EPA Responds to Cabot Oil
www.wnep.com/wnep-susq-epa-responds-to-cabot-oil-20120127,0,6032822.story
January 27, 2012
There is now a response to a response.
Two days ago Cabot Oil and Gas criticized the federal government’s deliveries of fresh water and its testing of several wells in Susquehanna County.
Now the EPA responds to Cabot.
One week ago the Environmental Protection Agency started delivering the water to a handful of homes suspected of having their wells contaminated by Cabot’s natural gas drilling in the Dimock area.
Cabot called the move a “political agenda hostile to shale gas development.”
Friday the EPA responded by saying, “It is sampling and providing water as a direct result of requests from Dimock residents. Our priority is the health of the people there, and our actions are guided entirely by science and the law.”
In Dimock, EPA testing draws mixed reaction
citizensvoice.com/news/drilling/in-dimock-epa-testing-draws-mixed-reaction-1.1263801#axzz1klDNn16y
By Laura Legere
Staff Writer
Published: January 28, 2012
DIMOCK TWP. – Two teams of scientists sampling well water from four homes a day are producing a picture of the aquifer under this Susquehanna County town that will help define the impact of natural gas drilling on drinking water.
The water captured in vials and packed in coolers by scientists and contractors for the Environmental Protection Agency since Jan. 23 is the heart of an investigation spurred by concerns that Cabot Oil and Gas Corp.’s Marcellus Shale drilling and hydraulic fracturing tainted water wells.
In a divided village where gas drilling is as earnestly embraced as it is criticized, the controversy over the EPA’s fieldwork started before the sampling did. Test results are at least five weeks away.
The study has provoked strong criticism from the industry and its local supporters who accuse the EPA of meddling in what they consider a settled matter or a spectacle conjured by lawyers.
At the same time, the study has earned the grateful support of families, many of whom are suing Cabot, who have used their water warily or not at all since methane tied to drilling first intruded in 2008.
State officials determined faulty Cabot gas wells allowed methane to seep into 18 Dimock water supplies in 2009, but Cabot water tests from last fall raised federal regulators’ concern about the potential health threats posed by other contaminants in the water.
The contaminants – some of which are naturally occurring but all of which are associated with natural gas drilling, the EPA said – include arsenic, barium, the plasticizer commonly called DEHP, glycol compounds, manganese, phenol and sodium.
“If we see an immediate threat to public health, we will not hesitate to take steps under the law to protect Americans whose health may be at risk,” EPA spokeswoman Terri White said.
Residents who support Cabot’s operations sent a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson this week calling for her to “rein in” the “rogue regional office” in Philadelphia that is leading the investigation based on what they said were “baseless claims” and “hyped-up allegations” of pollutants that occur naturally in the region.
The group, Enough is Enough, created a campaign called “Dimock Proud” with yard signs, a petition drive and a logo: “Where the water IS clean and the people are friendly.”
The petition to Jackson was bundled with an earlier petition signed by more than 400 Susquehanna County residents and sent to the state to ask for Cabot to be able to resume drilling in a 9-square-mile section of Dimock – where EPA is now testing – that has been off limits to the driller since 2010. The moratorium has continued because the state has not determined that the company’s wells have stopped leaking methane.
“The Philadelphia Regional Office’s action in enabling this litigation threatens our livelihoods and is destroying our community reputation,” the residents wrote to Jackson. “These actions are an assault on our property rights and basic freedoms.”
Cabot CEO Dan Dinges cited President Barack Obama’s support for domestic natural gas in his State of the Union address when he also wrote to Jackson this week. Her agency’s actions in Dimock “appear to undercut the President’s stated commitment to this important resource,” Dinges wrote.
In another statement released this week, the company said it “is concerned that this recent action may be more of an attempt to advance a political agenda hostile to shale gas development rather than a principled effort to address environmental concerns in the area.”
The industry group Energy in Depth posted historical state and federal data on its website showing some of the pollutants that triggered the EPA investigation – manganese and arsenic – occur in the geological formation that is used for groundwater in Dimock. It cited a 2006 U.S. Geological Survey study that found arsenic in 18 of 143 domestic water wells it sampled in Northeast Pennsylvania, although none of the samples taken in Susquehanna or Wyoming counties detected the compound.
The arsenic level that triggered the EPA to truck water to one home in Dimock was nearly four times the federal standard.
The EPA rebuffed Cabot’s criticism this week, saying its actions “are guided entirely by science and the law.”
“We are providing water to a handful of households because data developed by Cabot itself provides evidence that they are being exposed to hazardous substances at levels of health concern,” the agency said. “We are conducting monitoring as a prudent step to investigate these concerns and develop a sound scientific basis for assessing the need for further action.”
While Obama’s address made clear his support for domestic natural gas extraction, the agency added, “he also affirmed our commitment to ‘developing this resource without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk.'”
Despite some residents’ skepticism of the EPA’s actions, the agency has received permission from 55 of the 66 Dimock homes it approached to conduct sampling, spokesman Roy Seneca said Friday. The EPA has not received a final response from 11 of the 66 homes. It’s initial goal was to take samples from about 61 homes.
“I’m thrilled the EPA is here,” resident Victoria Switzer said Friday as five scientists wearing blue gloves huddled on a mound of melting snow in her backyard where her well water trickled from a spigot.
If the test comes back clear, she said, “I’ll be very relieved that our water is safe to use and we can go on living in our home.”
The water sampling will also provide key data for the future, she said.
“I’m considering it baseline testing for the next wave when Cabot roars back in here.”
llegere@timesshamrock.com
EPA serves public interest
citizensvoice.com/news/epa-serves-public-interest-1.1261500#axzz1kIQ5EBAW
Published: January 24, 2012
The Corbett administration’s recent characterization of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as naive interlopers evaporated like so much gas last week.
Federal investigators began testing water supplies for 61 homes in Dimock Township, Susquehanna County, and delivering clean water to four homes where independent testing has found health threats in contaminated water.
In December, the state Department of Environmental Protection ignored the state constitutional guarantee of clean water for Pennsylvanians, and allowed Cabot Oil & Gas Co. to stop delivering clean water to the affected homes in Dimock, on grounds that the company had fulfilled terms of an agreement.
That agreement between the DEP and the company required Cabot to create escrow accounts for the twice the value of affected properties and to offer water filtration systems.
The issue isn’t fulfilling agreements but determining whether drilling and hydraulic fracturing adversely affect the water supply. Yet when the Environmental Protection Agency continued its investigation, Michael Krancer, secretary of the state environmental agency, claimed that the federal agency had only a “rudimentary” understanding of the situation.
In water samples from eight Dimock properties, an EPA toxicologist had found “noteworthy concentrations” of chemicals that do not occur naturally in the local water.
To ensure that its understanding of the situation is not “rudimentary,” the EPA comprehensively will test water samples from a 9-square-mile area and fill in gaps it has found in the data complied by other parties, including Krancer’s agency.
Beyond the local water quality issue, the EPA’s investigation is nationally significant. It follows another EPA inquiry in Wyoming that, for the first time, indicates a link between hydraulic fracturing – the process used to extract gas from deep shale deposits – and contaminated ground water.
Given the abundance of shale gas and its growing role in the nation’s energy portfolio, it’s crucial to gain a comprehensive understanding of the environmental consequences of its extraction. In seeking those answers, the EPA serves the public interest.
EPA News Release: EPA to Begin Sampling Water at Some Residences in Dimock, Pa.
Contact: white.terri-a@epa.gov 215-814-5523
PHILADELPHIA (Jan. 19, 2012) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced today that it plans to perform water sampling at approximately 60 homes in the Carter Road/Meshoppen Creek Road area of Dimock, Pa. to further assess whether any residents are being exposed to hazardous substances that cause health concerns. EPA’s decision to conduct sampling is based on EPA’s review of data provided by residents, Cabot Oil and Gas, and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
“EPA is working diligently to understand the situation in Dimock and address residents’ concerns,” said EPA Regional Administrator Shawn M. Garvin. “We believe that the information provided to us by the residents deserves further review, and conducting our own sampling will help us fill information gaps. Our actions will be based on the science and the law and we will work to help get a more complete picture of water quality for these homes in Dimock.”
The sampling will begin in a matter of days and the agency estimates that it will take at least three weeks to sample all the homes. All sampling is contingent on access granted to the property. EPA expects validated results from quality-tested lab to be available in about five weeks after samples are taken.
In addition, EPA is taking action to ensure delivery of temporary water supplies to four homes where data reviewed by EPA indicates that residents’ well water contains levels of contaminants that pose a health concern. EPA will reevaluate this decision when it completes sampling of the wells at these four homes. Current information on other wells does not support the need for alternative water at this time. However, the information does support the need for further sampling.
Natural gas plays a key role in our nation’s clean energy future and the Obama Administration is committed to ensuring that the development of this vital resource occurs safely and responsibly. At the direction of Congress, and separate from this limited sampling, EPA has begun a national study on the potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water resources.
For additional information regarding this site please visit the website at: http://www.epaosc.org/dimock_residential_groundwater
A standalone Marcellus bill moving to passage
citizensvoice.com/news/drilling/a-standalone-marcellus-bill-moving-to-passage-1.1258401#axzz1jdK8S8y1
By Robert Swift (Staff Writer)
Published: January 17, 2012
HARRISBURG – Marcellus Shale well operators would be required to provide sophisticated siting information and develop an emergency response plan under legislation moving close to final passage this week.
Sen. Lisa Baker
The wellsite safety bill sponsored by Sen. Lisa Baker, R-Lehman Township, is one of a few bills addressing Marcellus drilling that’s moving separately from comprehensive impact fee legislation that includes stronger regulation of drilling activities.
The measure requires operators to post signs at the wellsite bearing their GPS coordinates, give the coordinates to local, county and state emergency officials and develop response plans. The bill specifies this information is to be posted on reflective signs at both the access road entrance and well pad.
Baker, who chairs the Senate Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee, developed the bill to ensure that firefighters, ambulance crews and hazmat teams know where wells are being planned and where the access roads are.
“The changes will reduce the risk for workers, first responders and the community when things go wrong,” she said.
This safety measure has been approved by both the Senate and House once. A vote scheduled today in the Senate Rules Committee should move the bill to a final vote on the Senate floor so it can be sent to Gov. Tom Corbett for signing.
As lawmakers return from a holiday recess, three-way negotiations continue privately between the Corbett administration and Republican-controlled House and Senate over the impact fee bill.
Meanwhile, the House Finance Committee scheduled a vote Wednesday on a bill sponsored by Rep. Sandra Major, R-Montrose, to earmark 5 percent of the rents and royalties paid to the state Oil and Gas Lease Fund from drilling on most state-owned land to a small stream improvement program run by the state Department of Environmental Protection.
This program oversees projects to reduce flooding, prevent stream bank erosion and restore degraded stream channels, all factors cited by state and local emergency officials recently as contributing to the destructiveness of last fall’s flooding in the Susquehanna River Basin.
The Center for Rural Pennsylvania, a legislative research agency, will hold a session Thursday on efforts to clean streams of debris and sediment. The meeting is scheduled from 8:30 a.m. to noon at the Sullivan County Conservation District, Route 487, Dushore.
“The listening session will allow us to hear from local officials and residents impacted by the flooding so that we can work to improve and enhance state regulations for stream maintenance,” said Sen. Gene Yaw, R-Towanda, who chairs the center.
rswift@timesshamrock.com
More injection wells proposed for Pa. sites
citizensvoice.com/news/more-injection-wells-proposed-for-pa-sites-1.1258379#axzz1jdK8S8y1
By Kent Jackson (Staff Writer)
Published: January 17, 2012
Pennsylvania has only six injection wells like the one thought to have triggered earthquakes in Youngstown, Ohio, which is why gas companies from Pennsylvania sent drilling liquid to the Youngstown well for disposal.
Citizens respond to speakers during a community forum to discuss recent seismic activity related to deep wastewater injection wells, in Youngstown, Ohio, on Jan. 11. In Ohio, injection wells have been blamed for an increased in seismic activity. Pennsylvania has six such wells with two more proposed for Warren County.
Ohio has more than 175 injection wells. Two more wells are proposed in Pennsylvania’s Warren County, said Kevin Sunday, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection.
Injection wells are used to store waste deep underground, well below water tables, and generally have a good track record around the nation. Some states, including oil producers Texas and Oklahoma, have hundreds of them. In Pennsylvania, the site of history’s first oil well, injection wells never gained popularity, partly because one malfunctioned. Paper mill waste pumped into an injection well in Erie County in the 1970s returned to the surface.
Now earthquakes are the unintended occurrence at one of Ohio’s wells. Since the well was drilled on Dec. 23, 2010, near Youngstown, 11 earthquakes have occurred in the vicinity. After studying readings from seismic monitors placed near the well in November, Columbia University professor John Armbruster said the most recent earthquake on Dec. 31 occurred at the same depth as the well. Armbruster said the well probably caused that quake, the largest so far, which registered magnitude 4.
Afterward, Ohio Gov. John Kasich halted injection drilling near the well.
In March 2011, Arkansas stopped developing new injection wells in a small area of the state after a series of earthquakes, the largest of which reached magnitude 4.7.
Well operators plugged four wells due to the order, whereas more than 700 wells remain in use in the state, Lawrence Bengal, director of the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission, said in an email.
Since the moratorium, some seismic activity has continued in Arkansas, but the number and magnitude of the events has decreased, Bengal said.
In Ohio, the earthquakes have not been powerful enough to damage property.
Moreover, nothing indicates that drilling natural gas wells in Pennsylvania has triggered earthquakes.
Gas wells generally are shallower than injection wells and receive lower volumes of liquid. The liquid pumped into gas wells flows back to the surface, whereas it remains underground in injection wells.
In Pennsylvania, companies drilling gas wells seek to reduce the amount of flowback water that they have to put in injection wells or other disposal sites.
Right now, companies recycle more than 70 percent of the fluid flowing back to the surface after drilling and hydraulically fracturing wells for natural gas, said Travis Windle, a spokesman for the Marcellus Shale Coalition.
“Many operators are near a 100 percent recycle rate,” Windle said.
Recycling is better for the environment and for the budgets of gas companies. By reusing water, companies save on disposal costs and reduce the number of trucks hauling water to wells and carting away waste liquid.
The waste contains water that collects salt and from underground sources, plus sand and chemicals used in the fracturing or fracking process.
Even as technology improvements allow gas companies to recycle a higher percentage of the fluid, some fraction of the liquid still remains as waste to discard.
DEP rules forbid gas companies from treating wastewater and disposing it in streams or rivers, which means injection wells will continue to fill a need.
Lack of planning for wastewater disposal and seismic activity at injection wells in Ohio and Arkansas was the first reason that watershed and wilderness groups cited when recommending revisions to New York’s draft statement on the environmental impact of gas drilling.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulates injection wells, but has no rules against locating wells near faults.
“Other than using common sense when siting these wells, I am not sure that additional regulation would help,” Terry Engelder, professor of geosciences at Penn State University, said in an email.
Engelder said the earthquakes in Youngstown are so small that the faults involved might be invisible to seismic imaging equipment used to examine underground formations.
Before gas companies drill a gas well, Windle said, technicians bounce transmissions of underground rocks to understand the rock’s depth, thickness and potential for holding natural gas.
Fault lines would discourage drillers because earthquakes could damage wells and pipelines.
“It’s not in the company’s interest to produce in a high-risk area near fault lines,” Windle said.
Engelder said fracking a well in the Marcellus Shale touches off thousands of tiny tremors.
“None are felt because they are very, very small,” he said.
Human activity, however, caused more substantial earthquakes, for example, in the 1960s at South African gold mines. The U.S. Army stopped using an injection well at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Commerce City, Colo., in 1966 because of worries that the well caused earthquakes.
Drillers seeking to tap sources of geothermal energy also have caused earthquakes in Basel, Switzerland and Landau, Germany, Philadelphia author Reese Palley writes in “The Answer: Why Only Mini Nuclear Power Plants Can Save the World.”
kjackson@standardspeaker.com, 570-455-3636
Penn State Extension – Natural Gas
Natural Gas < http://extension.psu.edu/naturalgas >
Marcellus shale has the potential to affect many parts of Pennsylvania. Since 2001, we have been actively helping citizens, landowners, businesses, local governments, and others understand the opportunities and challenges arising from Marcellus shale. Let us help you, too.
Webinars < http://extension.psu.edu/naturalgas/webinars/ >
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Old gas wells bring risks of chemicals
www.timesleader.com/news/Old_gas_wells_bring_risks_of_chemicals_01-17-2012.html
TIMOTHY PUKO Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
January 17, 2012
PITTSBURGH — Almost all of the 20 homeowners in Belmar pay to run a water chlorination system to replace what was free well water from an Allegheny River aquifer. In the 1980s, an oil driller polluted the water, in part, they believe, by dumping waste brine into abandoned oil wells that could date to the 1800s, when Edwin L. Drake set off the boom by tapping his famous well in Titusville.
Today the latest gas-drilling rush in the Marcellus Shale may bring an opportunity to plug many of those old wells, but it also brings the risk that old wells could create a path for gas and chemicals to migrate into soil and water.
“The whole area up here is like Swiss cheese,” said Howard Weltner, 80, secretary-treasurer of Belmar Association Inc., which operates the treatment system. “It just has holes through all the different strata in the ground, so there’s an awful lot of opportunities for contamination of the groundwater. And I think a lot of people are concerned about it, and a lot more communities are getting a public system” to replace water wells.
Most of the state’s abandoned wells are in western Pennsylvania. They arc though McKean, Venango and Butler counties and, in smaller clusters, around the Pittsburgh area.
Unplugged wells pose risks of illegal dumping, water pollution, cave-ins, gas seepage and even explosions, but the state can afford to plug only about 130 a year. At that rate, it could take the state more than 61 years to plug the 8,262 remaining wells that officials know about, and more than 1,350 years to plug the rest — if crews could find them.
In the past, drillers abandoned wells because there was no rule that said they couldn’t. Companies that no longer exist cannot be held liable.
The rejuvenation of the fuel-drilling industry in Pennsylvania could provide a chance to deal with abandoned wells, officials say. With the backing of Gov. Tom Corbett, the Senate and House in November passed preliminary bills that would establish “impact fees” on the industry, and some of that money would be put toward plugging old wells.
Drillers pay a surcharge when they obtain permits, which amounts to about $1.5 million annually that the state uses to plug wells, according to DEP figures. The cost of plugging can vary. DEP contracts since 2009 have ranged from as little as $3,027 per well to as much as $194,082, an agency spokesman said.
The Senate’s bill, which proposes higher well fees than the House measure, would generate an additional $25 million annually for statewide environmental projects that would include well plugging, mine drainage cleanup, parks and water quality monitoring.
“We’re trying to tie in ancient environmental problems with new development, which is fantastic,” said David Strong, a Jefferson County environmental scientist who sits on several of DEP’s citizen advisory boards. “We can find new money to fight these old problems.”
It’s in the industry’s interest to help solve those problems, said Strong and several others, including industry officials. One of the biggest problems is finding most of the abandoned wells. If a company unwittingly drills a well near an abandoned well, it can create a path for gas to flow uncontrolled to the surface or into groundwater, costing profits and causing a safety hazard.
Even if an old and new well don’t cross, gas migrating from deep wells can reach abandoned ones and cause contamination through natural fissures, or if man-made seals don’t hold, Smith said.
“Drilling through the rocks that have previously sealed in the formation … a lot depends on the efficiency of those borehole seals in preventing any leakage,” Smith said.
“If there’s any leakage from a Marcellus well, there’s potential for it to make contact with an old, abandoned oil and gas well.”
The issue could become problematic for drillers as they explore the edges of the Marcellus shale play where the oil industry once operated, such as Butler and Venango counties and the northwestern part of the state, industry officials said.
It is not an issue right now for Royal Dutch Shell plc, which operates in western Butler County, but company officials know it could be if they move into “natural expansion” areas such as Venango County, said Bill Langin, who leads Shell’s Appalachian exploration.
Firing of Pa. conservation panel official criticized
www.timesleader.com/news/Firing_of_Pa__conservation_panel_official_criticized_01-17-2012.html
January 17, 2012
PITTSBURGH — The longtime head of a citizens advisory committee on Pennsylvania’s parks and forests has been fired, an action that fellow members and environmentalists say could reduce public oversight over gas drilling in state forests.
Kurt Leitholf, who has been executive director of the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Citizens Advisory Council since 1996, was told last week by the Corbett administration that his position was being eliminated, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said. Leitholf told the paper that he was disappointed by the decision, which took effect Friday.
Department spokeswoman Christina Novak said officials determined that funding a full-time executive director was “not cost-effective.” She said departmental legislative liaison Joe Graci will perform Leitholf’s duties in addition to his own.
Eric Martin, one of two remaining original council members, accused the administration of trying to pre-empt public oversight of the department amid Marcellus Shale gas drilling on forest land.
“Aside from what we the council feel was an illegal firing, this is a clear message from the executive suite regarding citizen involvement and transparency,” he told the paper in an e-mail. “Funny that one of our hot topics is Marcellus Shale.”
Pennsylvania has leased one-third of its 2.1 million-acre forest system for oil and gas drilling, including more than 130,000 acres for Marcellus Shale deep wells. The department has warned that more oil and gas development would damage the ecology and forests.
“As the Corbett administration ignores public opinion and converts more and more of our public lands to gas drilling industrial zones, we need greater oversight, not less,” said Jeff Schmidt, Pennsylvania Sierra Club chapter director.