Hundreds at Capitol Rally for Action on Marcellus Drilling
http://www.berksmontnews.com/articles/2011/06/08/tri_county_record/news/doc4def7d0c7c9df756950929.txt?viewmode=fullstory
by Pennsylvania Campaign for Clean Water
Largest Rally in Harrisburg Calls for Drilling Moratorium and Environmental Protections
(Harrisburg) – Hundreds of Pennsylvania residents rallied at the State Capitol today protesting the state legislature’s inaction on Marcellus Shale drilling. The coalition of groups holding the rally called it the largest that Harrisburg has seen to date protesting Marcellus Shale gas drilling.
The coalition called for:
1. A moratorium on further drilling in Pennsylvania until a full cumulative impact analysis on gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale is conducted.
2. Improved protections from gas drilling for drinking water supplies and rivers.
3. Ensuring that gas drillers pay their fair share in taxes, and utilizing these funds to restore cuts to the DEP budget.
4. Require full disclosure by gas drillers of all chemicals used.
5. Maintain the moratorium on further leasing of State Forest land for gas drilling.
Groups sponsoring the rally and lobby day included: PA Campaign for Clean Water, Sierra Club, Clean Water Action, Delaware Riverkeeper Network, PennEnvironment, Gas Truth of Central PA, League of Women Voters of PA, Physicians for Social Responsibility Philadelphia, Marcellus Protest, EARTHWORKS Oil and Gas Accountability Project, Green Party of Philadelphia, Mountain Watershed Association, Responsible Drilling Alliance.
Crystal Stroud, a resident of Towanda, PA, in Bradford County, described her health problems caused by drinking water contaminated with barium and other toxins from nearby gas drilling. “No one is receiving help from our DEP, local, state or federal governments. Our family has become collateral damage! We are just 1 of the 33% failure rate of these gas companies. The failure to keep the residents of Bradford County’s wells contaminant free,” she stated.
Other speakers at the rally included Josh Fox, the creator of the film documentary, GASLAND, and Craig Saunter, a resident of Dimock, PA, where considerable water contamination from drilling has occurred. Also speaking was Jonathan Jeffers, a former worker in Pennsylvania for Bronco Drilling, who described the neglect he saw for health, safety, and the environment while working on gas drilling jobs.
Myron Arnowitt, PA State Director for Clean Water Action, stated, “Drilling has been going on for nearly four years now, but still our state legislature has taken no action to protect residents from harm. Legislators should take note that the crowds in the Capitol calling for action keep getting bigger.” In addition to attending the rally, protesters made over 160 appointments with state representatives and senators, covering almost every corner of the state.
Several legislators attended the rally, many of whom have introduced legislation on the issue. Senator Daylin Leach (D-Montgomery) stated, “We are the only state that doesn’t tax them. 70% of Pennsylvanians understand this and want a tax. Last year and half alone, drillers racked up over 1500 violations. A severance tax will hold the industry accountable and ensure that the people of Pennsylvania are not left footing the bill.”
“The people of Pennsylvania are alarmed at the growing list of pollution incidents at gas drilling sites across the state,” said Jeff Schmidt, Director of the Sierra Club Pennsylvania Chapter. “They are here today because they know that Pennsylvania’s gas drilling law and regulations don’t provide enough protection for our health or the environment. We don’t need an industry-dominated Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission, whose roll has been to stall the needed reforms. We call on the Pennsylvania General Assembly to immediately enact amendments to our antiquated Oil and Gas Act legislation, such as HB 971, to protect our communities,” he concluded.
“Every day, the gas industry succeeds in making its voice heard, trying to convince us and our decision-makers that Marcellus Shale drilling isn’t the biggest public health and environmental threat to hit Pennsylvania in a generation,” said Erika Staaf with PennEnvironment. “Yet poll after poll tells us that the majority of Pennsylvanians want industry to pay its fair share in taxes and want clean air and clean water. We’re here to make our voices heard and tell our leaders exactly that.”
“The elected officials of Pennsylvania need to listen to the people who live and work here — we need protection from the gas industry’s out of control violations through a statewide drilling permit moratorium,” said Tracy Carluccio, Deputy Director, Delaware Riverkeeper Network.
“Elected officials heard loudly and clearly today that they have a duty to protect communities from the rush to drill,” said Nadia Steinzor, Marcellus Regional Organizer for Earthworks Oil & Gas Accountability Project. “Citizens are simply asking for health and the environment to be given priority over industry profit.”
Republican Pileggi proposes severance tax to help seniors
http://citizensvoice.com/news/drilling/republican-pileggi-proposes-severance-tax-to-help-seniors-1.1156511#axzz1OVCl9M3c
By Robert Swift (Harrisburg Bureau Chief)
Published: June 3, 2011
HARRISBURG – A Senate Republican leader wants to levy a state Marcellus Shale severance tax as a way to pay for a freeze on school property taxes for senior citizens.
Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Chester, sent a memo to colleagues seeking support for a “reasonable and competitive” severance tax to generate about $250 million annually for tax relief targeted for individuals 65 and older who have qualified for a homestead exemption for at least five years.
“The tax burden would be shifted from seniors, many of whom are struggling to stay in their homes on a fixed income, to companies involved in natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania,” said Pileggi.
Pileggi has yet to introduce his bill. The senator said the tax will be based on an as of yet unspecified fixed rate applied to both the volume and price of gas.
He considers the proposal revenue neutral since all severance tax revenue would go to a dedicated fund to reimburse school districts for revenue lost due to the tax freeze.
This is a telling point in light of a flap over whether the drilling impact fee legislation sponsored by Pileggi’s colleague, Senate President Pro Tempore Joseph Scarnati, R-Jefferson County, is a tax increase or not.
Grover Norquist, the head of Americans for Tax Reform, wrote to senators last week saying the impact fee bill is a tax increase. As a result, he said, any state lawmaker who signed ATR’s anti-tax hike pledge would be violating that pledge if they voted for the impact fee bill.
The ATR pledge contains a provision that a tax increase is acceptable if directly offset by a tax cut of equal size so it becomes revenue neutral. Scarnati countered that his impact fee bill doesn’t increase taxes and will be offset anyway by several state business tax cuts.
Pileggi said he supports Scarnati’s plan to use impact fee revenue to cover the costs of the impact of gas drilling on the environment and local governments.
Another GOP lawmaker, Rep. Nick Miccarelli, R-Ridley Park, said this week he will introduce a severance tax bill to pay for a cut in the state personal income tax.
Pileggi is the most prominent GOP lawmaker yet to call for a severance tax, but Republican Gov. Tom Corbett is steadfast in opposition to the idea. These new severance tax bills are an attempt to give political cover to state lawmakers who signed the ATR pledge, said Jan Jarrett, president of PennFuture, an environmental group. Jarrett said the bills help advance the debate over a severance tax, but won’t get her group’s support because they don’t help the environment and local communities.
“You really need to structure a tax in a way to address the extra costs that drilling imposes on the environment and communities,” she added.
DEP suggests stronger drilling rules are needed
http://online.wsj.com/article/APda6b059295ad44818b60955e3e981cef.html
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Gov. Tom Corbett’s administration is recommending tougher laws to protect drinking water from pollution caused by booming natural gas exploration in Pennsylvania and to allow the state to wield harsher penalties against drilling companies that violate the law.
Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Michael Krancer made the recommendations in a letter sent Friday to Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley, who chairs the governor’s Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission.
One recommendation would restrict well drilling within 1,000 feet of a public water supply. Currently, the law requires as little as 100 feet in many cases. Another would clarify the DEP’s authority to revoke or refuse to issue a drilling permit under certain conditions, and allow it to require comprehensive tracking of drilling wastewater that would help the agency more accurately determine wastewater recycling rates.
Krancer also recommended expanding buffer requirements between gas wells and private drinking water wells from 200 feet to 500 feet; boosting per-day penalties for violating the law and well-plugging insurance requirements; and extending a driller’s presumptive liability for pollution or water loss from 1,000 feet to 2,500 feet from a gas well.
Many of those recommendations, if not all, have been under consideration in the Legislature since last year, with little action. Some of the bills would provide for stronger protections than the Corbett administration advocates.
The Marcellus Shale formation, which is considered the nation’s largest-known natural gas reservoir, lies primarily beneath Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia and Ohio. Pennsylvania is the center of activity, with more than 3,000 wells drilled in the past three years and thousands more planned in the coming years as thick shale emerges as an affordable, plentiful and profitable source of natural gas.
When drilling companies began flocking to Pennsylvania several years ago to exploit the Marcellus Shale formation, they were largely working under laws from the 1980s that never envisioned deep-drilling activity that is combined with high-volume hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and the recent innovation of horizontal drilling underground.
So far, the Legislature has done little to change that, other than pass a bill to require faster public disclosure of well-by-well gas production data from Marcellus Shale wells and debate the merits of a tax on gas extraction.
Pennsylvania remains the largest gas-drilling state without such a tax and Corbett opposes the imposition of one.
For decades, energy companies have drilled shallow oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania. But high-volume fracking involves the use of chemicals and produces millions of gallons of often-toxic wastewater, sparking fresh environmental concerns about the protection of public waterways and wells that provide drinking water to millions of people.
Last year, the Department of Environmental Protection won approval of tougher regulations on drilling safety, chemical disclosure and wastewater disposal and, before that, regulatory approval to increase permit fees so that it could pay the salaries of more inspectors and permitting staff.
But Pennsylvania has left a number of protections undone, some lawmakers say.
For instance, Pennsylvania’s $1,000 per day penalty on drillers for violating state regulations lag many other states. The $25,000 per-company insurance bond that the state requires to plug abandoned wells is out of date, as well, since plugging a single well can cost as much as $100,000.
In April, the DEP asked drilling companies to voluntarily stop taking the wastewater to riverside treatment plants that were ill-equipped to remove all the pollutants from it. The agency has not said whether the companies are complying with the May 19 deadline.
___
Information from: The Times-Tribune, http://thetimes-tribune.com/
Fracking review ordered
http://www.timesleader.com/news/Fracking_review_ordered_05-29-2011.html
Posted: May 29
MICHAEL GORMLEY
NY Governor issues memo following Pa. accident
ALBANY, N.Y. — Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration has ordered an expanded environmental review of proposed “hydrofracking” for natural gas in New York after an accident in Pennsylvania caused a well to gush salty, chemically-tainted water for two days.
An internal memo obtained by The Associated Press directs the state Department of Environmental Conservation to review and learn any lessons from the April mishap in Pennsylvania’s Bradford County.
The memo dated Friday said the “blowout” raised issues about the controversial technology that need to be evaluated before New York decides whether to allow a major expansion of the potentially lucrative gas-extraction method, which has been assailed by some environmentalists as unsafe.
The memo was from Cuomo’s director of state operations, Howard Glaser, to Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joseph Martens, a Cuomo appointee.
The April 19 accident in Pennsylvania briefly caused a handful of families living near the well to flee their homes as thousands of gallons of brine flooded across farm fields and entered a stream. Well cappers from Houston had to pump ground-up tires, plastic bits and other rubber material into the well to temporarily seal it.
Well operator Chesapeake Energy said the environmental damage from the spill was minimal, but temporarily suspended operations to investigate what went wrong.
New York’s review will include an on-site inspection by New York officials.
The findings will be part of New York’s environmental evaluation of using hydraulic fracturing to release natural gas from the Marcellus Shale deposit through much of New York’s Southern Tier. The final report is due July 1.
The gas drilling boom has been an economic engine in Pennsylvania, but it has been delayed in New York for the past three years as environmental groups have assailed hydraulic fracturing as a potential hazard to drinking water.
“Fracking” involves shooting huge volumes of water, laced with much smaller amounts of chemicals and sand, thousands of feet underground to release trapped gas. Some of the water then returns to the surface, tainted by substances like barium and salt that it picks up underground. By law, this wastewater must be disposed of deep containment wells or treated before it is released back into the environment.
Industry groups say the process is well regulated and safe.
The Independent Oil & Gas Association of New York had asked Cuomo to expedite the state’s review of fracking and allow permitting for gas exploration to proceed.
Could Smog Shroud the Marcellus Shale’s Natural Gas Boom?
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/05/27/27greenwire-could-smog-shroud-the-marcellus-shales-natural-3397.html
By GABRIEL NELSON of Greenwire
Published: May 27, 2011
Since returning to private life, John Hanger, the former secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, has kept busy trying to douse fears that his state’s natural gas boom is contaminating drinking water.
Hanger’s two-year tenure saw the Marcellus Shale, an underground rock formation that runs beneath much of the Northeast, change from a geological oddity into the center of a American drilling renaissance. Under his watch, Pennsylvania scrambled to respond to claims that water supplies are being tainted by the practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in which a blend of water, sand and chemicals is injected underground to break the shale and release the gas inside.
Hanger, a Democrat who previously led the Pennsylvania-based environmental group PennFuture, left office convinced that the high-profile fracas over fracking is misguided.
Air pollution is more of an Achilles’ heel for drilling in the Northeast, he said last week, pointing to spikes in emissions that have followed natural gas development in other parts of the country.
Thousands of natural gas wells are expected to be drilled in Pennsylvania over the next few years, requiring a fleet of construction equipment, diesel engines and compressor stations. Together, they could be a large new source of smog-forming emissions along the Northeast corridor, much of which still struggles with old air quality standards at a time when U.S. EPA is preparing to make the rules stricter.
Read more
EPA Chief Says Fracking Not Proven to Harm Water
http://www.care2.com/greenliving/epa-chief-says-fracking-not-proven-to-harm-water.html
posted by Jake Richardson May 27, 2011 2:03 pm
A recent article on the news site, The Oklahoman, reported that EPA Chief Lisa Jackson said she did not know of any proven case where hydraulic fracking had affected drinking water. She must have missed the news two weeks ago that a research study conducted by Duke University scientists found methane contamination of drinking water wells in areas where shale drilling is taking place. The peer-reviewed study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
They tested water from 68 drinking water wells in southeastern Pennsylvania and southern New York state. The researchers said, “Our results show evidence for methane contamination of shallow drinking water systems in at least three areas of the region and suggest important environmental risks accompanying shale gas exploration worldwide.” (Source: Huffington Post)
Congressman Maurice Hinchey, D-NY said, “This study provides eye-opening scientific evidence about methane contamination and the risks that irresponsible natural gas drilling poses for drinking water supplies.” (Source: Huffington Post)
Potentially as bad, or even worse, were the results of a Congressional investigation that revealed 32 million gallons of diesel fuel or hydraulic fracturing fluids containing diesel fuel had been injected into wells in 19 states from 2005 to 2009. Diesel fuel contains toxins such as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes. Benzene is known to cause cancer.
A news article from the San Antonio Express-News stated that water has been affected by the fracking process, “Surface spills of the fracking fluids have killed livestock and fouled waterways.” Also, a US energy company is facing a lawsuit for allegedly turning a drinking water well into a gas well due to their fracking, “The water well next door to their house began to spew methane. So much so that they ended up putting a flare in the person’s backyard,” said the lead lawyer on the case. (Source: CBC.ca)
Fracking fluids are used during the process of drilling and extracting natural gas. They are exempted from the Safe Drinking Water Act due to the Halliburton loophole. Some of the chemicals used in fracking could be cancer-causing.
Lisa Jackson is an Obama appointee, along with Ken Salazaar, who has disappointed many environmentalists and progressives. You have to wonder if the Chief of the EPA actually is that unaware of such an important research study and how it relates to the fracking controversy, or if she simply was dodging the issue of how dangerous fracking can be, due to the pressure of the oil and gas industry and the current administration. The EPA is currently conducting its own study of fracking, with a report due sometime in 2012.
Learn what You Can Do To Protect Drinking Water
WREN OFFERS TWO FREE WORKSHOPS IN JUNE
Communities undergoing natural gas development have expressed a keen interest in protecting the purity of public water supplies. To help communities, planners, and public water systems learn more about available tools and management options to protect drinking water now and for future generations, WREN and PA DEP are bringing a pair of free workshops to Ridgway, Elk County, on June 21st and June 22nd at the North Central Pennsylvania Regional Planning & Development Commission facilities.
On June 21st , the “Protecting Public Drinking Water: Source Water Protection Solutions” Workshop will cover the basics of source water protection, outline roles and responsibilities, and introduce tools like DEP’s Source Water Protection Technical Assistance Program and PA Rural Water’s assistance program that provide protection plans that focus on prevention, before contamination happens. WREN’s Julie Kollar, and Mark Stephens, P.G. at DEP North Central Region will present. The workshop will run from 1 pm – 4:45 pm and is approved by DEP for 3.5 contact hours for water operators.
On June 22nd, WREN will offer “Source Water Protection through Planning & Leadership,” featuring advanced source water protection training with a “train the trainer” workshop for planners, local governments, water systems, and interested citizens who want to learn more about source water protection strategies. WREN’s Julie Kollar and DEP’s Mark Stephens will be joined by PMPEI-certified planning instructor D. Jeffrey Pierce, Director of Community Planning at Olsen and Associates, LLC who will present “Planning Tools for Municipalities, along with Professor Ross H. Pifer, Director, Agricultural Law and Reference Center, Penn State Law who will present “State Pre-Emption of a Municipality’s Authority to Regulate Oil and Gas Operations.” Mark Szybist, Staff Attorney at PennFuture will wrap up with a session covering “What Municipalities Can Do Now.” The workshop will be conducted from 10 am – 2:15 pm, also at the North Central PA Regional Planning & development Commission in Ridgeway.
To learn more, download a flyer and register online, go to www.sourcewaterpa.org
Shale drillers eye mine drainage for fluid
http://www.waterworld.com/index/display/news_display/1422301945.html
Timothy Puko
Pittsburgh Tribune Review
May 22, 2011
A growing energy industry that comes with its own pollution concerns could help clean up one of the oldest pollution problems in Pennsylvania.
Shale gas drilling uses billions of gallons of water every year to break into rocks one mile underground. Drillers put chemicals such as methanol, benzene and 2-butoxyethanol into that water to help their equipment work and coax gas forth, but that angers environmentalists and landowners who worry about the water spilling or seeping into public drinking water sources.
One solution could be to use water that’s even dirtier.
University of Pittsburgh professor Radisav D. Vidic is studying how drillers could make use of mine drainage water, since thousands of gallons flow untreated into waterways statewide every day. It would keep that toxic drainage out of water supplies and stop drillers from using tanker trucks that burn gasoline and crush roads while hauling water to well sites, Vidic said.
“I was completely blown away by the fact that they were willing to truck water around,” said Vidic, a civil and environmental engineer.
He’s in the middle of a three-year, federally funded research project and is focusing on how to use mine water.
“Not only do you reduce the traffic and opportunities for spilling, but you clean up some of the legacy issues (left by coal),” he said.
Drilling companies are taking notice.
‘Every little bit counts’
Read more
Doctors raise questions about health impacts of drilling
http://citizensvoice.com/news/doctors-raise-questions-about-health-impacts-of-drilling-1.1151308#axzz1NGoFQInA
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: May 24, 2011
Area physicians brought their questions about the potential health impacts of natural gas drilling to a symposium on the issue Monday night and learned how much about those impacts has yet to be studied.
The Lackawanna County Medical Society sponsored the forum as an introduction to the gas drilling process and its relative risks to drinking and surface water.
Kim Scandale, executive director of the society, said the hope is to address at future sessions some of the unanswered questions raised by the doctors – everything from where to report symptoms potentially related to the drilling to whether there have been epidemiological studies in other gas-drilling states.
Bryan Swistock, water resources extension specialist for Penn State Cooperative Extension and a presenter at the symposium, emphasized the importance of pre- and post-drilling water tests of residential wells. The tests can document any changes to water supplies that might help doctors understand symptoms, he said.
He also detailed the lack of state standards for drinking water wells, which can lead to poor construction and unsafe health conditions even before gas drilling begins.
Doctors in the audience raised concerns about how to determine if symptoms can be connected to nearby drilling, especially since patients’ complaints tend to be “very nebulous, like numbness and joint pain.”
The Northeast Regional Cancer Institute is in the early stages of planning a study of baseline health conditions in the Northern Tier to help measure any health impacts from drilling if they do occur, the center’s medical director and director of research Samuel Lesko, M.D., said.
“At least it will give us some baseline data that might be useful five years or six months from now,” he said.
llegere@timesshamrock.com
Panelists will discuss Marcellus Shale development at Wilkes forum
http://citizensvoice.com/news/panelists-will-discuss-marcellus-shale-development-at-wilkes-forum-1.1150635#axzz1NGoFQInA
Published: May 23, 2011
Wilkes University will host a forum, “Consensus on Marcellus development: What would it look like, and how do we get there?” at 6 p.m. Wednesday in the Dorothy Dickson Darte Center for the Performing Arts.
The event, sponsored by the Wilkes University Alumni Association and the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research of Northeastern Pennsylvania, will feature a panel of participants with different perspectives.
Panelists include:
> Kenneth Klemow, Wilkes professor of biology and associate director of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research of Northeastern Pennsylvania.
> Brian Redmond, Wilkes professor of earth science.
> Clayton Bubeck, environmental engineer with Rettew Associates and a 1997 Wilkes graduate.
> Steve Brokenshire, environmental scientist with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, and a 1992 Wilkes graduate.
> Nancy Dolan, a community activist with the Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition and a 1996 Wilkes graduate.
> State Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski, D-Wilkes-Barre, a state legislator and a 1967 Wilkes graduate.
> Teri Ooms, executive director of the Institute for Public Policy and Economic Development.
Admission is free and the forum is open to the public. Advance registration is encouraged; pre-register at [ http://community.wilkes.edu/s/344/index.aspx?sid=344&pgid=1115&gid=1&cid=2245&ecid=2245 ]