Report: Pa. data missing nearly 500 gas wells
citizensvoice.com/report-pa-data-missing-nearly-500-gas-wells-1.1255847#axzz1jdK8S8y1
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: January 10, 2012
PITTSBURGH — Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection undercounted the number of wells producing gas from the Marcellus Shale, frustrating industry, environmental groups, and elected officials, according to a newspaper report.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (http://bit.ly/weuty8) reported that an analysis of DEP data found 495 more wells producing gas, or ready to produce gas, than the DEP has recorded as ever being drilled, and that 182 of those wells don’t even show up on the state’s Marcellus Shale permit list.
The discrepancies with DEP’s Marcellus Shale data have caused headaches for Senate and House staff members who have been trying to make accurate projections about how much revenue an impact fee on wells might generate for local governments, the newspaper reported Sunday.
“There has been a frustration over the last six or seven months that DEP does not have information that is always beyond reproach,” said Drew Crompton, chief of staff to Senate President Pro Tem Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson.
Crompton, who has tried to make sense of DEP’s data as the Senate began crafting an impact fee bill last year, said the information problems are so befuddling that it helped delay approval of the bill. Legislators simply haven’t been able to get accurate projections on the financial impact.
“Every time I think I’ve got something locked down, it changes,” said Crompton, who discovered the same data issues that the Post-Gazette did.
The paper reported that the data problems span both the Ed Rendell and Tom Corbett administrations.
Data collection and reporting errors were “something identified through the transition period in the first few months” of Corbett’s term as governor in early 2011, said DEP spokesman Kevin Sunday. “And it’s one we hope to clear up and get more consistent at.”
“We acknowledge that there are issues in both how the data is presented and how it’s coming in,” Sunday told the paper.
Vast stores of natural gas in the Marcellus Shale formation under Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and West Virginia have set off a rush to grab leases and secure permits to drill using the extraction technique called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
Fracking involves the high-pressure injection of millions of gallons of water, along with sand and chemical additives, to liberate gas from the earth. Environmental advocates have complained about fracking’s effects on drinking water, while the industry insists the practice is safe.
The DEP says that since 2007 there have been about 4,200 wells drilled in Pennsylvania, so the 495 missing wells is about a 12 percent error rate on data that are widely quoted by politicians, environmentalists and the industry.
“That’s a significant error rate,” said Bruce Stauffer, vice president of geographIT, a Lancaster-based company that provides geographic information services to industry and governments.
His company also ran into the same problem with the DEP’s data when last year it began putting together Marcellus monitor, the company’s interactive mapping tool that it sells to companies and governments.
“It’s obvious DEP’s data isn’t clear and accurate,” Stauffer said. “Why? I don’t know. And I don’t think they have the answers.”
Penn State Master Well Owner volunteer training opportunities in 2012
Penn State Extension will be offering several training workshops for new Master Well Owner Volunteers in 2012. The six week online course will begin on February 6, 2012. Two Saturday training workshops will also be offered this spring in McKean and Butler Counties. More details on these training workshops, including a link to the online application, are provided below.
Upcoming Training Opportunities for New Master Well Owner Volunteers Pennsylvania is home to over one million private water wells and springs but it is one of the few states that do not provide statewide regulations to protect these rural drinking water supplies. In 2004, Penn State Cooperative Extension and several partner agencies created the Master Well Owner Network (MWON), a group of trained volunteers who are dedicated to promoting the proper construction, testing, and maintenance of private water wells, springs and cisterns throughout Pennsylvania. Since its inception, hundreds of MWON volunteers have been trained in 64 counties throughout Pennsylvania. These volunteers have, in turn, educated tens of thousands of private water system owners across the state.
In 2012, persons interested in becoming a trained Master Well Owner volunteer will have three opportunities.
1) Online MWON volunteer training will occur between February 6, 2012 and March 19, 2012. Volunteers in the online training receive weekly emails containing links to relevant reading in the MWON handbook (A Guide to Private Water Systems in Pennsylvania), a 45-minute video presentation for each chapter, and a short online exam. Participants in online training will largely be able to determine their own training schedule. Volunteers with questions can attend one optional live online meeting at the end of the course. Participants must score a cumulative 70% on all of the online exams to be certified as a MWON volunteer.
2) A standard, Saturday MWON volunteer training workshop will be offered in Butler County (location TBA) on March 24, 2012 from 9 AM until 3:30 PM. Participants will hear presentations from Penn State water specialists, well drillers and other experts. As with the online course, volunteers at the Saturday workshops must score at least 70% on a final exam to be certified.
3) Another standard, Saturday MWON volunteer training workshop will be offered in Smethport, PA (McKean County) on April 21, 2012 from 9 AM to 3:30 PM.
Volunteers who successfully complete any of these training courses and pass the exam(s) will receive a free copy of the 80 page publication – A Guide to Private Water Systems in Pennsylvania, a coupon good for a 10% discount on water testing through the Penn State water testing lab, and access to various MWON educational materials. In return, MWON volunteers are asked to pass along what they have learned to other private water supply owners and submit an annual report of their educational accomplishments.
Prospective volunteers need to submit an application and be accepted into the program. Applications for the online course will only be accepted through January 31, 2012. Applications for the Saturday workshops will be accepted up to one week before the workshop. To be eligible for any MWON training, applicants must not be affiliated with any business that works directly with private water system owners such as employees of water well drilling companies, water testing laboratories or water treatment businesses.
To learn more and the Master Well Owner Network, visit
http://extension.psu.edu/water/mwon
To complete an application to participate in one of the MWON volunteer trainings listed above, visit
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/mwon_application
Note From Carbon County Groundwater Guardians – Consider coming back and helping our efforts – Looking for Volunteers Statewide.
For your information, we wanted to point out a few other resources
1. Mail Order Water Testing Kits or consider using a local water testing laboratory. The mail order testing is done by a Nationally Certified Laboratory and a portion of the proceeds that help support this organization.
2. New Education Guide for Private Well Owners in PA – What do the numbers mean and Insights into Baseline Water Testing? (Proceeds Benefit this Organization- free online read only version)
3. Our Online FREE Library of Pdf, videos, powerpoint presenations for private well owners.
4. Our New Flier
Dimock Township residents plan rally, press conference
www.timesleader.com/news/Dimock-Township-residents-plan-rally-press-conference.html
Jan. 11, 2012
Residents of Dimock Township, Susquehanna County, and members of two advocacy groups have scheduled a rally and press conference in Philadelphia in an effort to gain U.S. Environmental Protection Agency action on what they contend is drinking water contamination caused by natural gas drilling.
Two activists groups – Protecting Our Waters and Frack Action – issued the following press release, and included a letter sent to EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, posted here.
Health and Science Professionals Letter to EPA
Dimock Residents, Public Health and Environmental Advocates Urge EPA to Send Water to Dimock:
“These families must not endure another day without access to safe drinking water!”
Who: Residents of Dimock, Protecting Our Waters, Frack Action
What: Morning rally and press conference:
1. Demonstration asking EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to “do the right thing” by delivering clean water to victims of gas industry water contamination
2. Press Conference featuring residents of Dimock, PA, including Craig and Julie Sautner; and public health and environmental advocates
When:
- Friday, January 13, 2012
- 8:30am: Rally
- 9:00am: Press Conference,
- 9:30am: Lisa Jackson speaks at Town Hall (inside)
- Where: outside Academy of Natural Sciences, 1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, PA 19103
Background: Nineteen families in Dimock, Pennsylvania have suffered from contaminated drinking water for over three years. Despite enormous pressure brought to bear on them to sign a legal agreement requiring them to fall silent regarding their drinking water contamination, caused by Cabot Oil and Gas, eleven of the families have not signed a “non-disclosure clause” and therefore have maintained their freedom of speech. In December the EPA received documents showing the intensity and toxicity of these families’ drinking water contamination. The EPA has responded by telling the families, according to Craig Sautner, that “they absolutely don’t want us using our [water] wells at all.”
Yet Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has not only reneged on a promise made by former PA DEP Secretary John Hanger to provide all the affected families with a clean and permanent supply of drinking water, but it has allowed Cabot to cease providing safe clean drinking waters for these families. The families are becoming increasingly desperate, since Cabot’s last delivery was on November 30th.
Last week, several of the Dimock families received phone calls from EPA Region 3, based in Philadelphia, assuring them that EPA would begin delivering safe clean water to them by Friday or Saturday. No delivery has happened and the EPA has, at this time, backed down from that promise.
“Water is a fundamental human right,” said Alex Allen, Associate Director of Protecting Our Waters.
Biologist, author and cancer survivor Sandra Steingraber wrote a letter signed by 26 physicians and health professionals on Monday, December 9th (attached), which said, “we call on EPA to assure that the families of Dimock do not endure another day without access to safe drinking water.”
A partial list of the contaminants in the drinking water of Dimock is here: http://protectingourwaters.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/protecting-our-waters-goes-to-dimock-whats-in-their-safe-water/ and a list of contaminants specifically in the Sautners’ water is here (scroll down): http://protectingourwaters.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/urgent-comment-by-5-pm-wednesday-11112-on-new-york-state-impact-statement/
Penn State water-well expert testifies before state House committee
live.psu.edu/story/57083
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Bryan Swistock, senior water resources extension associate at Penn State, testified before the House Consumer Affairs Committee on problems with Pennsylvania water wells.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A Penn State Extension water specialist told a House committee on Jan. 10 that research has shown that about 40 percent of all water wells in the state fail to meet at least one safe-drinking-water standard.
Bryan Swistock, senior water resources extension associate at Penn State, testified before the House Consumer Affairs Committee in a hearing on House Bill 1855, which would create standards for water-well construction. Pennsylvania is currently one of just a few states that do not have statewide requirements for the construction of private water wells.
“While proper well construction does not completely eliminate water-quality problems, it clearly plays a role in preventing surface contaminants from getting into wells,” he said. “Our research has shown that inadequate water-well construction is a contributing factor to the failure of some private wells to meet safe-drinking-water standards.”
Swistock noted that for the past 23 years he has conducted both research and outreach programs offered by Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences related to private water wells in Pennsylvania.
“We recognize that private water wells are a critical part of the water infrastructure in Pennsylvania, providing drinking water to millions of residents in rural homes, farms and businesses,” he testified.
“In the absence of both regulatory protections and unbiased assistance, Penn State has devoted considerable research and extension efforts to meet the demands of private well owners interested in properly constructing and managing their drinking water supply.”
Over the past three decades, Swistock pointed out, the university has conducted numerous research projects on various aspects of water quality that have included thousands of private water wells.
“Our research has consistently found that approximately 40 percent of private water wells in Pennsylvania fail to meet at least one safe-drinking-water standard,” he said. “The most frequently detected pollutant with a potential health effect is coliform bacteria, which occurred in about one third of the water wells tested in our research.
“The presence of these bacteria indicates the potential for disease-causing bacteria to occur in drinking water. E. coli bacteria, which originate from either animal or human wastes and thus represent a more serious health risk, were found in 14 percent of the water wells in our recent study.”
While these bacteria can be related to various land uses near water wells, they also can occur from surface water, insects or small mammals entering poorly constructed wells, Swistock explained. This surface contamination often can be prevented by extending a properly sized well casing above the ground surface, installing a cement-like grout seal around the casing, and fitting the top of the casing with a vermin-proof or “sanitary” well cap.
According to Swistock, recent Penn State research found that many water wells lack at least one of these water well features. “More importantly, this same research showed a statistical correlation between water-well construction and the occurrence of both coliform bacteria and E. coli bacteria in the well water,” he said.
“Bacterial contamination rates in water wells with sanitary construction were about half of the rates found in water wells that lacked any sanitary construction components.”
An earlier, small-scale Penn State study found that some bacterial contamination in water wells could be removed simply by having a water-well professional disinfect the well and replace loosely fitted well caps with a sealed, sanitary well cap.
Unfortunately, many rural residents are unaware of water-quality problems, Swistock told the committee. Most bacteria problems and similar problems with health-related pollutants in water wells often are discovered only after proper testing by a state-accredited laboratory and interpretation of these water-test records.
“Several of our research projects have shown that homeowners with water wells that fail at least one health-based drinking water standard are typically unaware that their water is unsafe,” he said. “Just as one example, of the 203 water wells that contained unsafe levels of coliform bacteria in our 2006 study, only 11 percent were aware of this problem before our study.
“We have found that about one-third of water-well owners have never had their water tested properly by a state-accredited laboratory, and many who have done testing don’t understand the meaning of the results.”
Inadequate water well construction and the lack of awareness of water-quality problems by well owners represent significant potential health risks among the millions of rural residents, farmers and businesses that access the shared groundwater resource, Swistock concluded.
Fracking Moratorium Urged as Doctors Call for Health Study
www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-10/fracking-moratorium-urged-as-doctors-call-for-health-study.html
By Alex Wayne
January 10, 2012
The U.S. should declare a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing for natural gas in populated areas until the health effects are better understood, doctors said at a conference on the drilling process.
Gas producers should set up a foundation to finance studies on fracking and independent research is also needed, said Jerome Paulson, a pediatrician at George Washington University School of Medicine in Washington. Top independent producers include Chesapeake Energy Corp. and Devon Energy Corp., both of Oklahoma City, and Encana Corp. of Calgary, according to Bloomberg Industries.
“We’ve got to push the pause button, and maybe we’ve got to push the stop button” on fracking, said Adam Law, an endocrinologist at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, in an interview at a conference in Arlington, Virginia that’s the first to examine criteria for studying the process.
Fracking injects water, sand and chemicals into deep shale formations to free trapped natural gas. A boom in production with the method helped increase supplies, cutting prices 32 percent last year. The industry, though, hasn’t disclosed enough information on chemicals used, Paulson said, raising concerns about tainted drinking water supplies and a call for peer- reviewed studies on the effects. The EPA is weighing nationwide regulation.
Longstanding Process
“We need to understand fully all of the chemicals that are shot into the ground, that could impact the water that children drink,” Representative Ed Markey of Massachusetts, a senior Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a phone interview. The industry is trying “to block that information from being public,” he said.
The gas industry has used hydraulic fracturing for 65 years in 30 states with a “demonstrable history of safe operations,” said Chris Tucker, a spokesman for Energy In Depth, a Washington-based research and advocacy group financed by oil and gas interests, in an e-mail. Drilling in shale deposits in the eastern U.S. began in 2004.
Gas drillers have to report to the U.S., state and local authorities any chemicals used in fracking that are “considered hazardous in high concentrations” in case of spills or other emergencies, Tucker said. Those reports don’t include amounts or concentrations, he said.
The industry created a public website last April for companies to voluntarily report lists of chemicals used in individual wells, including concentrations. Colorado and Wyoming have passed laws requiring drillers to file reports to the website, Tucker said.
Hazards Unknown
Despite those disclosures, U.S. officials say they don’t know all of the hazards associated with fracking chemicals.
“We don’t know the chemicals that are involved, really; we sort of generally know,” Vikas Kapil, chief medical officer at National Center for Environmental Health, part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at the conference. “We don’t have a great handle on the toxicology of fracking chemicals.”
The government has found anecdotal evidence that drilling can contaminate water supplies. In December, the EPA reported that underground aquifers and drinking wells in Pavillion, Wyoming, contained compounds that probably came from gas drilling, including glycols, alcohols, benzene and methane. The CDC has detected “explosive levels of methane” in two wells near gas sites in Medina, Ohio, Kapil said.
He said he wasn’t authorized to take reporters’ questions after his presentation.
Chemicals Used
Fluids used in hydraulic fracturing contain “potentially hazardous chemical classes,” Kapil’s boss, Christopher Portier, director of The National Center for Environmental Health, said last week. The compounds include petroleum distillates, volatile organic compounds and glycol ethers, he said. Wastewater from the wells can contain salts and radiation, Portier said.
U.S. natural gas production rose to a record 2.5 trillion cubic feet in October, a 15 percent increase from October 2008.
A moratorium on fracking pending more health research “would be reasonable,” said Paulson, who heads the Mid- Atlantic Center for Children’s Health and the Environment in Washington, in an interview. His group is funded in part by the CDC and Environmental Protection Agency, he said, and helped sponsor the conference with Law’s organization, Physicians Scientists and Engineers for Healthy Energy.
Tucker called the CDC’s participation in the conference “disappointing,” saying the conference is “a closed-door pep- rally against oil and natural gas development.”
Representatives of Chevron Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp. and the American Petroleum Institute, a trade group, registered to attend the conference.
–With assistance from Katarzyna Klimasinska in Washington. Editors: Adriel Bettelheim, Reg Gale
To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Wayne in Washington at awayne3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Adriel Bettelheim at abettelheim@bloomberg.net
Pennsylvania Fracking Foes Fault EPA Over Tainted Water Response
www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-10/pennsylvania-fracking-foes-fault-epa-over-tainted-water-response.html
By Jim Snyder and Mark Drajem
January 10, 2012
When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency called to say it would start delivering fresh water to their home, Ron and Jean Carter thought they gained an ally in a long fight with Cabot Oil & Gas Corp.
A retreat by the federal government within two days has left them feeling abandoned yet again in a bid to clean up water they say was turned toxic by Cabot’s use of hydraulic fracturing to hunt for gas in Pennsylvania.
“These agencies were developed to help us, and they don’t,” Jean Carter said in an interview in her home, which is about 326 feet (99 meters) from a Cabot well. Although her reserves of water are sufficient for now, she took it as a snub. “We just keep getting hurt all the way around, as if we weren’t hurt enough.”
The Carters and other families in Dimock — a community of 1,368 and a single, blinking traffic light along Highway 29 in northeast Pennsylvania — have come to symbolize the national debate over the use of fracking, in which water and chemicals are shot into the earth to free gas or oil from rock formations. Their case has taken on a new importance as the EPA says it will test well water in the area, and advised residents not to drink from their wells — reversing an earlier, initial determination that the water was safe.
Dimock residents say their water went bad more than three years ago. Since then more questions have been raised about the safety of fracking.
Read more
DEP: Cabot drilling caused methane in Lenox water wells
citizensvoice.com/news/dep-cabot-drilling-caused-methane-in-lenox-water-wells-1.1255042#axzz1iyajDcbK
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: January 9, 2012
Methane in three private water wells in Lenox Township seeped there from a flawed natural gas well drilled by Cabot Oil and Gas Corp., state environmental regulators have found.
An investigation by the Department of Environmental Protection determined that the gas migrated from at least one of three Marcellus Shale wells drilled on the Stalter well pad about half a mile west of Interstate 81 in Susquehanna County.
The gas was found seeping into three water supplies beginning in August 2011. A fourth water well for a hunting cabin is still being evaluated, DEP spokesman Daniel Spadoni said.
Video taken from inside one of Cabot’s gas wells showed that a string of steel casing meant to seal off the aquifer from gas and other contaminants was improperly constructed, according to a notice of violation sent to the company by DEP in September.
Methane was also found between the cemented strings of casing in all three gas wells on the Stalter pad, a sign state regulators view as evidence of flaws in a well’s construction.
The dissolved methane in one nearby water supply jumped from 0.3 milligrams per liter before drilling began to 49 milligrams per liter on Aug. 16 and 57 milligrams per liter on Aug. 18, according to the violation notice.
Cabot installed methane detection alarms in three homes and vented the three affected water wells to keep the methane from accumulating and creating an explosion risk. The company is also delivering replacement drinking water to two of the homes, Spadoni said. The methane in the third water well has decreased so the home does not require an alternate water supply, he said.
Cabot spokesman George Stark said Friday that the company submitted a detailed response to the DEP and is working with regulators on the issue.
“Cabot is committed to safe and responsible operations and takes matters like this very seriously,” he said. “We believe in fact-based, scientific research to guide any necessary corrective actions.”
Department regulators sent Cabot a violation notice on Sept. 19, but neither the department’s public eFACTS compliance database nor its monthly oil and gas violations report noted the inspection or violations until last week, when a Times-Shamrock reporter asked about the status of the investigation.
DEP policy requires the oil and gas program to update the eFACTS database within 10 working days of completing an inspection or mailing a notice of violations.
Spadoni said the missing information was “an oversight.”
State regulators determined in 2009 that faulty Cabot gas wells were also responsible for a prominent case of methane contamination affecting 19 homes in Dimock Township, about 10 miles west of the Lenox site. Cabot has said natural conditions, not its operations, caused the contamination in that case.
llegere@timesshamrock.com
Dimock residents: EPA to deliver water
thetimes-tribune.com/news/dimock-residents-epa-to-deliver-water-1.1254586#axzz1imYLPHPX
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: January 7, 2012
Federal environmental regulators took steps Friday to deliver drinking water to several Dimock Twp. homes where tainted well water has been tied to nearby gas drilling, according to three families who spoke with EPA officials.
The families, each of which received a phone call from a different regional staff member of the Environmental Protection Agency, said the regulators told them the agency had contracted a water hauler to begin deliveries today.
Efforts to reach two of those EPA officials, community involvement coordinator Vance Evans and on-scene coordinator Rich Fetzer, were unsuccessful Friday. The third official, community involvement coordinator Trish Taylor, directed questions to an EPA spokeswoman who said in an email that “no decision has been made by EPA to provide alternate sources of water.”
“At this time, our goal is understanding the situation in Dimock and evaluating additional options, including further sampling,” spokeswoman Terri White said.
If the agency begins water deliveries, it will step squarely into the fractious debate over natural gas drilling in Dimock, where state officials have found that Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. allowed methane to seep from faulty Marcellus Shale wells into 18 water supplies.
Cabot halted bulk and bottled water deliveries to the families on Dec. 1 after the state said the company had met the relevant terms of a December 2010 settlement over the contamination – including offering to install methane removal systems that many residents have rejected saying they do not remove metals and other contaminants in their water.
Federal environmental regulators reopened their investigation of Dimock water wells last week. The EPA reversed course after reviewing water test results released only after the agency’s Dec. 2 announcement that outside water tests showed the water posed no “immediate health threat.”
Those tests, taken in August and September by a Cabot contractor, showed elevated levels of metals and bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, a plasticizer commonly called DEHP. They also detected other chemicals including glycols, which are used in antifreeze, surfactants and 2-methoxyethanol, a solvent, in the drinking water wells.
Cabot denies it caused contamination in Dimock, which it says occurs naturally or can be attributed to other sources. Spokesman George Stark said Friday that Cabot is cooperating with the EPA by providing it with water test data it has already shared with state environmental regulators.
“Cabot has not been informed by the EPA of any further action at this time,” he said.
State governments generally regulate oil and gas drilling, but federal officials are conducting a study of the impact of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, on drinking water supplies in several U.S. states, including Susquehanna County in Pennsylvania.
The calls from EPA officials on Friday were gratefully received by Dimock families, many of whom were running out of water that had been trucked in by volunteer groups after Cabot-supplied deliveries ended.
Scott Ely said his family of five last received a water delivery on Monday and his wife had to wash her hair in the sink Friday morning to conserve the little they have left in a bulk tank outside.
“It’s good, good news,” he said.
Contact the writer: llegere@timesshamrock.com
EPA report links groundwater contamination to natural gas drilling
www.bayjournal.com/article.cfm?article=4272
January 2012
The EPA has issued a draft report confirming what many environmental groups have long suspected: Natural gas drilling is causing groundwater contamination.
The agency conducted its water testing in Pavilion, WY – a town that is replete with gas wells, and where residents have long complained of sickness after drinking their water. The agency’s samples, collected between March of 2009 and April of 2011, found high concentrations of diesel fuel, methane, benzene and chloride. Those chemicals are found in the fluids used in hydrofracking, the process that natural gas companies use to extract gas from shale formations deep underground.
The findings don’t mean that the EPA will find the same problems in the Marcellus Shale region, which stretches across New York and Pennsylvania and includes slivers of Maryland and Virginia. Wyoming sits above a different shale formation. But the study’s findings do give scientific credibility to what a lot of residents across rural Pennsylvania have endured since drilling began about four years ago. Many who live near drilling sites report finding dead fish in their streams after drilling fluid spilled, or dead or sick farm animals after drilling fluids contaminated their ponds. Individual companies across Pennsylvania have been fined, cited and sued for causing contamination.
Several environmental groups, including the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, have filed a petition under the National Environmental Policy Act for a federal analysis on the effects of fracking in the Bay watershed.
The EPA emphasized the findings were only a draft, and the study still needs to undergo a public comment period and a peer review. But immediately, politicians on both sides of the aisle began using the preliminary findings to bolster their case.
Many Republicans, who would like drilling to be controlled on a state-by-state basis, excoriated the EPA for releasing incomplete data and demanded a more rigorous peer-review process. They said the EPA did not sample enough wells and worried the conclusions would harm Wyoming’s economy, which relies heavily on natural gas drilling.
Many Democrats, meanwhile, said the finding bolstered their efforts to restrict natural gas drilling in some states, and better regulate it nationwide. Democrats in New York are pushing for the passage of an act that would require drilling companies to not only disclose which chemicals are in the fracking fluids used to extract the gas from the rock, but their amounts.
Discussions continue in New York on whether to allow fracking to resume. The state put in a moratorium on drilling in 2008, but Gov. Andrew Cuomo would like to see it lifted, primarily because upstate New York could use the economic boost. The Delaware River Basin Commission has not yet voted on whether to allow fracking in its watershed.
Environmental groups are also stepping up their own investigations of fracking. CBF hired a videographer to document air emissions at several fracking sites, then sent a letter with their findings to the EPA. The Environmental Working Group, meanwhile, just released “Drilling Doublespeak,” a report on how landowners have been deceived into leasing their property for drilling. Josh Fox, director of the film “Gasland,” said he is working on a follow-up, “Gasland II.” The first film, which showed faucets on fire because of methane in the water, was nominated for an Oscar in 2011.
Pennsylvania Fracking Site Gets U.S. Scrutiny After Complaints
www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-06/pennsylvania-fracking-site-gets-u-s-scrutiny-after-complaints.html
By Mark Drajem
January 06, 2012
Water from wells in a Pennsylvania town near a gas-drilling site that used hydraulic fracturing will be collected and sampled by U.S. regulators after residents complained, the Environmental Protection Agency said.
Cabot Oil & Gas Co., which in April 2010 said it settled with state regulators over methane contamination in 14 water wells in Dimock, Pennsylvania, has agreed to postpone its drilling there.
“We will evaluate the sampling results and share them with the residents,” Betsaida Alcantara, an EPA spokeswoman, said yesterday in an e-mail. Residents gave the EPA information about the water, although “there are gaps” in the data, she said.
A boom in gas production using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, helped increase supplies, cutting prices 32 percent last year, while raising environmental concerns about tainted drinking water supplies. The EPA is studying the effects of fracking on water and weighing nationwide regulations.
President Barack Obama has said increased drilling for natural gas is a way to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil and coal, which is more damaging to the environment when burned. Officials in his administration have been cautious when discussing possible health effects of fracking.
“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,” Alcantara said.
Wyoming Tests
The EPA released a report on Dec. 8 tying chemicals in groundwater in west-central Wyoming to fracking, the first time it made that link. Encana Corp., which was operating in that area, said the EPA erred in its draft report.
In addition to the individual studies, the EPA is undertaking a review of groundwater in fracking areas, and said it will propose rules to force chemical makers to disclose products used in the process.
The EPA study of drinking water is set to be completed in 2014.
Fracking is a process that injects water, sand and chemicals into deep shale formations to free trapped natural gas. The process accounts for about a third of the U.S. gas supply, up from 14 percent in 2009, according to the U.S. Energy Department.
Fracking permits are issued by states, the primary regulators of oil and gas operations. Industry groups such as the American Petroleum Institute have said regulation should remain in the hands of state officials who are closest to local concerns and know the most about differences in geology that affect drilling.
A spokesman for Cabot, George Stark, didn’t return a telephone and e-mail message.