Fracking Moratorium Urged as Doctors Call for Health Study
www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-10/fracking-moratorium-urged-as-doctors-call-for-health-study.html
By Alex Wayne
January 10, 2012
The U.S. should declare a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing for natural gas in populated areas until the health effects are better understood, doctors said at a conference on the drilling process.
Gas producers should set up a foundation to finance studies on fracking and independent research is also needed, said Jerome Paulson, a pediatrician at George Washington University School of Medicine in Washington. Top independent producers include Chesapeake Energy Corp. and Devon Energy Corp., both of Oklahoma City, and Encana Corp. of Calgary, according to Bloomberg Industries.
“We’ve got to push the pause button, and maybe we’ve got to push the stop button” on fracking, said Adam Law, an endocrinologist at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, in an interview at a conference in Arlington, Virginia that’s the first to examine criteria for studying the process.
Fracking injects water, sand and chemicals into deep shale formations to free trapped natural gas. A boom in production with the method helped increase supplies, cutting prices 32 percent last year. The industry, though, hasn’t disclosed enough information on chemicals used, Paulson said, raising concerns about tainted drinking water supplies and a call for peer- reviewed studies on the effects. The EPA is weighing nationwide regulation.
Longstanding Process
“We need to understand fully all of the chemicals that are shot into the ground, that could impact the water that children drink,” Representative Ed Markey of Massachusetts, a senior Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a phone interview. The industry is trying “to block that information from being public,” he said.
The gas industry has used hydraulic fracturing for 65 years in 30 states with a “demonstrable history of safe operations,” said Chris Tucker, a spokesman for Energy In Depth, a Washington-based research and advocacy group financed by oil and gas interests, in an e-mail. Drilling in shale deposits in the eastern U.S. began in 2004.
Gas drillers have to report to the U.S., state and local authorities any chemicals used in fracking that are “considered hazardous in high concentrations” in case of spills or other emergencies, Tucker said. Those reports don’t include amounts or concentrations, he said.
The industry created a public website last April for companies to voluntarily report lists of chemicals used in individual wells, including concentrations. Colorado and Wyoming have passed laws requiring drillers to file reports to the website, Tucker said.
Hazards Unknown
Despite those disclosures, U.S. officials say they don’t know all of the hazards associated with fracking chemicals.
“We don’t know the chemicals that are involved, really; we sort of generally know,” Vikas Kapil, chief medical officer at National Center for Environmental Health, part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at the conference. “We don’t have a great handle on the toxicology of fracking chemicals.”
The government has found anecdotal evidence that drilling can contaminate water supplies. In December, the EPA reported that underground aquifers and drinking wells in Pavillion, Wyoming, contained compounds that probably came from gas drilling, including glycols, alcohols, benzene and methane. The CDC has detected “explosive levels of methane” in two wells near gas sites in Medina, Ohio, Kapil said.
He said he wasn’t authorized to take reporters’ questions after his presentation.
Chemicals Used
Fluids used in hydraulic fracturing contain “potentially hazardous chemical classes,” Kapil’s boss, Christopher Portier, director of The National Center for Environmental Health, said last week. The compounds include petroleum distillates, volatile organic compounds and glycol ethers, he said. Wastewater from the wells can contain salts and radiation, Portier said.
U.S. natural gas production rose to a record 2.5 trillion cubic feet in October, a 15 percent increase from October 2008.
A moratorium on fracking pending more health research “would be reasonable,” said Paulson, who heads the Mid- Atlantic Center for Children’s Health and the Environment in Washington, in an interview. His group is funded in part by the CDC and Environmental Protection Agency, he said, and helped sponsor the conference with Law’s organization, Physicians Scientists and Engineers for Healthy Energy.
Tucker called the CDC’s participation in the conference “disappointing,” saying the conference is “a closed-door pep- rally against oil and natural gas development.”
Representatives of Chevron Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp. and the American Petroleum Institute, a trade group, registered to attend the conference.
–With assistance from Katarzyna Klimasinska in Washington. Editors: Adriel Bettelheim, Reg Gale
To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Wayne in Washington at awayne3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Adriel Bettelheim at abettelheim@bloomberg.net
Pennsylvania Fracking Foes Fault EPA Over Tainted Water Response
www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-10/pennsylvania-fracking-foes-fault-epa-over-tainted-water-response.html
By Jim Snyder and Mark Drajem
January 10, 2012
When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency called to say it would start delivering fresh water to their home, Ron and Jean Carter thought they gained an ally in a long fight with Cabot Oil & Gas Corp.
A retreat by the federal government within two days has left them feeling abandoned yet again in a bid to clean up water they say was turned toxic by Cabot’s use of hydraulic fracturing to hunt for gas in Pennsylvania.
“These agencies were developed to help us, and they don’t,” Jean Carter said in an interview in her home, which is about 326 feet (99 meters) from a Cabot well. Although her reserves of water are sufficient for now, she took it as a snub. “We just keep getting hurt all the way around, as if we weren’t hurt enough.”
The Carters and other families in Dimock — a community of 1,368 and a single, blinking traffic light along Highway 29 in northeast Pennsylvania — have come to symbolize the national debate over the use of fracking, in which water and chemicals are shot into the earth to free gas or oil from rock formations. Their case has taken on a new importance as the EPA says it will test well water in the area, and advised residents not to drink from their wells — reversing an earlier, initial determination that the water was safe.
Dimock residents say their water went bad more than three years ago. Since then more questions have been raised about the safety of fracking.
Read more
DEP: Cabot drilling caused methane in Lenox water wells
citizensvoice.com/news/dep-cabot-drilling-caused-methane-in-lenox-water-wells-1.1255042#axzz1iyajDcbK
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: January 9, 2012
Methane in three private water wells in Lenox Township seeped there from a flawed natural gas well drilled by Cabot Oil and Gas Corp., state environmental regulators have found.
An investigation by the Department of Environmental Protection determined that the gas migrated from at least one of three Marcellus Shale wells drilled on the Stalter well pad about half a mile west of Interstate 81 in Susquehanna County.
The gas was found seeping into three water supplies beginning in August 2011. A fourth water well for a hunting cabin is still being evaluated, DEP spokesman Daniel Spadoni said.
Video taken from inside one of Cabot’s gas wells showed that a string of steel casing meant to seal off the aquifer from gas and other contaminants was improperly constructed, according to a notice of violation sent to the company by DEP in September.
Methane was also found between the cemented strings of casing in all three gas wells on the Stalter pad, a sign state regulators view as evidence of flaws in a well’s construction.
The dissolved methane in one nearby water supply jumped from 0.3 milligrams per liter before drilling began to 49 milligrams per liter on Aug. 16 and 57 milligrams per liter on Aug. 18, according to the violation notice.
Cabot installed methane detection alarms in three homes and vented the three affected water wells to keep the methane from accumulating and creating an explosion risk. The company is also delivering replacement drinking water to two of the homes, Spadoni said. The methane in the third water well has decreased so the home does not require an alternate water supply, he said.
Cabot spokesman George Stark said Friday that the company submitted a detailed response to the DEP and is working with regulators on the issue.
“Cabot is committed to safe and responsible operations and takes matters like this very seriously,” he said. “We believe in fact-based, scientific research to guide any necessary corrective actions.”
Department regulators sent Cabot a violation notice on Sept. 19, but neither the department’s public eFACTS compliance database nor its monthly oil and gas violations report noted the inspection or violations until last week, when a Times-Shamrock reporter asked about the status of the investigation.
DEP policy requires the oil and gas program to update the eFACTS database within 10 working days of completing an inspection or mailing a notice of violations.
Spadoni said the missing information was “an oversight.”
State regulators determined in 2009 that faulty Cabot gas wells were also responsible for a prominent case of methane contamination affecting 19 homes in Dimock Township, about 10 miles west of the Lenox site. Cabot has said natural conditions, not its operations, caused the contamination in that case.
llegere@timesshamrock.com
Dimock residents: EPA to deliver water
thetimes-tribune.com/news/dimock-residents-epa-to-deliver-water-1.1254586#axzz1imYLPHPX
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: January 7, 2012
Federal environmental regulators took steps Friday to deliver drinking water to several Dimock Twp. homes where tainted well water has been tied to nearby gas drilling, according to three families who spoke with EPA officials.
The families, each of which received a phone call from a different regional staff member of the Environmental Protection Agency, said the regulators told them the agency had contracted a water hauler to begin deliveries today.
Efforts to reach two of those EPA officials, community involvement coordinator Vance Evans and on-scene coordinator Rich Fetzer, were unsuccessful Friday. The third official, community involvement coordinator Trish Taylor, directed questions to an EPA spokeswoman who said in an email that “no decision has been made by EPA to provide alternate sources of water.”
“At this time, our goal is understanding the situation in Dimock and evaluating additional options, including further sampling,” spokeswoman Terri White said.
If the agency begins water deliveries, it will step squarely into the fractious debate over natural gas drilling in Dimock, where state officials have found that Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. allowed methane to seep from faulty Marcellus Shale wells into 18 water supplies.
Cabot halted bulk and bottled water deliveries to the families on Dec. 1 after the state said the company had met the relevant terms of a December 2010 settlement over the contamination – including offering to install methane removal systems that many residents have rejected saying they do not remove metals and other contaminants in their water.
Federal environmental regulators reopened their investigation of Dimock water wells last week. The EPA reversed course after reviewing water test results released only after the agency’s Dec. 2 announcement that outside water tests showed the water posed no “immediate health threat.”
Those tests, taken in August and September by a Cabot contractor, showed elevated levels of metals and bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, a plasticizer commonly called DEHP. They also detected other chemicals including glycols, which are used in antifreeze, surfactants and 2-methoxyethanol, a solvent, in the drinking water wells.
Cabot denies it caused contamination in Dimock, which it says occurs naturally or can be attributed to other sources. Spokesman George Stark said Friday that Cabot is cooperating with the EPA by providing it with water test data it has already shared with state environmental regulators.
“Cabot has not been informed by the EPA of any further action at this time,” he said.
State governments generally regulate oil and gas drilling, but federal officials are conducting a study of the impact of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, on drinking water supplies in several U.S. states, including Susquehanna County in Pennsylvania.
The calls from EPA officials on Friday were gratefully received by Dimock families, many of whom were running out of water that had been trucked in by volunteer groups after Cabot-supplied deliveries ended.
Scott Ely said his family of five last received a water delivery on Monday and his wife had to wash her hair in the sink Friday morning to conserve the little they have left in a bulk tank outside.
“It’s good, good news,” he said.
Contact the writer: llegere@timesshamrock.com
EPA report links groundwater contamination to natural gas drilling
www.bayjournal.com/article.cfm?article=4272
January 2012
The EPA has issued a draft report confirming what many environmental groups have long suspected: Natural gas drilling is causing groundwater contamination.
The agency conducted its water testing in Pavilion, WY – a town that is replete with gas wells, and where residents have long complained of sickness after drinking their water. The agency’s samples, collected between March of 2009 and April of 2011, found high concentrations of diesel fuel, methane, benzene and chloride. Those chemicals are found in the fluids used in hydrofracking, the process that natural gas companies use to extract gas from shale formations deep underground.
The findings don’t mean that the EPA will find the same problems in the Marcellus Shale region, which stretches across New York and Pennsylvania and includes slivers of Maryland and Virginia. Wyoming sits above a different shale formation. But the study’s findings do give scientific credibility to what a lot of residents across rural Pennsylvania have endured since drilling began about four years ago. Many who live near drilling sites report finding dead fish in their streams after drilling fluid spilled, or dead or sick farm animals after drilling fluids contaminated their ponds. Individual companies across Pennsylvania have been fined, cited and sued for causing contamination.
Several environmental groups, including the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, have filed a petition under the National Environmental Policy Act for a federal analysis on the effects of fracking in the Bay watershed.
The EPA emphasized the findings were only a draft, and the study still needs to undergo a public comment period and a peer review. But immediately, politicians on both sides of the aisle began using the preliminary findings to bolster their case.
Many Republicans, who would like drilling to be controlled on a state-by-state basis, excoriated the EPA for releasing incomplete data and demanded a more rigorous peer-review process. They said the EPA did not sample enough wells and worried the conclusions would harm Wyoming’s economy, which relies heavily on natural gas drilling.
Many Democrats, meanwhile, said the finding bolstered their efforts to restrict natural gas drilling in some states, and better regulate it nationwide. Democrats in New York are pushing for the passage of an act that would require drilling companies to not only disclose which chemicals are in the fracking fluids used to extract the gas from the rock, but their amounts.
Discussions continue in New York on whether to allow fracking to resume. The state put in a moratorium on drilling in 2008, but Gov. Andrew Cuomo would like to see it lifted, primarily because upstate New York could use the economic boost. The Delaware River Basin Commission has not yet voted on whether to allow fracking in its watershed.
Environmental groups are also stepping up their own investigations of fracking. CBF hired a videographer to document air emissions at several fracking sites, then sent a letter with their findings to the EPA. The Environmental Working Group, meanwhile, just released “Drilling Doublespeak,” a report on how landowners have been deceived into leasing their property for drilling. Josh Fox, director of the film “Gasland,” said he is working on a follow-up, “Gasland II.” The first film, which showed faucets on fire because of methane in the water, was nominated for an Oscar in 2011.
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.”
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.