Contamination unique to NEPA
DALLAS, TEXAS – Issues of water contamination in Northeastern Pennsylvania are due to the region’s geology, and they have not been – and likely will not be – seen elsewhere, the CEO of Chesapeake Energy Corp. told reporters and editors at a recent business journalism conference.
Aubrey McClendon, CEO of the Oklahoma City, Okla.-based company, said the natural gas drilling issue with Northeastern Pennsylvania’s “very unusual surface geology” has been solved and should hopefully mean there are no future incidents of water contamination, but did not elaborate on what contamination incidents to which he was referring.
There has been no “lasting environmental damage” from hydraulic fracturing drilling, he added.
Pennsylvania recently established stronger well casing and cementing standards meant to help prevent methane from migrating into water supplies.
In his keynote address, the CEO told business media that while there are stories worth writing on truck traffic, noise and even drilling company transparency, “fracking is not the story.”
McClendon also said an agency would soon announce a major step forward for gas drilling companies releasing chemicals used in drilling.
The Groundwater Protection Council and the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission will debut the new online registry of chemical additives used in hydraulic fracturing jobs at www.fracfocus.org. The well-by-well information is being supplied voluntarily by major natural gas operators. The data is culled from materials safety sheets, which critics have argued are vague and incomplete.
McClendon went on to say “there is no such thing as clean coal” and blasted efforts to produce clean coal as a “waste of money.”
The CEO said fracking has “fundamentally changed the price of gas.” The price ranges around $4 per 1,000 cubic feet now, compared to $8 per 1,000 cubic feet several years ago. But he said the national conversion from using oil as a fuel to natural gas is likely still two decades away.
In a separate panel discussion at the conference, David P. Poole, senior vice president and general counsel for Fort Worth, Texas-based Range Resources Corp., said “it is physically impossible for you to frack a Marcellus well … and have any impact on groundwater.”
Asked what the cause of groundwater contamination is if it is not fracking, he acknowledged that’s something the industry has to address.
“Unless we can prove we are innocent, we are not,” he said, adding that doing baseline testing of water wells before companies do drilling would show what the water quality is beforehand and would also show if there was already contamination.
By CHARLES SCHILLINGER (Staff Writer)
Published: April 17, 2011
http://standardspeaker.com/news/contamination-unique-to-nepa-1.1133535
Education symposium held in Kidder Township
http://www.tnonline.com/node/189623
Reported on Thursday, April 14, 2011
By M. CRAIG MCDONALD TN Correspondent tneditor@tnonline.com
A Saturday morning educational symposium on Marcellus Shale was held in the Kidder Township Municipal Building hosted by the Environmental Council.
David T. Messersmith from Penn State Marcellus Education Team fielded questions from residents concerned about various reports conflicting about the safety of “Hydraulic Fracturing” or simply breaking apart Marcellus shale located sometimes more than 1,000 feet below the surface, Messersmith said. Fracturing is using tons of water, chemicals and sand and drilling vertically to a depth of about 1,000 feet or more and moving to a position horizontally drilling where the actual Marcellus is formed looking like a capital L reaching down into the earth.
The rotations of the drill and chemicals of “different” solutions depend on the soil and the area combined. For instance, at first determining if a site is worthy of drilling, studies determine the substance of the soil, sediment, seismic movement, fossil, etc… with millions of gallons of water are literally breaking away the shale and other hard rock moving it back up towards the land surface and into a holding area to be hauled away by what Messersmiths calls, “Trucks, Trucks, and more Trucks.” Impact studies determine what exactly will affect the the entire process, but nothing is entirely certain and outcomes vary greatly.
Back and forth from the drill site trucks must keep vigilance in removing contaminated water and returning with more water to keep the ongoing drilling process active.
The black colored shale is slightly radioactive naturally because it is a source rock for radon gas in addition to small possible radioactive decay of uranium, pyrite. The trace minerals and fears associated with certain compounds raise concerns with handling and moving, making proper training and emergency planning essential.
Someone in the audience said that everyone should be trained. “They should be training everybody in the state,” she said. Others agreed.
Messersmith said that drilling each Marcellus well requires 410 individuals, almost 150 different occupations, 11.5 fulltime direct jobs, he said. That is just drilling though.
While Marcellus Shale has always been in Pennsylvania, tapping the natural resource was not considered as a viable means for energy conversion due in part because of the depth in mining and costs associated in production. Methods used to tap the natural gas have not been productive and developing it has been arduous.
Hydraulic fracturing is seen as a boost to producing the natural gas effectively more than ever before and at a profit to oil and gas companies who before saw next to no profit or slow profit with the shale.
Prior to 2000, older wells tapping into Pennsylvania Marcellus did not produce much, and production rates decline over time up until hydraulic fracturing was introduced, according to the website, Geology.com, which Messersmiths referred to in his research, most gas wells decline over time, however with a second hydraulic fracturing treatment it possibly could be used to restimulate production from old wells.
This question was posed by an audience member who asked what will happen when a well dries up.
While the industry is in its infancy regarding Hydraulic Fracturing, and the danger of polluting water systems is relatively uncertain, the 2005 Energy Policy Act exempts Fracturing giving an appearance of credibility to the operation.
Additionally, Hydraulic Fracturing is currently exempt from EPA regulation. However New York State has taken a stand and currently has a moratorium in effect on Fracturing because of the direct proximity of the shale to its watershed.
The FRAC ACT of 2009 was introduced identically in both houses, the House of Representatives and the Senate and most recently was neglected when it was overshadowed by the budget earlier this year, the FRAC Act stands for, FRACTURING RESPONSIBILITY AND AWARENESS OF CHEMICALS ACT, and it was was supposed to amend the Safe Drinking Water Act to allow the EPA to regulate Hydraulic Fracturing. Also, it was intended to do something else, it was supposed to regulate the Fracturing that was taking place in states which have not taken UIC Regulation which is Underground Injection Control, some states have not taken the UIC Regulation.The Bill would require the Energy Industry to reveal what chemicals are being used in the sand water mixture in Hydraulic Fracturing. The EPA states that it is unable to track migration of pollutants and chemicals in fracturing fluid. The Scientific Review Board has reviewed a STUDY plan to be completed by 2012, the EPA will have its report by 2014 titled, Hydraulic Fracturing Report.
Some States have voluntarily adopted the UIC. Sen. Bob Casey, D. Pa. and Chuck Schumer, D. NY introduced the Senate Version of the FRAC Act. It is not known if it will enter the arena this year for a vote, or if it has any chance of passing given the Country’s dependance on energy, job creation, and the Pa. Governors aggressive stance on making Pa. a Corporate friendly place to do business.
The Independent Petroleum Association of America who has a vested interest in the Pa. Marcellus Shale as small amounts of Petroleum can be welled in addition to the shale, believes it is an unnecessary expense to pass the Frac Act which could cost each tap an additional 100,000.00.. The Lobbying Group for the Oil and Gas Industry “Energy in Depth” believes progress would be stunted if the Act would pass. They also contend that the industry reports all chemicals used in all processes for public inspection on the OSHA website, in the Material Data Safety Sheets.
In the report by the Geological Survey of Pennsylvania Board of Comissioners, J. Peter Lesley surveyed the Marcellus Valley along Broadheads Creek dipping North more and more steeply until the formation at Weissport on the Lehigh River it plunges vertically under the Mon Mountain. Pg. 1254. The report identifies north eastern Pa. and New York as rich in Marcellus shale.
Some Chemicals in Fracturing fluid include kerosene, benzene, formaldehyde and many others chemicals depending upon the composite and reaction of the compounds in the project well site. For instance, as an example only, Hickory Run Forest has a well which may have high carbon content and geologists may determine a mixture suitable for the Hydraulic Fracturing content to break through without blowing out a methane pocket situated nearby.
Drilling wastewater partially treated and dumped into rivers and streams
State’s treatment of fracking water controversial
Hydraulic fracturing is a drilling process that blasts large amounts of water deep into the earth to fracture dense shale and allow natural gas to escape.
The water — from a few hundred thousand to several million gallons — is mixed with sand and chemicals — some of them toxic or potentially carcinogenic. Some of that fracking liquid then gushes back to the surface, often with natural underground brine, in a brew that is intensely salty and often contains barium, strontium and sometimes radium from the earth.
In Texas and other states, the liquids are disposed of in deep injection wells; Pennsylvania is the only major gas-producing state that routinely allows fracking wastewater to be partially treated and dumped into rivers and streams from which communities get their drinking water.
Researchers have been examining whether the discharges might be dangerous to humans or wildlife.
Industry officials, some scientists and Pennsylvania officials insist the practice is safe, if controlled properly, because the relatively small amounts of drilling wastewater discharged are diluted by the state’s rivers.
They also argue that many of the most common pollutants in the waste aren’t very dangerous, even when ingested, and that people would need to drink large amounts over a very long period to become ill.
Several studies are under way.
At least 269 million gallons of wastewater went to treatment plants in Pennsylvania for river discharge in the 18 months ending Dec. 31, according to an Associated Press review of reports filed with the state’s Department of Environmental Protection. Millions more gallons of wastewater went unaccounted for because of weaknesses in the state’s tracking system.
DEP records also show some public water utilities downstream from plants treating wastewater have struggled with unacceptable levels of trihalomethanes, carcinogens sometimes linked to drilling waste.
Most of Pennsylvania’s largest drillers say their river discharges are safely diluted but are taking steps nonetheless to reuse the waste liquids and end the partial treatment and river discharges. Despite those recycling efforts, treatment plants that discharge into rivers were still accepting a large volume of drilling wastewater late last year.
The Environmental Protection Agency, citing the potential danger to human health and aquatic life, asked last month that Pennsylvania regulators begin water sampling for radium and other contaminants. The agency plans a major national study looking at how fracking in the Marcellus, Barnett and other shale regions may already have affected drinking water — and at potential impacts.
Pennsylvania announced recently that it will expand the scope of water tests to screen for radioactive pollutants and other contaminants, but state officials insisted they aren’t doing it because federal regulators prodded them.
The drilling industry insists that fracking water blasted deep underground cannot contaminate underground water aquifers that are separated by thousands of feet of rock. Drilling may have polluted several aquifers another way: by methane gas seeping through shoddy cement jobs in drilled wells in Pennsylvania, Texas, and other states, then migrating into drinking water wells.
In Pennsylvania alone, regulators issued 1,400 citations to drilling companies for regulatory violations between January 2008 and June 2010, according to The Pennsylvania Land Trust Association, an environmental group. Two-thirds of the violations caused or had the potential to cause environmental damage, from chemical spills to improperly lined sludge pits, the group said.
Texas regulators do not separate gas drilling violations from those for oil drilling, making an accurate comparison with Pennsylvania impossible.
Fracking, along with horizontal drilling, allows recovery of natural gas from huge and lucrative shale reserves. In recent years, that has set off a gold rush of leasing and drilling activity, leaving regulators in Pennsylvania scrambling to keep up.
President Barack Obama, in a recent visit to Pennsylvania, said “science” must be done to ensure that natural gas is extracted safely.
“We’ve got to make sure that as we’re extracting it from the ground, that the chemicals that are being used don’t leach into the water,” he said. “Nobody is an environmentalist until you get sick.”
Associated Press writer Ramit Plushnick-Masti contributed to this report.
MICHAEL RUBINKAM and DAVID B. CARUSO
April 14, 2011
http://www.timesleader.com/news/State_rsquo_s_treatment_of_fracking_water_controversial_04-13-2011.html
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
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
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
Workshop to train private well owners
Residents of Tioga and surrounding counties will be offered a training workshop on how to properly manage their home wells, springs, or cisterns.
Residents who rely on private water systems for home drinking water can be at risk of drinking contaminated water.
Resource professionals such as Penn State Cooperative Extension, the Pennsylvania Ground Water Association, the state Department of Environmental Protection, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency will offer this training from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. May 14, at the Tokishi Training Center, 124 Nypum Drive, Wellsboro.
Private water systems are unregulated, so landowners need to take the proper measures to ensure that their drinking water is safe for consumption.
This workshop is offered as part of the “Master Well Owner Network,” a program intended to teach volunteers from across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania about proper management of their own private water system.
In return, the volunteers must go out into their local community to educate others about the importance of proper management of private drinking water supplies.
To become part of this network or for more information, please contact Stephanie Clemens at 814-865-2250 or by email at mwon@psu.edu.
Information and a volunteer application can be found at extension.psu.edu/water/mwon. Space is limited and applications will be received by April 23
Williamsport Sun-Gazette
April 3, 2011
http://www.sungazette.com/page/content.detail/id/562324/Workshop-to-train-private-well-owners.html?nav=5014
Natural gas drilling might not just be an environmental concern
It might hit you in the pocketbook.
Communities and farmers are under mandates to reduce pollutants going into the Chesapeake Bay. The byproducts of drilling also are going into the bay but are largely unaccounted for.
The natural gas companies aren’t going to be held responsible for that. Farmers and communities will be, and they will have to spend more money to get rid of stuff they’re not producing.
In other words, it’s not your fault. But it might be your responsibility.
That’s the argument behind the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s call for a comprehensive study of drilling impacts. The foundation made the pitch at the opening meeting of the Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission, a panel appointed by Gov. Tom Corbett.
It’s not so much about the well-publicized drilling waste discharged into rivers, but rather the myriad other impacts of the industry that, for the most part, get little attention.
With drilling comes a lot of land disturbance and deforestation, which impacts water quality.
And it’s not a matter of drillers flouting regulations, they say. Even if the drilling industry follows existing law to the letter, studies show it has an impact on rivers and streams.
But at the moment, that impact is not part of the equation in plans to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.
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