Dimock, Pennsylvania Residents Will Stop Receiving Water From Fracking Company
www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/19/dimock-pennsylvania-replacement-water_n_1019743.html
MICHAEL RUBINKAM 10/19/11
ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Pennsylvania environmental regulators said Wednesday they have given permission to a natural-gas driller to stop delivering replacement water to residents whose drinking water wells were tainted with methane.
Residents expressed outrage and threatened to take the matter to court.
Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. has been delivering water to homes in the northeast village of Dimock since January of 2009. The Houston-based energy company asked the Department of Environmental Protection for approval to stop the water deliveries by the end of November, saying Dimock’s water is safe to drink.
DEP granted Cabot’s request late Tuesday, notifying the company in a letter released Wednesday morning. Scott Perry, the agency’s acting deputy secretary for oil and gas management, wrote that since Cabot has satisfied the terms of a December settlement agreement requiring the company to remove methane from the residents’ water, DEP “therefore grants Cabot’s request to discontinue providing temporary potable water.”
Residents who are suing Cabot in federal court say their water is still tainted with unsafe levels of methane and possibly other contaminants from the drilling process. They say DEP had no right to allow Cabot to stop paying for replacement water.
Bill Ely, 60, said the water coming out of his well looks like milk.
“You put your hand down a couple of inches and you can’t see your hand, that’s how much gas there is in it. And they’re telling me it was that way all my life,” said Ely, who has lived in the family homestead for nearly 50 years and said his well water was crystal clear until Cabot’s arrival three years ago.
If Cabot stops refilling his 550-gallon plastic “water buffalo” that supplies water for bathing and washing clothes, Ely said it will cost him $250 per week to maintain it and another $20,000 to $30,000 to install a permanent system to pipe water from an untainted spring on his land.
Ely and another resident, Victoria Switzer, said their attorneys had promised to seek an injunction in the event that DEP gave Cabot permission to halt deliveries. The attorneys did not immediately return an email and phone call seeking comment.
Regulators previously found that Cabot drilled faulty gas wells that allowed methane to escape into Dimock’s aquifer. The company denied responsibility, but has been banned from drilling in a 9-square-mile area of Dimock since April of 2010.
Along with its request to stop paying for deliveries of water, Cabot has asked the department for permission to resume drilling in Dimock, a rural community about 20 miles south of the New York state line where 18 residential water wells were found to be polluted with methane. DEP has yet to rule on that request.
Philip Stalnaker, a Cabot vice president, asserted in a Monday letter to DEP that tests show the residents’ water to be safe to drink and use for cooking, bathing, washing dishes and doing laundry. He said any methane that remains in the water is naturally occurring but that Cabot is willing to install mitigation systems at residents’ request.
Months’ worth of sampling data provided by DEP to The Times-Tribune of Scranton show that methane has spiked repeatedly this year in the water wells of several homes, reaching potentially explosive levels in five, the newspaper reported Wednesday.
Cabot cited data from 2,000 water samples taken before the commencement of drilling in Susquehanna County that show that 80 percent of them already had methane.
“The amount of methane in a water supply is neither fixed nor predictable,” and depends on a variety of factors unrelated to drilling, Cabot spokesman George Stark said in an email Wednesday.
Methane is an odorless, colorless, tasteless gas commonly found in Pennsylvania groundwater. Sources include swamps, landfills, coal mines and gas wells. Methane is not known to be harmful to ingest, but at high concentrations it’s flammable and can lead to asphyxiation.
The December 2010 agreement between DEP and Cabot required the company to offer residential treatment systems that remove methane from the residents’ water, and to pay them twice the assessed tax value of their homes. A half-dozen treatment systems have been installed, and Cabot said they are effective at removing the gas.
But residents who filed a federal lawsuit against Cabot are appealing the December settlement. They favor an earlier, scuttled DEP plan that would have forced Cabot to pay nearly $12 million to connect their homes to a municipal water line.
Switzer said it’s inappropriate for the state to allow Cabot to stop the water deliveries while the appeal is pending – and while there still are problems with residents’ water.
“They keep changing the rules to accommodate this gas company. It’s so blatantly corrupt,” she said.
DEP spokeswoman Katherine Gresh said the December settlement gave Cabot the right to halt the deliveries once the company funded escrow accounts for the homeowners and is “independent of the water quality results.”
Cabot plans to inform each homeowner by Nov. 1 that it will discontinue deliveries of bulk and bottled water by Nov. 30. The company also offered to pay for a plumber to reconnect residents’ water wells. Cabot said it will stop delivering replacement water “at its earliest opportunity” to homeowners who refuse to allow testing of their well water.
Drilling’s effects to be analyzed
www.timesleader.com/news/Drilling_rsquo_s_effects_to_be_analyzed_10-16-2011.html
MATT HUGHES mhughes@timesleader.com
October 17, 2010
Penn State database will look at impact of natural gas on groundwater resources.
Researchers at Penn State University will build a database to analyze the impact of natural gas drilling on Pennsylvania’s groundwater resources.
Funded by a $750,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, the research initiative aims to consolidate water data collected by government agencies, universities, industry stakeholders and citizens groups into a searchable database accessible to the public online.
“It’s very clear that the rate of drilling in the state is going faster and faster, and there have been some impacts on water, so we want to help the people of Pennsylvania pull together some of that data and analyze that impact,” said Susan Brantley, project leader and director of the university’s Earth and Environmental Systems Institute.
Brantley said drilling’s effects on the state’s water resources have thus far been localized, and she expects the statewide data will reflect those localized impacts rather than an overall statewide pattern, but the consolidation of data will also give scientists and lawmakers a sense of the industry’s overall impact on the state’s natural resources.
The data will be posted by the university to a website where users will be able to search and plot data using various search criteria, and researchers at Penn State and other colleges will conduct their own analysis of the data as it is posted.
The challenge, Brantley said, will be to encourage well owners to submit their data, as water well testing is frequently done by homeowners and companies who may not wish to make their data public. The database will maintain anonymity, and will have quality control measures in place to ensure data submitted is genuine and valid, Brantley said.
Eventually, the university plans to train community groups to collect and interpret water data, and is planning a workshop in the spring.
Wilkes University professors Ken Klemow and Dale Bruns, who are conducting their own Department of Energy-funded surface water tests and are working towards building a similar database to Penn State’s for Northeastern Pennsylvania, said the Penn State database will complement their own research and that they hope to find ways to work with the Penn State researchers.
“People are very concerned about water quality as it relates to the Marcellus,” Klemow said. “There have been some statements made, especially in the press, saying that water supplies have been completely decimated, and then you have the industry saying there’s been no impact at all. To settle this question you really need to do the good science.
Battle in Dimock: Gas vs. water
www.timesleader.com/news/Battle_in_Dimock__Gas_vs__water_10-16-2011.html
October 17, 2010
MICHAEL RUBINKAM
Some wells have been fouled in an area where drilling for natural gas is intensive.
DIMOCK — Three years after residents first noticed something wrong with their drinking-water wells, tanker trucks still rumble daily through this rural Northeastern Pennsylvania village where methane gas courses through the aquifer and homeowners can light their water on fire.
One of the trucks stops at Ron and Jean Carter’s home and refills a 550-gallon plastic “water buffalo” container that supplies the couple with water for bathing, cleaning clothes and washing dishes. A loud hissing noise emanates from the vent stack that was connected to the Carters’ water well to prevent an explosion — an indication, they say, the well is still laced with dangerous levels of methane.
Recent testing confirms that gas continues to lurk in Dimock’s aquifer.
“We’re very tired of it,” says Jean Carter, 72. Tired of the buffalo in their yard, tired of worrying about the groundwater under their house, and tired of the fight that has consumed Dimock every day since the fall of 2008.
Like everyone else here, the Carters are eager to turn the page on the most highly publicized case of methane contamination to emerge from the early days of Pennsylvania’s natural-gas drilling boom. Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., the Houston-based energy firm held responsible and fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for polluting the groundwater, is just as anxious to resume drilling in a 9-square-mile area of Dimock that has been placed off-limits to the company until it repairs the damage.
State regulators blame faulty gas wells drilled by Cabot for leaking methane into Dimock’s groundwater. It was the first serious case of methane migration connected to Pennsylvania’s 3-year-old drilling boom, raising fears of potential environmental harm throughout the giant Marcellus Shale gas field. Drilling critics point to Dimock as a prime example of what can and does go wrong.
Methane from gas-drilling operations has since been reported in the water supplies of several other Pennsylvania communities, forcing residents to stop using their wells and live off water buffaloes and bottled water. Though gas companies often deny responsibility for the pollution, the state has imposed more stringent well-construction standards designed to prevent stray gas from polluting groundwater.
Dimock’s long quest for clean water may finally be reaching a critical stage.
After a series of false starts, Cabot, one of the largest drillers in the Marcellus, said it has met the state’s Oct. 17 deadline to restore or replace Dimock’s water supply, installing treatment systems in some houses that have removed the methane.
Residents who have filed suit against Cabot disagree, saying their water is still tainted and unusable. Another homeowner claims the $30,000 treatment system that Cabot put in failed to work.
Ultimately, it will fall to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to decide whether Cabot has fulfilled its obligation to the residents, whose story was highlighted in last year’s Oscar-nominated documentary “Gasland.”
If regulators sign off, the company plans to resume work on a dozen gas wells in Dimock.
And, in a move sure to infuriate the residents, it will also stop paying for water deliveries to the Carters and several others whose wells were tainted with methane and, some say, toxic chemicals.
It’s not clear how DEP will respond to Cabot’s bid to restart operations, but spokeswoman Katherine Gresh said the agency is not under any deadline.
“DEP will continue to require Cabot to do this work until we are satisfied that the methane migration problem has ceased, regardless of how long it takes,” she said via email.
Despite company assurances of clean water, testing reveals that methane persists in Dimock’s aquifer — though it remains to be seen whether that alone will thwart Cabot from drilling again.
A Cabot contractor who sampled the water in mid-September found a high level of gas in the enclosed space of a water well owned by Craig Sautner, who is among the plaintiffs suing Cabot. DEP test results indicate that five more homes had levels of dissolved methane that exceeded the standard set by a December 2010 agreement between DEP and Cabot — the same agreement whose conditions Cabot says it has met.
The latest results, Sautner said, prove that nothing has changed.
“I don’t know why Cabot says there aren’t any problems in Dimock,” said Sautner, 58. “If they’re going to say that our water’s fine, I want them to be the first guinea pigs and drink it. Nice, big, tall glass of water.”
Cabot characterized the mid-September methane spike at Sautner’s house as an anomaly and said the big picture is that Dimock residents who accepted a treatment system from the company enjoy methane-free water.
“The water is clean for the families inside that area,” said Cabot spokesman George Stark.
Questions also remain about the integrity of gas wells that Cabot has already drilled.
As recently as May, DEP said nearly half of Cabot’s wells in the Dimock area — 20 of 43 — continued to leak methane, including 14 that DEP said were of the “most concern.” In a letter obtained by The Associated Press, a DEP official wrote to Cabot that the leaking wells indicate faulty construction and that Cabot had “yet to achieve full compliance” with DEP mandates.
Cabot disagreed with DEP’s assertions about its gas wells, and has been supplying documentation to the agency showing that all the wells are safe, Stark said.
Some Dimock residents say their water wells were fouled not only with methane that DEP said migrated from improperly cemented Cabot gas wells, but possibly with toxic chemicals commonly used in the drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing or “fracking.”
The company denied responsibility, saying it doesn’t use the chemicals that a consultant working for the plaintiffs found in the wells last year. Cabot suggested a nearby auto repair shop was to blame.
The problems in Dimock, about 20 miles south of the New York state line, first arose in the fall of 2008, a month after Cabot started drilling in the area. The water that came out of residents’ faucets suddenly became cloudy, foamy and discolored. Homeowners, all of whom had leased their land to Cabot, said the water made them sick with symptoms that included vomiting, dizziness and skin rashes.
One of the water wells exploded on New Year’s Day 2009, prompting a state investigation that found Cabot had allowed combustible gas to escape into the region’s groundwater supplies, contaminating at least 18 residential water wells.
Cabot asserts the methane in the residents’ wells is naturally occurring and denies polluting the water — with methane or anything else — even though DEP has said its tests confirmed the gas migrated from Cabot’s wells.
The company has plenty of support in Dimock and the rest of Susquehanna County. Many homeowners living in the moratorium area are anxious for Cabot to start drilling again so they can begin receiving royalties on the land they have leased to the company.
Jean Carter, who lives a few hundred feet from a pair of gas wells, said she and her husband have spent countless hours worrying about the water. (Cabot asserts their supply is fine, pointing to test results that show an insignificant level of dissolved methane in the Carters’ well water.)
WVU Professor: Methane Already in Groundwater
www.theintelligencer.net/page/content.detail/id/560506/WVU-Professor–Methane-Already-in-Groundwater.html?nav=510
By CASEY JUNKINS Staff Writer , The Intelligencer / Wheeling News-Register
October 11, 2011
Researcher looks for causes of contamination
Those who believe their drinking water wells may be contaminated with methane released by natural gas fracking may be wrong, according to a West Virginia University professor.
“The source of methane gas can range from active or inactive deep coal mines, landfills, gas storage fields or microbial gas generated in a shallow subsurface,” said assistant professor Shikha Sharma, noting that dissolved methane gas already exists in groundwater where there is no shale gas drilling.
“As a scientist, it is my job to stay focused on the scientific perspective of this study while staying neutral on the political and social issues associated with it,” she added.
In the midst of a study on the origins of methane gas in the Monongahela River watershed and other areas of this region, Sharma stops short of saying that fracking, or hydraulic fracturing of the shale, absolutely does not release methane into groundwater.
“Depending on how and where this methane is formed, it can have very different C and H isotope signatures. This gives us the ability to know if it comes from hydrofracking releases or some other source,” she said.
Fracking occurs after companies finish the drilling portion of natural gas development. Millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals are pumped more than a mile into the ground at high pressure in order to shatter the rock, thereby releasing the gas.
Last year, Marshall County resident Jeremiah Magers believed fracking by those working for Chesapeake Energy caused his drinking water well to become contaminated with methane.
Chesapeake officials said they collected samples from Magers’ water source. They informed him that dissolved methane gas was detected in his water sample, but that methane gas may be generated from various sources.
Earlier this year, however, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection fined Chesapeake $900,000 for apparently causing methane to be released into private water wells in the northeastern portion of the state, near New York. Environmental department officials said improper well casing and cementing by Chesapeake in shallow zones allowed methane to migrate into groundwater, thus polluting the drinking water supply. The fines included a $700,000 civil penalty and a $200,000 deposit into the Keystone State’s well plugging fund.
With the jury still out on whether fracking can release methane into groundwater, Sharma continues her study. It is being funded by a $25,000 grant from the U.S. Geological Survey, provided through the West Virginia Water Research Institute. This money allows Sharma and her graduate student, Michon Mulder, to gather and test water samples from groundwater wells in the Monongahela River watershed.
The study will allow the researchers to construct a picture of existing methane gas sources in the area, which could then be used to identify dissolved methane releases associated with Marcellus Shale gas drilling.
“There are some concerns associated with higher levels of dissolved methane,” said Sharma. “The levels of dissolved methane higher than 28 milligrams per liter are considered potentially flammable. Because dissolved methane already exists in some of our samples, we need to figure out where the actual sources of this dissolved methane gas are located.
“It is important to understand exactly how much methane exists in the groundwater now and what sources it comes from, so that unbiased decisions can be made regarding the potential and real impacts of hydrofracking on our water sources in the future,” she added.
Safe Drinking Water program planned for Oct. 15
www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111007/COMM011101/110070301/-1/NEWS
Published: 10/07/11
HAWLEY, Pa. — If your well was flooded after the recent visit by Hurricane Irene or Tropical Storm Lee or any other high water event, then you need to test your water for a number of potentially harmful substances such as bacteria and nitrates, which can have health effects on you and your family.
In addition, your well could have high levels of iron, manganese and copper, which can cause unwanted stains and odors.
If you depend on your own well or spring for your drinking water, it is your responsibility to have your water tested periodically at a certified water testing lab. No government agency is going to require you to have your water tested.
Penn State Cooperative Extension in Pike County will be conducting a Safe Drinking Water program from 9-11 a.m. Oct. 15 at the PPL Environmental Learning Center on Route 6 in Hawley, Pa. There is a registration fee of $10 for handouts.
To register for the Safe Drinking Water program, go to the website http://guest.cvent.com/d/icq7m2 or call 877-489-1398 and mention the Oct. 15 Safe Drinking Water Seminar. The registration deadline is Wednesday.
In addition, Penn State Cooperative Extension is offering water testing for a discounted fee through Prosser Labs on Oct. 19 and 26 and Nov. 2. In order to participate in the water testing, you must attend the Safe Drinking Water program to receive your test bottles.
Four different sets of water tests will be offered, ranging from coliform bacteria and E. coli bacteria to a test of seven other parameters. Test bottles need to be returned by noon Oct. 19 or 26 or Nov. 2.
For more information on the Safe Drinking Water program or water testing, contact Peter Wulfhorst at the Penn State Cooperative Extension office at 570-296-3400 or visit the Pike County Cooperative Extension website at http://extension.psu.edu/pike and go to events.
New study determines states offer inadequate coal ash protection
http://www.tnonline.com/2011/aug/25/new-study-determines-states-offer-inadequate-coal-ash-protection
Thursday, August 25, 2011
A new study finds that state regulations regarding coal ash disposal are inadequate to protect public health and drinking water supplies for nearby communities. The information comes as federal regulations – the first of their kind – are under attack by a hostile Congress bent on derailing any effort to ensure strong, federally enforceable safeguards for coal ash, America’s second largest industrial waste stream.
Earthjustice and Appalachian Mountain Advocates (formerly the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment) released “State of Failure: How states fail to protect our health and drinking water from toxic coal ash,” a review of state regulations in 37 states, which together comprise over 98 percent of all coal ash generated nationally. The study highlights the lack of state-based regulations for coal ash disposal and points to the 12 worst states when it comes to coal ash dumping: Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, South Carolina and Virginia.
There are currently nearly 700 coal ash ponds and hundreds of coal ash landfills in the U.S., most of which operate without adequate liners and water quality monitoring, and have been operating as such for decades. Most states do not require coal ash dumps to employ the most basic safeguards required at landfills for household garbage.
State of Failure includes detailed information on basic disposal safeguards, such as groundwater monitoring, liners, isolation of ash from the water table, and financial assurance requirements in 37 states where coal ash is currently generated and disposed.
Coal ash is the toxic remains of coal-fired power plants; enough is generated each year to fill train cars stretching from the North Pole to the South Pole. The ash contains toxic metals, including arsenic, hexavalent chromium, lead, mercury, and selenium. Coal ash is commonly dumped into unlined and unmonitored ponds and landfills. There are well over a hundred documented sites where coal ash has contaminated drinking water or surface water.
The EPA is currently considering a federal proposal to regulate coal ash that includes two options: the first option would classify coal ash as hazardous waste, requiring water quality monitoring, liners and the phase out of dangerous “wet” storage of coal ash, such as the pond that collapsed in Kingston, Tennessee in 2008. The second option would continue to allow states to inadequately regulate coal ash by establishing only guidelines that states are free to ignore. Within the industry, coal ash generators support the weaker option. The EPA, under pressure from industry, has postponed finalizing the coal ash standard until 2012.
But coal ash allies in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives are not content with delay. Two bills currently moving through the House seek to undermine any efforts by the EPA to set federal enforceable safeguards for coal ash disposal. Both bills require EPA to let the states – and the states alone – decide how to regulate ash, with little federal oversight.
“This report proves unequivocally that state programs, without federal mandates or oversight, are a recipe for disaster when it comes to protecting our health and our environment,” said Lisa Evans, senior legislative counsel at Earthjustice and a co-author of the study. “Strong, federally enforceable safeguards are needed to guarantee that our drinking water remains free of arsenic, lead, mercury and other toxic metals found in coal ash. The myth that states are doing a good job protecting Americans from coal ash is busted.”
“The problem with relying on state regulations is that they are not designed for the unique problems of coal ash generally and coal ash impoundments particularly,” said Mike Becher, the Equal Justice Works Fellow at Appalachian Mountain Advocates. “While many coal ash impoundments are regulated by state dam safety programs, these programs were developed to deal with dams holding back water, not toxic substances. State solid waste programs, on the other hand, are not used to dealing with large impoundments and the threat of a catastrophic dam failure like the one seen in Tennessee in 2008.”
Panel recommends statewide statewide standards for new private water wells
http://republicanherald.com/news/panel-recommends-statewide-statewide-standards-for-new-private-water-wells-1.1188749
BY ROBERT SWIFT (HARRISBURG BUREAU CHIEF rswift@timesshamrock.com)
Published: August 15, 2011
HARRISBURG – A special state commission recommends setting statewide construction standards for new private water wells, resurrecting an issue that has been debated for the past two decades.
The Governor’s Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission included the recommendation in last month’s report to guide the development of the deep pockets of natural gas in the Marcellus Shale formation. The commission also recommended doubling the distance separating a gas well from a water well from 250 feet to 500 feet.
Sen. Gene Yaw, R-23, Williamsport, is considering introducing legislation to set standards for new water wells.
More than three million Pennsylvania residents rely on about one million private wells for drinking water. Methane contamination of drinking water such as occurred last year in Dimock Township, Susquehanna County, is one of the most volatile issues surrounding the hydrofracking operations used in the deep Marcellus wells in Northeast Pennsylvania. Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. agreed to pay $4.1 million to Dimock residents affected by methane contamination attributed to faulty natural gas wells.
Some 20,000 new water wells are drilled each year in the state, yet for all this reliance on well water, Pennsylvania is one of the few states without private well regulations.
The commission kept its water well standards recommendation general in scope, while referring to a 2009 study by the Center for Rural Pennsylvania, a legislative research agency, that concluded that 40 percent of private water wells have failed to meet at least one health-related drinking water standard. The commission noted pointedly that poorly constructed water wells can be pathways for bacteria and contaminants such as naturally occurring shallow methane gas to migrate into water supplies.
Groundwater aquifers can be polluted by failing septic systems, fertilizer runoff and mining, the center study found, while individual wells can be contaminated by exposed well casings, or having a loose fitting well cap or no cap at all, allowing surface water to enter a well.
The study recommended passing state laws requiring testing of new water wells by a certified lab and standards for new well construction and education programs for homeowners.
The Marcellus Shale drilling has led people to call for protection of water supplies, Yaw said. The senator said there have been a few problems, but they have to be viewed in the context of hundreds of gas wells drilled in recent years.
He said setting water well standards is one way to allay public concerns.
“If there’s a concern people have, let’s do something about it,” Yaw said.
In a related vein, the federal Department of Energy’s Shale Gas Production Subcommittee recommended last week that requirements be set to do testing for background levels of existing methane in nearby water wells prior to gas drilling.
The Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors is opposed to a statewide well construction standard and prefers letting municipalities handle the issue through local ordinances.
Supervisors in some regions are concerned it will lead to state regulations on how property owners use their well water or even metering of wells, said Elam Herr, the association’s deputy director.
The last major push for regulation of private water wells came in 2001-02 when drought conditions led to enactment of a state water resources planning law. The House approved a water-well bill, but it didn’t become law.
Marcellus waste increase attributable to new rules, errors
http://citizensvoice.com/news/drilling/marcellus-waste-increase-attributable-to-new-rules-errors-1.1190648#axzz1Vf1dbwq2
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: August 19, 2011
Marcellus Shale natural gas drillers in Pennsylvania reportedly produced vastly more fluid and solid waste in the first half of 2011 than the previous six-month period, but changes in reporting requirements and mistakes in data entry account for some of the surge.
More than 34 million barrels of salt- and metals-laden wastewater flowed from the state’s Marcellus wells in the first six months of 2011, according to industry-reported data published by the state Department of Environmental Protection. That is more than eight times the amount reported in the last six months of 2010, despite the fact that drilling did not markedly increase between the two periods.
• Database: Marcellus Shale production (January to June 2011)
http://thetimes-tribune.com/data-center/database-marcellus-shale-production-jan-to-june-2011-1.1190149#axzz1VR8Lf1y7
• Database: Marcellus Shale waste (January to June 2011)
http://thetimes-tribune.com/data-center/database-marcellus-shale-waste-jan-to-june-2011-1.1190150#axzz1VR8Ufhx6
Chesapeake Energy reported the vast majority of the wastewater – 24.5 million barrels – a pronounced spike from the second half of 2010 when the company reported producing only 60,704 barrels of the fluid.
The company attributed the spike to changes in state reporting requirements as well as an increase in production from its wells.
In a change from past practice, the state now requires operators to include all of the wastewater they reuse or recycle not just the waste that is disposed of in the six-month reports, said Matt Pitzarella, a spokesman for Range Resources.
“We believe the current advances are more transparent and make more sense,” he said.
Recycling and reuse has become common practice since the state restricted the amount of salty drilling wastewater that can be discharged into rivers from treatment plants that cannot remove all of the contaminants.
In the first half of 2011, operators reused or recycled 29 million barrels of the wastewater that flows back from the wells or about 86 percent of the waste.
About 3 million barrels of the waste was taken to 15 treatments plants that Marcellus drillers have largely stopped using since mid-May at the request of DEP Secretary Michael Krancer.
Another 800,000 barrels of the wastewater was injected into deep disposal wells, mostly in Ohio, according to the state data.
The amount of rock and lubricant waste, called drill cuttings, that is displaced as operators bore to and through the shale also apparently surged in the first half of 2011. The reported cuttings increased by 254 times to 50.4 million tons between the last six months of 2010 and the first six months of 2011.
But 50 million of the 50.4 million tons of drill cuttings were mistakenly reported by EOG Resources, which made an error when it entered the data, a spokeswoman said Thursday.
“EOG inadvertently submitted its original data in pounds rather than tons,” spokeswoman K Leonard said. “EOG should have reported 25,000 tons of cuttings for the first half of 2011.”
The company is submitting a revised report to state regulators, she said.
The actual amount of cuttings produced by all operators was closer to 405,000 tons, compared with 198,000 tons produced in the last half of 2010.
That increase also reflects changes in reporting requirements, Pitzarella said.
The industry did not previously have to include in its six-month reports the cuttings that were encapsulated and buried at well sites. As operators move away from using lined pits at well sites, very few cuttings are being encapsulated and more of it is being reported.
“Most is now going to approved landfills,” he said.
llegere@timesshamrock.com
Environmentalists file to block N.E. Pa. drilling
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/pennsylvania/126813168.html
By Sandy Bauers
Inquirer Staff Writer
Posted on Fri, Aug. 5, 2011
In another potential roadblock to natural-gas drilling in the upper Delaware River basin, a consortium of environmental groups filed suit in federal court Thursday seeking to delay the adoption of regulations until environmental impacts are studied.
The groups contend that the Delaware River Basin Commission, which governs water quality and withdrawals, is subject to federal rules requiring environmental reviews of major projects.
The commission “has acknowledged the value of it, and they have simply chosen not to do it,” said Maya van Rossum of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, one of the groups that filed the suit.
The industry called the suit frivolous and obstructive.
Ultimately, the issue centers on whether the commission is a federal agency and therefore covered by the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires the examination of the environmental impacts of major projects before undertaking them, said Kenneth Kristl, director of the Environmental Law Clinic at Widener University.
The commission was formed by a 1961 compact signed by the federal government and the four states with land in the basin – Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Delaware. Members include the states and a federal representative, the Army Corps of Engineers, which was also named in the lawsuit.
Kristl’s clinic, which has represented drilling opponents, contends that the commission is subject to the act. Because the compact was ratified by Congress, he said, “technically, it is a creature of federal law.”
“The flip side of the argument is that it is not a typical federal agency in the sense that it is not controlled by the federal government,” he said.
“That is going to be the interesting legal issue. . . . If they are subject to it, they have not done anything to comply with it.”
The Delaware is a high-stakes area. Most of the upper basin is underlain by the rich Marcellus Shale formation, a potential source of cheap natural gas as well as income for people who own land where drilling is targeted.
But the upper river and many of its tributaries are under special protections because of their high water quality. And the Delaware provides drinking water for 15 million people, including those in Philadelphia and some suburbs.
The commission has put a halt to drilling until regulations are in place. So while more than 3,500 Marcellus wells have been drilled in the rest of Pennsylvania, state records show, none are active in the northeastern area within the basin.
Regulations were proposed in December, and a public comment period ended April 15.Ever since, the battle has become one of timing.
Commission staff had estimated that the soonest the 58,000 submissions received during the comment period could be analyzed and responded to would be by the commission’s September meeting.
Pennsylvania and New Jersey want to proceed.
New Jersey’s representative on the commission, John Plonski, a water resources manager in the Department of Environmental Protection, has threatened to withhold payments to the financially strapped commission if it does not vote on the regulations in September.
But the state attorney general in New York, which is doing its own environmental-impact study, filed a federal lawsuit May 31 that is similar to the one filed Thursday by the environmental groups. New York’s suit named the Army Corps of Engineers and other federal agencies, not the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC).
On Monday, an assistant U.S. attorney wrote to U.S. District Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis in Brooklyn, N.Y., where the case was filed, saying she planned to ask that the suit be dismissed because it was the DRBC that proposed the regulations.
The attorney, Sandra L. Levy, who is representing the federal government, contended that New York’s suit was “an effort to make an end run around” the matter.
Thursday’s suit by the environmental groups, also filed in Brooklyn, names both the Army Corps and the DRBC.
As such, it is “better positioned than the first suit,” said Ross H. Pifer, a Pennsylvania State University law professor. “But the plaintiffs here still must clear the critical hurdle of establishing that DRBC is a federal agency.”
Spokesmen for both the commission and the Army Corps said they had not yet reviewed the complaint and could not comment.
Travis Windle, spokesman for the Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry group, said “frivolous lawsuits like this . . . fundamentally disregard legal precedent and do nothing to help create jobs, protect the environment, or make America more energy secure.”
He said they obstructed “the responsible development of clean-burning American natural gas.”
The commission itself once sought an environmental review, but it had no money to do one. U.S. Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey (D., N.Y.) and others tried to get a $1 million appropriation in the 2001 federal budget, but they failed.
Contact staff writer Sandy Bauers at 215-854-5147, sbauers@phillynews.com, or @sbauers on Twitter. Visit her blog at philly.com/greenspace.
Coalition seeks EPA action on gas drilling chemical info, testing
http://republicanherald.com/news/coalition-seeks-epa-action-on-gas-drilling-chemical-info-testing-1.1184706
BY DAVID SINGLETON (STAFF WRITER dsingleton@timesshamrock.com)
Published: August 5, 2011
A coalition of groups from Pennsylvania and 22 other states asked federal regulators Thursday to require the natural gas industry to perform testing and disclose information on the safety of the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing and other facets of gas exploration and production.
The petition filed by the environmental law firm Earthjustice requests that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency adopt rules that would for the first time require manufacturers and processors to produce the data needed to assess the risks posed by the chemicals.
Deborah Goldberg, an attorney with Earthjustice, said the concern goes beyond the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” to those involved in gas development “from start to finish.”
As natural gas exploration has moved forward at “breakneck speed,” there have been growing reports of contaminated drinking water, polluted air and human illness, she said in a conference call.
“The problem we are facing right now is we do not have the data that we need to evaluate the health and environmental risks that are presented by the chemicals that are used by the industry, either the individual substances or the mixtures of chemicals that are used,” Goldberg said.
The petition asks the EPA to draft rules that would require, among other things, the identification and toxicity testing of all chemicals used in gas production and exploration, and the disclosure of all existing health and safety studies related to the substances.
Goldberg said the petition is not aimed at the disclosure of the chemicals used at individual well sites, which would be a state regulatory function.
Her organization filed the petition on behalf more than 100 environmental, public health and good government groups, including 19 from Pennsylvania.
According to the petition, increased production could translate into the drilling of 60,000 wells in Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania in the next 20 years. The fracking process, in which water, sand and chemicals are injected underground at high pressure to fracture the rock and release the gas, can use more than 10,000 gallons of chemicals per well.
Roberta Winters, a representative of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania who participated in the conference call, said rather than the gas industry being required to prove its methods are safe, the public has been left to wonder whether their water is safe to drink.
“Today’s petition puts some of that responsibility back where it belongs,” she said.
Richard Denison, senior scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, said the ultimate goal is to encourage the industry to act responsibly.
“We think having information available for both the government and the public will provide a good incentive to the industry to ensure their practices are safe and that it is trying to use the safest chemicals in these processes,” he said.
The EPA has 90 days to respond to the petition.