Two Big Decisions Loom for 15 Million People Living Near the Marcellus Shale
www.alternet.org/environment/152934/two_big_decisions_loom_on_the_fate_of_drinking_water_for_15_million_people_living_near_the_marcellus_shale
November 1, 2011
Two Big Decisions Loom on the Fate of Drinking Water for 15 Million People Living Near the Marcellus Shale
Decisions about whether to allow fracking in NY, PA, NJ and DE may be decided in just a few weeks.
The fate of fracking in the Northeast may be determined soon.
On Nov. 21, the Delaware River Basin Commission, comprising representatives from four states (New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware) and the federal government, will vote on whether to allow the intensive method of natural-gas drilling in the river’s watershed. The watershed, which supplies drinking water for more than 15 million people, overlaps the eastern end of the Marcellus Shale, an underground geological formation touted as the “Saudi Arabia of natural gas.”
The commission’s rules, which will apply in the Delaware watershed, will overlap with state regulations. Pennsylvania already allows fracking. New York is in the process of developing regulations about where it might be allowed and under what conditions. The state Department of Environmental Conservation will hold public hearings in November, and says it will decide sometime next year. Many environmental activists believe Gov. Andrew Cuomo is fast-tracking the issue.
The Background
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Free Pre-Drilling Private Drinking Water Testing Offered
paenvironmentdaily.blogspot.com/2011/11/free-pre-drilling-private-drinking.html
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Free Pre-Drilling Private Drinking Water Testing Offered In 8 Northcentral Counties
The Headwaters Quality Drinking Water Project of the Headwaters Resource Conservation & Development Council is now providing low income families in Jefferson, Elk, Potter, Cameron, Clearfield, Clinton, Centre and McKean Counties with secure chain of custody water sample analyses of their private water supplies prior to Marcellus Shale Gas Well Drilling activities.
A $150,000 grant from the Colcom Foundation’s Marcellus Environmental Fund supports this project.
The Headwaters Project is also providing mandatory educational workshops and material explaining how to interpret the water quality results, when do things become toxic, and what the homeowner should do in case something does happen to their water supply.
RC&D will partner with various organizations and agencies including the Department of Environmental Protection, Penn State Extension and the local school districts and conservation districts.
Jefferson & Clearfield Counties
The first set of water samplings will take place in Jefferson and Clearfield Counties. Testing will be conducted from October 24 through December 2 with a mandatory educational workshop following.
For folks living in Jefferson County, the workshop will be held on December 15 from 5-7 p.m., location to be determined. For Clearfield County, the workshop will be held on December 14 from 5-7 p.m., location to be determined.
Elk & Centre Counties
The second set of water samplings will take place in Elk and Centre Counties. Testing will be conducted January 9 through February 17 with a mandatory educational workshop following.
For folks living in Elk County, the workshop will be held on March 8 from 5-7 p.m., location to be determined. For Centre County, the workshop will be held on March 7 from 5-7 p.m., location to be determined.
Cameron & Clinton Counties
The third set of water samplings will take place in Cameron and Clinton Counties. Testing will be conducted March 12 through April 20 with a mandatory educational workshop following.
For folks living in Cameron County, the workshop will be held on May 10 from 5-7 p.m., location to be determined. For Clinton County, the workshop will be held on May 9 from 5-7 p.m., location to be determined.
McKean & Potter Counties
The fourth set of water samplings will take place in McKean and Potter Counties. Testing will be conducted May 14 through June 22 with a mandatory educational workshop following.
For folks living in McKean County, the workshop will be held on July 11 from 5-7 p.m., location to be determined. For Potter County, the workshop will be held on July 12 from 5-7 p.m., location to be determined.
Applications can be obtained at the Clearfield County Conservation District located at 511 Spruce Street Suite 6, Clearfield, PA 16830 and are available online.
For more information, contact Kelly Williams, Clearfield County Conservation District’s Watershed Conservationist at 814-765-2629 or send email to: kwilliamsccd@atlanticbbn.net.
The Headwaters Resource Conservation & Development Council is tasked with providing local leadership to improve the economic, environmental, and social well-being of the people of Cameron, Centre, Clearfield, Clinton, Elk, Jefferson, McKean, and Potter counties in northcentral Pennsylvania.
Posted by David E. Hess at 11:37 AM
Private well survey and database planned in PA
www.riverreporteronline.com/news/14/2011/10/26/private-well-survey-and-database-planned-pa
October 26, 2011
TRR photo by Sandy Long
Brian Oram, a licensed professional geologist, offered this advice at a presentation in Honesdale, PA: “If you want to protect the Delaware and Susquehanna rivers, you need to protect where the water gets into the aquifer and that is in rural private wells.”
In preparation for natural gas extraction and its potential impacts and opportunities, a session on methane migration was hosted by the Wayne County Oil and Gas Task Force on October 18 in Honesdale.
During his presentation, licensed professional geologist Brian Oram announced that a private well owner and watershed survey would be conducted to obtain information on regional concerns related to development of the Marcellus Shale.
Oram is the owner of BF Environmental Consultants, Inc. of Dallas, PA and former director of the Center for Environmental Quality at Wilkes University, where he oversaw production of a free publication on private well water testing (www.bfenvironmental.com/pdfs/Waterbooklet070610.pdf).
Oram opened his presentation with a plea to move beyond the division created by supporters and opponents of gas drilling and to focus on “understanding the risks” and testing private wells now. “It’s the match of the century,” Oram said. “Which side are we on? That’s the mindset that’s causing us problems.”
The primary risk Oram points to is the fact that nearly half of the private wells tested in Pennsylvania don’t meet the drinking water standards established by the EPA. Typical problems include corrosion, copper, lead, iron, manganese and methane, according to Oram.
“For 23 years, I’ve been encouraging private owners to test their water,” he said. “Maybe five percent do. It took an industry to come to town to get people to think about the quality of their own drinking water and to get it tested.”
Oram also discussed the Citizen Groundwater Database established at Wilkes University
(www.wilkes.edu/pages/4197.asp).
The regional database provides a central location to store baseline pre-drilling and/or post-drilling water quality data in order to document quality by geological formation, identify existing regional issues or concerns and provide an unbiased community resource as well as a mechanism to track temporal,
spatial and other geospatial variations in water quality.
Data from 320 private wells in Luzerne County, secured with a full chain of custody and third party testing, is already stored. “Forty-nine percent of the wells tested in Luzerne County violated the drinking water standard for total coliform bacteria,” he said. “Twenty-five percent had elevated lead; 10% of the population is drinking water contaminated with e coli. Some private wells contain pthalates (plasticizers), which can cause gastrointestinal problems and are suspected endocrine disruptors and carcinogens.”
Oram is a passionate advocate for the establishment of well construction standards, and an active critic of “what PA has allowed to happen to the private well program” by not implementing such standards. Pennsylvania is one of two states without construction standards, according to Oram. The other is Alaska.
Wells with problems such as bacterial or viral contamination are conduits for contamination of aquifers, Oram added. “We need to fix those. These are the vulnerable points in our communities.” Water can also move along casings and contaminate the groundwater aquifer, he said.
Oram urged audience members to get baseline testing done now. “Spend what you can afford,” he said. “There’s a list of recommended DEP parameters which runs about $400.” If doing baseline testing, he recommends adding tests for methane, ethane and propane.
BF Environmental’s Private Well Owner Survey seeks information on regional concerns related to Marcellus Shale and other non-point sources of pollution. The survey also aims to gauge support for a construction standard for new private wells, and to find out if citizens would test their water once a year if it only cost about $50.
The company is also absorbing the costs for free radon testing for 200 private wells to explore “how a migration event could occur if it may be related to a Marcellus Shale activity.” The web-based survey (www.surveymonkey.com/s/NMG6RQ3can) can be filled out online or mailed in. The company also offers baseline testing related to Marcellus Shale development and has recommended testing packages that are region specific.
Oram urged local leadership to use the results of such testing to inform decision-making, support solutions that fix problematic private wells and develop a community support program where citizens can call and get answers.
The event also featured Burt Waite, senior geologist and program director for Moody and Associates, Inc. who spoke on “Understanding Stray Gas in Pennsylvania.” Wayne County commissioners Brian Smith and Wendell Kay offered concluding remarks.
“Understand the risks,” said Smith. “Make good decisions based on what the risks really are and do that by talking to the people who have the skill sets that can help address those risks and solve the problems. That’s what we’re doing by having these forums.”
Kay added, “The goal of this organization is to educate as many of us as possible to all the aspects. This commission is looking at a whole variety of issues, both positive and negative, that will come about as part of this economic opportunity that we all hope we will enjoy.”
For more information visit www.bfen vironmental.com, www.water-research.net, www.wilkes.edu/water or www.epa.gov/safewater.
Study looks at water quality in private wells near Marcellus drilling
live.psu.edu/story/55987#nw69
October 25, 2011
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A study of more than 200 drinking-water wells near Marcellus Shale natural-gas
Bryan Swistock, extension water resource specialist, led the first 'unbiased and large-scale study of water quality in private water wells .. both before and after the drilling of Marcellus gas wells nearby.'
wells in 20 counties did not find statistically significant evidence of contamination from hydraulic fracturing — a process used by gas drillers to release natural gas using a high-pressure mixture of water, sand and chemical additives.
The study was conducted by researchers and extension educators in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences. The research was funded by the state General Assembly’s Center for Rural Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Water Resources Research Center at Penn State. A free online seminar focusing on the study results will take place from noon to 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 1. Information about how to register for the live webinar can be found at http://extension.psu.edu/water/webinar-series/schedule online. A recorded version will be available for those who cannot log in for the live offering.
“This is the first project to provide an unbiased and large-scale study of water quality in private water wells used to supply drinking water to rural homes and farms both before and after the drilling of Marcellus gas wells nearby,” said project leader Bryan Swistock, water resources extension specialist.
Conducted from February 2010 to July 2011, the study found methane in about a quarter of the water wells before any drilling occurred, but the concentrations were generally below advisory levels for treatment, Swistock said. The presence of methane can be naturally occurring or related to drilling activity.
“We really didn’t see any significant changes in methane levels after drilling or hydraulic fracturing,” he added.
There is no federal drinking water standard for methane as it can be ingested without harm, but high levels can cause an explosion hazard as the dissolved methane escapes from water.
Elevated levels of dissolved bromide were measured in some water wells and appeared to be a result of the gas-well drilling process and not hydraulic fracturing.
“Bromide was not detected in any of the water wells before drilling, but it did show up in several wells after drilling, which needs to be investigated further,” Swistock said.
The study’s modest number of samples for methane and bromide and the relatively short length of the study speak to the need for additional data collection and analysis, Swistock pointed out.
“Future research should look at a broader number of water contaminants over a longer period of time,” Swistock said. “More detailed and longer-term studies are critical to ensuring that Pennsylvanians’ private water supplies are protected.”
Wells in the study were not randomly selected. Project publicity solicited participation from well owners who knew gas drilling was going to occur near them, and many responded by contacting Swistock or other project investigators working for Penn State Extension.
“Our network of Penn State Extension educators throughout the state was absolutely critical to the efficient completion of this project,” Swistock said.
The first phase of the study included 48 private water wells located within about 2,500 feet of a Marcellus well pad. These wells were tested by Penn State researchers both before and after gas-well drilling. Twenty-six of the 48 were near Marcellus wells that were drilled and fracked, 16 sites had drilling but no fracking, and six sites were controls where no drilling or fracking occurred.
These wells were tested for 18 common water-quality parameters that could occur from gas-drilling activity, including chloride, barium, sodium, iron, manganese, methane, ethane, bromide, and oil and grease.
The second phase was comprised of 185 additional private water wells located within about 5,000 feet of a Marcellus well pad. Homeowners provided water test results collected by independent, state-accredited laboratories prior to Marcellus gas-well drilling. These tests then were compared with samples collected by Penn State personnel or by homeowners trained by Penn State personnel after gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing occurred.
Phase two included 173 sites near hydraulically fractured gas wells and 12 control sites where no drilling had occurred with five miles. These wells were tested for 14 common water quality parameters — methane, ethane, bromide and oil and grease were not included due to funding and sample-collection constraints.
Separate statistical analyses of results from each phase of the project produced similar results, according to Swistock.
In addition to the increased bromide concentrations in some water wells, a small number of water wells examined in the study also appeared to be affected by disturbance due to drilling, as evidenced by sediment and/or increased levels of iron and manganese that were noticeable to the water-supply owner and confirmed by water-testing results.
“While most water wells, even within 3,000 feet of a Marcellus well, did not have changes in water quality after drilling or hydraulic fracturing, that was the distance where we did sporadically measure increased bromide, sediment or metals. This seems to be the distance that we need to focus on for future testing and research,” Swistock said.
In addition to future research directions, the study also identified critical education needs for owners of private water wells. Most water-well owners had difficulty interpreting detailed water-test reports that they received as part of pre-drilling surveys, according to the researchers.
“As a result, most homeowners with pre-drilling water-quality problems were unable to identify them even after receiving extensive water-testing reports,” Swistock said. “There is a clear need to help homeowners understand pre-drilling problems, their risks and how to solve them.”
Other investigators on this project were Elizabeth Boyer, associate professor of water resources and director of the Pennsylvania Water Resources Research Center in the School of Forest Resources; James Clark, extension educator based in McKean County; Mark Madden, extension educator based in Sullivan County; and Dana Rizzo, extension educator based in Westmoreland County.
The full initial report and executive summary of this study are available on the Center for Rural Pennsylvania’s website at http://www.rural.palegislature.us/. The investigators currently are preparing this work to submit for publication in the peer-reviewed literature.
Citizens group seeks tougher gas rules
thetimes-tribune.com/news/gas-drilling/citizens-group-seeks-tougher-gas-rules-1.1222909#axzz1bnmom3Ug
BY ROBERT SWIFT (HARRISBURG BUREAU CHIEF)
Published: October 25, 2011
HARRISBURG – Pennsylvania should enact stricter rules to protect air quality and surface water and groundwater from the impact of natural gas drilling, a report issued by the Citizens Marcellus Shale Commission said on Monday.
The commission was formed as a counterpart to Gov. Tom Corbett’s Marcellus Shale Commission and held hearings this fall around the state, including Wysox and Williamsport.
The governor’s commission made no recommendations to control or monitor air pollution from well flaring, equipment leaks and compressor engines, said Thomas Au, a Pennsylvania Sierra Club official.
The citizens’ commission recommends several steps, including more state monitoring of air pollutants in the vicinity of wells and compressor engines and stronger enforcement at drilling sites of state laws that limit truck idling. Other recommendations call for a state drilling tax, restoring the authority of county conservation districts to review stormwater permits and establishing an office of state consumer environmental advocate.
Pennsylvania should ban drilling in flood plains, said John Trallo, a commission member from Sonestown, Sullivan County. Mr. Trallo is chairman of Residents United for Pennsylvania/Sullivan County chapter.
Forest clear-cutting to open space for drilling pads will make future floods even worse than those that hit the region in September, he said.
“We repeatedly heard that natural gas development has moved too quickly,” said Roberta Winters, an official with the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania about testimony at the hearings. “Pennsylvania was and is still not prepared to limit the risks and address its impact.”
The group’s report appears with time running out for a Senate Republican leader’s call for action on an impact fee bill on natural gas drilling during October. President Pro Tempore Joseph Scarnati, R-25, Jefferson County, is sponsor of an impact fee bill that won tentative approval from a Senate committee last spring but has yet to reach the Senate floor.
ONLINE: The report is accessible at http://citizens marcellusshale.com.
Contact the writer: rswift@timeshamrock.com
Tackling Marcellus Shale factor
thetimes-tribune.com/opinion/editorials-columns/guest-columnists/tackling-marcellus-shale-factor-1.1222023#axzz1bnmom3Ug
Tackling Marcellus Shale factor
BY BRIAN ORAM (GUEST COLUMNIST)
Published: October 23, 2011
In 1795 settlers in Montrose discussed water that would “bubble and catch fire like black powder.” Later it was determined that Salt Spring contained methane gas. What is now Salt Spring State Park in Susquehanna County was once the site of an attempted oil and salt operation.
Today it appears the development of the Marcellus Shale is commercially viable. Methane is not uniformly distributed in the Marcellus Shale, but it is virtually everywhere in our environment. Methane can be found in saturated soils, lake sediments, wetlands, landfills, and the Catskill Formation (our source of drinking water) to name a few. There is no drinking water standard for methane gas, but there are guidance levels due to concerns for the potential of accumulation which can create an explosive environment. The guidance level in Pennsylvania is 7 milligrams per liter of methane in water. There also are action levels when airborne concentrations reach 10 percent of the lower explosive limit. The level of methane in water and the level in a confined headspace do not correlate. If gas is collecting in the headspace of a well the problem is that the well is not properly vented and this needs to be corrected. It does not indicate methane is present in the water below.
Prior to Marcellus development it had been my experience that levels of methane can range from not detectable to greater than 28 miligrams per liter. I lit my first tap in 1989.
The concentration of methane gas in water is highly variable. Methane levels can change greatly in the same well in a matter of days and concentrations may vary widely. This was one reason, in 2009, I proposed lowering the recommended action level in Pennsylvania to its current state. The level of methane fluctuation is determined by many factors including barometric pressure, rainfall amounts, ice cover on soil, groundwater levels, water well operation, depth of pump setting, depth of well, and geological setting. All of these factors can cause the headspace and dissolved methane to fluctuate. Given this all residents should vent their wells.
Currently baseline water testing is being done throughout our area. These tests demonstrate that our groundwater is not pure. Local groundwater contains measurable to explosive levels of methane gas and other trace elements. Of specific concern is that up to 50 percent of private wells may not meet a primary drinking water standard because of bacterial contamination, arsenic, barium or lead. I call this the “Marcellus Shale factor.” The development of this natural resource has piqued our attention and is another reason we need to work together to test our water and understand the challenges we face. The only way we can address our groundwater challenges is to understand these issues and take corrective action.
Throughout my career, I have conducted extensive groundwater and private well testing. We created the Water-Research.net Web portal as a free information resource and we are continuing our work on the Citizens Groundwater and Surfacewater Database for our area. In addition, we are conducting a private well owner watershed survey and are planning to offer free radon in water screening. This data warehouse will enable us to better understand our resources, current issues, and track future change. It can also be used to make decisions that ensure the health, safety and welfare of our community and environment.
Recently, the Department of Environmental Protection determined methane levels in Dimock meet the requirements of the consent document agreed to by all parties. It is my hope that continued monitoring will confirm this conclusion and that we all work together to move forward with greater understanding. We are a community and may not all agree but we must work together – this is our home.
It is critical that local stakeholders form task forces and create community resources to educate, assist and inform ourselves to make educated decisions based on science, not fear. Our first order of business should be the development of private well standards and a program to upgrade existing private wells. This should be in addition to the development of best-management practices for development of the Marcellus Shale in our region. These actions are critical to ensure the health, safety and economic welfare of our citizens and environment.
Brian Oram is a licensed professional geologist and the founder of
B.F. Environmental Consultants. Previously he worked at Wilkes
University’s Center for Environmental Quality.
N.Y. gas drillers’ victory soured by tough new rules
www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/21/us-newyork-shale-idUSTRE79K4YT20111021
By Edward McAllister
NEW YORK | Fri Oct 21, 2011
People gather on the steps of New York City Hall protesting the states plan for shale oil drilling in the city's watershed in New York January 4, 2010. (Credit: Reuters/Shannon Stapleton)
The end of a drilling ban in New York was meant to be a new dawn for energy companies. After years of waiting, they would finally be able to exploit the richest deposit of natural gas in the country.
But as companies delve into new regulations for drilling in New York, they’re discovering a bitter reality: half the land they had leased for drilling may now be out of bounds.
In proposed new rules for drilling, which are expected to be finalized early next year, the state has imposed an off-limits buffer around its waterways due to environmental concerns about the effects that drilling will have on water supplies.
The buffers are as much as 20 times larger than neighboring, industry-friendly Pennsylvania.
After looking at maps of thousands of potentially forbidden acres, some companies are considering leaving the state altogether, Reuters has discovered.
Royal Dutch Shell, which has leased about 90,000 acres for drilling in New York, reckons that 40 percent of that land could be off limits under the proposed laws, a company source told Reuters after Shell completed modeling of its acreage in the state.
“We are looking at a potentially significant impact,” the source said.
Inflection Energy, a small independent company with 15,000 acres in New York, is reconsidering drilling there after studies showed that about 60 percent of its acreage might not be drillable.
“It is forcing us to change our business model,” said Inflection chief executive Mark Sexton. “If the regulations go ahead we will allocate more resources to Pennsylvania than New York. Originally we had planned to focus more on New York.”
Inflection had aimed to increase leased land to 50,000 acres.
The revelation of the stiff restrictions on drilling near aquifers and waterways, a previously unreported aspect of environmental regulations proposed this summer, is the latest set-back for shale drillers in New York, where unusually fierce local opposition has stunted development.
It also highlights how tougher state regulations could rein in the rampant expansion of natural gas produced using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a controversial technique to extract gas from shale rock deep below the surface by blasting it with chemical-laced water.
ENVIRONMENTAL SET-BACKS
Dimock, Pennsylvania Residents Will Stop Receiving Water From Fracking Company
www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/19/dimock-pennsylvania-replacement-water_n_1019743.html
MICHAEL RUBINKAM 10/19/11
ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Pennsylvania environmental regulators said Wednesday they have given permission to a natural-gas driller to stop delivering replacement water to residents whose drinking water wells were tainted with methane.
Residents expressed outrage and threatened to take the matter to court.
Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. has been delivering water to homes in the northeast village of Dimock since January of 2009. The Houston-based energy company asked the Department of Environmental Protection for approval to stop the water deliveries by the end of November, saying Dimock’s water is safe to drink.
DEP granted Cabot’s request late Tuesday, notifying the company in a letter released Wednesday morning. Scott Perry, the agency’s acting deputy secretary for oil and gas management, wrote that since Cabot has satisfied the terms of a December settlement agreement requiring the company to remove methane from the residents’ water, DEP “therefore grants Cabot’s request to discontinue providing temporary potable water.”
Residents who are suing Cabot in federal court say their water is still tainted with unsafe levels of methane and possibly other contaminants from the drilling process. They say DEP had no right to allow Cabot to stop paying for replacement water.
Bill Ely, 60, said the water coming out of his well looks like milk.
“You put your hand down a couple of inches and you can’t see your hand, that’s how much gas there is in it. And they’re telling me it was that way all my life,” said Ely, who has lived in the family homestead for nearly 50 years and said his well water was crystal clear until Cabot’s arrival three years ago.
If Cabot stops refilling his 550-gallon plastic “water buffalo” that supplies water for bathing and washing clothes, Ely said it will cost him $250 per week to maintain it and another $20,000 to $30,000 to install a permanent system to pipe water from an untainted spring on his land.
Ely and another resident, Victoria Switzer, said their attorneys had promised to seek an injunction in the event that DEP gave Cabot permission to halt deliveries. The attorneys did not immediately return an email and phone call seeking comment.
Regulators previously found that Cabot drilled faulty gas wells that allowed methane to escape into Dimock’s aquifer. The company denied responsibility, but has been banned from drilling in a 9-square-mile area of Dimock since April of 2010.
Along with its request to stop paying for deliveries of water, Cabot has asked the department for permission to resume drilling in Dimock, a rural community about 20 miles south of the New York state line where 18 residential water wells were found to be polluted with methane. DEP has yet to rule on that request.
Philip Stalnaker, a Cabot vice president, asserted in a Monday letter to DEP that tests show the residents’ water to be safe to drink and use for cooking, bathing, washing dishes and doing laundry. He said any methane that remains in the water is naturally occurring but that Cabot is willing to install mitigation systems at residents’ request.
Months’ worth of sampling data provided by DEP to The Times-Tribune of Scranton show that methane has spiked repeatedly this year in the water wells of several homes, reaching potentially explosive levels in five, the newspaper reported Wednesday.
Cabot cited data from 2,000 water samples taken before the commencement of drilling in Susquehanna County that show that 80 percent of them already had methane.
“The amount of methane in a water supply is neither fixed nor predictable,” and depends on a variety of factors unrelated to drilling, Cabot spokesman George Stark said in an email Wednesday.
Methane is an odorless, colorless, tasteless gas commonly found in Pennsylvania groundwater. Sources include swamps, landfills, coal mines and gas wells. Methane is not known to be harmful to ingest, but at high concentrations it’s flammable and can lead to asphyxiation.
The December 2010 agreement between DEP and Cabot required the company to offer residential treatment systems that remove methane from the residents’ water, and to pay them twice the assessed tax value of their homes. A half-dozen treatment systems have been installed, and Cabot said they are effective at removing the gas.
But residents who filed a federal lawsuit against Cabot are appealing the December settlement. They favor an earlier, scuttled DEP plan that would have forced Cabot to pay nearly $12 million to connect their homes to a municipal water line.
Switzer said it’s inappropriate for the state to allow Cabot to stop the water deliveries while the appeal is pending – and while there still are problems with residents’ water.
“They keep changing the rules to accommodate this gas company. It’s so blatantly corrupt,” she said.
DEP spokeswoman Katherine Gresh said the December settlement gave Cabot the right to halt the deliveries once the company funded escrow accounts for the homeowners and is “independent of the water quality results.”
Cabot plans to inform each homeowner by Nov. 1 that it will discontinue deliveries of bulk and bottled water by Nov. 30. The company also offered to pay for a plumber to reconnect residents’ water wells. Cabot said it will stop delivering replacement water “at its earliest opportunity” to homeowners who refuse to allow testing of their well water.
Drilling’s effects to be analyzed
www.timesleader.com/news/Drilling_rsquo_s_effects_to_be_analyzed_10-16-2011.html
MATT HUGHES mhughes@timesleader.com
October 17, 2010
Penn State database will look at impact of natural gas on groundwater resources.
Researchers at Penn State University will build a database to analyze the impact of natural gas drilling on Pennsylvania’s groundwater resources.
Funded by a $750,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, the research initiative aims to consolidate water data collected by government agencies, universities, industry stakeholders and citizens groups into a searchable database accessible to the public online.
“It’s very clear that the rate of drilling in the state is going faster and faster, and there have been some impacts on water, so we want to help the people of Pennsylvania pull together some of that data and analyze that impact,” said Susan Brantley, project leader and director of the university’s Earth and Environmental Systems Institute.
Brantley said drilling’s effects on the state’s water resources have thus far been localized, and she expects the statewide data will reflect those localized impacts rather than an overall statewide pattern, but the consolidation of data will also give scientists and lawmakers a sense of the industry’s overall impact on the state’s natural resources.
The data will be posted by the university to a website where users will be able to search and plot data using various search criteria, and researchers at Penn State and other colleges will conduct their own analysis of the data as it is posted.
The challenge, Brantley said, will be to encourage well owners to submit their data, as water well testing is frequently done by homeowners and companies who may not wish to make their data public. The database will maintain anonymity, and will have quality control measures in place to ensure data submitted is genuine and valid, Brantley said.
Eventually, the university plans to train community groups to collect and interpret water data, and is planning a workshop in the spring.
Wilkes University professors Ken Klemow and Dale Bruns, who are conducting their own Department of Energy-funded surface water tests and are working towards building a similar database to Penn State’s for Northeastern Pennsylvania, said the Penn State database will complement their own research and that they hope to find ways to work with the Penn State researchers.
“People are very concerned about water quality as it relates to the Marcellus,” Klemow said. “There have been some statements made, especially in the press, saying that water supplies have been completely decimated, and then you have the industry saying there’s been no impact at all. To settle this question you really need to do the good science.
Battle in Dimock: Gas vs. water
www.timesleader.com/news/Battle_in_Dimock__Gas_vs__water_10-16-2011.html
October 17, 2010
MICHAEL RUBINKAM
Some wells have been fouled in an area where drilling for natural gas is intensive.
DIMOCK — Three years after residents first noticed something wrong with their drinking-water wells, tanker trucks still rumble daily through this rural Northeastern Pennsylvania village where methane gas courses through the aquifer and homeowners can light their water on fire.
One of the trucks stops at Ron and Jean Carter’s home and refills a 550-gallon plastic “water buffalo” container that supplies the couple with water for bathing, cleaning clothes and washing dishes. A loud hissing noise emanates from the vent stack that was connected to the Carters’ water well to prevent an explosion — an indication, they say, the well is still laced with dangerous levels of methane.
Recent testing confirms that gas continues to lurk in Dimock’s aquifer.
“We’re very tired of it,” says Jean Carter, 72. Tired of the buffalo in their yard, tired of worrying about the groundwater under their house, and tired of the fight that has consumed Dimock every day since the fall of 2008.
Like everyone else here, the Carters are eager to turn the page on the most highly publicized case of methane contamination to emerge from the early days of Pennsylvania’s natural-gas drilling boom. Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., the Houston-based energy firm held responsible and fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for polluting the groundwater, is just as anxious to resume drilling in a 9-square-mile area of Dimock that has been placed off-limits to the company until it repairs the damage.
State regulators blame faulty gas wells drilled by Cabot for leaking methane into Dimock’s groundwater. It was the first serious case of methane migration connected to Pennsylvania’s 3-year-old drilling boom, raising fears of potential environmental harm throughout the giant Marcellus Shale gas field. Drilling critics point to Dimock as a prime example of what can and does go wrong.
Methane from gas-drilling operations has since been reported in the water supplies of several other Pennsylvania communities, forcing residents to stop using their wells and live off water buffaloes and bottled water. Though gas companies often deny responsibility for the pollution, the state has imposed more stringent well-construction standards designed to prevent stray gas from polluting groundwater.
Dimock’s long quest for clean water may finally be reaching a critical stage.
After a series of false starts, Cabot, one of the largest drillers in the Marcellus, said it has met the state’s Oct. 17 deadline to restore or replace Dimock’s water supply, installing treatment systems in some houses that have removed the methane.
Residents who have filed suit against Cabot disagree, saying their water is still tainted and unusable. Another homeowner claims the $30,000 treatment system that Cabot put in failed to work.
Ultimately, it will fall to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to decide whether Cabot has fulfilled its obligation to the residents, whose story was highlighted in last year’s Oscar-nominated documentary “Gasland.”
If regulators sign off, the company plans to resume work on a dozen gas wells in Dimock.
And, in a move sure to infuriate the residents, it will also stop paying for water deliveries to the Carters and several others whose wells were tainted with methane and, some say, toxic chemicals.
It’s not clear how DEP will respond to Cabot’s bid to restart operations, but spokeswoman Katherine Gresh said the agency is not under any deadline.
“DEP will continue to require Cabot to do this work until we are satisfied that the methane migration problem has ceased, regardless of how long it takes,” she said via email.
Despite company assurances of clean water, testing reveals that methane persists in Dimock’s aquifer — though it remains to be seen whether that alone will thwart Cabot from drilling again.
A Cabot contractor who sampled the water in mid-September found a high level of gas in the enclosed space of a water well owned by Craig Sautner, who is among the plaintiffs suing Cabot. DEP test results indicate that five more homes had levels of dissolved methane that exceeded the standard set by a December 2010 agreement between DEP and Cabot — the same agreement whose conditions Cabot says it has met.
The latest results, Sautner said, prove that nothing has changed.
“I don’t know why Cabot says there aren’t any problems in Dimock,” said Sautner, 58. “If they’re going to say that our water’s fine, I want them to be the first guinea pigs and drink it. Nice, big, tall glass of water.”
Cabot characterized the mid-September methane spike at Sautner’s house as an anomaly and said the big picture is that Dimock residents who accepted a treatment system from the company enjoy methane-free water.
“The water is clean for the families inside that area,” said Cabot spokesman George Stark.
Questions also remain about the integrity of gas wells that Cabot has already drilled.
As recently as May, DEP said nearly half of Cabot’s wells in the Dimock area — 20 of 43 — continued to leak methane, including 14 that DEP said were of the “most concern.” In a letter obtained by The Associated Press, a DEP official wrote to Cabot that the leaking wells indicate faulty construction and that Cabot had “yet to achieve full compliance” with DEP mandates.
Cabot disagreed with DEP’s assertions about its gas wells, and has been supplying documentation to the agency showing that all the wells are safe, Stark said.
Some Dimock residents say their water wells were fouled not only with methane that DEP said migrated from improperly cemented Cabot gas wells, but possibly with toxic chemicals commonly used in the drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing or “fracking.”
The company denied responsibility, saying it doesn’t use the chemicals that a consultant working for the plaintiffs found in the wells last year. Cabot suggested a nearby auto repair shop was to blame.
The problems in Dimock, about 20 miles south of the New York state line, first arose in the fall of 2008, a month after Cabot started drilling in the area. The water that came out of residents’ faucets suddenly became cloudy, foamy and discolored. Homeowners, all of whom had leased their land to Cabot, said the water made them sick with symptoms that included vomiting, dizziness and skin rashes.
One of the water wells exploded on New Year’s Day 2009, prompting a state investigation that found Cabot had allowed combustible gas to escape into the region’s groundwater supplies, contaminating at least 18 residential water wells.
Cabot asserts the methane in the residents’ wells is naturally occurring and denies polluting the water — with methane or anything else — even though DEP has said its tests confirmed the gas migrated from Cabot’s wells.
The company has plenty of support in Dimock and the rest of Susquehanna County. Many homeowners living in the moratorium area are anxious for Cabot to start drilling again so they can begin receiving royalties on the land they have leased to the company.
Jean Carter, who lives a few hundred feet from a pair of gas wells, said she and her husband have spent countless hours worrying about the water. (Cabot asserts their supply is fine, pointing to test results that show an insignificant level of dissolved methane in the Carters’ well water.)