Landfill accepts gas drilling waste

DUNMORE – Keystone Sanitary Landfill in Dunmore has accepted tons of gas drilling waste that can contain radioactive material and heavy metals, according to documents obtained by Times-Shamrock newspapers.

Environmentalists raised red flags about the practice, but industry and state officials said it posed no public health risk.

At least four natural gas companies have received approval from the landfill to dump “drill cuttings” – deep underground rock and soil removed during the drilling process along with chemical additives. Cabot Oil and Gas, Chesapeake Energy, Chief Oil and Gas, and Stone Energy are identified in the documents, obtained through a Right-To-Know request to the state Department of Environmental Protection.

The documents were submitted by Keystone Sanitary Landfill manager Joe Dexter in a report to DEP last summer. Multiple efforts to contact Dexter, including a visit to the site by a reporter Friday, were unsuccessful.

The landfill accepted at least 17,710 tons of the material over a six-month period last year from July through December 2010, mostly from Cabot Oil and Gas, according to DEP records.

The documents show Chesapeake Energy was approved to dump drill cuttings at Keystone as early as November 2009, including from multiple Marcellus Shale wells in Auburn Township, Susquehanna County.

The drill cuttings, which gas company officials say are benign and environmentalists claim contain a stew of chemical additives, is an economic boon for Keystone, which had an average daily volume of 4,000 tons of waste accepted in 2010.

The landfill is owned by Dunmore businessman Louis DeNaples. Keystone also accepts sludge from municipal wastewater plants, asbestos and other products containing PCBs, and a medley of residential and commercial waste.

The new trash stream has come from Marcellus Shale wells as close as Susquehanna County, where horizontal drilling and gas production has kicked into high gear. One completed Stone Energy natural gas well in Rush Township produced 630 tons of drill cuttings that made its way to Keystone Sanitary Landfill last year.

One Marcellus Shale well can produce as much as 1,000 tons of drill cuttings, Cabot spokesman George Stark said, as drill bits bore more than a mile vertically and horizontally beneath the ground through several geologic layers to reach the gas.

Keystone is among a growing number of landfills throughout the state that are taking the cuttings as gas companies move away from on-site burial, which is allowed under state law as long as drill cutting pits are lined and covered in plastic.

“We’re hoping to develop that side of the business,” said John Hambrose, spokesman for Alliance Sanitary Landfill in Ransom and Taylor. “It happens that we haven’t received any yet. We’re always looking to increase our volume.”

Mark Carmon, a DEP spokesman, said landfills are allowed to take the drill cuttings under their general municipal waste permit, but must abide by special regulations for the material. Regulators also examine its chemical composition on a “well pad by well pad basis” to determine if it is safe for disposal, Carmon said.

Keystone also has radiation monitors in place that would detect if drill cuttings contained unsafe levels.

“We are sensitive to the concern. That’s why there are a lot of controls on these facilities,” Carmon said. “We are not seeing any problems at all. If we did, they wouldn’t be able to accept it.”

He added there has been no indication of any issues at Keystone with the material.

Landfills cannot accept wastewater from gas drilling, the toxic mixture of fracking fluids and underground substances produced after a well is hydraulically fractured. Hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” involves blasting millions of gallons of chemically treated water thousands of feet into the ground to open cracks in the shale and release the gas. Besides the chemical additives, the water comes back with substances from the depths, including naturally-occurring radioactive material and a high concentration of salt.

“Wastewater would have to be either recycled or go to a (wastewater) treatment facility,” Carmon said.

Gas industry officials say the move to deposit drill cuttings in landfills is part of a “closed loop” approach that attempts to mitigate environmental impact and reuse some materials.

“Chesapeake utilizes a closed-loop drilling process that eliminates the need for drilling (disposal) pits throughout the Marcellus,” Brian Grove, a company executive based in Towanda, wrote in an e-mail. “This process separates drill cuttings into steel bins that are taken off-site for disposal in approved regional landfills.”

Grove said the process reduces the footprint of a well site since a disposal location is not needed and works better with sites that have multiple gas wells that produce thousands of tons of drill cuttings.

Stark, of Cabot, and Chief spokeswoman Kristi Gittins said all of their companies’ drill cuttings are now being disposed of in landfills, including Keystone. The companies are drilling extensively in Susquehanna County.

The drill cuttings are considered residual waste, a category removed from household waste, Carmon said. DEP chemists decide whether a toxic substance can be safely deposited in a municipal landfill, testing its reactivity to other substances, among other procedures.

“This is not an issue,” Carmon said. “We’re talking about rocks. If there was going to be a consistent problem setting off these (radiation) monitors, it wouldn’t be worth it for the landfills.”

Not everyone agrees.

Tracy Carluccio, deputy director of Delaware Riverkeeper, an environmental advocacy group, said drill cuttings contain a host of “dangerous chemicals,” other substances found deep underground including arsenic and mercury, and naturally occurring radioactive materials that may present environmental and public health risks, even in a landfill.

“Everything that is in that (underground geologic) formation is going to be in those cuttings,” Carluccio said. “We may be seeing the buildup of radioactive and other hazardous materials in landfills.”

Glenn C. Miller, Ph.D., an environmental chemist at the University of Nevada, said judging the potential environmental harm of drill cuttings is difficult in part because gas companies refuse to disclose the additives used during drilling, claiming the information is proprietary.

Miller said it is also less understood how harmful the naturally occurring radioactive material in the Marcellus Shale rock can be, considering that its intensity can greatly differ depending on the location of a well.

“Exactly what the risks are, I think they are still evolving,” he said. “It’s not well-defined.”

By Steve McConnell
smcconnell@timesshamrock.com
Published: February 20, 2011
http://citizensvoice.com/news/landfill-accepts-gas-drilling-waste-by-steve-mcconnell-1.1107634#axzz1EJyoubc5

Harveys Lake to hold hearing on drilling ban

HARVEYS LAKE – After months of pressure by residents, council gave in Tuesday and voted for an official hearing on a proposed ordinance to ban natural gas drilling in the borough.

Council members Diane Dwyer, Larry Radel and Carole Samson voted to advertise and hold a hearing to adopt the “Harveys Lake Community Water Rights and Local Self-Government Ordinance” drawn up by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. Councilman Ryan Doughton and President Fran Kopko voted no, and Councilman Boyd Barber abstained.

“Hallelujah,” said resident Neil Turner, a main proponent of the ordinance.

About 70 people attended, many of whom favored the ordinance, which would prohibit water from any source in the borough being used in natural gas drilling, hold neighboring municipalities liable for harm to water sources and make it “unlawful for any corporation to engage in the extraction of natural gas” in the borough.

Critics of the ordinance say the self-governance aspect and potential conflict with the state Oil & Gas Act could get the borough sued or else lose its state funding.

“It’s plain and simple: this ordinance violates state law,” Doughton said. “There’s not one logical, reasonable explanation that makes sense to pass this.”

Those in favor say there’s no conflict and point to other communities, such as Pittsburgh, that passed similar ones. Although council asked a consultant to look into ways the borough can be protected via the zoning ordinance, Turner said they are “two totally different approaches.”

The state Oil & Gas Act could override a zoning ordinance but not the CELDF ordinance, resident Carol Culver said, adding that if the borough does get sued, CELDF will help defend its ordinance in court.
By Elizabeth Skrapits, Staff Writer
Published: February 17, 2011
eskrapits@citizensvoice.com, 570-821-2072

http://citizensvoice.com/news/drilling/harveys-lake-to-hold-hearing-on-drilling-ban-1.1106145#axzz1EJyoubc5

Go slow on shale drilling

baltimoresun.com Opinion: As Pennsylvania has learned, it’s better to ask questions first before allowing energy companies to use hydraulic fracturing to exploit a massive natural gas deposit.

The Marcellus shale natural gas deposit could prove a vital resource for this nation’s energy future. Scientists have estimated that the Appalachians may yield hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of natural gas, at a value of $1 trillion.

Maryland could have a piece of that action. The Marcellus runs under the western part of the state, perhaps a mile below the surface. It can potentially be extracted by a controversial technique known as hydraulic  fracturing, where water is used to break up rock and allow the gas to be released.

It is tempting to want to see domestic natural gas production flourish, not only because of the money and jobs it might bring to the state but because gas can potentially help make this country less dependent on other more problematic fossil fuels. Nevertheless, some caution is in order.

That was the message heard last week from John Quigley, the former secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. He is no opponent of natural gas, but he sees “complex and daunting” environmental consequences to Marcellus extraction.

Appearing before the House of Delegates’ Environmental Matters Committee, Mr. Quigley said his state’s experience with the industry so far should sound a cautionary tale to others. Already, Pennsylvania has seen drinking water wells contaminated, leaks of wastewater pits, well blowouts, explosions and fires. Altogether, there have been thousands of recorded violations of environmental regulations, he told the committee.

Clearly, natural gas is not the only precious resource at stake in this debate. Clean water is, too. The industry claims that the potential for the water and chemicals used in fracturing to be released into the groundwater is small and the technique has been in use for decades, but the risk posed to the environment is too great to be treated lightly.

Nor is groundwater contamination the only problem that has surfaced in Pennsylvania. Questions have also arisen as to whether the state had appropriate regulations in place to protect local communities from other problems associated with gas development, ranging from heavy truck traffic to the influx of out-of-state workers.

That’s why legislation pending in Annapolis that would slow down new natural gas production in Maryland is a sensible step. The measure would require the Maryland Department of the Environment to consider many of the environmental issues raised in Pennsylvania and involve local governments in the decision-making process before any permits could be granted.

Why not learn from the mistakes made in Pennsylvania and elsewhere? The nation will need natural gas years into the future as much as it does today — or next month or next year. Better to do it right than to allow big energy companies to exploit Maryland’s natural resources first and have questions asked later.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-shale-gas-20110214,0,7717194.story

baltimoresun.com
February 14, 2011

Harveys Lake citizens hear about drilling ordinance

Law would protect rights to fresh drinking water and preserve eco-systems from gas drilling.

HARVEYS LAKE – Residents of Harveys Lake borough, adjacent to the largest natural lake in Pennsylvania of the same name, met Saturday to hear about a possible self-governing ordinance which would protect the municipality from possible problems caused by natural gas drilling.

The ordinance, written by the Community Environment Legal Defense Fund was given to the borough council in late summer with the request for a public meeting to be held for an open discussion of the ordinance.

Last month, the request was left dangling with a tie vote and a mayor who did not offer to break the tie. Residents, visibly upset, arranged for their own meeting to get the information out and ask residents to help put pressure on the council to schedule and hold a special public meeting.

Ben Price, program director of the CELDF, came in to help answer questions from a packed audience.

“What can communities do, to use their local government to achieve the ends they want?” Price said. “To protect the community and to be sure they can preserve it and they can create the kind of community they want to live in and pass on to their children and grandchildren.”

With grim faces, residents listened when Price explained the gas industry has many exemptions in its favor including the Clean Air Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, Clean Water Act, the Superfund Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. These exemptions seem to override any laws local municipalities could enact to prohibit the gas industry, Price said.

The 1984 Gas Act basically said local municipalities have no control over what the corporations do, said Neil Turner, Harveys Lake resident and co-organizer of the meeting.

Price said the best municipalities can do is regulate gas drilling through zoning laws. He said zoning laws can limit certain activities in certain areas of a municipality, on the surface. But he said nothing regulates the horizontal drilling that gas companies are now performing.

“You are never allowed to say no, in the zoning laws, to a legal permitted use of land,” Price said. “How do you know it is legal? Because they issue permits. A permit is a license to engage in an activity. What activity? Hydrofracking. An activity which has been exempt from the protection of federal and state laws.”

The Harveys Lake community is in a good position, Turner said, as a nearby Noxen Township well came up dry and EnCana Oil and Gas U.S.A. pulled out of Luzerne County after exploration results at two wells did not yield large amounts of natural gas.

The ordinance Price presented would establish a Bill of Rights for borough residents banning “commercial extraction of Marcellus Shale natural gas with Harveys Lake borough because that extraction cannot be achieved without violating the rights of residents and communities or endangering their health, safety and welfare.”

The ordinance also nullifies state laws, permits, and other authorizations which interfere with the rights secured by the ordinance.

The four-page ordinance claims residents have inalienable and fundamental rights to access, consume and preserve water drawn from the natural water sources within the borough and protect the natural ecosystems of the community.

Harveys Lake is a large watershed area which feeds into the Ceasetown and Huntsville reservoirs, which provide drinking water to about 100,000 Wyoming Valley residents. Concern over contaminated water from upstream flowing into the lake was also addressed.

The ordinance states “corporations and persons using corporations to engage in natural gas extraction in a neighboring municipality, county, or state, shall be strictly liable for all harms caused to natural water sources, ecosystems, and natural communities within the borough.”

The ordinance also has an enforcement section, which states any person or corporation found in violation of the provisions of the ordinance will pay the maximum fine allowable under state law.

Price said the ordinance is designed to give residents their inalienable rights afforded under the First and Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. He told residents it is not an easy fight.

The ordinance is similar to the one recently passed in Pittsburgh and Licking Township, Turner said.

Price then opened the floor for questions. Residents had several concerns over the possibility of being sued by a gas company over the ordinance. Price responded people can sue each other over anything.

Price said his agency will offer free legal services in terms of drafting and explaining the ordinance, and arguments. More than 120 similar ordinances have been adopted and only about five lawsuits have occurred, he said.

EILEEN GODIN Times Leader Correspondent
Posted: February 13, 2011
http://www.timesleader.com/news/Harveys_Lake_citizens_hear_about_drilling_ordinance_02-13-2011.html