Webinar on Marcellus Shale natural-gas trends offered on April 21
The webinar on April 21 will cover the latest trends in Marcellus shale gas-drillig leases, royalties and production.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The latest trends in Marcellus Shale natural-gas leases, royalties and production will be discussed by experts in a Web-based seminar April 21, sponsored by Penn State Extension.
Les Greevy, of Greevy and Associates in Williamsport, Pa., and Kris Vanderman, of Vanderman Law in Charleroi, Pa. — both firms that specialize in representing clients with Marcellus Shale natural-gas interests — will make presentations in the webinar.
“We started with Extension in 2005-06, doing educational programs for landowners, and we represent many people with gas-drilling leases,” Greevy said. “We have been dealing with issues such as going from the lease stage to the production stage, estate planning, protecting assets and tax issues.
“A lot of leases are starting to run out, so we are starting a whole new cycle of leases. We’ll be discussing that, as well as pipeline-property issues and trends in contract addenda, royalty payments and cash-bonus payments.”
Greevy noted that business dealings with gas-drilling companies have changed somewhat in northcentral Pennsylvania. “The trend that we are seeing now in leasing is less competition between companies,” he said. “Previously you had any number of companies competing for leases and there was rapid growth in leasing.
“Now, the gas companies have pretty much staked out geographic areas that they’re interested in and are not competing quite as much, and as a result, prices are down a little, and the ability to get protective addenda in leases is diminished.”
Vanderman, whose firm represents only individuals and groups with land to lease — and never the gas-drilling companies — has seen the same kind of consolidation in leasing by the companies in the state’s southwestern corner. And he also has witnessed a similar resulting drop in lease payments to and leverage for landowners.
“Right now, there is an active swapping of leases between companies, and they are carving out their territories,” he said. “You have companies that are more or less dominant in areas,and this consolidation of territory by lease swaps or farm-out agreements is ongoing.”
Regarding the trend towards landowners having less ability to insert protective addenda into leases, Vanderman indicated that companies from out-of-state now appear less flexible than they had been when the Marcellus play was newer in Pennsylvania. However, in the southwest there are two “home” companies, EQT and CNX — the third, Atlas, was just aquired by Chevron — that help keep competition in play, which is helpful for some landowners depending on geography.
“I can say unequivocally the hand of Texas is revealed,” he said. “Some of the newest ‘standard offer’ leases are extraordinarily — even dramatically — favorable to the interests of the lessee gas companies. The issue here is, what is a landowner willing to concede for money?”
Vanderman noted that, during the webinar, he intends to also talk about environmental progress that has been made voluntarily by operators in the southwest part of the state. “That includes on-site water-treatment systems that have been implemented, recycling of flowback water from fracking operations and installation of underground water-piping systems to remove truck traffic from the roads,” he said.
The webinar is part of a series of workshops and events addressing circumstances related to the state’s Marcellus Shale gas boom. Information about how to register for the webinar is available on the webinar page of Penn State Extension’s natural-gas website.
< http://extension.psu.edu/naturalgas >
Future webinars will include speakers on the following topics: the impacts of the natural-gas industry on landfill operations; air quality issues related to unconventional gas plays; a research update on the effects of Marcellus Shale drilling on wildlife habitat; and current legal issues in Marcellus Shale development.
Previous webinars, publications and information on topics such as water use and quality, zoning, gas-leasing considerations for landowners and implications for local communities also are available on the Extension natural-gas website.
For more information, contact John Turack, extension educator in Westmoreland County, at 724-837-1402 or jdt15@psu.edu.
Friday, April 8, 2011
http://live.psu.edu/story/52684#nw69
Pitt: Departing shale drilling opponent free to speak his mind
A researcher and Marcellus shale drilling opponent who said he is leaving the University of Pittsburgh over “philosophical differences” can speak his mind about environmental dangers of natural gas extraction, Pitt officials said yesterday.
Researcher Conrad “Dan” Volz told the Tribune-Review for a story on Sunday that he would step down as director of Pitt’s Center for Healthy Environments and Communities because the university said he could not be an advocate for public and environmental health causes. He said yesterday that he expects to leave by the end of May.
“The university does not oppose Dr. Volz’s personally held views,” said Allison Schlesinger, spokeswoman for Pitt’s Graduate School of Public Health, where Volz worked since 2004. “He, like any other researcher or faculty member, has the academic freedom to study and research anything he’d like and to express his views based on that research and study.”
Volz is scheduled to testify today before the Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works in Washington. He will discuss a March research report about nine toxic pollutants found in water from a stream near a wastewater treatment facility for Marcellus shale gas and oil extraction wells in Indiana County.
Asked whether the university reviewed the veracity of Volz’s research work, Schlesinger said she could not comment because it is a personnel matter. She emphasized that Volz voluntarily stepped down without pressure from Pitt administrators. The center does not receive money from the gas industry.
Dr. Donald S. Burke, dean of the graduate school, declined requests for an interview. Volz’s work was not published in an academic journal, which is standard practice for university researchers. Journal publication involves independent peer review of data.
Schlesinger said Volz “is not representing the University of Pittsburgh” when he testifies.
Critics questioned Volz’s March 23 report on samplings of effluent from a facility that treats brine wastewater from oil and gas operations and discharges into Blacklick Creek. The criticism focused on sampling conducted on only one day at three-hour intervals and comparisons Volz made between treated effluent and federal drinking water standards and state environmental regulations.
Volz issued a revised report March 25. Among revisions the Tribune-Review found, he changed risk levels for certain pollutants from a general mean standard to specific toxic levels for adults and children.
Other changes acknowledged the facility’s permit does not require treatment of bromide and some other agents used to extract gas through hydraulic rock fracturing but notes operators must notify the state “if they routinely discharge” certain amounts of pollutants.
Volz said last week that the errors did not change his conclusions, including the fact that pollutants such as barium, bromide and benzene were found in quantities “over either human health or ecological health standards.” The levels, he said, pose a threat to recreationists who might drink the water, come in contact with it while kayaking or take fish from impacted waterways.
“I took samples, and we analyzed them,” Volz said yesterday. “I don’t know what could be wrong.”
Pitt’s Center for Healthy Environments and Communities will continue to conduct such research with a goal of improving the environment, Schlesinger said. The center operates with a $2 million grant from The Heinz Endowments.
Doug Root, a spokesman for the foundation, said he expects that funding will continue.
By Luis Fabregas
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_731825.html
The less Gov. Corbett wants to talk about a tax on gas drillers, the more it gets discussed
HARRISBURG — Sitting in a state House hearing on Gov. Tom Corbett’s $27.3 billion budget proposal, Charles Zogby reached his boiling point.
Pressed repeatedly on his boss’s opposition to a “severance tax” on natural gas drillers, Corbett’s usually unflappable budget secretary snapped at Democratic members of the House Appropriations Committee.
“We can talk about this until the cows come,” said Zogby, who, with his sharply parted hair and impeccably knotted ties brings an executive’s poise to the coffee-ringed culture of state government. “The governor is not interested in raising taxes. Period.”
But Zogby can only wish it were that easy to shut down debate on a severance tax, a levy on the gas that drillers take out of the ground. With scores of state programs under the knife to close a $4.1 billion budget deficit, the chorus of those unwilling to let the subject drop has grown louder.
“This has become the issue of the moment,” said G. Terry Madonna, a political science professor and pollster at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster. “It started out as a regular policy debate, but it grew geometrically into the single most important issue outside of the budget.”
Corbett, who ran on a pledge not to raise state taxes or fees, has made it clear that he will not sign a severance tax into law. But partisans have continued to press their argument, hoping that public opinion, which is already strong, will pressure Corbett into a change of heart.
Those on both sides of the issue agree on this much: The burgeoning natural gas industry represents a massive economic opportunity for modern Pennsylvania in much the same way steel and coal did for previous generations. All concerned say they want to help the industry flourish while protecting the environment. But they differ profoundly on how to pay for that.
For supporters, the argument in favor of a severance tax is a simple one: With drillers making untold billions by extracting natural gas from beneath taxpayers’ feet, there’s no reason Pennsylvania should stand alone among major gas-producing states in not imposing a levy. That’s particularly true, they say, when services for children and the most vulnerable citizens are on the line.
Corbett and tax foes argue that gas drillers already pay other types of state taxes, and that a new levy would force them to move to other gas-producing states where it costs less for them to do business. They also say the industry has been an economic engine in economically stagnant and mostly rural sections of the state.
State Sens. John Yudichak, D-Luzerne and Edwin B. Erickson, R-Delaware, recently rolled out a severance tax proposal. It is at least the second such plan hatched during the new legislative session.
“I think we should have a severance tax on Marcellus gas,” Erickson said. “I do hear him [Corbett] loud and clear on [not raising taxes]; on the other hand,” there are impacts from gas drilling that need to be addressed.
That kind of talk from within his own party has left Corbett, who has crisscrossed Pennsylvania in recent weeks to plug his budget plan, spending time and energy explaining and re-explaining his opposition to the levy.
“The message in the last campaign was clear — no new taxes,” Corbett recently told a statewide meeting of county commissioners. “The people are fed up with taxes.”
But it’s unclear whether Corbett was echoing public sentiment or merely reaffirming his election season vow for his political base.
It is clear state voters don’t want their own taxes raised to preserve cuts in state services. But a majority of voters do support a severance tax.
Sixty-two percent of respondents to a March 17 Franklin & Marshall poll said they strongly or somewhat supported a drilling tax, compared with 30 percent who opposed it. The survey of 521 adults had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.
“There is virtually no tax that passes [public] muster,” Madonna said. “[A severance tax] is the only [one] that passes muster.”
Another problem for Corbett: Voters aren’t buying his tax-them-and-they’ll-leave argument, said Christopher Borick, a pollster and political science professor at Muhlenberg College in Allentown. And in a year in which Corbett is calling for shared sacrifice from the public, voters are having a hard time understanding why the cash-flush drilling industry isn’t being asked to shoulder some of the burden.
“From a political sale position, that’s an incredibly difficult case to make and the more he makes the case [against], the more he infuriates a lot of people,” Borick said. “If that’s his core argument, it’s not getting a lot of traction.”
Democrats have made the same point.
“It’s absolutely indefensible, as a matter of public policy, that the governor has refused to consider a Marcellus shale tax when other states have this tax and we’re considering other cuts,” said Rep. Greg Vitali, D-Delaware, who raised Zogby’s hackles at that House hearing. “When the people of my district hear that he’s received … donations and refuses to consider a tax, they think he’s in the pockets of the gas companies.”
Corbett has steadfastly rejected any notion that gas drillers gained influence with his office when they pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into his campaign coffers in 2010. Nonetheless, those donations have created an image problem.
“When they see the donations, it opens you up to criticism,” Borick said. “It doesn’t prevent the public from reaching conclusions that are negative.”
The state House and Senate each passed severance tax proposals last year, but ran out the clock before they could reconcile differences between the two proposals. Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, stood ready to sign a severance levy into law.
Despite Corbett’s opposition to the severance levy, he has expressed a willingness to consider a locally imposed impact fee aimed at helping counties and municipalities cover costs associated with drilling, such as damaged roads. Corbett laid down parameters for his consideration: that such a levy not be called a “tax” and a guarantee that any money raised from it go to local and county governments — not the state’s general fund budget.
“I understand the issue of impacts,” Corbett told the county commissioners. “That’s one of the reasons I have a Marcellus Commission. And we’ll be talking about that. That’s one of the reasons I have my lieutenant governor as chairman. So we can work with you.”
It’s unclear what effect such a fee would have on the question of a severance tax.
April 10, 2011
By John L. Micek, CALL HARRISBURG BUREAU
john.micek@mcall.com
(717) 783-7305
http://www.mcall.com/news/nationworld/pennsylvania/mc-pa-budget-shale-debate-20110410,0,6359202.story
State may limit drilling byproduct from being spread on farms
Pennsylvania is seeking to limit the use of sewage sludge as a fertilizer on farmers’ fields if the sludge comes from sewer plants that treat wastewater from natural gas drilling.
Environmental regulators’ concerns about the sludge were highlighted in a New York Times article on Friday that described the risks of radioactive contaminants in the drilling wastewater concentrating in the sludge during treatment. The sludge, also called biosolids, is sometimes sold or given away to farmers and gardeners as fertilizer if it meets certain standards for pathogens and metals.
The Times article quotes from a transcript of a March 15 conference call between officials with the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Environmental Protection about how to better regulate discharges of the wastewater that can be high in salts, metals and naturally occurring radioactive materials.
DEP is developing a guidance document about how to include new wastewater treatment standards into permits for new or expanding treatment plants that handle the drilling fluids. The new standards limit the amount of salty discharge, called total dissolved solids, that can enter state streams.
The draft guidance document would also bar treatment plants that receive untreated drilling wastewater from using their sludge for land application.
Ron Furlan, a division manager for DEP’s Bureau of Water Standards and Facility Regulation, is quoted in the the New York Times as saying sludge was included in the guidance document because “we don’t have a good handle on the radiological concerns right now, and in any case we don’t want people land-applying biosolids that may be contaminated to any significant level by radium 226-228 or other emitters.”
The guidance does not carry the legal weight of a regulation and would not be imposed on treatment plants unless their discharge permit is up for renewal or they apply for a new or expanded permit.
The draft guidance also proposes that treatment plants accepting untreated drilling wastewater develop radiation protection “action plans” and have monitoring requirements for radium 226 and 228, gross alpha and uranium established in their permits.
In a letter this week to the EPA, DEP Acting Secretary Michael Krancer wrote that the state has directed 14 public water supplies that draw from rivers downstream from treatment plants that accept Marcellus Shale wastewater to test the finished drinking water for radioactive contaminants and other pollutants. The state also called on 25 treatment plants that accept the wastewater to begin twice monthly testing for radioactivity in their discharges.
Tests of seven state rivers at sites downstream from wastewater treatment plants last fall showed that levels of radioactivity were at or below normal levels.
In the conference call quoted by the New York Times, environmental regulators also expressed concerns about radionuclides settling in the sediment of rivers where the incompletely treated wastewater is discharged from sewer plants.
“If you were really looking for radionuclides, that’s the first place I would look,” Furlan said.
DEP spokeswoman Katy Gresh said Friday that there are currently no plans to begin testing river sediment for radionuclides.
“We will use the results of the increased testing/monitoring to see what is being discharged before making that decision,” she said.
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: April 9, 2011
http://citizensvoice.com/news/state-may-limit-drilling-byproduct-from-being-spread-on-farms-1.1130088#axzz1J1xZtYwG
Radioactive Frack Waste Dumping Prohibited
W.Va. bans wastewater from being let loose in rivers, streams, wells
WHEELING – West Virginia environmental regulators do not allow natural gas companies to dump radioactive frack water from drilling sites into streams, rivers or injection wells.
Pennsylvania regulators are preparing to screen the frack water for radioactive elements such as uranium and radium.
These elements are found in fracking wastewater because they are naturally occurring in the earth.
Mountain State officials said such rules are already in place in West Virginia to prevent these elements from entering the state’s water supplies.
“Back in 2009, we informed the wastewater treatment plants that if they wanted to try to treat the frack water, there were 41 parameters beyond what they were currently testing for that they would be required to monitor, and one of those was for radiation,” said West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection spokeswoman Kathy Cosco.
“If a wastewater treatment plant came to us and said, ‘We want to try to treat this fluid,’ it is already understood that they would be required to test for those parameters and the radiation,” she added.
Marcellus Shale Coalition President Kathryn Klaber admits natural gas development can release radioactive materials, but said the levels of the released elements do not pose much of a hazard.
The coalition is a Canonsburg, Pa.-based group whose members include drilling companies such as Chesapeake Energy, Range Resources, along with others.
“In Pennsylvania, we are now required to treat the water to the point that it is drinkable by the time it leaves our facilities,” she added.
Prodded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Pennsylvania regulators said they are expanding the scope of water tests to screen for radioactive pollutants and other contaminants. The tests should check for radium, uranium and the salty dissolved solids that could potentially make drilling wastewater environmentally damaging, according to letters Keystone State officials sent to 14 public water authorities and 25 wastewater facilities.
Radium that is swallowed or inhaled can accumulate in a person’s bones. Long-term exposure increases the risk of developing several diseases, such as lymphoma, bone cancer, and diseases that affect the formation of blood, EPA officials said.
Most major gas producing states require drillers to dump their wastewater into deep shafts drilled into the earth to prevent it from contaminating surface water.
Although it has moved to limit it, Pennsylvania allows partially treated drilling wastewater to be discharged into rivers from which communities draw drinking water.
Some Pennsylvania drilling wastewater is reused or trucked out-of-state for disposal underground. Cosco said West Virginia does not allow frack water to be injected into these underground wells, but Ohio does. The well David Hill Inc. is drilling at the top of Kirkwood Heights near Bridgeport may become one of these injection wells, prompting Belmont County Township Association President Greg Bizzarri to recently say, “It seems like, basically, Ohio is a dumping ground.”
Of the wastewater that was taken to Pennsylvania treatment plants in recent months, the great majority went to seven plants that discharge into the Allegheny River, the Mahoning River, the Conemaugh River, the Blacklick Creek, the Monongahela River, the Susquehanna River and the South Fork Ten-mile Creek.
Last month, the Pennsylvania DEP said earlier tests from those seven waterways showed no harmful levels of radium, which exists naturally underground and is sometimes found in drilling wastewater that gushes from wells.
EPA spokeswoman Donna Heron said her agency would review the Keystone State’s situation, noting, “We will continue to work closely with the state of Pennsylvania on all the issues involving Marcellus Shale.”The EPA is currently planning a nationwide study on the environmental consequences, particularly the impact on the quality and quantity of water.
Though Klaber said the issue of radioactivity may be exaggerated by some of those who oppose natural gas development, she also knows there are legitimate community concerns for her industry to address.
“We are trying to respond to those concerns,” she said. “We have to make sure we get this right, considering how important drinking water is.”
April 8, 2011
By CASEY JUNKINS – Staff Writer With AP Dispatches , The Intelligencer / Wheeling News-Register
http://www.theintelligencer.net/page/content.detail/id/553874/Radioactive-Frack-Waste-Dumping-Prohibited.html?nav=515
Pa. fracking case among first involving Marcellus Shale
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Thirteen families in tiny Lenox Township in northeastern Pennsylvania are suing Southwestern Energy, alleging that in drilling for Marcellus Shale, the company contaminated their water supply and made them sick.
The lawsuit is one of the first in the nation linking hydraulic fracturing — the process used to extract the natural gas — to tainted groundwater. But legal experts say it won’t be the last.
Drilling underground for the abundant natural gas supply in the Marcellus rock formation that stretches from New York to West Virginia is considered by some to be the answer to the nation’s energy woes. It’s also proving to be a boon to the economy, creating thousands of jobs in rural communities where factories have long since closed up shop.
But what’s happening under the surface is a concern for residents and environmentalists alike.
“We’re seeing this pretty violent act, blasting apart a formation, explosive by its very nature” said Julia LeMense, an environmental attorney at the New York firm, Weitz & Luxenberg. “There’s the possibility of creating problems that are unforeseen. A lot can happen out of sight.”
Hydraulic fracturing — also known as fracking — presents one of the biggest potential problems. Millions of gallons of water, mixed with sand and other chemicals, are pumped into the ground to split the rock and extract the natural gas.
In the Southwestern case, the families claim that the fracking fluid leaked into the water supply, causing neurological problems. The energy company told The Associated Press there were no problems with the well.
It’s a case that sounds straight out of “Erin Brockovich,” the movie based on an unemployed mother’s efforts to bring down a power company accused of polluting a California town’s water supply. In fact, the film’s namesake herself is involved in the Marcellus Shale controversy. LeMense’s firm has a partnership with Brockovich, who in her role as a consumer advocate, is often contacted by residents first.
“People are concerned, and we have a discussion with them about what we know,” LeMense said. “I think it’s educational for people to understand they are not alone.”
LeMense has also spoken to community groups in West Virginia where gas drilling is relatively new about potential risks and problems.
What they are concerned about, LeMense said, are negative health effects they attribute to water pollution. “A lot of these chemicals have the capacity to cause cancer,” she said.
More frequently she hears complaints of respiratory problems and neurological issues such as numbness in the hands and feet, dropping things and becoming more forgetful.
The contention among environmentalists, some of whom have formed anti-fracking groups with celebrity spokespeople, is that oil companies won’t disclose what chemicals they mix with the water.
Industry experts disagree.
“What the industry uses in fracking fluids, the DEP, at least in Pennsylvania, has been publishing for months,” said Joseph Reinhart, an attorney with BCCZ in Pittsburgh who represents oil companies. “We’re talking about small percentages of this stuff. And different operators might mix it up in different ways, but what is used is out there. A lot of information is out there.”
Kathryn Klaber, president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry trade group, says many wells have been contaminated long before drillers came to town. It is, after all, an area where coal mining has dominated for decades. In fact, Klaber says, the industry has a “no questions asked” policy to replace a water supply when testing shows any sign of contamination, regardless of its cause.
“Our best practices go beyond the regulations,” she said.
In addition to health and environmental concerns, plaintiff lawyers are also tracking cases where workers or residents are injured in the process of drilling into the Marcellus Shale. By its very nature, the work is dangerous and accidents and explosions have already occurred.
“There are large, heavy pieces of machinery, there’s gas and liquid at high pressures, at high temperatures,” said Michael Rosenzweig, a partner at Edgar Snyder & Associates in Pittsburgh. “You’re dealing with toxic fluids. Accidents are going to happen.”
Rosenzweig’s firm has begun running advertisements seeking clients who have been injured in Marcellus Shale accidents. Some of the cases include motorists who were injured in car accidents allegedly caused by damage to the road from the big rigs used to transport equipment to the wells and workers who sustained injuries when a tank on one site exploded.
“You don’t have a single person responsible for safety,” Rosenzweig said, referring to the various contractors doing work on any given well site. “I’m a firm believer that when you have too many cooks, that’s when you spoil the broth.”
Because the industry is still in its early stages in terms of Marcellus drilling, industry experts say they are taking every precaution to ensure the safety of workers and residents, but that like in any business, accidents inevitably happen.
“Nobody wants anything bad to happen with Marcellus Shale,” said Joel Bolstein, an attorney with Fox Rothschild in Philadephia who works with companies treating backwater. “It’s getting top priority with the DEP in terms of enforcement. There’s also a certain amount of self-policing going on.”
Plaintiff lawyers say there aren’t enough regulations in the industry and say sometimes bringing lawsuits is the only way to enact change.
“People have recourse through the court system,” Rosenzweig said. “The tort system is really the last rail of regulation. If the government doesn’t regulate, the law provides for safety. If they’re hit with enough lawsuits, they’ll change.”
BY CARRIE ANN CHERRY
http://www.legalnewsline.com/spotlight/232091-pa.-fracking-case-among-first-involving-marcellus-shale
State expanding water tests for contaminants from drilling
Most treatment facilities unable to remove many pollutants, EPA letter says.
HARRISBURG — Prodded by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, the state said it is expanding the scope of water tests to screen for radioactive pollutants and other contaminants from the state’s booming natural gas drilling industry.
The state Department of Environmental Protection’s acting secretary, Michael Krancer, wrote Wednesday to the EPA to say that he has requested additional testing from some public water suppliers and wastewater treatment facilities.
Those steps, he said, were in the works before the EPA’s regional administrator, Shawn Garvin, sent a March 7 letter asking Pennsylvania to begin more water testing to make sure drinking water isn’t being contaminated by drillers. The state’s requests for additional testing, however, were made later in March, Krancer said.
The tests should check for radium, uranium and the salty dissolved solids that could potentially make drilling wastewater environmentally damaging, according to copies of letters the DEP said it sent to 14 public water authorities and 25 wastewater facilities.
In his letter last month, Garvin said most treatment facilities are unable to remove many of the pollutants in the often-toxic drilling water. Substances of concern, he said, include radioactive contaminants, organic chemicals, metals and salty dissolved solids.
In his letter to Garvin, Krancer seemed to bridle at the perceived suggestion that the state isn’t doing its job keeping up with the drilling industry’s hot pursuit of the nation’s largest-known natural gas reservoir, the Marcellus Shale.
“Rest assured that well before receiving your letter, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has been focusing on issues relating to natural gas drilling, and prioritizes protecting the environment and public health and safety above all else,” Krancer wrote.
Garvin also had asked the state to re-examine permits previously issued to the treatment plants handling the waste, saying they lacked “critical provisions.” Krancer responded that requirements to monitor for substances of concern will be added to permits upon renewal and where warranted.”
An EPA spokeswoman, Donna Heron, said Thursday that her agency received Pennsylvania’s letter and is reviewing it.
Pennsylvania is the center of Marcellus Shale drilling activity, with more than 2,000 wells drilled in the past three years and many thousands more planned.
Drilling for gas in deep shale deposits is emerging as a major new source of energy that supporters say is homegrown, cheap and friendlier environmentally than coal or oil.
But shale drilling requires injecting huge volumes of water underground to help shatter the rock — a process called hydraulic fracturing. Some of that water then returns to the surface. In addition to producing gas, the Marcellus Shale wells produce large amounts of ultra-salty water tainted with metals like barium and strontium, trace radioactivity and small amounts of toxic chemicals injected by energy companies.
Most big gas states require drillers to dump their wastewater into deep shafts drilled into the earth to prevent it from contaminating surface or ground water. Pennsylvania, however, allows partially treated drilling wastewater to be discharged into rivers from which communities draw drinking water.
Before Garvin’s letter, water suppliers typically tested only occasionally for radium, and it had been years since the utilities drawing from rivers in the affected drilling region had done those tests.
Krancer also said his agency is seeking money to add more water-quality testing stations on Pennsylvania’s rivers. The state already is testing at seven spots on Pennsylvania’s waterways that are downriver from treatment plants that discharge partially treated gas-drilling wastewater, but upriver from public drinking water intakes.
Some Pennsylvania drilling wastewater is reused or trucked out-of-state for disposal underground. Of the wastewater taken to treatment plants in recent months, the great majority went to seven plants that discharge into the Allegheny River, the Mahoning River, the Conemaugh River, the Blacklick Creek, the Monongahela River, the Susquehanna River and the South Fork Ten-mile Creek.
Last month, the DEP said earlier tests from those seven waterways showed no harmful levels of radium, which exists naturally underground and is sometimes found in drilling wastewater that gushes from wells.
Radium that is swallowed or inhaled can accumulate in a person’s bones. Long-term exposure increases the risk of developing several diseases, such as lymphoma, bone cancer, and diseases that affect the formation of blood, EPA said.
April 8, 2011
http://www.timesleader.com/news/State_expanding_water_tests_for_contaminants_from_drilling_04-07-2011.html
State orders drilling halt after 2 wells are polluted in Forest County
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
By Don Hopey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The state Department of Environmental Protection has determined that natural gas has contaminated well water at two homes on private properties within the Allegheny National Forest in Forest County and ordered Catalyst Energy Inc. to halt drilling and hydraulic fracturing at 36 non-Marcellus Shale wells in the area.
The order requires Catalyst, headquartered in Cranberry, to halt all drilling operations on new wells and to conduct tests to determine which of the 22 vertical wells it has already drilled in the Yellow Hammer area of Hickory is causing the water contamination.
The 22 vertical wells already drilled are combination oil and gas wells. Eighteen of those 22 wells have also been “fracked,” a procedure that uses water, chemicals and sand pumped down the well under high pressure to fracture the rock layers and release the oil and gas.
The Catalyst wells are all between 1,500 feet and 3,000 feet deep and extend into the Bradford Group, an upper Devonian oil and gas sands formation containing an estimated 250 billion cubic feet of recoverable gas. The Marcellus Shale is a middle Devonian formation and its wells in the state are usually 5,000 feet to 8,000 feet deep.
Residents of the two homes within 2,500 feet of the wells complained to the DEP in January about odors and cloudy water. Notices of violation were issued to Catalyst on Feb. 10 and March 1 for groundwater contamination.
Freda Tarbell, a DEP spokeswoman, said the DEP’s follow-up investigations confirmed that natural gas had contaminated the water supply at both homes.
Catalyst is required by the March 30 order to immediately provide temporary, whole-house water systems to the affected homes and permanently restore or replace the water supplies by July 1.
Catalyst wells already producing in the area will be allowed to continue operations, Ms. Tarbell said.
Phone calls to Catalyst requesting comment were not returned. Catalyst was incorporated in 1992 and, according to the company’s website, has developed and operates more than 400 oil and gas wells in the state.
Don Hopey: dhopey@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1983.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11095/1137024-503.stm
Board to hear gas proposal about plans to build Dallas Twp. metering station
DALLAS TWP. – Resident Jane Tolomello plans to attend the Dallas Township zoning hearing tonight to express her concerns about Chief Gathering LLC’s latest proposal to build a natural gas metering station near her home on Fairground Road.
“It’s going to be within feet of my home,” said Tolomello, who owns the Snooty Fox Consignment Shop in Shavertown. “It will be in my community, near my business, by where my daughter goes to school.”
Representatives from Chief Gathering will provide testimony before the three-member zoning board at 7 p.m. in the Dallas Middle School auditorium.
The company applied for special zoning exceptions for the construction of two metering facilities, two flow control buildings, a 100-foot communications tower, a 10-foot flare and an 8,000-gallon mercaptan tank on a site off of Hildebrandt Road, about one-third of a mile from the Dallas School District campus.
In a press release, Chief’s Vice President of Public Affairs Kristi Gittins said the metering facility is an important aspect of transporting the natural gas that flows into the Transco interstate pipeline used to heat homes and businesses.
She said the metering facility needs to be placed near the point of transfer from the Chief pipeline to the Transco line, and the station’s purpose is to measure the quality of the gas.
Earlier this year, Chief submitted plans to the township for the location of a proposed seven-unit compressor station on the Hildebrandt Road site. Parents flooded the Dallas Middle School auditorium in February to express their concerns, which included worries about air and noise pollution.
“It’s toxic,” said Tolomello, who said she’s joined the Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition as a result of these developments in Dallas Township. “If this is approved, there could be a lot more industry to this area.”
After listening to the concerns of state Sen. Lisa Baker, R-Lehman, and state Rep. Karen Boback, R-Harveys Lake, the company announced plans to relocate the compressor station to a “more rural area of Dallas Township.”
“Chief made a commitment and will not build its Luzerne Compressor Station within a mile of Dallas schools,” stated Ted Wurfel, Chief’s vice president of environmental, regulatory and safety affairs.
April 4, 2011
http://www.timesleader.com/news/Board_to_hear_gas_proposal_04-03-2011.html
Delaware River basin residents see chance to profit, but those downstream fear pollution
Gas drilling pits North vs. South
PHILADELPHIA — Debate over setting conditions to allow natural gas drilling in the Delaware River basin is pitting landowners in Northeastern Pennsylvania who want to profit from the commonwealth’s drilling boom against people downstream who are concerned about the possible environmental impact
The Delaware River Basin Commission, a New Jersey-Pennsylvania agency that oversees withdrawals and water quality in the watershed drained by the 330-mile-long river, proposed regulations in December that would open wide-scale drilling for the first time but with generally stricter rules than in the rest of Pennsylvania. The agency is taking public comments until the middle of the month.
The issue has divided landowners seeking to take advantage of the boom and those concerned about the environment.
Louis Matoushek, for one, is upset that the panel halted production on his land in Wayne County three years ago after a company had already drilled a well.
“They changed the rules in the middle of the game,” he told The Philadelphia Inquirer.
But in Philadelphia about 150 miles downstream, Christopher Crockett, who is in charge of planning for the city’s water department, fears the effect on the drinking water for millions of people in Philadelphia and its suburbs.
“We want to make sure we have the science before the policy,” he said.
Before the commission acted, thousands of acres were leased and seven wells drilled in Northeastern Pennsylvania, but none were fracked — a process of injecting millions of gallons of water into the ground to free the gas.
Environmental advocates had urged the commission to wait for a study to assess the impacts, as New York is doing. The industry, however, urged action, citing the region’s need for an economic boost and the national market for clean-burning, domestic energy.
The commission says the shale areas of the basin, which includes portions of New York, could have 15,000 to 18,000 wells at some point, built on about 2,000 well pads encompassing up to 12,000 acres, plus more land for pipelines and infrastructure.
But 15 million people from Philadelphia to New York use the water, and some pristine areas of the river north of Trenton have been federally designated for extra oversight.
Pennsylvania, which has seen landowners enriched and businesses profit from the portion of the massive Marcellus Shale underneath the commonwealth, is pressing ahead. But Delaware and New Jersey, with no shale and therefore less to gain, have been cautious.
“These are decisions that are going to affect multiple generations,” said Delaware’s Collin O’Mara, secretary of the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. “It’s better to get it right than to do it fast.”
John Plonski, assistant New Jersey commissioner for water resources and the state’s commissioner on the interstate panel, said New Jersey “has always taken the position that our primary responsibility is to protect the integrity of the Delaware River.”
April 4, 2011
http://www.timesleader.com/news/Gas_drilling_pits_North_vs__South_04-03-2011.html