DRBC adds 30 days to drilling comment period
The Delaware River Basin Commission approved a 30-day extension of the public comment period for its proposed natural gas drilling regulations on Wednesday.
The extension had been requested by lawmakers and dozens of environmental organizations but opposed by a coalition of Marcellus Shale drillers, who said that an extension would “undermine dialogue on these proposed regulations by granting those with the least involvement and direct affiliation with the river basin disproportionate impact.”
Commissioners from Delaware, New Jersey, New York and the federal government voted for the extension during a meeting in New Jersey on Wednesday. The commissioner from Pennsylvania opposed it.
Written comments on the draft rules will now be accepted until April 15.
The commissioners did not schedule additional public hearings on the draft regulations as the environmental groups requested.
Three hearings were held last week in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, but the groups asked for more hearings in more regions of the basin, including New York City and Philadelphia, “the two largest population centers that rely on the Delaware River for water supplies.”
The Marcellus Shale Coalition sent a letter to each of the commission members last Friday saying an extension of the comment period would “detract from the voices of the key stakeholders heard throughout the process.”
“Those with the greatest stake – including landowners, residents of the basin, and our member companies who are investing capital and creating jobs in the region – have been actively reviewing and responding to the proposals since late last year, without the need for an extended comment period,” coalition president Kathryn Klaber wrote.
The text of the proposed regulations and a link to submit comments electronically are at www.drbc.net. About 2,500 comments have been submitted to the commission so far.
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: March 3, 2011
llegere@timesshamrock.com
http://citizensvoice.com/news/drilling/drbc-adds-30-days-to-drilling-comment-period-1.1113198#axzz1FY5MNqYe
Dozens attend hearing on drilling in Hampton
At a public hearing on Marcellus Shale drilling last week in Hampton, some speakers questioned the safety of drilling in an area that’s honeycombed with old coal mines, while others voiced fears of polluted water and the wear and tear on infrastructure.
But one resident had a different view.
Paul Dudenas, who told council that he works in the petroleum and natural gas drilling industry, gave this description of drilling in the shale to release natural gas:
“Well drilling is short-term chaos and then the chaos goes away, and you’re burning safe, reliable, American, clean-burning natural gas.”
According to Mr. Dudenas, fears of water contamination are unfounded because Marcellus Shale lies about 7,000 feet below ground. “There are 380 million years of rock in between. The physics of it just don’t allow for water contamination,” he said.
No cases of groundwater contamination have been reported due to hydraulic fracturing of the shale, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection, but the DEP has issued violations of the state Clean Stream Law in connection with the drilling of Marcellus wells, including accidental discharges of drilling wastewater onto the ground or into streams. In addition, new concerns were raised recently that wastewater from the drilling may contain high levels of radiation.
Dozens attended the Feb. 23 hearing in Hampton Community Center, which was the township’s second public hearing on a proposed zoning ordinance to address oil and gas drilling regulations. It was held at the community center instead of the municipal offices to accommodate the crowd.
Action on the ordinance will be taken in April, at the earliest.
Hampton council President Victor Son said the township’s planning commission and land use staff have been working for more than a year on crafting and revising the local ordinance.
“Our focus is on allowing a conditional use [for drilling operations],” he said. “Otherwise, we would be in violation of the municipal planning code, and then [drilling] could be allowed anywhere in the township.”
Using South Fayette’s drilling ordinance as a template, Hampton officials designated three zoning areas — light industrial, heavy industry and research and development — as the only places in Hampton where drilling activities would be allowed as a conditional use.
Mr. Son told residents that the ordinance is a pre-emptive measure the township is taking to protect residential land.
“We don’t want to be reactionary to someone wanting to drill,” he explained. “We want to define areas and then force the drillers to come to us for conditional use [hearings]. To not have a plan would have been the worst thing.”
Some changes in the most recent draft of the township’s Ordinance 627 that were discussed during the hearing included adding 10 acres to total 20 acres as the required amount of land needed to support a drilling pad; mandating that any gas processing plant or compressor station be restricted to heavy industrial zones; and prohibiting drilling in a flood zone.
The ordinance also includes amendments to zoning regulations regarding farm animals, alcohol sales, handicapped parking requirements, outdoor lighting regulations, fencing and setback requirements, natural gas treatment systems and other items designed to preserve quality of life.
Mr. Son added that salt reclaimed from the hydraulic fracturing process, which forces a mixture of water, sand and chemicals into man-made fractures in the earth to break up the shale, can be used as road salt for municipalities.
He said that drilling technology is rapidly advancing and council will continue to make changes in response to whatever is happening in the industry. For example, he said, hydrogen may replace water in the fracking process. “Our concern is always for the residents and maintaining our quality of life,” he said.
The township’s environmental advisory council and zoning hearing board have been instrumental in rewriting Ordinance 627. The township is still seeking residents to serve on both of the boards.
Contact the township offices at 412- 486-0400.
Council also approved the appointment of Amar Mishra to fill a vacancy on the Hampton Community Association Board. Another vacancy exists on that board.
By Jill Cueni-Cohen
March 03, 2011
Jill Cueni-Cohen, freelance writer: suburbanliving@post-gazette.com.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11062/1129203-54.stm
Northern Tier official defends hydrofracturing from New York Times portrayal
Bradford County Commissioner Doug McLinko said drilling through the Marcellus Shale with compressed water is a safe natural gas retrieval method, not the health hazard portrayed by a New York Times report.
McLinko’s defense of the hydrofracturing came in a Wednesday news report in which he responded to a New York Times article questioning the state of water management and gas regulation here.
“The New York Times blatant misrepresentation of Pennsylvania gas regulations glosses over the robust programs in place to protect the people and the environment in Pennsylvania,” McLinko said. “I have complete faith in the extensive oversight and enforcement efforts the state has put in place over the last two years.”
McLinko said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2004 declared hydraulic fracturing safe, and as recently as last year, the state Department of Environmental Protection conducted a study that found no evidence of groundwater contamination due to hydraulic fracturing.
“The greatest danger exposed by the New York Times coverage is the danger of misinformation and careless fact checking,” McLinko said.
March 3, 2011
http://www.sungazette.com/page/content.detail/id/560986/Northern-Tier-official-defends-hydrofracturing-from-New-York-Times-portrayal.html?nav=5011
Is Pennsylvania doing a bad job of protecting drinking water?
The New York Times raised some eyebrows by saying Pennsylvania’s monitoring of water from gas well sites is lax. Is there any danger to our drinking water from a process known as hydraulic fracturing?
Engineering a producing gas well is not as simple as drilling a hole in the ground and adding some pipe. Underground rock structures have to be fractured to release natural gas. The process is known as hydraulic fracturing. Water, acid and other materials are pumped under extremely high pressure to fracture the underground rock structures. The process has been used for decades in Pennsylvania.
The New York Times articles suggest that naturally occurring, low level radioactivity picked up by underground water could be a health hazard if it reaches drinking water supplies.
It was the first thing that Governor Corbett’s choice for DEP Secretary was asked about in a Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday.
“There are drinking water standards,” said Judge Michael Krancer, the Acting DEP Secretary. “As one of the commentators of the article says, we think it’s safe. There have been calls from various quarters to do some testing.”
Judge Krancer said if he’s confirmed as DEP Secretary, he’ll look into such testing.
But the man who just departed as DEP Secretary said experts on radioactivity and health within the agency assured him it is not a concern.
“Those are the experts in state government who looked at this thing and were very sure at the time that it did not pose a threat,” said former DEP Secretary John Hanger.
Hanger said drinking water operators are already required to check for radioactivity, although not that frequently. He said doing more testing is the smart thing to do.
A DEP spokesperson said about 70 percent of waste water at gas well sites is recycled on-site. Some of the waste water goes to treatment plants for processing before being released in streams and rivers.
Mar 02, 2011
http://www.abc27.com/Global/story.asp?S=14175319
2 Pa. water companies to test supplies over drilling
Two large Pennsylvania water providers said Wednesday they planned to immediately test public water supplies in response to outcry over a news report that radioactive gas-drilling wastewater may have been discharged into the state’s streams.
The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority and Pennsylvania American Water Co. said they hoped the tests in the next few weeks would address fears that public drinking water is imperiled by Marcellus Shale gas drilling.
“We want to know if there is a problem here,” said Stanley States, director of water quality and production for the Pittsburgh authority, which plans to take monthly radiological samples at its two treatment plants for the next year. “We need data.”
Pennsylvania American, which has five treatment plants in and around Pittsburgh that are near gas-drilling operations, will conduct “a battery of radiological tests during the next few weeks,” said Terry M. Maenza, a spokesman for the company headquartered in Hershey.
“We expect there will be no cause for concern,” he said.
Public officials, environmental advocates, and industry representatives have called on regulators to require more frequent testing of Pennsylvania water supplies after the New York Times reported Sunday that some radioactive wastewater is sent to sewage plants not designed to treat it and then discharged into rivers that supply drinking water.
The report focused on discharges in Western and north-central Pennsylvania, where drillers are active. No producing wells are active in the Delaware River basin, which provides the Philadelphia region with drinking water.
The Times reported that some wastewater from Marcellus Shale gas-drilling contained radioactivity at levels higher than previously known. Radioactive materials such as uranium and radium occur naturally in deep rock formations and are brought to the surface in wastewater associated with hydraulic fracturing, the controversial technique that drillers use to release natural gas locked up in the mile-deep formation.
Though the Times reported that some wastewater at well sites contained elevated radioactivity, the potential health effects are unclear because little testing has been conducted since the shale boom took off three years ago.
Prolonged ingestion of the low-level radioactive material is believed to increase the risk of developing certain types of cancer. Brief skin contact with the wastewater is not considered dangerous.
“Drinking water with elevated levels of radium and uranium – which are found in virtually all rock, soil, and water – may cause cancer after several years,” the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says on its website.
Elevated radiation levels can be reduced with treatment, according to some environmental agencies that tell homeowners with private wells that standard water softeners can reduce radium and that more expensive reverse-osmosis systems can remove uranium and radium.
The EPA and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection require radiological testing infrequently in areas with no history of radioactive contamination. The Pittsburgh system last tested its water for radioactivity in 2005, States said.
“If we find something elevated, we’ll certainly bring it to the regulators’ attention right away,” he said.
The cost of the tests is not a factor. States said an Indiana laboratory would charge about $150 for each test.
U.S. Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D., Pa.) was among the officials who this week called on regulators to require more frequent testing.
But regulators have stopped short of ordering more tests.
Richard Yost, an EPA spokesman, said Monday the agency was examining radioactivity as part of a two-year national study of hydraulic fracturing.
“While we conduct this study, we will not hesitate to take any steps under the law to protect Americans whose health may be at risk,” he said in an e-mail.
Katherine Gresh, a Pennsylvania DEP spokeswoman, said the agency was awaiting results of radium tests on water samples collected in November and December from seven rivers: the Monongahela at Charleroi; the Tioga; the West Branch of the Susquehanna; the Conemaugh; the Allegheny; the Beaver; and the South Fork of Ten Mile Creek. “Requiring more frequent testing is definitely under consideration,” she said.
Wastewater has become a huge challenge for the Marcellus industry, which recycles about 70 percent of its wastewater.
The Susquehanna River Basin Commission has conducted some tests of radioactivity in Marcellus streams, said Andy Gavin, manager of restoration and protection. The tests indicated no contamination.
But commission officials caution that the samples were drawn from smaller tributaries upstream from sewage-treatment plants, so they would not detect radiation from wastewater legally disposed of at the plants, but only contamination from spills or illegal dumping.
“We’re still collecting baseline information,” Gavin said.
By Andrew Maykuth
Inquirer Staff Writer
Mar. 3, 2011
http://www.philly.com/philly/business/117300118.html
Records show wastewater with radium sent to Troy Twp.
Water from two gas wells in Tioga County, Pa. with radium at nearly 700 times the levels allowed in drinking water went to nine municipalities – including Troy Township – to suppress dust in 2009, according to state records.
A recent report by “The New York Times” noted that more than 155,000 gallons of the drilling wastewater was sent by Ultra Resources to the nine locations.
According to the Times report, Pennsylvania allows salty brine that is produced from the drilling wastewater to be spread on roads to suppress dust or de-ice.
Richmond Township in Tioga County got 101,640 gallons of this water from wells with “high radioactivity,” the Times reported. By comparison, Troy Township received 6,300 gallons, the state records show. It was the only municipality in Bradford County listed on the state records.
The Times quoted Deborah Kotulka, the secretary of Richmond Township, whose name is on the state record, as saying, “I was told nothing about frack water or any gas-well brines or anything else.”
For Troy Township, township secretary Lonna Bly is on the state record as the contact person. When asked for comment, she said never heard of Ultra Resources. “I don’t know anything,” she said regarding the matter. She said that she only knew of liquid calcium and AEP Oil being applied on the roads for dust control.
Troy Township Supervisor Vice-Chairman and Assistant Roadmaster Don Jenkins said the township had a road spreading permit from the DEP to receive salt brine water, and last had the permit in summer 2009.
He said it was put on the roads to control the dust.
According to Jenkins, the township obtained the water from a trucking outfit, but he couldn’t remember the name of the company. A DEP lab tested the water from the trucking company before a permit was issued to the township, he said.
However, Jenkins said, the brine water the township received was from New York State from oil well drilling operations there. He said the trucking outfit that provided the water told the supervisors this was the case. Also, Jenkins said he believed hydrofracking for natural gas wasn’t being done in New York at the time. “It still isn’t,” he said.
He said whether the water was radioactive is a question DEP is going to have to answer.
“If we knew it was radioactive, we wouldn’t have been using it. Nobody would have.”
He said the township filed for a road spreading permit in 2010, and was told by DEP that no more permits were being issued.
The Times website noted that the water that went to the nine municipalities came from the Marshlands Unit #1 and Marshlands Unit #2 wells.
The website noted, “Laboratory tests attached by the drilling company show levels of radioactivity (measured in picocuries per liter) as high as 10,356 pCi/L gross alpha, 892 pCi/L Radium-226 and 2589 pCi/L Radium-228. The drinking-water standard for combined radium 226 and 228 is 5 pCi/L, and for gross alpha this standard is 15 pCi/L. With rain or the melting of snow or ice, drilling waste spread on roads could potentially wash into rivers and streams.”
The Times website continued by noting that “studies in New York and Pennsylvania have studied the risks of spraying natural gas wastewater on roads by modeling the risks faced by people who walk along roads every day for many years. These studies found no health impact. In other words, there is limited, if any, exposure risk posed by this wastewater. The kind of radiation most commonly associated with drilling waste, called alpha radiation, loses energy very quickly and cannot get past thin barriers, including skin.”
It continued, “However, there is a different sort of risk with this type of radioactive drilling waste. If this alpha radiation comes into direct contact with live cells, it can cause harm. This can happen when people consume this kind of radioactive material, whether they eat it, drink it or breathe it in. So the threat from road-spreading brines is not the risk that someone walking down the road will get cancer, even if they walk along that road every day for years.”
“Instead, the problem is that if the radioactive material in the wastewater were to run off into freshwater supplies, people could end up drinking water that is contaminated. Dilution can certainly reduce the threat from this waste. But the question is whether the waste will be diluted enough to be made safe. This means that the health risk depends not only on how radioactive the wastewater is, but also the amount of the wastewater compared with the fresh water it mixes with.”
A DEP spokesperson said no details were available Wednesday afternoon, but questions regarding the Troy Township matter would be researched and an answer provided.
BY ERIC HRIN (STAFF WRITER)
Published: March 3, 2011
Eric Hrin can be reached at (570) 297-5251; or e-mail: reviewtroy@thedailyreview.com.
http://thedailyreview.com/news/records-show-wastewater-with-radium-sent-to-troy-twp-1.1113361
Corbett’s DEP chief gets panel’s approval
Michael L. Krancer
HARRISBURG — Gov. Tom Corbett’s pick to head the state Department of Environmental Protection breezed through his Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday, telling senators that he’s carefully reviewing recent reports raising questions about the safety of drinking water.
Michael L. Krancer, 53, of Bryn Mawr in Montgomery County was approved unanimously by the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee. He’s a former judge on the Environmental Hearing Board, one-time trial lawyer, former attorney at Excelon Corp. and Civil War re-enactor. Like other Cabinet nominees, he’s on the job now as acting secretary.
The nomination goes to the full Senate, which Republicans control. Also yesterday, the Senate Law and Justice Committee endorsed the nomination of Frank Noonan as commissioner of the state police.
Senators asked Krancer several questions about stories by The New York Times raising concerns about the safety of Pennsylvania’s drinking water as a result of the “fracking” process used in natural gas drilling. The stories said no testing has occurred at more than 65 drinking water intake sites since 2008 and that most have not been tested since 2005.
The newspaper cited levels of radioactivity in wastewater far above federal standards for drinking water. Most of the public sewage treatment facilities cannot remove enough of the radioactive material to meet federal drinking water standards before it is dumped into rivers, The Times found.
Asked by Sen. Mary Jo White, R-Venango, if the state is likely to see testing for radioactive materials in water, Krancer said, “It is one of the things like everything else we are considering, I am considering.”
He took issue with some points in the story. For example, he said, there are 78, not 31, inspectors for 2,615 Marcellus shale wells.
All inspections are “unannounced,” contrary to what The Times stated, Krancer added.
At least 70 percent of Pennsylvania’s wastewater is recycled, Krancer said.
Sen. Daylin Leach, D-Montgomery County, who represents Krancer’s district in the Senate, said he couldn’t be “happier” with Corbett’s nomination. He called Krancer a “man of integrity, honesty and intelligence.”
By Brad Bumsted
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, March 3, 2011
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/breaking/s_725421.html
Pennsylvania’s Former Top Environmental Cop Gets His Wish
Former Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Hanger got his wish. Gasland did not win an Oscar Sunday night.
In a Feb. 26 blog post, Hanger wrote: “I am not pulling for Gasland to win an Oscar for Best Documentary”
Hanger, who agreed to be interviewed by filmmaker Josh Fox for the documentary when he was still serving as DEP secretary, argued on his blog that Gasland “presents a selective, distorted view of gas drilling and the energy choices America faces today. If Gasland were about the airline industry, every flight would crash and all airlines would be irresponsible. In Gasland, the gas industry is unsafe from beginning to end and is one unending environmental nightmare with no benefits. Gasland seeks to inflame public opinion to shut down the natural gas industry and is effective. In pursuing this goal, Gasland treats cavalierly facts both by omitting important ones and getting wrong others.”
Gasland takes a close look at the natural gas industry’s use of hydraulic fracturing technology to produce natural gas and its potential impact on drinking water supplies and the environment in general. The natural gas industry has been waging an aggressive campaign to discredit the documentary since it was released in early 2010. As part of its campaign, the industry has trumpeted comments Hanger made in an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer in which he called Fox a “propagandist” and dismissed Gasland as “fundamentally dishonest” and “a deliberately false presentation for dramatic effect.’”
Fox interviewed Hanger in his office in Harrisburg. During the interview, Hanger argued that Fox, as the person on the other side of the camera, could “wash his hands” of what occurs as a result of energy development in Pennsylvania. But as the state’s top environmental cop, Hanger said he had a duty to make “real decisions in the real world” that often involve trade-offs. For example, the nation needs natural gas in order to run its economy. Extracting natural gas from the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania or any producing basin inevitably causes some level of environmental damage. But Hanger stressed the DEP was doing whatever it could to protect water supplies and that any residents whose water was contaminated by gas drilling would be provided with clean drinking water.
Hanger is a strong advocate of renewable energy. But he recognizes that renewables cannot completely replace fossil fuels in powering the global economy. Because it is a cleaner burning fuel than coal, Hanger has long been a proponent of natural gas.
In 2008, former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell named Hanger, who at the time was the top official at the Pennsylvania-based environmental group Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future, a.k.a. PennFuture, to head the state DEP, which is the state agency responsible for ensuring compliance with state environmental regulations.
Rendell was a big supporter of natural gas development during his term in office, a period in which natural gas companies swarmed the state, buying up rights to drill for natural gas and then dramatically ramping up their drilling activities in the state’s portion of the Marcellus Shale. And Hanger was Rendell’s point man at the DEP during the final two years of his term.
During his tenure at the DEP, which ended in January when Rendell left office, Hanger often made statements touting the tremendous economic opportunities for landowners and drilling companies in the Marcellus Shale.
As the DEP’s acting secretary, prior to his official confirmation, Hanger told the Pennsylvania House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee during a September 2008 hearing that “there is no question that the Marcellus Shale holds tremendous economic potential for Pennsylvania’s families and its communities.”
Hanger added that “this exciting potential also brings with it the need to act responsibly and ensure that Pennsylvania’s valuable natural resources are not sacrificed in the process.”
Later that year, Hanger noted that the DEP had received approval to impose higher drilling fees on natural gas producers that would allow the state to receive greater funding to cover expenses for permit reviews and well site inspections.
“With nearly 8,000 drilling permits issued so far this year and drilling taking place in areas of the state outside our traditional oil and gas region, we need to make sure that we have sufficient personnel to properly manage development of Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale natural gas reserves,” Hanger said.
Nowhere in his comments do you get the sense that Hanger has any qualms about the staggering number of well permits being issued by the DEP and how the expanded drilling activity would turn regions of Pennsylvania into industrial drilling zones.
In January 2009, while still serving as the DEP’s acting secretary, Hanger highlighted the department’s partnership with natural gas producers. “The department is committed to working alongside the drilling industry to develop new treatment technologies to treat this wastewater that will allow our natural gas industry and our economy to thrive while protecting the health of our rivers and streams,” he said in a statement.
When it comes to natural gas drilling, the nightmare scenario for environmental regulators is if natural gas drilling companies start operating irresponsibly and cutting corners, leading to wastewater spills or contaminated drinking water incidents occurring on a regular basis. State regulators obviously would be appalled by the environmental damage caused by such incidents. But state regulators also are worried about losing the public’s confidence. If that happens, it could lead to a surge in support for a moratorium or the complete banning of drilling in certain regions—exactly what regulators in energy producing states are tasked to avoid.
Since leaving the DEP earlier this year, Hanger has spent large chunks of time defending his tenure as Pennsylvania’s top environmental regulator. He now edits an energy and environmental blog titled “Fact of the Day.” The tagline of his blog is: “Discussion about key facts in energy, environment, the economy, and politics. Tired of ideological junk? This is your place.”
Hanger apparently views his way of thinking as non-ideological, or as one that is not tainted by an agenda. But, of course, Hanger is as ideological as the people and organizations who he would claim are spreading “ideological junk.” His agenda, as it pertains to natural gas, is to promote natural gas as a fuel source as long as its production is performed as safely as reasonably possible.
Aside from expressing hope that Gasland didn’t win an Oscar, Hanger has used his blog in recent days to defend his tenure at the DEP from an article that ran last weekend in the New York Times. Hanger told a natural gas industry publication called NGI’s Shale Daily that the Times reporter, Ian Urbina, “had a goal to start with and he wanted to fit the information to a narrative. … It was willful and deliberate.” The reporter “knew how to get on the front page. It should be actionable… The New York Times would be successfully sued in Europe for this type of story,” Hanger told NGI’s Shale Daily.
Among other things, Hanger argued the Times story implied that Pennsylvania does not enforce its drilling regulations. To refute that claim, Hanger pointed to the enforcement actions for drilling violations imposed on EOG Resources Inc. and Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. “They had to stop drilling for months … costing them probably millions of dollars,” Hanger told NGI’s Shale Daily. “That’s not in the story.”
During his tenure as DEP secretary, Pennsylvania led the nation in natural gas oversight staff hiring, Hanger states on his blog. Under his successor at the DEP, who reports to the state’s new Republican governor, Tom Corbett, the department will likely be less aggressive in regulating natural gas and coal producers in the state. In fact, it would probably be fair to say that Hanger was one of the most conscientious state environmental chiefs in the United States. But such a superlative speaks more to the general lack of effective environmental protection among state regulators than it does to Hanger’s willingness to protect the environment at any cost.
Energy companies and their regulators believe humans have a God-given right to access the planet’s “natural resources” in order to sustain the American way of life. Other people believe humans need to immediately disavow their narcissistic and affluent way of life and start letting the planet heal. Such a move includes curtailing the consumption of fossil fuels, including natural gas, even if it burns 50% cleaner than coal.
By Press Action
March 01, 2011
http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/padep02012011/
Casey calls for water testing
U.S. Sen. Bob Casey joined a chorus of lawmakers on Tuesday seeking additional testing of public water supplies following a report that the wastewater produced from Marcellus Shale gas wells in Pennsylvania contains higher levels of radioactive materials than was previously disclosed.
An article published Sunday in The New York Times, detailed a lack of testing for those radioactive constituents at 65 public water intakes downstream from treatment plants that have discharged Marcellus Shale wastewater into rivers.
State regulators have limited how much drilling wastewater publicly owned sewer plants can discharge since 2008 and further discharge restrictions were adopted by the state last August.
“Alarming information has been raised that must be fully investigated,” Casey said and asked the state Department of Environmental Protection and the federal Environmental Protection Agency to “increase inspections of Pennsylvania drinking water resources for radioactive material and to account for why sufficient inspections haven’t taken place.”
Several other federal lawmakers have asked for similar increases in oversight since the publication of the article. On Sunday, former DEP Secretary John Hanger wrote on his blog that DEP “should order today all public water systems in Pennsylvania to test immediately for radium or radioactive pollutants” and report the results to the public.
In that post and at least six subsequent posts, Hanger also criticized The New York Times for not detailing the stricter regulations, increased staff and more frequent well site inspections that have been adopted by the state in the last three years as it strengthened its enforcement of Marcellus Shale drilling.
DEP spokeswoman Katy Gresh said the department is still evaluating how to respond to the calls for further testing.
“We’re certainly taking into consideration these recommendations,” she said.
Acting DEP Secretary Michael Krancer will face questions at a confirmation hearing today before the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee during which Marcellus Shale issues will surely be a primary topic.
Casey’s comments came as The New York Times published a second article in the series on its website on Tuesday afternoon that raised questions about the toxic constituents that remain in liquid or solid form after the Marcellus Shale wastewater is treated and recycled.
The article also details one occasion when more than 155,000 gallons of wastewater containing high levels of radium from an Ultra Resources well in Tioga County were sent to nine towns in Tioga, Bradford and Lycoming counties to spread on roads for dust suppression.
Pennsylvania regulations allow “only production or treated brines” from gas wells to be spread on roads for dust control or de-icing, according to a DEP fact sheet posted on its website. “The use of drilling, fracking, or plugging fluids or production brines mixed with well servicing or treatment fluids, except surfactants, is prohibited.”
Marcellus Shale brine is wastewater that gradually returns to the surface over the decades-long life of a well after a larger initial flush of fluids that had been injected underground returns to the surface in the first 30 days.
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
llegere@timesshamrock.com
Published: March 2, 2011
http://citizensvoice.com/news/casey-calls-for-water-testing-1.1112658#axzz1FMuTSTtV
Marcellus waste reports muddy
Waste reports submitted by Marcellus Shale drillers for the last six months of 2010 indicate that more of the toxic wastewater that returns from their natural gas wells is being reused or recycled, but incomplete and inconsistent reporting makes it difficult to assess real changes in the waste’s fate.
According to production reports due Feb. 15 and posted last week on the Department of Environmental Protection’s Oil and Gas Electronic Reporting website, Marcellus Shale operators directly reused 6 million barrels of the 10.6 million barrels of waste fluids produced from about 1,500 different wells between July and December.
At least an additional 978,000 barrels were taken to facilities that treat the water and return it to operators for reuse.
The amount reused or recycled is about seven times larger than the 1 million barrels of wastewater Marcellus Shale drillers said they directly reused during the 12 months between July 2009 and June, the first time the drillers’ waste reports were made publicly available on the website.
But the comparison is hazy because not all of the Marcellus Shale operators met the Feb. 15 reporting deadline or included all of their waste during the previous reporting period. Major operators, including East Resources, Southwestern Energy Production Co. and Encana Oil and Gas USA, reported no waste for the most recent six-month period.
And inconsistencies in how companies report their waste make it impossible to determine a complete picture of how its treatment has changed.
“I would take all of it with a grain of salt,” said Matt Kelso, data manager for FracTracker, an online Marcellus Shale data tool developed by the Center for Healthy Environments and Communities at the University of Pittsburgh.
“I wouldn’t say it accurately represents anything,” he added, “but it is the only data we have.”
He emphasized that the information is self-reported by the drillers, who have some discretion in how to categorize their waste. He pointed out one oddity – that more brine was reportedly produced in the last six months of 2010 than the entire year before that – and attributed the increase to better reporting.
The first round of reports was a “disorganized mess,” he wrote in a FracTracker blog post last year. Establishing trends from such a baseline would be difficult, if not useless.
“There may be some adjustments” in how the waste is now being handled, he said, “but they will be difficult to discern because the reporting was so bad before.”
State environmental regulators say that nearly 70 percent of the wastewater produced by Marcellus Shale wells is being reused or recycled. The Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry group, puts the number higher, saying that on average 90 percent of the water that returns to the surface is recycled.
The advances were compelled in large part by a lack of deep disposal wells in Pennsylvania and state rules, adopted last August, that limit new discharges of the wastewater to streams.
Prior to the development of the new rules, wastewater was primarily treated and disposed of through industrial wastewater plants or municipal sewer authorities that could not remove total dissolved solids, or salts, from the discharge.
Even in the most recent reports, there is still an apparent lack of uniformity in how companies report their waste.
Liquid waste is categorized as either “drilling fluid waste” – fluids, generally in a mud form, created during the drilling process – “fracing fluid waste” – the salt and metals-laden waste fluid that returns for the first 30 days or so after wells are hydraulically fractured to release the gas from the shale – and “brine” – the even saltier waste that returns more gradually over the life of a well.
Most companies reported all three types of waste, but some companies, including Chesapeake Appalachia, reported only “frac fluid” while others, including Talisman Energy USA, reported only drilling fluid and brine.
Two companies, Talisman Energy and Chief Oil and Gas, both reported producing about 280,000 barrels of hydraulic fracturing wastewater during the six-month period, even though Chief had only about a quarter as many gas wells in production as Talisman during that time.
One thing the data make clear is that a lot of waste from Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale wells is being shipped out of state for treatment or disposal.
During the six-month period, more than 490,000 barrels of wastewater were sent to deep disposal wells in Ohio; 30,000 barrels of drilling fluids and brine were treated by Clean Harbors of Baltimore in Maryland; 32,000 barrels of wastewater went to recycling or treatment plants in West Virginia; 2,500 barrels of drilling fluid was treated by Lorco Petroleum Services of Elizabeth, N.J.; and 36,000 tons of drill cuttings, a solid waste, were sent to landfills in Angelica, Painted Post and Waterloo, N.Y.
By Laura legere (Staff Writer)
Published: February 27, 2011
Contact the writer: llegere@timesshamrock.com
http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/marcellus-waste-reports-muddy-1.1111329#axzz1FAVdxBzR