Bradford County water wells tested for methane
www.stargazette.com/article/20120521/NEWS11/205210388/Bradford-County-water-wells-tested-methane?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE&nclick_check=1
May. 21, 2012
Pa. officials, Chesapeake try to determine cause of gas migration
Pennsylvania officials and Chesapeake Energy are investigating a possible methane gas migration issue in Leroy Township in Bradford County.
The Department of Environmental Protection’s Oil and Gas Program received the initial report on Saturday evening, said Daniel Spadoni, the agency’s community relations coordinator.
Methane was detected in the headspace of two private drinking water wells. Both wells have been vented, DEP says. There have also been reports of gas bubbling documented in nearby wetlands.
Chesapeake’s Morse well pad — which contains two wells — is about one-half mile from the affected private wells. DEP has sampled four private wells in the area and a Chesapeake consultant is screening all private wells within a 2,500 foot radius of the Morse pad.
Brian Grove, Chesapeake’s senior director of corporate development, said the company was alerted Saturday to a complaint regarding residential water supplies and nearby surface water. The company, Grove said, is “working cooperatively with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to investigate the situation.”
More information will be released as the investigation proceeds, the company said.
Methane migration, when methane gas leaks into water wells, happens when a gas well hits a pocket of naturally occurring methane gas in the earth, allowing the methane to seep into the soil. In the cases where it can be proved the contamination has been caused by natural gas drilling, gas companies can be made responsible for any remediation methods — installing new water wells, providing bottled fresh water or installing equipment to vent the methane.
Although the DEP strengthened its drilling regulations in February 2011 by mandating a higher grade of cement be used in the well casings, pressure testing the wells and more inspections, the methane migration problem has persisted.
In May 2011, DEP fined Chesapeake Energy for a series of water contamination incidents and a well-site fire that injured three workers. The company agreed to pay $900,000 for allowing methane to migrate up faulty wells in Bradford County and contaminate 16 families’ drinking water beginning in 2010.
In January, DEP sent a violation notice to Chief Oil & Gas for three gas wells in Wyoming County’s Nicholson Township saying there is 100-percent combustible gas between the cemented steel casings, which the agency uses as a sign of flaws in construction of the well. The investigation began after a nearby resident complained of high methane levels in well water supplies.
Methane levels above 28 milligrams per liter are a cause for concern because at that point, water can no longer hold the gas and it begins to escape to the air.
Meanwhile, DEP’s Spadoni said, and no methane has been detected inside any of the homes near the Morse well pad.
One of the wells being tested provides drinking water for a niece of Patricia Klotz, of Rome, Pa. Her niece lives near Rockwell Road in Leroy Township, and Klotz said her niece’s water is being tested every 12 hours and that the testing has been going on for a couple of days.
“But she and her neighbors are afraid to say anything, for fear of repercussions,” Klotz said.
The investigation is continuing and no determination has been made as to the source or sources of the methane, DEP says.
Pa. health care company seeks gas drilling facts
www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-05/D9USIMM83.htm
BY KEVIN BEGOS
May 20, 2012
Some people are absolutely sure gas drilling threatens public health, while others are absolutely sure it doesn’t.
Geisinger Health Systems is looking for more facts on the debate.
“Our concern is getting reliable data so we know what to do for our patients,” said David Carey, director of Geisinger’s Weis Center for Research in Danville, Pa.
Geisinger serves many patients who live in areas that have seen a recent boom in Marcellus Shale gas drilling. The gas-rich formation thousands of feet underground has generated jobs, billions of dollars and concerns about possible environmental and public health impacts from thousands of new wells.
“There’s a real need for reliable information for policymakers,” Carey said, yet some of the debate on the issue has been more emotion-driven than science-driven.
“Lack of data has not led to a lack of opinion,” Carey noted.
But with state and federal budgets under intense pressure, there hasn’t been much money available for serious medical research. Then over the last year, executives at Geisinger realized they had a big head start.
“We have a very long history of caring for patients in this region,” Carey said, noting the company serves 2.6 million patients and operates hospitals, clinics, and an insurance program in 44 north central and north eastern counties. That means they have vast troves of health care data, concerning everything from cancer to car accidents to asthma attacks.
“We can map the clinical data in both space and in time,” Carey said, meaning they can compare health in areas with gas drilling to similar areas where it isn’t happening.
Carey said the company isn’t presuming anything about the issue, though it is aware of both concerns and the economic value of the shale boom.
“Our position is, let’s collect the data and find out,” he said.
It may fall to private companies to do some of the work.
Until a few months ago, Pennsylvania public health officials had expected to get a share of the revenue being generated by the state’s new Marcellus Shale law, which is projected to provide about $180 million to state and local governments in the first year.
But representatives from Republican Gov. Tom Corbett’s office and the state Senate cut the health appropriation to zero during final negotiations, so now the state Department of Health is left with a new workload but no funding to examine whether gas drilling impacts health.
Many federal and state regulators say hydraulic fracturing is safe when done properly, and that thousands of wells have been drilled with few complaints of pollution. But environmental groups and some doctors assert that regulations still aren’t tough enough and that the practice can pollute groundwater and air.
The claims and counterclaims have been so extreme that some health experts feel the fear and confusion that’s been generated among the public is a problem by itself. Bernard Goldstein, a professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, said experience has shown that patient trust is a key component in health care.
Goldstein said Pitt is also looking at ways to use health care data to answer questions about gas drilling and possible public health impacts.
Despite all the controversy over the issue, Carey hopes Geisinger can stay above the fray.
“To the extent possible, we’re trying to stay clear of any political land mines,” he said.
“We see this unfolding in phases. I could see a batch of early studies that might focus on some diseases. Asthma is a good example,” he said, since people with that disease would be very sensitive to possible changes in air quality due to gas drilling.
Geisinger hopes to issue some preliminary results of its data analysis within the next year, Carey said, while other aspects of the research will unfold over five, 10 or 15 years.
Residents: Pa. health dept. lacks in investigating claims of illness.
www.timesleader.com/stories/Residents-Pa-health-dept-lacks-in-investigating-claims-of-illness,149927
By KEVIN BEGOS
May 13, 2012
Inquiry finds several other shortcomings by agency concerning gas drilling.
PITTSBURGH — The Pennsylvania Department of Health says it investigates every claim by residents that gas drilling has caused health problems, but several people say the agency’s actions don’t match its words.
Two western Pennsylvania residents told The Associated Press that health officials have fallen short in responding to their health complaints.
The AP also found that the toll-free number the agency gives out for gas drilling complaints doesn’t mention the issue in its automated menu, and the agency’s website doesn’t have a specific place for people to file such complaints.
And the AP inquiry showed that the agency didn’t begin keeping track of possible health complaints tied to gas drilling until 2011, several years after a surge of activity in the gas-rich Marcellus Shale.
“Everybody kind of just passed the buck,” said Sheri Makepeace, a northwestern Pennsylvania resident who said that starting last year she tried calling the Department of Health and other agencies over fears that nearby drilling created health problems. “I’ve talked to so many different people and have gotten so many different stories.”
Christine Cronkright, a spokeswoman for the agency, said the agency stands by earlier statements that it responds to, investigates and issues a formal response to all complaints about gas drilling and public health. Officials are working on how and where to share information on the issue with the public and expect to release details in the near future, she said.
The AP also found that previous responses from the Department of Health about the numbers of complaints it has received about drilling and health have been at best confusing and at worst misleading.
The agency first told the AP that it had received a total of about 30 complaints, and then modified that to being 30 over the last year. Now, the agency says it didn’t even begin recording such complaints until 2011.
Cronkright also told the AP that the agency has no current investigations regarding people who claim gas drilling has impacted their health.
That puzzles Janet McIntyre, one of Makepeace’s neighbors.
She made a formal complaint by phone in late February and said a health department employee replied that he would get back to her in a few days. McIntyre said she purposefully waited 30 days for a response but none came.
“He sounded as if he wanted to get right on it. And that I would have people calling me,” she said. “I was very frustrated. I was getting nowhere. That was disheartening.”
The AP started asking the health department about problems in responding to complaints in April, and then in early May McIntyre sent a letter to the agency, outlining her experience.
On Thursday, a health official called her to apologize, she said, adding that “they dropped the ball. But at least they picked it up again.”
One public health expert who’s working on gas drilling complaints in Pennsylvania said the health agency is in a difficult position.
“I’m not surprised that their protocols are a little difficult to get in place. The response to something like this is really hard,” said David Brown, a former head of environmental epidemiology in Connecticut who is now working with the nonprofit Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project to examine complaints about gas drilling.
Until a few months ago, Pennsylvania health officials had expected to get a share of the revenue being generated by the state’s new Marcellus Shale law, which is projected to provide about $180 million to state and local governments in the first year.
But representatives from Republican Gov. Tom Corbett’s office and the state Senate cut the health appropriation to zero during final negotiations, so now the agency is left with a new workload but no funding for the job.
Five spills reported at gas pipeline sites
citizensvoice.com/news/five-spills-reported-at-gas-pipeline-sites-1.1313538#axzz1uZEq4r00
By Elizabeth Skrapits (Staff Writer)
Published: May 11, 2012
DALLAS TWP. – The state Department of Environmental Protection is monitoring a series of drilling mud spills at a natural gas pipeline installation.
Chief Gathering LLC, recently bought out by PVR Partners, hired contractors to install a pipeline to connect natural gas wells in Susquehanna County to the Transco interstate pipeline in Dallas Township.
Since May 1, there have been five spills of more than 6,000 gallons of water containing bentonite, a type of clay used in drilling operations, at two different Dallas Township sites: Leonards Creek on Kunkle Road and Upper Demunds Road and Goodleigh Road, outside Goodleigh Estates, according to a report from DEP. On Thursday, crews sucked up the mud at the Upper Demunds Road site using vacuum trucks.
Chief’s Vice President of Industry Affairs Kristi Gittins said releases of mud at pipeline boring sites are not uncommon and “we plan for them and we deal with them.” No chemicals or additives were used, she said.
DEP has been to the site and approved remediation plans, Gittins said. She said Chief is providing information to DEP and the agency does regular follow-up visits.
The DEP report shows five “inadvertent return to surface” incidents involving drilling mud with bentonite coming up from the ground at two horizontal drilling sites.
The first occurred at 8:30 a.m. May 1, with 50 gallons of mud released at a wetlands next to Leonards Creek on Kunkle Road. It was contained at the site. The next day at the same site 20 gallons escaped containment but did not impact the creek. Then again on May 2, 200 gallons overflowed at the site. It was also cleaned up, DEP reported.
In the fourth incident, on Monday, about 1,000 gallons of bentonite was spilled and drilling mud was discovered coming from an old springhouse between Kunkle Road and Leonards Creek. Not all the bentonite was contained at the time, and DEP reported the creek was cloudy. By Thursday, most of the bentonite was cleaned up.
The fifth incident occurred Saturday, when 5,000 to 6,000 gallons of bentonite was lost in wetlands about 200 feet off Upper Demunds Road, according to DEP. The drilling mud was contained on the site with hay bales and is being removed by a vacuum truck.
The Upper Demunds Road spill occurred outside an upscale development where the pipeline installation created controversy.
Several Goodleigh Estates residents sued their neighbors for leasing Chief a right-of-way, asking Luzerne County court to stop the pipeline construction on the grounds it violated the development’s covenants and would create a nuisance.
Chief was not named in the suit, but the company sued the residents, claiming their efforts to delay the pipeline could cost the company from $683,000 to $18 million or more. Chief also asked them to pay damages for making “defamatory and malicious” statements about the company in local media and on Facebook.
Chief and the residents came to an agreement in November that dismissed the suits.
Under the undisclosed terms of the agreement, the residents are prohibited from commenting about Chief.
eskrapits@citizensvoice.com, 570-821-2072
More shale wells to be levied fee than first thought
citizensvoice.com/news/more-shale-wells-to-be-levied-fee-than-first-thought-1.1311520#axzz1uHygpsqW
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: May 7, 2012
Lackawanna and Luzerne counties may get a cut of the state’s shale drilling impact fee after all.
The state’s Public Utility Commission, which is charged with collecting and distributing the fee, said its interpretation of the law allows the state to levy a fee on Lackawanna County’s two exploratory Marcellus Shale wells, at least for one year.
The same might hold true with Luzerne County’s two wells, even though they were not considered productive and were subsequently plugged and abandoned.
PUC spokeswoman Jennifer Kocher said there may be a possibility for one year’s worth of fees from the Luzerne County wells.
“It would all depend on how the wells fit into the definitions that were laid out by the law,” she said.
Encana Oil & Gas USA Inc. drilled two wells in the summer of 2010, one on Route 118 in Fairmount Township and the other on Zosh Road in Lake Township. The company announced in November 2010 that the wells were not economically viable.
Kocher said the potential for Luzerne County and Lake and Fairmount townships to get a share of the drilling revenue for the two wells depends on the definition of “spud,” or the actual start of drilling an unconventional well.
Asked what Luzerne County might stand to receive, Kocher said, “We’re not providing any numbers at this time, because we’re still scrubbing data” from the state Department of Environmental Protection.
Because Lackawanna County’s wells are considered shale or “unconventional” gas wells subject to the law, the county and its municipalities will likely get a small share of the approximately $207 million that will be collected from drillers for wells drilled prior to Jan. 1, 2012.
If all 4,802 of the unconventional wells included in the state Department of Environmental Protection’s official list are subject to the fee, Lackawanna County would receive $16,215, Benton and Greenfield townships would each get about $8,330 and all the county’s municipalities would get a portion of $12,160, according to the distribution formula outlined in the drilling law, known as Act 13.
Although the law levies a smaller fee on vertical wells – like those drilled in Lackawanna County – than horizontal ones, it does not distinguish between the two types of wells for distributing the fee to local governments. Vertical wells are assessed at 20 percent of the horizontal well fee, which is $50,000 for wells drilled before 2012 and may change each year based on the average price of natural gas.
Kocher said Lackawanna County’s two vertical wells “are subject to the 20 percent fee in year one. In year two if they are not producing at the designated levels outlined in the act, they do not have to pay the fee.”
After the law was adopted in February, the fee fate of the state’s exploratory wells and their host communities was not clear.
The law defines a vertical gas well as one that has been hydraulically fractured and produces more than 90,000 cubic feet of gas per day – a definition that the law’s architects said was intended to exclude low- or non-producing wells that are used to assess the quantity of gas in an unexplored region of the shale.
But the law defines an “unconventional well” more expansively, as “a bore hole drilled ⦠for the purpose of or to be used for the production of natural gas from an unconventional formation,” and the state’s official list of unconventional wells includes many vertical, non-producing wells, along with inactive wells and unsuccessful wells that have been plugged.
Organizations that commented on the PUC’s draft interpretation of the law suggested different ways of dealing with the uncertainty.
Three trade organizations for natural gas producers pointed out that the law, and the PUC’s interpretation of it, is not clear about whether the impact fee would be levied on wells drilled into the shale for reasons other than direct gas production, like geologic analysis, although they suggested the answer should be no.
They also wrote that the law does not directly address what to do with “dry holes” – wells that are plugged because they would not produce economic amounts of gas. They suggested that wells drilled and plugged before Jan. 1, 2012, “owe no fee” and that any future wells drilled and plugged in the same year also “do not owe the fee.”
The Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs offered an opposite interpretation and advocated that any well drilled and plugged in the same year pay at least one year’s fee.
“The fact that a well does not produce quantities above a stripper well or is plugged will not mitigate the impacts to the communities from the drilling of the well,” the group wrote.
The PUC has delayed issuing its final implementation order for the law in response to a court injunction that temporarily postponed some aspects of the act relating to local zoning rules.
Luzerne County Council voted 6-5 on April 16 to pass an ordinance enabling the county to accept a share of natural gas revenue if available.
Councilman Stephen A. Urban, one of the “no” votes, said council never got a definite number on how much revenue the county might be eligible for. However, he voted against the ordinance because he believes Act 13 is unconstitutional, going against the provision in the state constitution allows municipalities and counties to do their own planning and zoning.
“It wasn’t a money issue to me. It was a matter of constitutionality and a matter of principle,” Urban said.
Elizabeth Skrapits, staff writer, contributed to this report.
llegere@timesshamrock.com
Natural gas as a transportation fuel the topic of conference
live.psu.edu/story/59583#nw69
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Increasingly, bus companies are switching to natural gas fuel. Shown here, a Centre Area Transportation Authority vehicle 'gases' up.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A one-day conference in Lehigh County, sponsored by Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, will provide a comprehensive overview of using natural gas as a transportation fuel in Pennsylvania and the mid-Atlantic region.
“Natural Gas Vehicles: The Road Ahead in Pennsylvania” will be held from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Monday, June 11, at Penn State Lehigh Valley in Center Valley. The program is being organized by Penn State Extension.
“The conference will be a place where clean-air and clean-transportation advocates, industry stakeholders, fleet managers and policymakers can learn the fundamentals of using natural gas as a transportation fuel,” said conference coordinator Dave Messersmith, extension educator and member of Extension’s Marcellus Education Team.
“Professionals attending the sessions will be able to network with other natural gas vehicle stakeholders, and they can discuss opportunities and challenges to greater adoption of natural gas as a transportation fuel.”
The conference will feature sessions titled “A Primer on Natural Gas as a Transportation Fuel,” “What’s Happening with Natural Gas Vehicles in Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic,” “Understanding Shale Gas in Pennsylvania and Natural Gas Market Outlook,” “The Texas Clean Transportation Triangle: A Model for Success,” “Engine and Conversion Technologies,” and “Fueling Station Concepts and Technologies.”
Presenters include researchers, entrepreneurs and industry experts who will provide a fundamental understanding of natural gas as a transportation fuel.
The registration fee for the conference is $149. For more information, contact Carol Loveland at 570-433-3040 or by email at cal24@psu.edu.
To register for the conference by phone, call toll-free 877-489-1398. To register online, go to the conference website at http://agsci.psu.edu/natural-gas-vehicles and click on RSVP in the gray bar near the top of the page.
State investigating methane in water near Dimock Twp.
citizensvoice.com/news/state-investigating-methane-in-water-near-dimock-twp-1.1307137#axzz1t9VLaOeL
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: April 28, 2012
State environmental regulators are investigating a possible case of methane migrating into water supplies just north of the 9-square-mile box in Dimock Township where the state halted a gas driller’s operations because of methane contamination in 2010.
Regulators with the state Department of Environmental Protection emphasized that they have not determined the source of elevated methane discovered in two Susquehanna County water wells and whether it is caused by Marcellus Shale drilling or a natural occurrence of gas in the aquifer.
One focus of the investigation is Cabot Oil and Gas Corp.’s Greenwood 1 well, where the company recently squeezed additional cement between steel barriers that are meant to seal off gas and fluids from the aquifer.
The work in late March was an effort to stop the problem, DEP spokesman Kevin Sunday said, even though inspectors have not pinpointed the well as the cause.
“The next step is to determine the effectiveness of the remediation work and to continue water well sampling,” he said.
Regulators began investigating the elevated methane levels in August 2010 after a resident complained about water quality.
The gas wells being evaluated are less than 400 feet from the northern boundary of a section of Dimock where Cabot’s drilling and hydraulic fracturing operations have been on hold since April 2010, when state regulators blamed faulty Cabot wells for allowing shallow methane to channel into 18 private water wells. Cabot disputes the state’s findings in that case.
The current investigation is separate from the ongoing review of Cabot’s wells in the off-limits area.
Cabot spokesman George Stark said Friday that the company “always investigates landowners’ concerns as they are brought to our attention. Cabot has been working closely with the Department of Environmental Protection on this matter and will continue to do so with the best interest of our landowners in mind.”
Neither of the two water wells involved in the current investigation has been vented because one well is buried and has not been located and inspections of the other have not found gas trapped in the open space above the water in the well, Sunday said.
Methane in drinking water is not known to cause any health risks, but at high concentrations it can seep out of water into the air and create an explosion hazard in enclosed spaces.
The state has not reached a determination 20 months into the investigation because a number of factors need to be considered, including the construction of nearby gas wells and identifying features of the methane, DEP spokeswoman Colleen Connolly said.
“It’s not different from any case,” she said. “There are just many issues to deal with.”
The Greenwood 1 well was the first Marcellus Shale well drilled by Cabot in Dimock, in September 2007, according to state records.
Three horizontal wells later drilled on the same pad in November 2009 and May 2010 were among the top-producing wells in the state early last year.
Those wells, the Greenwood 6, 7 and 8, have also been evaluated as part of the investigation. Cabot was cited by DEP for a “failure to case and cement” the three wells “to prevent migrations into fresh groundwater” in January 2011 but Cabot has argued in a letter to the state that the wells were properly constructed and the violations should be rescinded.
Connolly said that DEP is addressing the violations with Cabot. The defects cited by the department “could have been a means of allowing methane to migrate into the fresh groundwater, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the water supply has been impacted,” she said.
llegere@timesshamrock.com
Pennsylvania law on fracking worries doctors
www.pennlive.com/newsflash/index.ssf/story/pennsylvania-law-on-fracking-worries-doctors/dd15e865ab528519210b827575117d4f
April 25, 2012, 8:14 a.m. EDT
McClatchy/Tribune – MCT Information Services
AVELLA, Pa. _ About two years ago, Dr. Amy Pare began treating members of the Moten family and their neighbors from a working-class neighborhood less than half a mile from a natural gas well here.
A plastic surgeon whose specialty includes skin cancer, Pare removed and biopsied quarter-size skin lesions from Jeannie Moten, 53, and her niece, only to find that the sores recurred. “The good news is that it wasn’t cancer, and the bad news is that we have no idea what it is,” Pare said.
Determined to understand the illnesses, Pare went last May to the Motens’ neighborhood to collect urine samples from a dozen people. To her dismay, she found chemicals not normally present in the human body: hippuric acid, phenol, mandelic acid.
The Motens and their neighbors suspect their ailments could be tied to the natural gas well. Pare says she is not sure what is causing their problems. But she worries that she may have a hard time determining the exact cause because of a provision in a new Pennsylvania law regulating natural gas production.
The law compels natural gas companies to give inquiring health care professionals information about the chemicals used in their drilling and production processes _ but only after the doctors or nurses sign a confidentiality agreement.
Some physicians complain that the law is vague and lacks specific guidelines about how they can use and share the information with patients, colleagues and public health officials, putting them at risk of violating the measure. But refusing to sign the confidentiality agreement denies them access to information that could help treat patients.
“I just want to make my patients healthy,” Pare said, adding that she might sign an agreement. “And I can’t do that if I don’t know what it is that’s making them sick.”
The possibility that increased natural gas development could threaten public heath lies at the core of resistance to a controversial process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The technique involves high-pressure injection of water and sand laced with chemicals deep underground to break shale formations and unlock oil and gas deposits.
Some people living near well sites have complained that their well water has been contaminated by fracking. The industry asserts that tiny amounts of chemicals are used in fracking and that the water problems are unrelated to the procedure.
Supporters of the Pennsylvania law _ including the gas industry, Republican Gov. Tom Corbett and many legislators _ said it was designed to help health care providers. Environmental groups and opposing lawmakers said the provision was not in the natural gas law’s original version and was slipped in behind closed doors at the last minute by industry-friendly legislators.
Patrick Henderson, the governor’s energy executive, said the new law would increase disclosure. Companies would have to share the chemical composition of fluids they use in natural gas production, including proprietary mixes. The confidentiality agreement would not prevent doctors from sharing information with colleagues or patients, only with the company’s competitors, he said.
Dr. Marilyn Heine, president of the Pennsylvania Medical Society, said her group had been assured by the state that as regulations are developed to implement the law, state officials “will clarify the provisions so that physicians will know what they can do.”
Some doctors, however, want the details in writing before they sign any confidentiality agreements.
“Right now, any physician reading the law would not go anywhere near the issue, because the language of the law has a very chilling effect,” said Dr. Bernard Goldstein, former dean of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and an expert on possible health effects of natural gas development. “I very much hope that the regulations permit” information sharing, he added.
So far, there are no comprehensive, independent studies of the possible health effects of natural gas development.
Dr. Sean Porbin, a family practitioner in Avella, thinks natural gas development could revive many struggling towns in Pennsylvania. “We need to ask questions,” he said. “It’s not about shutting down industry, but fixing it. And if the data show what they’re doing is safe, then we need to defend them.”
Pennsylvania’s new law is not unprecedented, according to the state’s Republican leadership, the natural gas industry and at least two prominent environmental groups. The measure is based on a new rule in Colorado and on two decades-old federal laws from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Health and Safety Administration.
The comparisons between Pennsylvania’s provision and the federal laws, however, are inexact, experts said. According to a statement from OSHA, what doctors can disclose and to whom would come down to “the terms of the agreement between the employer and the health care provider.”
In any case, there is little precedent for how nondisclosure agreements between doctors and companies would work when the patients are residents near a fracking site, not company employees, experts said.
If the state guidelines are stringent, doctors probably will forgo the agreement _ and the information they are seeking from a company, Goldstein and other physicians said. That, too, could imperil doctors.
“It exposes us to lawsuits from our own patients, who might say, ‘Why didn’t you sign the confidentiality agreement?’ or if you did, ‘Why didn’t you share the information with so-and-so?’ ” said Dr. Mehernosh Khan, who has filed suit against the state over the provision. “The law sets up a precedent for doctors not being able to practice medicine properly.”
Geologist to speak in JT on natural gas development
www.tnonline.com/2012/apr/23/geologist-speak-jt-natural-gas-development
Monday, April 23, 2012
Brian Oram, a professional geologist and soil scientist and founder of B.F. Environmental Consultants Inc., will be conducting a community informational session “Marcellus Shale 101” at the Mauch Chunk Museum on Broadway in Jim Thorpe, on Wednesday, April 25, at 7 p.m.
“The work going on today in the area defined by the Marcellus Shale has proven to be a divisive and polarizing topic,” said Oram. “Understanding the risks and benefits these operations pose for residents of the area and the country as a whole requires us to take a much closer look and separate what we know as fact from what we’ve simply been told.
“We need to work as a community and I am honored to help support the education outreach efforts of the Carbon County Groundwater Guardians and the Girl Scouts.”
Oram is a former professor of geology for Wilkes University. In addition to the Marcellus Shale, he will discuss water, wells and the need for baseline water testing for homeowners.
There is no cost to attend the session, which is being hosted by three Ambassador Girl Scouts working toward the Gold Award, the highest award in Girl Scouts. Part of the requirement for the award is to choose a topic and advocate or educate the community about it.
About Carbon County Groundwater Guardians
The Carbon County Groundwater Guardians (CCGG) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, volunteer, environmental education organization which provides homeowners with information on private wells, water quality and quantity, and septic systems. We are dedicated to protecting private well owners from illnesses caused by our drinking water. For more information visit carbonwaters.org.
About B.F. Environmental Consultants, Inc.
B.F. Environmental Consultants, based in Northeastern Pennsylvania and the Poconos, has been providing professional geological, soils, hydrogeological, and environmental consulting services since 1985. The company specializes in the following areas: hydrogeological and wastewater evaluations for siting land-based wastewater disposal systems; soils consulting (soil scientists); environmental monitoring; and overseeing the siting, exploration, and development of community/commercial water supply sources.
Study suggests shale-gas development causing rapid landscape change
live.psu.edu/story/59331#nw69
Friday, April 20, 2012
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — As the Marcellus natural-gas play unfolds in Pennsylvania, several trends are
The greatest amount of Marcellus Shale natural gas development falls within the Susquehanna River basin.becoming increasingly clear, according to researchers at Penn State.
First, most of the development is occurring on private land, and the greatest amount of development falls within the Susquehanna River basin. Second, a regional approach to siting drilling infrastructure is needed to help minimize development in core forest and productive agricultural lands and to decrease the potential risk to waterways.
Patrick Drohan, assistant professor of pedology in the College of Agricultural Sciences, was lead investigator on a study that examined the early effects of Marcellus gas development on landcover change and forest fragmentation in the Keystone State.
Drohan estimates that slightly more than half of the well pads in Pennsylvania occur on agricultural land; most of the rest are on forestland, but many of those are on core forest that is privately owned.
The loss of agricultural land to shale-gas development presents some concern because, in some areas, drilling is now competing with food production for space on the landscape, the study states.
“Our results suggest,” said Drohan, “that shale-gas development could substantially alter Pennsylvania’s landscape. The development of new roads to support drilling could affect forest ecosystem integrity via increased fragmentation.”
The fragmentation of forestland, especially northern core forest, places headwater streams and larger downstream waterways at risk of pollution, the study suggests. Based on the intensity of development in the Susquehanna River basin, future expansion of shale-gas production in this basin could become a significant land- and water-management challenge for Chesapeake Bay water quality and ecosystem services.
The concentration of existing core forest in the northern part of the state — and the focus of drilling in this area, largely on private land — led the researchers to conclude that remaining areas of public land are key refuges for the protection of wildlife, ecosystems and associated ecosystem services.
“These areas should receive further protection,” Drohan said. “An organized effort across government and private entities may be a way to manage development.”
Coauthors of the study, which was published in the March 25 issue of the journal Environmental Management, were Margaret Brittingham, professor of wildlife resources; Joseph Bishop, research associate in geography; and Kevin Yoder, former field assistant in the School of Forest Resources.
The research was sponsored by the Heinz Endowments, Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research and the USDA-NRCS Soil Survey program