Peter Cambs, an attorney representing the families, said in an interview. “Something was going on related to the fracking process.”
Southwestern tested water wells in the area, about 27 miles (43 kilometers) north of Scranton, and found no contamination that could be linked to its drilling, Boling said.
“From our testing, we did not find anything that would lead one to believe that it’s from our drilling operations,” Boling said in an interview. “Part of our investigation is going to be trying to find out what prior uses were on the property to see if there was some industrial activity.”
Southwestern, based in Houston, is the largest natural-gas producer in the Fayetteville Shale formation in Arkansas.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jim Efstathiou Jr. in Binghamton, New York at 1647 or jefstathiou@bloomberg.net.
2010.09.15 – Board provides info on rare blood cancer
http://standardspeaker.com/news/board-provides-info-on-rare-blood-cancer-1.1012538
Published: September 15, 2010
2010.09.15 – Board provides info on rare blood cancer
SPECIAL TO THE STANDARD-SPEAKER Joseph Murphy, an advisor to the Tri-County Polycythemia Vera Community Advisory Committee, talks about a public display board at Tamaqua Borough Hall was developed by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to provide accurate and easy-to-understand information about polycythemia vera.
By TOM RAGAN
The Tri-County Polycythemia Vera Community Advisory Committee is making an effort to educate the public about this rare but treatable form of blood cancer found at elevated levels in Luzerne, Schuylkill and Carbon counties.
The new health outreach board was recently unveiled at a news conference held in Tamaqua, Mayor Christian Morrison said.
“We all believe that we lost people in our area that did not even know they had polycythemia vera,” Morrison said.
A public display board at Tamaqua Borough Hall was developed by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry at the request of the committee to provide accurate and easy-to-understand information about polycythemia vera, Morrison said.
The display board will be moved to other locations in the future, Morrison said.
The Tri-County Polycythemia Vera Community Advisory Committee will host a public meeting on Sept. 22 at 7 p.m. at the Tamaqua High School Auditorium, 500 Penn St., Tamaqua.
Morrison said area residents will be able to meet with research teams conducting studies to learn more about the many cases of polycythemia vera in the area and their possible causes.
“Data will be available to the public from the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Geisinger and researchers from Drexel University, the University of Pittsburgh, and Mount Sinai Hospital in New York,” Morrison said.
The Tamaqua mayor said they will have handbills available for the public at the Sept. 22 meeting.
The studies were made available through two grants totaling $8 million secured by U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, Morrison said.
The committee passed a resolution honoring Specter at its June 30 meeting.
“Each of the agencies will have an overview on the studies taking place,” Morrison said.
He said a lot of the data will also point to a five-year review being conducted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency at the McAdoo Associates Superfund site in Kline Township and McAdoo.
The site once was linked to abnormally high cases of cancer but EPA officials say that there is no evidence of site-related cancers.
tragan@standardspeaker.com