Public Water Lines to Provide Safe, Permanent Water Supply
http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/newsroom/14287?id=14522&typeid=1
09/30/2010
Public Water Lines to Provide Safe, Permanent Water Supply to Susquehanna County Residents Impacted by Natural Gas Migration
Pennsylvania American Water to Extend Water Main from Montrose and Establish Local Treatment and Distribution System
DIMOCK TOWNSHIP, SUSQUEHANNA CO. —
Residents of Dimock Township, Susquehanna County, will receive public water service from Pennsylvania American Water to replace private wells contaminated with methane gas migrating from poorly constructed natural gas wells.
Environmental Protection Secretary John Hanger said the state and the water company will proceed with construction of the water line and will seek to recover the cost of the project from Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., whose wells are responsible for the gas migration problems in the township.
“The residents of Dimock have waited long enough for Cabot to provide a permanent solution to the gas migration issues that have plagued this community’s water supplies,” Hanger said. “Today, we are announcing an agreement with Pennsylvania American Water Company to extend public water lines from Montrose and provide a safe, dependable water supply to residents here.”
Gas migration problems in Dimock first became evident when a private water well exploded on Jan. 1, 2009. A DEP investigation revealed that methane gas from a shallow formation had been disturbed and migrated through poorly constructed wells Cabot built while drilling for the much deeper Marcellus Shale formation.
On April 15, 2010, the department ordered Cabot to plug three operating natural gas wells in the township and take remedial action on a fourth well to address gas migration that had contaminated 14 water supplies. In addition, DEP fined Cabot $240,000 and ordered the company to install permanent treatment systems in 14 homes within 30 days. Cabot Oil & Gas also was prohibited from drilling any new wells in a nine-square-mile area around Dimock until April 2011.
On Sept. 14, DEP determined that three additional water supplies serving four residences had been contaminated by migrating gas migration caused by Cabot’s drilling activities.
“The problems in Dimock were caused by Cabot’s failure to construct their natural gas wells properly, and we are holding them responsible for the damage caused by these wells,” Hanger said. “We intend to proceed with construction of a public water system for the Dimock area and will seek recovery of costs from Cabot Oil & Gas.”
Pennsylvania American Water Company will construct a new, 5.5-mile water main from the company’s Lake Montrose water treatment plant south along Route 29 to Dimock and install approximately seven miles of distribution line to provide water service to at least 18 homes. The solution to the drinking water needs in Dimock will also make this basic resource accessible to other residents along Route 29 not currently served by public water. The water company will also install pressure regulating stations and a new treatment facility to serve the community.
The waterline extension and associated facilities is estimated to cost $11.8 million.
“Pennsylvania American has proven itself to be a reliable source of quality drinking water to more than two million Pennsylvanians,” said Hanger. “I am disappointed that Cabot has chosen not to embrace this opportunity to put these events behind us and allow everyone involved in this difficult matter to move forward.”
For more information, visit www.depweb.state.pa.us.
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
Dept. of Environmental Protection
Commonwealth News Bureau
Room 308, Main Capitol Building
Harrisburg PA., 17120
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
09/30/2010
CONTACT:
John Repetz
717-787-1323
FRAC This!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-abrahams/frac-this_b_746217.html
FRAC This!
Rebecca Abrahams
Film and Television Producer
Posted: September 30, 2010 09:00 PM
Hydraulic gas drilling, also known as fracture drilling or fracking, promises to scale back the United States’ dependence on foreign sources of energy. But the development of natural gas underneath 50% of New York, 65% of Pennsylvania, about half of Ohio and all of West Virginia has sparked fierce debate among environmentalists and energy companies.
The process involves drilling down into rock formation and exploding it by using very high pressure liquid, mainly water – between two and seven million gallons of water per well mixed with sand and toxic chemicals. The deep pressure explosion results in freeing gas from shale rock to produce hydrocarbons.
At issue – whether the remaining chemicals are leaching into the drinking water of millions of Americans. Gas and oil companies now have their sights set on the Marcellus Shale, an interconnected watershed that delivers water to 16 million people in New York, Philadelphia, southern New Jersey, Ohio and West Virginia. Environmentalists are sounding the alarm that widespread drilling could taint the water supply.
In 2004, an Environmental Protection Agency study found no evidence of water contamination caused by fracking, a procedure used in this country for more than 60 years. But according to EPA employee and whistleblower Weston Wilson, the report was “scientifically unsound.” One of the study’s three main authors, Jeffrey Jollie points out that “it was never intended to be a broad, sweeping study.” It should be further noted that no samples were taken during the study.
Meanwhile, there are growing concerns about pollution, water contamination and health risks associated with hydraulic fracturing. One Dallas-Ft.Worth couple recently abandoned their home after doctors discovered fracking chemicals in their blood stream and lungs. In Dimock, Pennsylvania, a woman’s well water tested positive for ethylene glycol, propylene glycol and toluene after natural gas companies drilled in her area. Other residents were able to light their tap water on fire.
Josh Fox’s documentary “Gasland”, offers a compelling argument against hydraulic fracturing. The film follows Fox on his cross-country quest for answers about hydraulic fracking. Fox declined $100,000 to allow a gas company to drill on his Delaware River Basin property. He says the energy giants are destroying the environment just to make a profit.
“It’s a scam. It’s changing our entire American environmental democratic system to shoot the profits of energy companies. They can dump toxic materials into rivers and streams. They can pollute the air and they don’t have to clean up afterwards.”
Fox is referring to an exemption in the 2005 Energy Policy Act known as the Halliburton Loophole which prevents the EPA from regulating hydraulic gas drilling. The provision was a single page inserted in one of the longest bills ever passed. A bi-partisan majority signed off on the measure, including Senator Obama, with only 25 lawmakers voting against it, including Sens. Biden, Clinton, Kyl, Kennedy, McCain, Schumer and Voinavich to name a few. The reality is, many lawmakers probably never read the near 1400 page measure.
But as Fox points out, “There were people who understood what the exemption was but I think most of it sounds like there was a lot of ignorance about hydraulic fracturing in 2005. It hadn’t been done a lot. It really exploded after the measure was passed.”
Now Congress is considering a measure to regulate fracture drilling in advance of the EPA’s 2012 study on the process. The FRAC Act would require energy companies to fully disclose chemicals used in fracture drilling. Earlier this year, two top oil-field executives voluntarily disclosed to the House Energy Committee that their companies had pumped hundreds of thousands of diesel fluid in their fracturing compound – in violation of a voluntary agreement with the EPA.
Yet industry executives insist fracking poses no environmental health risks. Institute for Energy Research President Thomas J. Pyle, in response to Amy Harder’s National Journal post on the subject states, “The debate about hydraulic fracturing is more about EPA regulation of the process, which… has been successfully regulated by individual states since the inception of the technology in 1949, than disclosure.”
Pyle adds, “More importantly, by giving the EPA regulatory oversight of this process, the environmental movement scores a victory by shutting down the exploration of oil and natural gas as regulations are written. At its core, that’s exactly what the green movement seeks to accomplish.”
New York Environmental Protection Bureau Chief Peter Lehner, in the same article notes, “… fracking for natural gas is acceptable only if safeguards on the entire extraction process are in place. And right now, they are not. The consequences speak for themselves. Numerous investigations show that insufficiently regulated natural gas extraction has been shown to contaminate drinking water and endanger human health.”
Currently energy companies are exempt from the major environmental laws including the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Air Act, allowing them carte blanche to inject toxic materials into the ground near major water sources without being monitored.
Fox says, “The big problem is that the gas companies are so powerful they are actually convincing the federal government to overlook the damage to the water supply for a short term energy fix. They have enough money that they’ve persuaded state and federal governments that it’s not a bad plan, when it’s a horrible plan. When you start contaminating all the water supply it’s a very scary thing.”
Exxon Mobil’s $41-billion merger last December with natural gas company XTO allows for drilling in the Catskill and Delaware watersheds, which supply drinking water to all of New York City. It’s significant to note a clause in the merger states Exxon can back out of the deal if the Safe Drinking Water Act is reinstated.
“So they know exactly what they’re doing,” Fox says. “They know that stuff poses a hazard to the environment and they’ll get out of it. It’s all about their profit margins.”
A great deal of money is at stake and lawmakers may undoubtedly feel the pressure to support fracture drilling which promises to create 2.8 million jobs. In Pennsylvania, hard hit by the economy, the gas and oil companies have secured 550 drilling permits, creating nearly 30,000 jobs and $240 million in state and local tax revenue.
Fox argues the economic boost is a bad deal for Pennsylvania. “I don’t know why you can’t green and revitalize Pennsylvania’s economy by starting more off the grid houses since there are already more off the grid water supplies than anywhere in the country. It’s the perfect atmosphere. Having small windmills and solar panels and that would be supplementing your energy needs. Besides, once you have destroyed the water supplies, it’s so much more expensive to deal with that problem than it is to deal with an alternative energy source.”
As companies continue to drill, accounts of fracking dangers surface as well. In Allentown, Pennsylvania, 13 families have filed lawsuits against Southwestern Energy Company for allegedly leaking toxic fluid into local groundwater, exposing residents to poisonous chemicals and contaminating their water wells.
New York water may also be under threat. The environmental group Riverkeeper, testifying at an EPA hearing on September 16, 2010, detailed more than 100 cases of water contamination due to fracture drilling across the country.
According to Associated Press:
“Riverkeeper documented more than 20 cases of tainted drinking water in Pennsylvania; more than 30 cases of groundwater and drinking water contamination in Colorado and Wyoming; and more than 10 surface water spills of drilling fluid in the Marcellus Shale region. Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection has logged 1,435 violations of the state’s oil and gas laws in the Marcellus Shale in the last two and a half years.”
With those numbers in mind, Fox notes, “To not be monitoring what toxic chemicals an industry is pumping into the ground is insane, especially in large quantities near a water supply.”
Cabot and DEP clash over Dimock water contamination
http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/cabot-and-dep-clash-over-dimock-water-contamination-1.1035426
Cabot and DEP clash over Dimock water contamination
by laura legere (staff writer)
Published: September 29, 2010
A clash between the state’s environmental regulators and gas driller Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. over the cause and solution for contaminated water wells in Dimock Twp. escalated on Tuesday, with the Cabot CEO accusing the Department of Environmental Protection of waging “a public war against us.”
The late- day salvo – in the form of a press release and 29-page letter from Cabot CEO Dan O. Dinges to DEP Secretary John Hanger – came hours after Mr. Hanger described as “very unfortunate and false” an advertisement by Cabot published Tuesday morning in area newspapers that criticized his department and its plan for replacing the contaminated private water supplies in Dimock.
Mr. Hanger could not be reached on Tuesday night to respond to Cabot’s letter.
In the advertisement published in The Times-Tribune and the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin, Cabot challenged a state plan to compel the natural gas driller to replace the contaminated wells with an estimated 7-mile-long, $10.5 million public water line from Montrose, calling the proposal “unreasonable, unprecedented and … unfair.”
An official announcement of the water replacement plan will be made by Mr. Hanger on Thursday along Carter Road in Dimock, where the department found that Cabot contaminated 14 water wells with methane during its Marcellus Shale drilling operations.
Mr. Hanger said Tuesday he would not detail the plan, which he will explain on Thursday, but he said he was “disappointed” in Cabot’s statements in the ad.
“Cabot would do better spending its money on fixing the problems it caused than buying ads,” he said. “Frankly, the families in Dimock and the people of Pennsylvania deserve much better.”
Mr. Hanger found “particularly false” Cabot’s statement that the department has a “concerning” tendency “to communicate through the media instead of with the Company.”
The secretary said he and his senior team have had weekly calls with Mr. Dinges and other company leaders about the water replacement issue since April. When Mr. Dinges was on vacation and unreachable by satellite phone during a crucial period in the discussions, Mr. Hanger and his advisers communicated with a Cabot team “fully about all these matters” in his absence, Mr. Hanger said.
DEP suspended portions of Cabot’s extensive Marcellus Shale operations in Susquehanna County in April after it found that 14 of the company’s gas wells in Dimock were improperly constructed or overpressured and were causing methane to seep into water wells.
The company has paid more than $360,000 in fines and was ordered to fix the affected water supplies, but at least 11 of the 14 families refused Cabot’s proposed solution – methane elimination systems to be installed in each of the homes – saying the systems are inadequate to address the problems.
DEP is also conducting comprehensive testing of the well water in 34 homes in the Dimock area for a wide range of contaminants, including benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene and glycol, after a private testing firm hired by residents detected many of those chemicals in their water, including some at levels above federal drinking water standards.
In its ad on Tuesday, Cabot said it does not believe it caused the contamination and “intends to fight these allegations through its scientific findings.”
It also criticized the logic of DEP’s water replacement plan.
“No private business model would support such an investment (in excess of $10 million) for so few users,” Mr. Dinges wrote in the ad. He said the water line is being planned without any study of the economic viability of the project, its physical impact on the route and how long it will take to install.
In the press release and letter distributed late in the day, Mr. Dinges went further with his criticisms, calling the department’s behavior toward Cabot “arbitrary and unreasonable” and saying that the department has ignored evidence “proving (Cabot) is not responsible for methane gas migration into local water wells … preferring instead to base unprecedented and costly mandates on biased and unscientific opinions and accounts.”
In support of its position, the company said it drilled a new water well for a resident who lives in the 9-square-mile area identified by the department as affected by the methane contamination and did not detect any gas in that water, Cabot spokesman George Stark said.
In its press release, the company also cites local emergency response officials who said they found no evidence that an explosion blasted a concrete slab off a resident’s water well on Jan. 1, 2009 – the incident that first spurred the department’s investigation into methane migration.
Asked what else might have broken and tossed aside the slab, Mr. Stark said, “We don’t have a theory as to how or why. What we do have is, when you have an explosion, there are certain tell-tale signs. And we didn’t see any of those.”
The attorney for Dimock families who have sued Cabot for damaging their water, property and health could not be reached Tuesday evening after Cabot released its letter.
In a statement released earlier in the day, attorney Leslie Lewis said she applauded the “courage and decisiveness” shown by the governor and Mr. Hanger on the water replacement issue and called the state’s plan to provide centrally sourced water to the residents “a considered and necessary one.”
She also criticized Cabot’s advertisement Tuesday, calling it “just another example of Cabot’s cynical attempts to divide the community, pitting neighbor against neighbor on the gas development issue.”
“The issue is whether Cabot has contaminated residents’ well water by their operations,” she said. “The unequivocal finding of the DEP and PA government is ‘yes’.”
Contact the writer: llegere@timesshamrock.com
Pennsylvania’s fracking rules need beefing up: review group
http://www.platts.com/RSSFeedDetailedNews/RSSFeed/HeadlineNews/NaturalGas/6470590/
Washington (Platts)–24Sep2010/639 pm EDT/2239 GMT
Pennsylvania’s fracking rules need beefing up: review group
Pennsylvania’s hydraulic fracturing regulatory program needs to be beefed
up, the State Review of Oil and Natural Gas Environmental Regulations
(STRONGER) said Thursday.
STRONGER is a non-profit organization that uses industry personnel to
review state oil and gas environmental regulations. The team was observed by
representatives from environmental groups, state regulators, the oil and gas
industry and the US Environmental Protection Agency, STRONGER said.
STRONGER’s review team said the state DEP should encourage more extensive
baseline groundwater quality testing by operators in areas where drilling is
imminent. The state also should consider factors that can affect the test
results, such as the absence of confining rock layers.
The review team said drillers should be required to identify to the DEP
potential conduits for fluid migration, such as active and abandoned wells, in
an area where fracking will be used.
The review team also said operators’ prevention, preparedness and
contingency plans filed with the DEP should identify the procedures that will
be used to inform emergency medical personnel about the chemical composition
of fracking fluids.
In addition to notifying the DEP at least 24 hours before drilling
starts, operators also should give the state advance notice before a well is
fracked, the review said. The DEP also “should have the opportunity to conduct
inspections at critical stages, including during hydraulic fracturing and
flowback,” it added.
The review team recommended the state require liners or secondary
containment around tanks or other facilities storing “pollutional substances.”
Also, rules requiring pit bottom “preparation and liner placement, should
be considered.” The review team recommended that secondary containment
requirements should be established for storage tanks used in fracking.
–Rodney White, rodney_white@platts.com
Similar stories appear in Gas Daily.
See more information at
http://www.platts.com/Products/gasdaily/
How long it really takes for a plastic grocery bag to decompose
http://www.emagazine.com/view/?5337
EARTHTALK
Week of 09/19/10
Dear EarthTalk: I’ve heard conflicting reports regarding how long it really takes for a plastic grocery bag to decompose. Can you set the record straight?
— Martha Blount, San Diego, CA
Researchers fear that such ubiquitous bags may never fully decompose; instead they gradually just turn into smaller and smaller pieces of plastic. The most common type of plastic shopping bag is made of polyethylene, a petroleum-derived polymer that microorganisms don’t recognize as food and as such cannot technically “biodegrade.” The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency defines biodegradation as “a process by which microbial organisms transform or alter (through metabolic or enzymatic action) the structure of chemicals introduced into the environment.” In “respirometry” tests, whereby experimenters put solid waste in a container with microbe-rich compost and then add air to promote biodegradation, newspapers and banana peels decompose in days or weeks, while plastic shopping bags are not affected.
Even though polyethylene can’t biodegrade, it does break down when subject to ultraviolet radiation from the sun, a process known as photodegradation. When exposed to sunshine, polyethylene’s polymer chains become brittle and crack, eventually turning what was a plastic bag into microscopic synthetic granules. Scientists aren’t sure whether these granules ever decompose fully, and fear that their buildup in marine and terrestrial environments—and in the stomachs of wildlife—portend a bleak future compromised by plastic particles infiltrating every step in the food chain. A plastic bag might be gone in anywhere from 10 to 100 years (estimates vary) if exposed to the sun, but its environmental legacy may last forever.
The best solution to plastic bag waste is to stop using disposable plastic bags altogether. You could invest a few bucks in reusable canvas totes—most supermarket chains now offer them—or bring your own reusable bags or backpacks with you to the store. If you have to choose between paper and plastic, opt for paper. Paper bags can biodegrade in a matter of weeks, and can also go into compost or yard waste piles or the recycling bin. Of course, plastic bags can be recycled also, but as just explained the process is inefficient. According to the nonprofit Worldwatch Institute, Americans only recycle 0.6 percent of the 100 billion plastic bags they take home from stores every year; the rest end up in landfills or as litter.
Another option which some stores are embracing—especially in places like San Francisco where traditional plastic shopping bags are now banned in chain supermarkets and pharmacies—are so-called compostable plastic bags, which are derived from agricultural waste and formed into a fully biodegradable faux-plastic with a consistency similar to the polyethylene bags we are so used to. BioBag is the leader in this field, but other companies are making inroads into this promising new green-friendly market.
San Francisco’s pioneering effort to get rid of polyethylene bags is a positive step, but environmentalists are pushing for such bans more widely. A California effort to ban plastic bags failed again recently, but will likely eventually succeed. Washington, Florida, New Jersey and North Carolina are watching closely and considering similar laws depending on what happens in the Golden State. Worldwatch reports that taxes on plastic bags in South Africa and Ireland have been effective at reducing their use by upwards of 90 percent; Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the Philippines, Taiwan and the UK are also planning to ban or tax plastic bags to help stem the tide of plastic waste.
Obama Admin Rejects Timeout for Natural Gas Drilling in N.Y., Pa.
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/09/22/22greenwire-obama-admin-rejects-timeout-for-natural-gas-dr-60467.html
Obama Admin Rejects Timeout for Natural Gas Drilling in N.Y., Pa.
By MIKE SORAGHAN of Greenwire
Published: September 22, 2010
The Obama administration has decided against pressing for a temporary halt to Marcellus Shale drilling in Pennsylvania and New York, a key federal official said.
Brig. Gen. Peter “Duke” DeLuca, commander of the North Atlantic Division of the Army Corps of Engineers, last week declined a request from Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) to use the federal government’s vote on the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) to seek a temporary ban on gas production in the Delaware watershed.
Hinchey wants drilling there to wait until the commission completes a “cumulative impact statement,” but DeLuca said that could delay drilling for years.
“The citizens of the basin are counting on the commission to make smart choices that allow for environmental protection to proceed together with economic development,” DeLuca wrote in the Sept. 14 letter (pdf).
The letter was written a day before Lt. Col. Philip Secrist, representing DeLuca and the Obama administration on the commission, voted to continue limited exploratory drilling in the basin. The vote denied a request by environmental groups seeking to block the drilling of test wells that were “grandfathered in” when the commission imposed a de facto moratorium.
Hinchey, a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, is seeking $1 million for the DRBC to study the cumulative effects of drilling in the basin, which provides drinking water to 5 percent of the country’s population (Greenwire, Sept. 13).
Cash for the study has been set aside in the House Interior Appropriations bill, which has not been passed in the Senate. But the spending bill is not likely to be approved before November, because Congress is expected to pass a stopgap “continuing resolution” before leaving Washington to campaign, rather than finish its work on spending bills. And there is no concrete plan for passing the measure after the November election.
Hinchey wrote DeLuca on Sept. 9, saying he was alarmed that the DRBC is preparing to finish regulations — which would allow production to start — this year, before a cumulative impact study could even start. He asked DeLuca to use his seat on the commission to advocate for blocking development until after the study is done.
“It is difficult to understand how the DRBC can consider the release of gas drilling regulations without a comprehensive assessment of the possible impacts in the Delaware River Basin,” Hinchey wrote.
DeLuca said such a study could take years, even if completed promptly.
“The federal family of agencies that I represent on the commission are collectively charged with a requirement to support the economic needs of the region and our nation’s need to secure energy reserves while protecting the environment,” DeLuca wrote.
Hinchey targets, industry defends Army Corps
The Army Corps represents the federal government on the commission, which also includes representatives of the governors of four states, Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. The federal-state hybrid was created in 1961 to address regional water conflicts, and oversees water quality and quantity issues in the 13,539-square-mile basin.
At the Sept. 15 meeting, the corps’ Secrist pointedly noted that he was “representing President Obama” on the commission.
Hinchey, however, aimed his criticism at DeLuca and the corps rather than the Democratic administration.
“The response is deeply troubling and raises a lot of questions about how the ACOE [Army Corps of Engineers] views its role as the federal government’s representative to the DRBC,” Hinchey spokesman Mike Morosi said in an e-mailed statement. “The congressman will be following up on this matter shortly.”
Environmentalists say DeLuca is wrong when he asserts that the DRBC must balance environmental concerns with economic development. Jill Wiener, a leader of an upstate New York group called Catskills Citizens for Safe Energy, said the commission’s mandate is to protect water quality.
“They owe their fealty to the river and the people of the basin,” Wiener said, “not the economic health of a few leaseholders and multinational corporations.”
But industry officials say DeLuca was correct to reject Hinchey’s request.
“Just to be clear here, Hinchey was trying to use a federal agency to direct the actions of a regional water board for the purposes of preventing the development of natural gas in a state where he doesn’t even live,” said Chris Tucker, spokesman for Energy in Depth, a group of independent drillers. “Next thing you know, he’ll be ordering the Army Corps to build levees around our well sites in Wyoming.”
DRBC Executive Director Carol Collier stalled the eastward march of gas rigs across Pennsylvania last year when she asserted jurisdiction over Marcellus Shale drilling and said no production permits would be issued until regulations are complete.
That has upset natural gas producers like Hess Corp. and Newfield Exploration Co., along with landowners expecting money for leasing their land to the companies(Land Letter, July 8).
Environmentalists have cheered the moratorium on production but are fighting the DRBC decision to allow exploratory wells.
Is N.J. pressing for drilling?
Gas companies say the gas in the Marcellus Shale formation under Pennsylvania, New York and adjacent states could power the country for years and allow a switch from coal to a cleaner-burning fuel. Many farmers have reaped big windfalls by allowing drilling on and under their land.
But drilling has contaminated creeks and ruined the water wells of homes near well sites. New York and Philadelphia have rallied against drilling, out of concern it could contaminate their water supply
Hundreds of people attended U.S. EPA hearings this summer in Pennsylvania and New York on “hydraulic fracturing,” an essential process for drilling in shale that involves injecting millions of gallons of chemical-laced water thousands of feet underground. Most of those testifying called it a dangerous process that needs federal regulation. The industry says it is an established, safe technology.
Environmentalists have also said that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) is pressuring the DRBC to speed up drilling in Pennsylvania, despite worries about upstream water contamination (Greenwire, Sept. 16).
Christie’s Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin wrote a letter in July urging the DRBC to enact its drilling regulations by the end of September (the DRBC now says a draft proposal won’t be ready until next month, with a goal of finalizing by the end of the year). It also said that the DRBC should cede its authority over natural gas development to Pennsylvania once it develops water quality regulations.
But Martin says he was just trying to get the regulatory process moving.
“New Jersey is not trying to expedite drilling,” Martin said in an interview this week. “What we’re trying to do is avoid duplication.”
Groups rally for Marcellus Shale gas drilling restrictions
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10265/1089281-454.stm
Groups rally for Marcellus Shale gas drilling restrictions
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
By Tom Barnes, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau
HARRISBURG — Susquehanna County resident Victoria Switzer came to an anti-Marcellus Shale gas drilling rally here Tuesday, and she was angry.
Since 2003, Ms. Switzer has lived in the small town of Dimock, in the state’s northern tier between Scranton and the New York border. In the summer of 2009 — after deep underground drilling for natural gas began in her area — she said the water that came from her well turned “bubbly, smelly and foamy” and was undrinkable.
Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., which is drilling in dozens of locations in the county, insisted it didn’t cause the problem. But Ms. Switzer said Cabot did start trucking in bottled drinking water last October for her and 22 other families whose wells also were fouled. Ms. Switzer said that in her opinion, there has to be some connection between the underground drilling and the “methane migration” that has ruined so many water wells in the area.
And lately, she added, other chemicals, such as ethyl benzene, xylene and toluene have shown up in her water. She thinks the “fracking” process used to extract natural gas, where chemicals are mixed with large amounts of water and pumped underground to force out the gas, is responsible.
“How did these chemicals get into my water?” she said. “I didn’t have this problem before the drilling started.”
She got a lot of support from the dozens of environmental groups who rallied at the Capitol in support of several Marcellus-related bills — one that would impose a tax on gas extracted from the hundreds of wells around the state, another that would direct state environmental officials to more closely monitor the effect of drilling on streams and underground water, and a third bill that would impose a one-year moratorium on drilling any new wells.
The activists demanded that the Legislature act on the bills before leaving in mid-October to go home and campaign for the Nov. 2 election, but time for action is growing short. So far legislators haven’t been able to agree on specifics for a gas severance tax, which could generate $100 million to be split among state agencies and municipalities that are facing higher costs related to gas drilling.
In a statement Tuesday, Cabot denied that its drilling is causing water problems for Susquehanna County residents. In its fracking process, Cabot said, it hasn’t used any of the chemicals that Ms. Switzer complained about.
Cabot said it has examined water samples taken from the area in 2008, before drilling began. “These sample results confirm the presence of many of the chemicals in water samples taken [from Dimock properties] prior to gas well drilling in the area,” Cabot said. The firm said it “remains committed to safe and secure operations in Susquehanna County.”
The Marcellus Shale Coalition, a group of natural gas producers, also released a statement by Department of Environmental Protection official Scott Perry, who said, “A lot of folks relate the problem in Dimock to a fracking problem. I just want to make sure everyone’s clear on this — that it isn’t. We’ve never seen an impact to fresh groundwater directly from fracking.”
At the rally, the environmentalists released their “platform of state action” with 13 demands, such as a Marcellus Shale gas severance tax and “a moratorium on further drilling on both private and public lands” so regulations can be developed to “fully protect our environment, health and communities.”
The groups also want the Legislature to prohibit what they called “forced pooling.” If pooling is allowed, one landowner who refuses to sign a lease for drilling under his property could be forced to do so just because all the nearby property owners have signed such leases.
The groups also want distance requirements between wells, so they can’t be clustered together.
“There should be reasonable laws and best practices put in place during the drilling into Marcellus Shale,” said Rep. Phyllis Mundy, D-Luzerne, a moratorium proponent. “People are frustrated, confused and flat-out angry about the [drilling] accidents that have occurred and about the lack of [General Assembly] action to protect them.”
The environmental groups at the rally, who chanted “No Free Pass for Oil and Gas,” included Clean Water Action, the Sierra Club, the Gas Accountability Project, the Delaware Riverkeeper Network and Penn Environment.
Also at the rally was Josh Fox, creator of the controversial documentary film “Gasland,” which is critical of the gas drilling industry.
Also Tuesday, another critic of gas companies, Gene Stilp of Harrisburg, brought his 25-foot-high, inflatable pink pig back to the Capitol, where he had used it in 2005 to protest legislative pay raises. This time he hung a banner on it reading “Rendell Fire Powers.”
He was calling for Gov. Ed Rendell to fire James Powers Jr., director of the state Office of Homeland Security, who had distributed “anti-terrorism bulletins” that warned law enforcement agencies against a number of protest groups, including those opposed to gas drilling.
And in yet another action Tuesday, House Republicans unveiled a four-part plan to promote the use of natural gas instead of gasoline. They called on state agencies to “transition” the 16,000 gasoline-powered vehicles in the state fleet to vehicles that run on natural gas. That would “reduce the commonwealth’s reliance on oil and create a tremendous demand for the natural gas available right here in Pennsylvania,” said Rep. Stan Saylor, R-York.
Republicans also called for tax credits for companies that convert their fleets to natural gas and for financial incentives to local governments and mass transit agencies that do the same. Those three changes would cost about $60 million, they estimated.
The GOP also called for building natural gas stations at every other service station along the Pennsylvania Turnpike so it’s easier for drivers to refuel their gas-powered cars.
Bureau Chief Tom Barnes: tbarnes@post-gazette.com or 1-717-787-4254.
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10265/1089281-454.stm#ixzz10H06fPq6
Cabot spokesman: Contaminants were already there
http://citizensvoice.com/news/cabot-spokesman-contaminants-were-already-there-1.1024703
Cabot spokesman: Contaminants were already there
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: September 22, 2010
Tests of two private water wells in Dimock Township showed traces of toxic chemicals in 2008 before Marcellus Shale gas drilling began nearby, according to test results made available to Times-Shamrock newspapers on Tuesday by the gas driller active in the township.
But a spokesman for Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. said those chemicals – toluene, benzene and surfactants – were not detected in 2008 in pre-drill samples taken at more than a dozen nearby water supplies along Carter Road in Dimock where a private environmental engineering firm recently found toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene.
The contaminants found this spring and summer by Scranton-based Farnham and Associates, Inc. were at levels 1,000 times higher than the toluene levels detected in the two wells in 2008, the firm’s president, Daniel Farnham, said.
Cabot released the 2008 water tests on Tuesday in response to reports last week that Farnham had found widespread chemical contamination in water wells already tainted with methane linked to the gas drilling in Susquehanna County.
Farnham took the samples for families in Dimock Township who have sued Cabot for allegedly damaging their water, health and property.
The drilling company said the toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene found in the drinking water could not have come from hydraulic fracturing fluids used in its Marcellus Shale drilling operations because its service contractors do not use those chemicals.
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, involves injecting millions of gallons of chemically treated water underground to break apart the gas-bearing rock. Critics of the process link it to anecdotal reports of water contamination and health problems in drilling regions like Dimock Township, while the industry and state regulators say the practice has never caused water contamination during decades of use.
“Ethylbenzene, toluene, xylene – those are not chemicals that we have used at all in our fracking,” Cabot spokesman George Stark said on Tuesday. “The fact that he’s found these is troubling, but they’re not from frack fluids.”
Cabot indicated that a likely cause of the contaminants, which are found in diesel and gasoline as well as some hydraulic fracturing additives, is an auto repair shop located near the affected wells.
The 2008 test results – which came from water samples taken by Farnham and analyzed by a separate firm for Cabot – detected surfactants at .07 mg/L in two wells, toluene at .002 mg/L in one well and .003 mg/L in the other, and benzene at .002 mg/L in one well.
Neither well showed the presence of ethylbenzene or xylene and none of the other wells sampled by Cabot contractors in 2008 along Carter Road showed any indication of the chemicals, Stark said.
Farnham, who conducted routine sampling of water wells along Carter Road this spring and summer, found ethylbenzene, toluene and xylene in the water at nearly all of the homes at levels between 2 and 7 mg/L.
Those levels exceed federal drinking water standards for toluene and ethylbenzene, a suspected human carcinogen.
Farnham also found ethylene glycol at 20 mg/L and propylene glycol at 200 mg/L in a May 2010 drinking water sample from one of the homes, owned by Victoria Switzer.
An independent water test performed for the Switzers in May 2008 did not analyze for glycols, but the test showed no indication of ethylbenzene, toluene or xylene.
Cabot’s contractors use ethylene glycol and propylene glycol in their hydraulic fracturing fluids, Stark said, but he does not believe they contaminated the Switzer well. Glycols break down within days in water, he said, and Cabot has not hydraulically fractured wells in the Carter Road area since November 2009.
“I would stand pretty confident they are not related,” he said.
The spikes of contamination recorded by Farnham in the water wells after periods of rain indicate a surface spill, not a disturbance of the aquifer through hydraulic fracturing, Stark said.
Cabot has reported at least five diesel spills since 2008 at or around its well sites in the township to the state Department of Environmental Protection, but Stark said the company does not believe its surface activity caused the contamination. A press release distributed by the company on Tuesday said “extensive testing performed this year in cooperation with the PA-DEP has confirmed that Cabot’s operations have not caused any such surface contamination.”
Efforts to contact a DEP spokesman on Tuesday to confirm Cabot’s statement were unsuccessful.
Farnham said the levels of glycols found in Switzer’s water indicate an industrial cause, not the auto repair shop.
“To show up in the levels that we’re seeing (the mechanic) must have had one hell of a radiator leak,” he said.
llegere@timesshamrock.com
Sides of gas drilling debate split on fracturing study
http://standardspeaker.com/news/sides-of-gas-drilling-debate-split-on-fracturing-study-1.1022577
Sides of gas drilling debate split on fracturing study
By LAURA LEGERE (Staff Writer)
Published: September 21, 2010
Binghamton, N.Y. – Hundreds of people gathered in this Southern Tier city on last week to advise the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on how to conduct a multiyear study of hydraulic fracturing and the impact it may have on drinking water.
Despite the New York setting, many of the speakers at the first sessions of a two-day hearing about the gas drilling technology turned their attention south of the state border to describe evidence of the promise, or peril, of Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania.
The meeting is the last of four being held in the United States this year to gather public input about the scope and shape of the study, especially where to find appropriate places for case studies of the interaction – or lack thereof – of hydraulic fracturing and drinking water supplies.
Dimock Township in Susquehanna County was offered repeatedly as a perfect place to examine: It is an epicenter of Marcellus Shale gas activity in Pennsylvania, and state regulators have determined that water wells there were contaminated by methane associated with the drilling.
Victoria Switzer, a Dimock resident, testified that water from her household well was recently found by an independent lab to contain ethylene glycol, propylene glycol and toluene – all chemicals frequently used in the hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” process.
“EPA, do your job,” she said. “Please demand accountability. I offer you a case study: myself, Dimock.”
The commonwealth was also invoked as an example of the benefits of natural gas drilling by New Yorkers who support the development of the industry in their state, which has a moratorium on Marcellus Shale exploration while it develops rules for regulating it.
“Drilling is safe and will bring prosperity to New York,” said Lorin Cooper, a member of the Steuben County Landowners Coalition. “The evidence is in Pennsylvania, Wyoming and everywhere else drilling has been allowed to proceed.”
The sides of the drilling debate were split at the hearing in their advice to federal environmental regulators.
Those in favor of drilling tended to ask for a narrow study – one that looks at the specific moments when a gas-bearing formation is fractured by high volumes of water mixed with sand and chemical additives. The industry and state regulators say there has not been a single documented case of groundwater contamination in the United States that can be attributed to that process.
“All that we ask is that this study be focused and not take forever to complete,” said Broome County Executive Barbara Fiala, who supports drilling and hydraulic fracturing. “I hope the EPA is not going to study the entire natural gas drilling cycle.”
Those opposed to the drilling asked for an expansive study – one that covers everything from how water for fracturing is withdrawn from rivers to the disposal of the salt- and metals-laden wastewater that returns from the wells. Some also encouraged the agency to cover other associated impacts, including air pollution.
“The EPA study must look cradle to grave,” said Barbara Arrindell of Damascus Citizens for Sustainability, a Wayne County-based anti-drilling group.
Prior to the afternoon session, pro- and anti-drilling groups gathered on opposite ends of Washington Street shouting competing slogans of “Pass the gas” and “No fracking way.”
At the anti-drilling rally, where the props included a large plywood derrick, a Mother Earth puppet and a person dressed as “Frackin’stein,” the prop presented by Dimock resident Craig Sautner – a milk jug of brown water drawn from his well after intensive gas drilling occurred nearby – garnered the most response.
“I can’t say this is going to happen to your well. I’m not sure,” he said. “But do you want to take that chance?”
Down the road, Jim Riley, a landowner from Conklin, N.Y., said he does not have a gas lease, but would like one.
“First thing I’d do, I’d fix my house up,” he said. “I’d spend my money right here in the community.”
“I’m not afraid of the drilling,” he said.
The EPA meeting continues today, with two sessions from noon to 4 p.m. and 6 to 10 p.m. The agency is also accepting written comments on the study at hydraulic.fracturing@epa .gov through Sept. 28.
llegere@timesshamrock.com
Lawsuit: Gas drilling fluid ruined Pa. water wells
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/business/7202580.html
Lawsuit: Gas drilling fluid ruined Pa. water wells
By MICHAEL RUBINKAM and MARY ESCH Associated Press Writers © 2010 The Associated Press
Sept. 15, 2010, 5:13PM
ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Thirteen families in the heart of the gas-rich Marcellus Shale say their water wells have been contaminated by poisonous fluids blasted deep underground by a drilling company using a technique at the center of a fierce nationwide debate.
A faulty gas well drilled by Houston-based Southwestern Energy Co. leaked toxic fracking fluid into local groundwater in northeastern Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna County, exposing residents to dangerous chemicals and sickening a child, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday.
The lawsuit — one of the first in the nation to link hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to tainted groundwater — said the well’s cement casing was defective. It also cites spills of industrial waste, diesel fuel and other hazardous substances.
“The fracking fluid leaked into the aquifer and contaminated wells within several thousand feet, if not more,” said plaintiffs’ attorney Peter Cambs of Port Washington, N.Y.
A Southwestern official denied any problems with the well and state environmental officials said they found no link between the well and any contamination.
Fracking is the process by which natural gas is extracted from dense shale deposits, including the vast Marcellus Shale in the Northeast. Millions of gallons of water, mixed with chemicals and sand, are pumped at high pressure thousands of feet underground to create fissures in the rock and release the gas.
Pennsylvania and West Virginia have seen thousands of wells drilled in recent years as the riches of the Marcellus Shale have become more accessible with the fracking technique. Some geologists estimate the Marcellus, which also lies beneath New York and Ohio, contains more than 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
The oil and gas industry says hydraulic fracturing has been used safely for decades and that there has never been a proven case of groundwater contamination caused by fracking. Environmentalists fear otherwise.
The Susquehanna County claims come as the Environmental Protection Agency — just 40 miles away in Binghamton, N.Y. — holds the last of four national hearings on the impact of fracking on water and public health. Fracking is currently exempt from EPA regulation; the agency is considering how to structure a study requested by Congress, where bills are pending that would reverse the exemption.
The environmental group Riverkeeper released a report to EPA on Wednesday summarizing more than 100 cases of contamination related to natural gas drilling around the country. The report cites cases where federal and state regulators identified gas drilling operations as the known or suspected cause of groundwater, drinking water, and surface water contamination.
Riverkeeper documented more than 20 cases of tainted drinking water in Pennsylvania; more than 30 cases of groundwater and drinking water contamination in Colorado and Wyoming; and more than 10 surface water spills of drilling fluid in the Marcellus Shale region. Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection has logged 1,435 violations of the state’s oil and gas laws in the Marcellus Shale in the last two and a half years, the report says.
The report also documents more than 30 investigations of stray gas migration from new and abandoned wells in Pennsylvania and five explosions between 2006 and 2010 that contaminated ground or surface water.
“Despite industry rhetoric to the contrary, the environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing are real,” said Craig Michaels, an author of the report.
The lawsuit filed in Susquehanna County said water wells became contaminated with high levels of barium, manganese and strontium after Southwestern, in 2008, drilled its Price No. 1 well in Lenox Township. The contaminated water wells are less than 2,000 feet from the gas well.
The plaintiffs seek monetary damages, environmental cleanup and medical monitoring. The suit said the child who has been sickened has shown neurological symptoms “consistent with toxic exposure to heavy metals.” A lawyer would not elaborate on the child’s ailments.
John Nicholas, who oversees Marcellus development for Southwestern, told The Associated Press that the well is mechanically sound and that there’s no evidence its drilling operations have harmed water supplies.
He said the company and state environmental regulators investigated complaints by residents living near the well, “and we failed to find any tie between our operations and these local water problems.” He said the company tested the Price No. 1 well and found that “the mechanical integrity of the well is good.”
Nicholas declined comment on the suit itself, saying the company has not seen it.
The Pennsylvania DEP sampled a plaintiff’s well about two years ago and found an elevated level of manganese. DEP told the resident it was unable to establish that drilling “contributed to the degradation of your water supply,” according to a letter from DEP provided by Cambs, the plaintiffs attorney.
“The data that we had from our samples did not allow us to conclude that the well had been contaminated by gas well drilling,” DEP spokeswoman Helen Humphries said Wednesday.
More recent testing of the plaintiff’s well by an independent lab, Appalachia Hydrogeologic and Environmental Consulting of Hallstead, Pa., found elevated levels of barium, iron, manganese and strontium.
“Appalachia recommends that water from the potable well NOT be used as a drinking water source until the barium and strontium levels are remedied,” according to Appalachia’s report.
Plaintiff Mary Donovan, 39, said she’s drunk nothing but bottled water since Appalachia’s April tests.
“The only thing I can do (with well water) is bathe with it and wash my clothes, and God knows if that’s harmful to me,” she said.
“These people don’t care what they’re doing to the environment and to people,” she said.
The Lenox Township developments recall the situation in nearby Dimock Township, where state regulators say Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. drilled faulty wells that allowed methane gas to escape into residential groundwater supplies. More than a dozen families in Dimock have filed suit. Cabot claims the high levels of methane detected in the wells might be naturally occurring.
Some of the cases in the Riverkeeper report were also included in a report submitted to the EPA last year by the Cadmus Group, hired by the agency to analyze reports of contamination believed to be related to hydraulic fracturing.
The Cadmus report identified 12 cases in six states — Colorado, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wyoming — that may have such links. The report said there was insufficient information to definitively confirm or rule out hydraulic fracturing as the cause.
Online: http://www.riverkeeper.org/