Gas co. may be liable for water quality
Federal judge rules in favor of Lenox Twp. families whose well pad was contaminated.
SCRANTON – For the time being, at least, a natural gas drilling company may be held strictly liable for drinking water contamination near one of its well sites, a federal district judge ruled Wednesday.
Lawyers for Southwestern Energy Production Co., Houston, Texas, moved to dismiss a count of strict liability in the civil lawsuit filed against the company by 13 Susquehanna County families in federal court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
The families filed a federal class-action lawsuit in September against the drilling company, saying that hydraulic fracturing at a Lenox Township well pad has contaminated drinking water and damaged the health and quality of life of area residents.
Southwestern maintains the alleged water contamination has no factual basis.
Judge A. Richard Caputo ruled Feb. 3 that though strict liability has not been found in analogous cases, the court will wait until after evidence has been presented in the trial’s discovery phase to determine Southwestern Energy’s liability.
Parties may be held to strict liability for damages caused to other persons, land or property when their activities are determined to be abnormally dangerous.
All but two of the plaintiffs live along state Route 92 in the township between 700 and 1,700 feet from the Price No. 1 Well Pad, which is operated by a wholly owned subsidiary of Southwestern Energy Production Co., Houston, Texas. Two other families do not live in the area but state in the suit that they regularly drank contaminated water at the residences of two other families listed as plaintiffs.
The plaintiffs claim their drinking water supplies were contaminated by improper or insufficient cement casings around the Price No. 1 well pad, which allowed industrial waste, including hydraulic fracturing fluid, to enter drinking water wells.
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, fluid is the mixture of water, sediment and chemicals injected into the ground to create fissures and release the natural gas being extracted from Marcellus Shale.
http://www.timesleader.com/news/Gas_co__may_be_liable_for_water_quality_02-11-2011.html
MATT HUGHES mhughes@timesleader.com
Posted: February 12, 2011
Testimony given on frack water treatment plant
A standing-room-only crowd of 60 people attended a meeting Thursday of the Wyalusing Township supervisors, which was held to hear testimony on an application for a conditional use permit to construct three plants on a 26-acre site in the Browntown section of the township, including a plant to process the waste water from hydraulic fracturing of natural gas wells, a plant to manufacture asphalt for paving, and a plant to manufacture synthetic drilling mud.
The supervisors had their first meeting on the matter on Dec. 1, and they continued to take testimony related to the application at Thursday’s meeting.
The site would be served by the Lehigh Railway line, which runs along the Susquehanna River, but the applicants said there would be no discharge from any of their operations to the river.
Carl Bankert, an engineer with Glenn O. Hawbaker Inc., which would build the asphalt plant, said that for all three operations at the site combined, it is estimated that a total of 163 trucks would come to the site each day.
Ground/Water Treatment & Technology of Rockway, N.J., is proposing a plant for the site that would be able to treat 400,000 gallons per day of waste water from hydraulic fracturing, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
Bob Kunzel, the executive vice-president for Ground/Water Treatment & Technology, said the treatment of the frack water would take place inside a building using a system of tanks.
Lime would be added to the waste water from hydraulic fracturing to precipitate out calcium, magnesium, barium and strontium as a sludge, Kunzel said.
The sludge would be de-watered before it was taken to the White Pine Landfill in the Wilkes-Barre area, he said.
After the frack water is treated at the plant, it would be returned to gas well sites for further hydraulic fracturing, he said.
The cycle of bringing waste water to the site, reinjecting the treated water into well bores for further hydraulic fracturing, and bringing the flow-back water from hydraulic fracturing to the plant, could be repeated indefinitely, Kunzel said.
There are no current plans to bring waste water from hydraulic fracturing to the site by rail, Kunzel said.
However, the other two operations at the site would use the rail line, the applicants said.
During the first 1 1/4 hours of the meeting, which began at 7 p.m., the supervisors asked questions of the applicants.
As of 8:15 p.m., the supervisors were continuing to ask questions of the applicants.
At the beginning of the meeting, 22 people said they wanted to speak at the meeting, but by 8:15 p.m. none of them had had a chance to speak yet.
At the meeting, Catherine Sherman represented Fluids Management, which is the company that is seeking to construct the facility for manufacturing synthetic drilling mud.
BY JAMES LOEWENSTEIN (STAFF WRITER)
Published: February 11, 2011James Loewenstein can be reached at (570) 265-1633; or e-mail: jloewenstein@thedailyreview.com.
http://thedailyreview.com/news/testimony-given-on-frack-water-treatment-plant-plans-for-the-26-acre-site-also-include-plants-to-manufacture-asphalt-and-drilling-mud-1.1103328
Md. lawmakers warned of natural gas drilling woes in Pa.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/green/bs-gr-marcellus-20110209,0,6104108.story
Md. lawmakers warned of natural gas drilling woes in Pa.
Former Pa state official cites spills, well contamination, urges caution
By Timothy B. Wheeler, The Baltimore Sun
8:17 p.m. EST, February 9, 2011
A former top Pennsylvania official warned Maryland lawmakers to go slow in allowing drilling for natural gas in Marcellus shale deposits underlying the state’s western mountains or risk the environmental and social problems his state is now experiencing from a poorly regulated wave of energy exploration.
John Quigley, who until two months ago was secretary of Pennsylvania’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, urged members of the House Environmental Matters Committee to “take a deep breath” and require more study of the immediate and long-term consequences of opening Western Maryland to drilling for natural gas using a controversial technique known as hydraulic fracturing. The method, also known as “fracking,” involves injecting water and lubricating chemicals thousands of feet underground to fracture rock layers and release gas trapped there.
“We have much to learn about the technique and ample reason for caution,” Quigley said during a briefing for lawmakers on Marcellus shale gas exploration in Western Maryland.
At least two bills dealing with hydraulic fracturing have been introduced in the General Assembly. One submitted by Western Maryland legislators would require the Maryland Department of the Environment to adopt new regulations by the end of the year governing fracking, to guard against spills and groundwater contamination. The other measure, offered by Montgomery County lawmakers, would bar such drilling until further study is done and new regulations adopted.
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Samson Resources of Tulsa, Okla., and Chief Oil & Gas of Dallas are seeking permits to drill a total of three wells in Western Maryland. But the two companies have signed leases granting them the rights to any gas found under 89,000 acres in Garrett and western Allegany counties, according to Robert M. Summers, Maryland’s acting secretary of the environment.
Officials from both companies say they intend to take every precaution in drilling in Maryland.
Summers told committee members that regulators are still reviewing the companies’ drilling requests and have no timeline for deciding whether to grant them and under what conditions. He said officials are considering requiring safeguards not currently mandated under state drilling regulations.
“If you have time to do additional studies up front, I would recommend it,” said Quigley, now a senior fellow with a Pennsylvania environmental group. The former manager of Pennsylvania’s state forests said his state has experienced major problems with contamination of drinking water wells, mainly from improperly drilled gas wells.
In one instance, Quigley said, a poorly drilled well caused natural gas to seep a mile underground and bubble up in the middle of the Susquehanna River. There also have been spills of diesel fuel and of the fluid used in fracking, he said.
While much of the fluid remains underground, some is pumped back out and must be treated because it is very salty and contains minerals and other contaminants from the shale, including radioactive substances.
Well blowouts, explosions and fires also have occurred, and groundwater has been tainted, Quigley said. The contamination stemmed from poor well construction and operations, he said, rather than directly from fracking. Quigley said experts haven’t been able to assure him that Pennsylvania’s groundwater will remain safe years from now, given the scale of drilling and the fluids being injected into the ground.
Quigley, who served under Democratic Gov. Edward G. Rendell, noted that his administration moved to hire more inspectors and adopted tough new regulations to address the problems. The new administration of Republican Gov. Tom Corbett is reviewing those rules, but Quigley said there are still gaps in Pennsylvania’s oversight, including a failure to levy a severance tax on natural gas extraction to help pay for its regulation and for remedying environmental problems it has caused.
Del. Maggie L. McIntosh, the Baltimore Democrat who chairs the Environmental Matters Committee, said lawmakers see great economic potential in exploitation of the Marcellus shale deposits, which some believe might hold the largest natural gas reserves in the country. The shale deposits cover 95,000 square miles, from New York through Pennsylvania and Western Maryland to West Virginia and Ohio.
But while the gas might be cleaner-burning than coal and may yield income to landowners who lease mineral rights, McIntosh said lawmakers want to be sure Maryland does not experience problems like those in Pennsylvania.
“If we’re going to do it,” she said, “we want to do it right.”
tim.wheeler@baltsun.com
Program set on safe drinking water
http://www.neagle.com/news/x167304228/Program-set-on-safe-drinking-water
Posted Feb 09, 2011 @ 05:13 PM
Homeowners and business people often take it for granted that the water coming out of their tap is safe for drinking. There are a number of potentially harmful substances that can harm your family or customers. These include bacteria, nitrates, iron and manganese. Some of these substances have health effects and others 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 on Saturday, February 26 from 9 to 11 a.m. at the Pike County Conservation District office on 556 Route 402 in Blooming Grove. There is a registration fee of $7/person or couple for handouts.
In addition, Penn State Cooperative Extension is offering water testing for a discounted fee through Prosser Labs on March 2, 9 and 16. 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/e coli bacteria to a test of 7 other parameters including coliform bacteria. Test bottles need to be returned by 12 noon on March 2, 9 or 16.
Pre-registration, including payment, is required by February 22, 2011. Make checks payable to: PSCE Program Account and mail to Pike County Cooperative Extension, 514 Broad St., Milford, PA 18337.
Visit http://tinyurl.com/yycbns3
<http://pike.extension.psu.edu/Community/2011/Water022611.pdf>
to download a program brochure.
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.
Follow Pa.’s lead on gas drilling? No thanks
Kathryn Z. Klaber, Pennsylvanian and longtime gas industry spokesperson, now crosses the border to lecture New Yorkers on how dumb we are to hesitate joining the big gas blowout.
In her Jan. 17 Star-Gazette viewpoint (“Delaying drilling will hurt N.Y.”), Klaber berates new New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens for saying: “I see no reason to rush to judgment on a decision as monumental as hydrofracking.”
“The short-term economic case for harvesting clean energy resources from the Marcellus is … compelling,” Klaber responds.
Harvesting? You know, like corn and potatoes. Clean energy? Yes, right in there with oil and coal.
How could we not want to emulate Pennsylvania’s 1,610 DEP violations since 2008, 1,057 of which were judged likely to impact the environment?
How could we not envy the 3.6 million barrels of waste water sent to Pennsylvania treatment plants, and, according to DEP records, emptied into Pennsylvania rivers?
How could we not want Dimock’s drinking water? Or the industrialization of Pennsylvania’s Endless Mountains and of Williamsport’s Little League World Series? The gas companies are just licking their chops to do the same for Cooperstown and the Finger Lakes.
“Has there ever been a more important time to take advantage of these opportunities?” Klaber asks.
Yes — how about never?
Steve Coffman
January 26, 2011, 12:00 am
http://www.stargazette.com/article/20110126/VIEWPOINTS03/101260302/1121/Follow-Pa.-s-lead-on-gas-drilling?-No-thanks
Why don’t we know how many drinking water sources have been harmed by natural gas operations?
How many drinking water sources have been harmed by oil or gas operations? According to a recent report
[ http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/how-many-water-supplies-have-been-impacted-by-gas-drilling-pa-doesn-t-keep-count-1.1063683#axzz1BzibG6Fv ]
from Pennsylvania, no one knows in that state. This alarming article quotes an environmental engineer as estimating that as many as 50 homes in Bradford County, Pennsylvania alone are currently getting replacement water supplies provided by gas companies.
But no one knows the real number, and here’s why: the article explains that companies often will not replace a homeowner’s contaminated water unless the homeowner signs a document promising not to tell anyone about the contamination. Therefore, we don’t really know how many people have contaminated water because many cases have been kept secret.
This makes it impossible for public agencies charged with protecting public health and safety to have adequate data to understand the full health and environmental impacts of oil and gas operations.
According to the article, Pennsylvania is consider a new rule that will require oil and gas companies to notify the state’s Department of Environmental Protection within 24 hours of receiving a complaint about contaminated drinking water. This rule should be in place everywhere in the country.
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/amall/why_dont_we_know_how_many_drin.html
Amy Mall’s Blog
Posted January 24, 2011
Departing DEP secretary says more rules needed for Marcellus Shale
http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/departing-dep-secretary-says-more-rules-needed-for-marcellus-shale-1.1091068#axzz1BD70q5Rd
Departing DEP secretary says more rules needed for Marcellus Shale
By Laura Legere (staff writer)
Published: January 16, 2011
The maximum fines that environmental regulators can issue to violators of the state’s oil and gas law are “way too low,” and the bonds drillers post to guarantee plugging of all their natural gas wells are “scandalously low,” the departing secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection said last week.
State law does not currently give regulators the right to ban gas drilling in floodplains nor has it mandated a large enough distance between gas wells and drinking water reservoirs, Secretary John Hanger said.
And state legislators need to amend sections of the oil and gas law to give regulators clear legal authority to deny permits to drillers that habitually cause significant environmental and safety problems.
“Right now the department really has very questionable authority to tell a company you operate so badly we’re not going to give you any more permits,” he said.
Hanger led the state’s environmental oversight agency during two-and-a-half years when Marcellus Shale drilling grew from an infant industry in Pennsylvania to an established one, and the department under his guidance made substantial updates to the Oil and Gas Act and other environmental laws to respond to that growth.
But in an interview last week with Times-Shamrock newspapers about the past and future of Marcellus Shale oversight, Hanger said many more changes are necessary to ensure proper regulation of the industry, and many of those changes must come from the Legislature.
Despite the prominence of Marcellus Shale drilling as an environmental issue during his tenure, Hanger put it in the context of other environmental threats facing the state, including air pollution from coal-fired power plants, climate change that is contributing to the warming of the state’s rivers and thousands of miles of streams that remain dead from acid mine pollution.
“Marcellus Shale is both an environmental threat and an environmental opportunity,” he said.
The state should tax the industry and use some of the money to clean up legacy environmental problems that otherwise do not receive enough funding, and it should transition to using natural gas in fleet vehicles and power plants, he said.
“The worst case for Pennsylvania would be to be the host of natural gas and not use more natural gas to make electricity and to replace dirty diesel buses and trucks,” he said.
The state also must work to avoid creating future environmental problems from shale drilling by increasing the blanket bond for natural gas wells to make sure they are properly plugged at the end of their lives.
Currently, a $25,000 bond covers as many wells as a company wants to develop. Plugging one Marcellus Shale well costs about four times that much, he said.
“During the Rendell administration, we spent $16 million of taxpayer money to plug 1,600 oil and gas wells that had been abandoned by companies in the past,” he said. “We have these abandoned oil and gas wells with no money to pay for them because we didn’t require the gas companies decades ago to post a reasonable bond.
“We’re in the process of repeating the same mistake.”
Gov.-elect Tom Corbett included increasing well bonds in the environmental position he outlined as a candidate, and State Rep. Phyllis Mundy, D-Kingston, plans to re-introduce legislation to restrict drilling within floodplains and prohibit hydraulically fractured or horizontally drilled wells from being drilled under or within 2,500 feet of a drinking water reservoir.
Hanger also offered advice to Environmental Hearing Board Judge Michael Krancer, who has been nominated for the DEP secretary post.
“The single most important thing” is for the agency to be a “professional, independent watchdog,” he said, and echoed the words Corbett used to describe the appropriate role of the department: a “cop.”
“Sometimes I hear some in the industry and some in business say DEP should be the partner of the gas industry, or should treat the gas industry as a customer or a client,” Hanger said. “That’s not correct. The gas industry companies have partners. They’re called investors.”
If the agency falls short of being an independent, professional watchdog “it doesn’t matter how much staff you have, and it doesn’t matter how tough or weak the words on the rule page are,” he said. “The regulatory role won’t work.”
llegere@timesshamrock.com
Marcellus Shale Program set for Center Carbon Environmental Education Center, Carbon County PA
http://marcellusprotest.org/node/596
Marcellus Shale Program set for Center Carbon Environmental Education Center, Carbon County PA
March 30, 2011 – 6:00pm
The Carbon County Environmental Education Center [ http://www.carboneec.org/ ] is planning a program on Marcellus shale basics for the general public on Wednesday, March 30th, at 6:00 pm.
“Getting the Waters Tested: The Marcellus Shale Factor” will be presented by Brian Oram, a licensed Professional Geologist. Oram teaches at Wilkes University [ http://www.wilkes.edu/water ] and is a volunteer with the Carbon County Groundwater Guardians [ http://carbonwaters.org/ ]. He is familiar with water issues in our area, and plans to explain the basics of Marcellus shale, natural gas drilling, groundwater, and related issues- Free Booklet for Private Well Owner (download your pdf today !).
[ http://wilkes.edu/Include/WaterResearch/PDFs/Waterbooklet070610.pdf ]
For more information or to register, call (570) 645-8597. CCEEC is located just outside Jim Thorpe, at the west end of Mauch Chunk Lake Park along Lentz Trail.
Carbon County Environmental Education Center
151 East White Bear Drive
Summit Hill, PA 18250
United States
Phone: (570) 645-8597
See map: Google Maps [ http://maps.google.com/?q=151+East+White+Bear+Drive%2C+Summit+Hill%2C+PA%2C+18250%2C+us ]
No fracking way
http://www.observertoday.com/page/content.detail/id/554737/No-fracking-way.html?nav=5047
No fracking way
By NICOLE GUGINO
OBSERVER Staff Writer
January 9, 2011
Hydraulic fracturing – also known as hydrofracking or just fracking – may not sound familiar, but this process of extracting natural gas is becoming a household term as controversy emerges.
Hydrofracking is a complicated process of extracting natural gas from rock formations like the Marcellus Shale in the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio. This process can be vertical or horizontal – both of which may pose a threat to drinking water.
Hydrofracking uses three ingredients to access the gas – water, sand and fracking fluid. Water and sand alone are harmless enough; the fracking fluid is the reason groups are rallying against the drilling process. Fracking fluid is a mixture of 500 or more chemicals used for different purposes in the process that allows the drilling of a well and the fracturing of the rock to occur, releasing gas.
Fracking fluid has been described by different sources as very different things – from a detergent to a carcinogenic concoction.
SPRINGVILLE
Hydrofracking of gas wells has moved from the west to the east and has moved north from Pennsylvania to New York.
A meeting of anti-fracking groups in Springville last month brought a concerned crowd to hear about what may come to the area.
A woman in the audience warned that a gas company had surveyed Sprague Brook Park, north of Springville, for gas drilling.
The main concerns of anti-fracking groups center around a loophole in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 which exempts the gas industry and specifically hydrofracking from about 10 environmental regulatiosn including the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Another concern is contamination of ground water. In many places across the country people sign leases with gas companies. In most cases the companies extract the gas and nothing goes wrong. However, reportedly for some this is not true. If a well is not properly sealed from the water table during drilling, then natural gas and fracking fluid can leak into the ground water residents use in wells for drinking water.
“My husband and I didn’t know what was going on with our water until we watched this documentary on HBO called GasLand. After we watched GasLand he went to check our water to see if it lit on fire and it did,” Natalie Brant of Springville said.
Brant later had her water tested and was told not to drink, bathe or wash dishes or clothes in the water. Brant is frightened for the health of her eight children.
“Gas companies lead you to believe that drinking this is as safe as drinking laundry detergent. Who here thinks that drinking laundry detergent is safe?” she asked.
Another concern is that after a well has been fracked, the water (mixed with fracking fluid) is left over. The gas companies are supposed to have this water treated, but allegedly in the past have not done so. Instead, according to the documentary, gas companies allegedly evaporate the water (and chemicals) into the air or secretly dump it on dirt roads.
GASLAND
GasLand is a documentary on hydrofracking, written and directed by Josh Fox, a Pennsylvania native. This documentary has received notice from many for its disturbing images of water that lights on fire and the health and property damage allegedly caused by hydrofracking across the country.
In the documentary Josh Fox, who lives in the New York City Watershed, begins an investigation into hydrofracking after receiving a letter asking if a gas company could lease his land for gas drilling.
Fox tours the country and hears similar stories in many states of water contamination, heath problems and legally helpless land owners.
He brings the story back to his home where he fears that drilling will effect his childhood home and which has a creek that feeds into a water supply that distributes fresh water to over 15 million people in three states.
PROFESSOR WEIGHS IN
Since the release of the film GasLand, some organizations have tired to debunk the claims made in the documentary and others to affirm them. SUNY Fredonia Professor Gary Lash, an expert on the Marcellus Shale, had a few criticisms of the film himself.
“My problem with that whole thing is that there is no scientific backing to that whole movie and of course it’s a pretty complicated process that they are trying to do, but again the physics behind fracking are pretty inconsistent with cracks coming up the water table,” he explained the cracks made by the fracking in the shale will not work their way back up thousands of feet to the water table.
“But having said that, there is nothing wrong with regulating. Any responsible operator wants oversight because they don’t want to be blamed for something if anything goes wrong.”
He explained concerns with the left over water from fracking. “What they are doing now is these closed loop systems where they’re sending the water through a treatment system on site and then using that water again.”
He also explained that natural gas flowing in creeks is natural and can be found in creeks all over including the Canadaway creek. He explained that the pictures of the dead fish and birds in waterways near Pittsburgh in the film was not caused by natural gas.
“Some of the chemical fingerprints that they have found and which wasn’t addressed in the film, is chemical runoff from (coal) mining.”
“Just about any well that is drilled any more is fracked. You’ve got to break up the rock to release the gas from it. The water tables are generally no more than a couple hundred feet and their targets are at thousands of feet. What they will do is, when they drill, they will case the well, they put multiple layers of metal casing and each layer is separated by cement, so the goal there is to not allow anything that is going down into the well or coming out of the well to interact with the water table,” he explained.
“When they fracture they use water and a very small amount of chemicals, with things like detergent to reduce the surface tension of the water and there is some biocides in there to kill any microbes and some other things and then they pump in sand after that to hold the cracks open and the gas migrates out the cracks.”
Murphy’s law is still applicable to fracking process according to Lash. “There is a chance that anything could go wrong in anything we do,” he admitted.
When asked if residents should worry about their water if they have a gas lease, he said to do your homework.
“The question they would ask (the as company) is ‘what does the operator plan to do to protect the aquifer?’ and make sure they follow all of the state guidelines for casing the well … people entering into a lease have every right to make sure that’s going to be followed.” He recommended baseline testing before and after drilling.
It takes a great amount of pressure and high temperatures to create natural gas. Chautauqua County, according to Lash, is undesirable for fracking. However the Marcellus Shale near Binghamton, Cayuga and Chemung counties is a mile down and thick – perfect for drilling.
Lash originally estimated 1,500 trillion cubic feet of gas in the marcellus Shale, but new research may show that that is a low estimate. “This takes on more meaning when you know that the U.S. uses 19 trillion cubic feet of gas per year,” Lash explained the potential of the shale.
“I’m as much of an environmentalist and liberal politically as anybody but I think this is something that can done responsibly. I think that there is an awful lot of misinformation out there right now and if we look at this scientifically, and it is a scientific and engineering problem, I think with the proper safeguards in place that it can be done responsibly. And if you combine natural gas with wind and solar I think we are moving in the right direction,” he added.
WHAT LANDOWNERS CAN DO
Due to the lack of action at the federal and state level, groups at the meeting in Springville recommended bringing the fight to a more local forum.
Sarah Buckley, of Wales in Niagara County, recommended going to local town boards and recommending water bans to prevent drilling in areas.
“Where I have some hope for protecting ourselves is in the towns … Some towns in New York state and Pennsylvania have passed bans … a small town in Pennsylvania has passed a ban that is a water rights ordinance … they said they would not allow the companies to source the water to frack, they won’t allow the water to be transported in to do the fracking … So, this in a sense prohibits the fracking,” Buckley said.
As a private land-owner Buckley recommended baseline water and foundation tests – which can be costly, just in case gas drilling on a property goes wrong and needs to be litigated. Buckley also recommended baseline tests of roads for towns to protect themselves.
Sarah Buckley can be contacted at 713-7780 or at ssbuckley@gmail.com for information on water testing and town level bans on hydrofracking.
The non-profit organization Western New York Land Conservancy offered help with conservation easements on land to protect land from anything that may harm its quality, like hydrofracking. The group can be contacted by phone at 687-1225 or on the their website www.wnylc.org.
Albert Brown of Frack Action Buffalo also noted that although Josh Fox was offered almost $100,000 to drill on his 19 acres, some who have leased their land in Western New York have sold their mineral rights away for $5 an acre.
Brown cited a Cornell University study that reported the towns drawn in to the fracking scheme with the promise of money in return, did not benefit at all from allowing gas companies to frack in their towns.
“If you look at increased truck traffic, for one fracking job you’re talking over 1,000 trucks and each of the wells on those paths can be fracked up to ten times. So 1,000 times 10 for one well and if there are 10 wells on that path, it’s just astronomical the number of trucks coming in and out,” Brown said.
According to Brown, because old wells are not producing gas like they used to, gas companies can use this new method of fracking to drill deeper, but are not obligated to notify residents if the company owns the mineral rights.
Frack Action Buffalo is trying to reach out to the Southern Tier and can be contacted through Albert Brown by e-mail at beingsamadhi@gmail.com.
There will be a follow-up meeting on hydrofracking in the Concord Town Hall, 86 Franklin Street, on Thursday Jan. 13 at 6 p.m.
IN SUMMARY
As one side argues that hydrofracking is safe and good for jobs and U.S. energy interests, the other side argues that the health and environmental risks are to great to continue.
The film GasLand is clearly lobbying for one side of the issue, however after viewing the documentary, some facts stood out.
The first, federal and state level regulation are lacking. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 exempted hyrdofracking from environmental safety laws and in a recent veto by former Gov. David Paterson. The moratorium to stop vertical and horizontal drilling in New York until it was further investigated was shot down. Instead, Paterson gave an executive order which only bans horizontal fracking and excludes vertical, which has been said to be the more popular of the two in New York state.
The second, expressed by John Hanger, the Secretary of Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection, in his interview with Josh Fox. He said no form of energy is perfect.
Whether it is fossil fuels, solar panels or wind mills, there is always a drawback.
Prof. Gary Lash agreed with this statement. “No, they aren’t. You aren’t going to get anything for free and what we are trying to do is reduce our impact on the environment. Even if you take something like windmills, for example, use light earth elements which are coming from countries that aren’t very friendly with us, and there are finite amounts available, there production is rough on the environment … the same thing with solar panels the rare earth elements that we need for solar panels are what they call ‘endangered elements’ and they are again in countries that aren’t very friendly to the United States … but if (fracking is) regulated and we do it responsibly I think it helps in the long run,” he said.
The Marcellus Shale is said to hold ‘an ocean’ of natural gas. For landowners with gas leases, the best policy appears to be, stay informed and be prepared. Both the anti-fracking groups at the meeting in Springville and Lash said that landowners have the right to ask questions and should do baseline testing, just in case.
Comments on this article may be sent to ngugino@observertoday.com
Fly ash contamination report sparks concern
http://www.hometownannapolis.com/news/top/2011/01/04-38/Fly-ash-contamination-report-sparks-concern.html
Fly ash contamination report sparks concern
Leopold calls for more testing of wells, but development continues
By ERIN COX and PAMELA WOOD, Staff Writers
Capital Gazette Communications
Published 01/04/11
In 2007, fly ash is dumped and spread at a pit off of Evergreen Road in Gambrills. A report about fly ash contamination has sparked concern over the safety of drinking water in the area.
Opponents of a $275 million Gambrills shopping center to be built atop a fly ash dump have called in experts to bolster their case.
The findings sparked new concerns about the safety of drinking water in the area, but the companies working to redevelop the dump say the worries are overblown.
A new review of data by a Johns Hopkins University researcher shows groundwater contamination has spread outside the system designed to contain it. A companion study by a Tufts University researcher predicts contamination could seep deeper into the ground, reaching the source of Gambrills-area wells in 15 years and seeping into public water supplies within a half-century.
“You don’t know if the plume capture system they have in place is capturing the contamination,” said the study’s author, Edward Bouwer, chair of the Geography and Environmental Engineering Department at Johns Hopkins. “I think there’s been lack of oversight.”
Both studies were commissioned because of a lawsuit designed to halt development of Village South at Waugh Chapel, but the report has drawn a public response from county officials.
Concerned about undetected contamination, County Executive John R. Leopold has asked state environmental officials to keep a closer watch on drinking wells.
Despite warnings that groundwater contamination concerns should be resolved first, the county has not taken any steps to slow development of the 80-acre Village South at Waugh Chapel complex, which will include shops, office space and homes.
Brian Gibbons, developer of the project, said the county has no reason to take any such steps.
He said his company and others involved in redeveloping the area have installed all the safeguards demanded by state environmental officials. Building the project, he said, will create a cap that stops stormwater from dissolving the fly ash buried below.
The Maryland Department of Environment required monitoring wells to track and contain contamination. Agency spokeswoman Dawn Stoltzfus said protecting drinking water is a top concern of the MDE, and that’s why the agency has a legal promise from the site owners they will fix the problem.
She said the agency’s technicians will review the new study and take additional steps, if warranted.
The group fighting the Village South at Waugh Chapel development said the MDE’s system for monitoring and cleaning up the contamination does not do enough to ensure public safety. The new study used data sent to the MDE to conclude that contamination is spreading. Once a sprawling shopping center is built atop the fly ash, they argue, it will be more difficult to fix environmental woes.
“Clean it up and then do the development,” said G. Macy Nelson, a Towson lawyer representing Crofton resident Robert Smith and the Patuxent Riverkeeper organization.
Nelson’s clients are suing the county, the state, developer Greenberg Gibbons, fly ash owner Constellation Energy and former dump owner BBSS Inc. to delay the development. The lawsuit was filed over the summer. No hearings have been set.
“Our goal is not to stop this development, our goal is to get a cleanup before they do the development,” Nelson said.
Filled with fly ash
The land proposed for 1.2 million square feet of development along Route 3 was once a sand-and-gravel mine. Constellation Energy filled it in with fly ash – a grainy byproduct of burning coal for electricity – for about a decade beginning in 1995.
Fly ash contains sulfates, chlorides and a host of heavy metals that easily dissolve in water. Those contaminants can harm human health. In 2006, the county detected the contaminants in drinking wells near the pit in Gambrills.
The finding sparked a county ban on burying fly ash elsewhere and actions by the Maryland Department of the Environment, including a $1 million fine for Constellation. The dump’s neighbors won a multimillion-dollar legal settlement that also set terms for cleaning up the site and eventually building on it.
The County Council unanimously renewed a one-year ban on new fly ash landfills in the county last night, although a permit is pending to dump fly ash at a site off Hawkins Point Road near the Baltimore City-Anne Arundel County line
Kevin Thornton, a spokesman for Constellation, said his company has been diligent in remedying the problems.
“We’re doing everything at the site we said we would do. We’re meeting all the requirements of the consent decree and we’re moving forward with remediation,” he said.
Other motives?
Gibbons, president of Greenberg Gibbons Commercial, said his company also has done its part to help the environment and he suspects the lawsuit stems from other motives.
The Village South at Waugh Chapel project will be anchored by a nonunion Wegmans grocery store, and Gibbons alleged union officials are bankrolling the lawsuit in order to stop a nonunion shop.
He said the opponents’ lawyer, Nelson, has been involved in union-funded fights over grocery store projects in Prince George’s and Howard counties. “They don’t care if we create 5,500 new jobs. They’re just trying to stop Wegmans,” he said.
When asked how a homeowner and an environmental group could afford to pay for scientific studies and piles of legal paperwork, Nelson said his staff has gotten very good over the years at researching cases at a low cost.
Not an issue
Community activist Torrey Jacobsen, who also has professional connections to a grocers’ union and is not involved in the lawsuit, said the Wegmans had nothing to do with the lawsuit.
“The fly ash issue was being fought before the Wegmans was even an option,” Jacobsen said. “There are a lot of people with wells out there.”
Those concerns prompted Leopold to write last week to the MDE’s acting secretary, Robert Summers, asking him to take action to better track the contaminants flowing out of the pit.
“There is no evidence that the public water supply has been affected by the groundwater contamination at the fly ash site,” Leopold wrote. “However, the request for additional monitoring wells is a measure being taken to protect public health and to assure the public that municipal water supply wells will remain unaffected by contamination.”
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