Pa. DEP issues $1M in fines to major gas driller
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9N9D7T01.htm
By MARC LEVY
HARRISBURG, Pa.
One of the most active companies in Pennsylvania’s natural gas drilling boom was fined more than $1 million on Tuesday, including a penalty that state officials called the single largest fine for an oil or gas operator in the state.
The state Department of Environmental Protection said the action stems from Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s contamination of private water supplies with methane in northern Pennsylvania’s Bradford County and a February tank fire at a drilling site in southwestern Pennsylvania’s Washington County.
“It is important to me and to this administration that natural gas drillers are stewards of the environment, take very seriously their responsibilities to comply with our regulations, and that their actions do not risk public health and safety or the environment,” DEP Secretary Michael Krancer said in a statement.
Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake said it had voluntarily entered into two separate agreements with the DEP and improved its well construction practices, although it did not assume blame for methane gas migrating into wells.
“Even though the results of our joint review remain inconclusive at this time, we believe proceeding with an agreement and taking prompt steps to enhance our casing and cementing practices and procedures was the right thing to do,” Chesapeake official Brian Grove said in a statement.
Chesapeake will pay $900,000 in the gas migration case and $188,000 for the tank fire.
The fines come as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is looking closely at how Pennsylvania is regulating the rush to explore the lucrative Marcellus Shale formation, considered the nation’s largest natural gas reservoir, and putting pressure on state regulators to toughen enforcement. For instance, the EPA has asked for a full accounting of operations at the site of a Chesapeake well blowout in April.
Any potential violations from that well blowout, also in Bradford County, are not included in the fines announced Tuesday. The accident spilled thousands of gallons of chemical-laced water and prompted officials to ask seven families to temporarily evacuate.
The Chesapeake action might be the largest fine, but it is not the biggest Marcellus Shale-related payout: In December, the agency announced a settlement with Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. to pay $4.1 million to residents in the northern Pennsylvania town of Dimock where private water wells were also contaminated with methane gas. Cabot agreed to pay the state $500,000 in the case.
The Marcellus Shale formation lies primarily beneath Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia and Ohio. Pennsylvania, however, is the center of activity, with more than 3,000 wells drilled in the past three years and many thousands more planned in the coming years as thick shale emerges as an affordable, plentiful and profitable source of natural gas.
Drillers’ use of chemicals and high-volume hydraulic fracturing, which produces millions of barrels of often-toxic briny wastewater annually, has raised fears of river and groundwater pollution.
Chesapeake is perhaps the most active company in the Marcellus Shale, with more than 360 wells drilled. It has received more than 1,200 well-drilling permits — the most of any operator — or about one in six issued on the Marcellus Shale in the last three years, according to state records. In 2010, it was also one of Pennsylvania’s most-penalized Marcellus Shale drillers, with 134 violations and 25 enforcements, state records say.
In the Bradford County problems that contributed to the million-dollar fines, the department said that improper well casing and cementing allowed natural gas to seep into groundwater and contaminate 16 families’ drinking water wells. The department began investigating the complaints last year. In November, it won approval of stronger well-casing and cementing rules that a top DEP official has said would have prevented the gas migration.
The agreement requires Chesapeake to create a corrective action plan for the contaminated wells and clean up the contaminated water supplies.
In Avella in southwestern Pennsylvania, three condensate separator tanks caught fire on Feb. 23, injuring three subcontractors working at the site, the DEP said. The agency blamed improper handling and management of condensate, a wet gas, and is requiring Chesapeake to submit condensate-management plans.
Chesapeake also is facing lawsuits over the tank fire and gas migration.
Peter Cambs, a lawyer who represents several plaintiffs in Bradford County who have sued Chesapeake over methane contamination, said the fine is the latest indication that gas drilling can be hazardous.
“I think it clearly shows there are problems and I don’t think the DEP would just willy-nilly assess a fine of that magnitude based on a whim or speculation,” Cambs said. “They wouldn’t have done so without careful investigation or analysis. I think you’re going to see more and more of these findings.”
Natural gas drilling moving closer to Delaware River basin
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/pennsylvania/121972574.html?viewAll=y
Posted on Tue, May. 17, 2011
By Sandy Bauers
Inquirer Staff Writer
Although the Delaware River has a moratorium on natural gas drilling until rules are in place, companies are already lining up.
The commission overseeing the river has granted one request for withdrawal of water for natural gas activities, and two more are being evaluated. Yet a fourth was up for a vote last week before it was tabled because of the large flurry of public comments.
Even though the approvals aren’t sufficient to allow companies to start drilling now, critics say that any consideration by the Delaware River Basin Commission is premature.
The commissioners say that they anticipate so much work, they simply need to start.
Either way, it signals that natural gas exploration – a common sight in central and Western Pennsylvania – is moving ever closer to the Delaware basin and its river, which provides drinking water for 15 million people, including Philadelphia and many of its suburbs.
“It looks more and more inevitable that there is going to be drilling in the basin,” said John Quigley, former secretary of Pennsylvania’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, now an environmental consultant. “The question is under what rules?”
Read more
Marcellus waste recycled mostly in-house
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/pittsburgh/s_737062.html
By Andrew Conte
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Saturday, May 14, 2011
The largest explorers of Marcellus shale gas said on Friday in response to federal regulators that they have started recycling most of their wastewater and no longer send it to treatment plants.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this week asked the six largest Marcellus exploration companies to explain how and where they dispose of the chemical-laced, salty water that flows back to the surface from drilling operations. The companies have until May 25 to respond.
“We will certainly provide the information,” said Jim Gipson, spokesman for Chesapeake Energy Corp. “However, we are currently recycling and reusing the vast majority of our produced water in Pennsylvania and have been for quite some time. We do not utilize wastewater treatment facilities.”
Water that cannot be reused, he said, gets sent out of state to underground injection wells.
Pennsylvania has three such active wells: two in Clearfield County and one in Erie County, according to state regulators.
Besides Chesapeake, EPA requested the disposal information from Atlas Resources; Talisman Energy USA; Range Resources — Appalachia; Cabot Oil and Gas Corp.; and Shell. Together, those companies do more than half of the Marcellus shale gas drilling in Pennsylvania.
A spokesman for Talisman said the company recycles 100 percent of its wastewater. Range Resources recycles about 90 percent of its flowback and has the rest either fully treated at facilities that clean it to distilled water standards or pumped into disposal wells, a spokesman said.
Shell said in a statement that its “waste management techniques aim to reduce volume and minimize environmental impacts through maximized reuse of residual water.”
Officials at the two other companies did not respond to the Trib’s request for information.
“We want to make sure that the drillers are handling their wastewater in an environmentally responsible manner,” said Shawn M. Garvin, EPA’s mid-Atlantic regional administrator.
Federal officials took aim at the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, which has primary responsibility for regulating drilling impacts. The state agency imposed a Thursday deadline for drillers to voluntarily stop sending flowback to wastewater treatment plants that are not designed to remove the chemicals and salts.
The EPA wants the state to provide closer oversight of how Marcellus shale wastewater might be affecting drinking water. The agency wants notice from Pennsylvania whenever a treatment plant accepts flowback water, and it called on the state to apply drinking water standards near discharges and to “consider more ‘representative’ ” sampling of drinking water facilities downstream from facilities that treat flowback.
“As the frontline regulatory agency of the natural-gas industry in Pennsylvania, we work with EPA and will continue to do so,” said Katy Gresh, DEP spokeswoman.
The shale industry is “aggressively and tightly regulated” by state officials, the Marcellus Shale Coalition, a trade group that includes the six drillers, said in a statement. “EPA overstepping its regulatory authority and duplicating efforts underway at the state level” does not make common sense, it said.
“The state is aggressively taking action to protect our environment,” said Matt Pitzarella, a Range Resources spokesman.
“The DEP for us in Pennsylvania has much greater capability to provide the level of oversight to protect the public and ensure the industry is following the law,” said Dave Spigelmeyer, vice president of government relations for Chesapeake.
EPA directs six drillers to disclose waste plans
http://citizensvoice.com/news/drilling/epa-directs-six-drillers-to-disclose-waste-plans-1.1146014#axzz1M8vMLijF
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: May 13, 2011
Federal environmental regulators have directed six of the most active natural gas drillers in Pennsylvania to disclose how and where they plan to treat or dispose of their wastewater once they comply with a state request to stop taking it to sewer plants next week.
In April, state environmental regulators gave Marcellus Shale drillers until May 19 to voluntarily stop bringing the salty, chemical-laden waste fluids to 15 treatment plants that cannot remove all of the contaminants before discharging it into state waterways.
On Thursday, Environmental Protection Agency mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator Shawn M. Garvin told the drillers – Atlas Resources, Talisman Energy USA, Range Resources, Cabot Oil and Gas, Shell and Chesapeake Energy – to submit detailed information on both current and anticipated wastewater handling practices by May 25 and again each quarter until June 30, 2012.
Some of those operators had already stopped taking some or all of the fluids to plants that discharge into state waterways by the end of 2010 as they increasingly recycled or reused the waste, according to state records. Other operators continued to rely heavily on surface discharges.
The EPA directive was the latest in a series of efforts by federal environmental regulators to exercise greater authority over gas drillers whose operations are traditionally regulated by the states. The action comes among growing public concern over the thoroughness of state oversight and the potential environmental and public health impacts of Marcellus Shale drilling in the commonwealth.
In a statement, Garvin emphasized that state and federal environmental agencies are working together to regulate the industry, even as he sent Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Michael Krancer a letter encouraging the state to increase its monitoring of the potential impacts of the toxic wastewater.
“We want to make sure that the drillers are handling their wastewater in an environmentally responsible manner,” Garvin said.
Garvin urged Krancer to require drillers to submit modified fluid disposal plans after the May 19 deadline to ensure their new wastewater practices are legally enforceable.
He also asked the DEP to alert federal regulators when wastewater facilities begin taking the fluids so EPA can reassess their permits; to apply drinking water standards at wastewater discharge sites rather than downstream at public water supply intakes; to conduct additional in-stream monitoring; and to consider developing or strengthening water quality standards for common constituents of Marcellus Shale wastewater, including chlorides, bromides and radionuclides.
A state coalition of gas drillers expressed frustration over the directive and emphasized that the industry is “aggressively and tightly regulated” by the commonwealth.
“EPA overstepping its regulatory authority and duplicating efforts underway at the state level ⦠does not represent common sense policy,” Marcellus Shale Coalition President Kathryn Klaber said.
legere@timesshamrock.com
EPA Seeks More Information from Gas Drilling to Ensure Safety of Wastewater Disposal
PHILADELPHIA (May 12, 2011) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today directed six natural gas drillers to disclose how and where the companies dispose of or recycle drilling process water in the region. EPA continues to work with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) to ensure that natural gas production takes place safely and responsibly. These actions are among the ongoing steps EPA is taking to ensure drilling operations are protective of public health and the environment. Natural gas is a key part of our nation’s energy future and EPA will continue to work with federal, state and local partners to ensure that public health and the environment are protected.
“We want to make sure that the drillers are handling their wastewater in an environmentally responsible manner,” said EPA mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator Shawn M. Garvin. “EPA is continuing to work with PADEP officials who are on the frontlines of permitting and regulating natural gas drilling activities in Pennsylvania.”
EPA’s action follows a request by PADEP asking drillers to voluntarily stop taking wastewater to Pennsylvania wastewater treatment plants by May 19. EPA wants to know where drillers are now going to dispose of their wastewater and will work with PADEP to ensure EPA has access to this information. The companies must report back to EPA by May 25 with information on the disposal or recycling of their drilling process water.
The companies receiving the information requests are: Atlas Resources L.L.C; Talisman Energy USA; Range Resources – Appalachia, L.L.C.; Cabot Gas and Oil Corporation; SWEPI, LP; and, Chesapeake Energy Corporation. These six companies account for more than 50 percent of the natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania.
EPA has also requested that PADEP:
· Notify EPA when facilities are accepting hydraulic fracturing wastewater so EPA can assess if a pretreatment program or additional permit limits are needed;
· Apply water quality standards for the protection of drinking water at the point of wastewater discharge, rather than at the point of first downstream drinking water intake;
· Consider more “representative” sampling where drinking water facilities are downstream of treatment plants accepting Marcellus Shale gas wastewater; and
· Be aware that EPA has sent a letter to PADEP’s southwest regional office clarifying that Federal Underground Injection Control permits are required for any placement of hydraulic fracturing wastes in injection wells or bore holes.
EPA requested these actions in a letter to PADEP Secretary Michael Krancer dated May11. The letter also asked the state agency take action to ensure that any new practices for disposing of drilling wastewater are legally enforceable.
In another action related to the energy extraction industry, EPA has issued a proposed order to the Tunnelton Liquids Company to stop the underground injection of waste treatment into an abandoned mine in Saltsburg, Indiana County, Pa. EPA issued the order under the Safe Drinking Water Act, which requires company to cease its unauthorized discharge waste, including wastewater related to oil and gas production.
David Sternberg, (215) 814-5548 Sternberg.david@epa.gov
For more information visit http://www.epa.gov/region03/marcellus_shale/
DEP to review study linking shale drilling to methane contamination
http://citizensvoice.com/news/drilling/dep-to-review-study-linking-shale-drilling-to-methane-contamination-1.1144998#axzz1LwpBiOFT
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: May 11, 2011
State environmental regulators are reviewing a study released Monday by Duke University researchers that found “systematic evidence” of a link between shale gas extraction and methane contamination of drinking water in Northeast Pennsylvania.
Department of Environmental Protection spokeswoman Katherine Gresh said in a statement that agency scientists are evaluating the study and “would like to see all of the authors’ backup data to review their methodology.”
The study found methane concentrations an average of 17 times higher in drinking water wells within a kilometer of active gas drilling than in water supplies farther away from the shale gas activity.
The study’s authors also published a white paper advocating regulatory changes, including tripling the radius from a proposed well site where natural gas drillers must perform pre-drill testing of water supplies.
Gresh said the Duke researchers’ recommendations cover the kinds of subjects Gov. Tom Corbett’s Marcellus Shale Commission is evaluating. The commission is expected to present policy recommendations to the governor by mid-summer.
One of the study’s authors, Robert B. Jackson, said the data raise concerns about methane contamination that apply to shale drilling regions outside the study area in Northeastern Pennsylvania and Otsego County, N.Y.
The researchers found elevated methane in places residents suspected it, including in Dimock Township, where state regulators have documented nearly two dozen affected water supplies. But they also found elevated levels in unexpected places.
“We found other locations where, to my knowledge, the homeowners had no idea they had high methane concentrations,” Jackson said. “In fact our highest values weren’t in Dimock and they weren’t even in Susquehanna County. It is a hint that the problem is broader than people had thought.”
Former DEP Secretary John Hanger said it is clear that the geology in Susquehanna, Bradford and Tioga counties poses greater obstacles to drilling “safely and successfully” than the geology in other regions of the state.
State regulations enacted in February strengthened standards for casing and cementing gas wells to try to prevent cases of methane migrating up faulty well bores – the path the researchers said is the most likely cause for the elevated levels of methane they found in drinking water supplies in Susquehanna and Bradford counties. The rules also give the department “authority to require extra precautions where the geology is tricky,” which regulators used in Susquehanna County when he was secretary, he said.
“I would encourage the department to continue doing so,” Hanger said.
The commonwealth’s longtime stray gas inspector said he is “a little bit disappointed” with the study. Fred Baldassare, who now owns Echelon Applied Geoscience Consulting, said the authors fail to address the prevalence of naturally occurring thermogenic methane – gas that comes from deep underground, not from the breakdown of biological matter near the surface – in shallower geological layers between the surface and the Marcellus Shale.
“I’m not saying that gas well activity doesn’t cause gas migration, because of course it has,” said Baldassare, whose research is cited three times in the Duke paper. “We have documented cases of gas migration to private water supplies as a result of drilling activity.” But he added, “I think we have to take great care in trying to define what’s there naturally before we make judgements and conclusions about the origin of the gasses.”
In documented cases of stray gas caused by drilling in Susquehanna and Bradford counties, state regulators have found the gas migrating not from the Marcellus Shale but from shallower gas-bearing formations.
Baldassare said he is concerned the study might imply a migration straight from the Marcellus to aquifers, which he said he would “absolutely dispute.”
llegere@timesshamrock.com
May 19 webinar explores impacts of natural gas industry on landfills
http://live.psu.edu/story/53255#nw69
Thursday, May 5, 2011
The Marcellus natural gas boom has generated business for landfills, but it has also presented challenges.
University Park, Pa. – Landfills in the region affected by the Marcellus Shale natural-gas boom have seen sharply higher revenues and felt more than a few headaches, according to solid waste experts.
“The Marcellus play has been good for the landfill business,” said Jay Alexander, general manager of the Wayne Township Landfill and a member of the Clinton County Solid Waste Authority. “But there is no question that it has brought pros and cons.”
Alexander and Larry Shilling, regional vice president of Casella Waste Systems, will be featured speakers during a Web-based seminar on May 19, presented by Penn State Extension. Titled, “The Impacts of the Natural Gas Industry on Landfill Operations,” the webinar will start at 1 p.m.
Shilling noted that Casella, which operates 10 landfills — including three in New York located in the Marcellus play and the McKean County landfill in Pennsylvania — is trying to come to grips with the challenges associated with solid wastes generated by the Marcellus Shale gas industry.
“Our company has commissioned two studies regarding oil and gas waste as it relates to landfills,” he said. “The first was an evaluation of the radiological characteristics of Marcellus drill cuttings; the second was a modeling effort to predict radiological impacts to leachate from a landfill that accepts drill cuttings.”
Shilling added that his presentation in the webinar will focus on the results of those two studies. “Our important role in the development of the Marcellus Shale natural-gas resource is to ensure we understand and manage the associated waste in the most appropriate manner,” he said.
The gas industry has brought new waste streams into the market, such as plant trash, drill cuttings and liquid wastes, Alexander said. “That has provided us with additional income, allowing us to move up landfill expansion plans, including updating $5 million worth of new equipment. And we were able to fund it all out of cash flow.”
Alexander noted that his company also has been able to purchase surrounding properties that were targeted for long-term growth of its landfill. “That’s all spending that puts money into local pockets by creating additional jobs,” he said.
“We have seen an increased workload for local hauling contractors, with six to eight of them working daily with our landfill, hauling waste for the gas industry. And with the increase in materials, we have seen the income for our recycling operations rise.”
But, Alexander said, with the added business and profit come a few negatives, which he will address during the webinar.
“We have to deal with and control greatly increased truck traffic, the added materials have reduced landfill gas production, we have increased leachate generation and we have additional odor concerns,” he said.
The May19 webinar is part of a series of online workshops addressing opportunities and challenges 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 at http://extension.psu.edu/naturalgas/webinars online.
Future webinars will include speakers on the following topics: air quality issues related to unconventional gas plays; pipeline development and regulation; a research update on the effects of shale drilling on wildlife habitat; and current legal issues in shale-gas 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 at http://extension.psu.edu/naturalgas online.
For more information, contact John Turack, extension educator in Westmoreland County, at 724-837-1402 or jdt15@psu.edu
Group: Corbett should heed drilling study
http://www.timesleader.com/news/Group__Corbett_should_heed_drilling_study_05-09-2011.html
Posted: May 10, 2011
STEVE MOCARSKY smocarsky@timesleader.com
The head of a local group that supports more restrictions on natural gas drilling says a scientific report released on Monday substantiates group members’ concerns and should be evidence enough for Gov. Tom Corbett to impose a moratorium on drilling in Pennsylvania.
Dr. Tom Jiunta, president and founder of the Luzerne County-based Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition, said a report by a team of Duke University scientists that is to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, “documented pathways from where they frack to drinking water supplies.”
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is the injection of water, sand and a low concentration of chemicals into a shale formation a couple thousand feet underground at high pressure to stimulate the release of natural gas from the formation. A perforation gun lowered into the well casing detonates charges that create initial fractures in the shale.
Jiunta said a Cornell University scientist, Anthony Ingraffea, showed his group slides indicating that scientists believe the fractures are “unpredictable.”
“If pathways exist for methane, then it also exists for the toxic heavy metals found underground along with the brine solutions that are hazardous and the fracking chemicals,” Jiunta said. “It’s common sense.”
“Gov. Corbett said last week he would rely on science, not emotion” for making decisions related to natural gas exploration. “There’s plenty of science out there now, and I think this proves it,” Jiunta said.
In a prepared statement, Kathryn Klaber, president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, said Pennsylvania has “an extensive and well-documented history of naturally occurring methane impacting private water wells, long before Marcellus development began just a few years ago.”
She called the report “at best inconclusive. Further, the fact that is was prepared, in part, by a vocal and outspoken natural gas production critic raises a host of questions regarding academic veracity.”
Travis Windle, spokesman for the coalition, pointed to a New York Times article that quoted John Conrad, a New York hydrogeologist “closely affiliated with the drilling industry,” who said the researchers may have “jumped the gun” by relying on only post-drilling data without testing water wells before drilling occurred in the area.
Windle also noted that Conrad told The New York Times that the thermogenic methane found in the water wells, which many scientists say comes from the same deep gas layers where drilling occurs, could be naturally occurring.
Local drilling opponent not surprised by findings
http://citizensvoice.com/news/local-drilling-opponent-not-surprised-by-findings-1.1144256#axzz1LwpBiOFT
Elizabeth Skrapits
Published: May 10, 2011
Dr. Thomas Jiunta said Monday the Duke University study shows drilling 'is a pathway' for methane to get into drinking water.
Results of a study by scientists at Duke University showing a link between natural gas drilling and water well contamination come as no surprise to a local drilling opponent.
Dr. Thomas Jiunta, a co-founder of the Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition, said the study proves what environmentalists have been saying all along: that there’s “definitely a chance and a likelihood” for gas to migrate along the pathways between drilling sites and drinking water sources.
“The thing that I think is important is that shows it’s a pathway,” he said. “The methane itself isn’t necessarily dangerous to drink, but it’s explosive, obviously, as it builds up.”
If methane can travel through the pathways, other chemicals, heavy metals and the water used in hydraulic fracturing could also migrate through them, Jiunta said. Pressure in the natural gas wells could increase that migration, he said.
“That just blows my mind that they’re still allowing this (gas drilling), after what we know. It’s just one thing after another,” Jiunta said.
Scientific Study Links Flammable Drinking Water to Fracking
http://www.propublica.org/article/scientific-study-links-flammable-drinking-water-to-fracking
by Abrahm Lustgarten
ProPublica, May 9, 2011
For the first time, a scientific study has linked natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing with a pattern of drinking water contamination so severe that some faucets can be lit on fire.
The peer-reviewed study, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, stands to shape the contentious debate over whether drilling is safe and begins to fill an information gap that has made it difficult for lawmakers and the public to understand the risks.
The research was conducted by four scientists at Duke University. They found that levels of flammable methane gas in drinking water wells increased to dangerous levels when those water supplies were close to natural gas wells. They also found that the type of gas detected at high levels in the water was the same type of gas that energy companies were extracting from thousands of feet underground, strongly implying that the gas may be seeping underground through natural or manmade faults and fractures, or coming from cracks in the well structure itself.
“Our results show evidence for methane contamination of shallow drinking water systems in at least three areas of the region and suggest important environmental risks accompanying shale gas exploration worldwide,” the article states.
The group tested 68 drinking water wells in the Marcellus and Utica shale drilling areas in northeastern Pennsylvania and southern New York State. Sixty of those wells were tested for dissolved gas. While most of the wells had some methane, the water samples taken closest to the gas wells had on average 17 times the levels detected in wells further from active drilling. The group defined an active drilling area as within one kilometer, or about six tenths of a mile, from a gas well.
The average concentration of the methane detected in the water wells near drilling sites fell squarely within a range that the U.S Department of Interior says is dangerous and requires urgent “hazard mitigation” action, according to the study.
The researchers did not find evidence that the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing had contaminated any of the wells they tested, allaying for the time being some of the greatest fears among environmentalists and drilling opponents.
But they were alarmed by what they described as a clear correlation between drilling activity and the seepage of gas contaminants underground, a danger in itself and evidence that pathways do exist for contaminants to migrate deep within the earth.
“We certainly didn’t expect to see such a strong relationship between the concentration of methane in water and the nearest gas wells. That was a real surprise,” said Robert Jackson, a biology professor at Duke and one of the report’s authors.
Methane contamination of drinking water wells has been a common complaint among people living in gas drilling areas across the country. A 2009 investigation by ProPublica revealed that methane contamination from drilling was widespread, including in Colorado, Ohio and Pennsylvania. In several cases, homes blew up after gas seeped into their basements or water supplies. In Pennsylvania a 2004 accident killed three people, including a baby.
In Dimock, Pa., where part of the Duke study was performed, some residents’ water wells exploded or their water could be lit on fire. In at least a dozen cases in Colorado, ProPublica’s investigation found, methane had infiltrated drinking water supplies that residents said were clean until hydraulic fracturing was performed nearby.
The drilling industry and some state regulators described some of these cases as “anecdotal” and said they were either unconnected to drilling activity or were an isolated problem. But the consistency of the Duke findings raises questions about how unusual and widespread such cases of methane contamination may be.
“It suggests that at least in the region we looked, this is a more general problem than people expected,” Jackson told ProPublica.
For those who live in the midst of this problem, the report serves as long-awaited vindication. “We weren’t just blowing smoke. What we were talking about was the truth,” said Ron Carter, a Dimock resident whose water went bad when drilling began there in 2008 and was later tested as part of the study. “Now I’m happy that at least something helps prove out our theory.”
Methane is not regulated in drinking water, and while research is limited, it is not currently believed to be harmful to drink. But the methane is dangerous because as it collects in enclosed spaces it can asphyxiate people nearby, or lead to an explosion.
To determine where the methane in the wells they tested came from, the researchers ran it through a molecular fingerprinting process called an isotopic analysis. Water samples furthest from gas drilling showed traces of biogenic methane—a type of methane that can naturally appear in water from biological decay. But samples taken closer to drilling had high concentrations of thermogenic methane, which comes from the same hydrocarbon layers where gas drilling is targeted. That—plus the proximity to the gas wells—told the researchers that the contamination was linked to the drilling processes.
In addition to the methane, other types of gases were also detected, providing further evidence that the gas originated with the hydrocarbon deposits miles beneath the earth and that it was unique to the active gas drilling areas. Ethane, another component of natural gas, and other hydrocarbons were detected in 81 percent of water wells near active gas drilling, but in only 9 percent of water wells further away. Propane and butane were also detected in some drilling area wells.
The report noted that as much as a mile of rock separated the bottom of the shallow drinking water wells from the deep zones fractured for gas, and identified several ways in which fluids or the gas contaminants could move underground: The substances could be displaced by the pressures underground; could travel through new fractures or connections to faults created by the hydraulic fracturing process; or could leak from the well casing itself somewhere closer to the surface.
The geology in Pennsylvania and New York, they said, is tectonically active with faults and other pathways through the rock. They noted that leaky well casings were the most likely cause of the contamination, but couldn’t rule out long-range underground migration, which they said “might be possible due to both the extensive fracture systems reported for these formations and the many older, uncased wells drilled and abandoned.”
The water was also analyzed for signs that dangerous fluids from inside the gas wells might have escaped into water supplies. The group tested for salts, radium and other chemicals that, if detected, would have signaled that the produced water or natural fluids in the well’s target zone were making it to the aquifers. But those types of fluids were not found. The group did not test for fracking chemicals or hydrocarbons like benzene, relying instead on the saline or radioactive compounds like radium as indicators.
In an interview, Jackson said that gas was more likely to migrate underground than liquid chemicals. Based on his findings, he doesn’t believe the toxic chemicals pumped into the ground during fracturing are likely to end up in water supplies the same way the methane did. “I’m not ready to use the word impossible,” he said, “but unlikely.”
In a white paper the group issued along with the journal article, Jackson and the others acknowledged the uncertainty and called for more research. “Contamination is often stated to be impossible due to the distance between the well and the drinking water,” they wrote. “Although this seems reasonable in most (and possibly all) cases, field and modeling studies should be undertaken to confirm this assumption… Understanding any cases where this assumption is incorrect will be important—when, where, and why they occur—to limit problems with hydraulic fracturing operations.”
A hydrogeologist closely affiliated with the drilling industry raised questions about the study. “It’s possible, assuming their measurements are accurate, that all they have done is document the natural conditions of the aquifer,” said John Conrad, president of Conrad Geosciences in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Conrad spoke with ProPublica at the suggestion of Energy In Depth, a drilling industry advocacy group, but said that he did not work for EID.
He said that the thermogenic methane — which many scientists say comes from the same deep gas layers where drilling occurs — could be naturally occurring. He also said the researchers didn’t test enough wells to support their conclusions, though he could not say how many wells would have been appropriate.
Conrad said the most likely cause for the contamination identified by the Duke researchers — that the gas was leaking out of faulty well casings — seemed implausible.
“For their assumptions to hold up there would have to be more than just the occasional bad cement job,” he said. “They are implying that where you see hydraulic fracturing you should expect to see elevated methane. We are aware of faulty cement jobs. But we don’t believe that it is common and we certainly don’t believe that it is universal.”
The Duke study precedes a national study by the Environmental Protection Agency into the dangers of hydraulic fracturing that is expected to be finished sometime next year. Last year the EPA found that some chemicals known to be used in fracturing were among the contaminants detected in 11 residential drinking water wells in Pavillion, Wy.—where more than 200 natural gas wells have been drilled in recent years—but that investigation is continuing and the scientists haven’t concluded that the contamination is linked with drilling or hydraulic fracturing.
The release of the Duke research could immediately shape the increasingly intense public debate over drilling and hydraulic fracturing, especially in some of the areas where the research was conducted. Pennsylvania, which holds drilling companies liable for drinking water contamination within 1000 feet of a gas well, might consider the fact that the Duke researchers found the contamination extended to about 3,000 feet, Jackson said. New York State has a moratorium in place for hydraulic fracturing of horizontally-drilled wells—which cover more area and require more chemicals—through the end of June to allow for more consideration of the risks. “I would extend that at least temporarily,” Jackson said.
Congress, too, is taking note.
“This study provides eye-opening scientific evidence about methane contamination and the risks that irresponsible natural gas drilling poses for drinking water supplies,” said Congressman Maurice Hinchey, D-NY. “It provides yet another reason why more study of the environmental and health risks associated with hydraulic fracturing is needed.”
Hinchey is one of several Democratic members of Congress who recently re-introduced the FRAC Act, which calls for public disclosure of the chemicals used underground. The bill, which is currently languishing in the House, would remove an exemption in federal law that prohibits the EPA from regulating hydraulic fracturing.