Why don’t we know how many drinking water sources have been harmed by natural gas operations?
How many drinking water sources have been harmed by oil or gas operations? According to a recent report
[ http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/how-many-water-supplies-have-been-impacted-by-gas-drilling-pa-doesn-t-keep-count-1.1063683#axzz1BzibG6Fv ]
from Pennsylvania, no one knows in that state. This alarming article quotes an environmental engineer as estimating that as many as 50 homes in Bradford County, Pennsylvania alone are currently getting replacement water supplies provided by gas companies.
But no one knows the real number, and here’s why: the article explains that companies often will not replace a homeowner’s contaminated water unless the homeowner signs a document promising not to tell anyone about the contamination. Therefore, we don’t really know how many people have contaminated water because many cases have been kept secret.
This makes it impossible for public agencies charged with protecting public health and safety to have adequate data to understand the full health and environmental impacts of oil and gas operations.
According to the article, Pennsylvania is consider a new rule that will require oil and gas companies to notify the state’s Department of Environmental Protection within 24 hours of receiving a complaint about contaminated drinking water. This rule should be in place everywhere in the country.
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/amall/why_dont_we_know_how_many_drin.html
Amy Mall’s Blog
Posted January 24, 2011
Committee deciding Marcellus Shale bills to have just one Northeastern Pa. lawmaker
HARRISBURG – Only one lawmaker from Northeastern Pennsylvania sits on a key House committee that will handle bills dealing with the environmental impact of Marcellus Shale drilling this session.
This happens despite the fact that the region has been at the center of a drilling boom for the past four years and deals with a legacy of environmental issues dating from the heyday of anthracite mining.
Rep. Mike Carroll, D-118, Hughestown, is the region’s sole representative on the 25-member House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, the springboard for legislation dealing with protecting water supplies from drilling activities, severance taxes or impact fees on natural gas production, and boosting development of the deep gas pockets in the Marcellus Shale formation.
Panel members often emerge as bill co-sponsors or offer amendments at the early stage of consideration before a bill reaches a floor vote. The committee traditionally holds public hearings on environmental issues and meets with the secretaries of the departments of Environmental Protection and Conservation and Natural Resources.
The House panel is led by Rep. Scott Hutchinson, R-64, Oil City, and dominated by lawmakers from western Pennsylvania and the shallow-gas well region in northwestern Pennsylvania where drilling has occurred for 150 years. The panel is composed of 15 Republicans and 10 Democrats.
The House set up committees Wednesday for the 2011-2012 session.
Last session, four lawmakers from the region, including Carroll, sat on the House committee. Two are no longer in the House and the third, freshman Sen. John Yudichak, D-14, Nanticoke, is now ranking Democrat on the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee.
Sens. Lisa Baker, R-20, Lehman Township, and Gene Yaw, R-23, Williamsport, remain members of that panel.
The makeup of the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee is “a tragedy because the Northeast is so affected by the impact of drilling,” Capitol activist Gene Stilp said. “This will mean that the citizens will have to take their concerns to their elected representatives who do not serve on that committee. The people will have to work harder to have a voice.”
Stilp was among demonstrators calling for stricter state regulation of drilling at Gov. Tom Corbett’s inaugural Tuesday. A large contingent from Northeastern Pennsylvania was among that group demanding that their voice be heard on drilling issues.
House committee assignments are determined by a special committee with House Speaker Sam Smith, R-66, Punxsutawney, and Minority Leader Frank Dermody, D-33, Pittsburgh, in lead roles.
The GOP assignments on the environmental panel were determined by openings, ranking members’ requests and an effort to put the large number of freshmen lawmakers on committees where their background will be a plus, Smith said. There were three openings on the GOP side filled by freshmen.
Still, not having more lawmakers from the northeast drilling region on the panel strikes one member as unusual.
“It’s baffling to me,” said Rep. Eugene DePasquale, D-95, York, a former deputy DEP secretary in the Rendell administration. “I hope it’s not intentional.”
By robert swift (Harrisburg Bureau Chief)
rswift@timesshamrock.com
Published: January 24, 2011
http://standardspeaker.com/news/committee-deciding-marcellus-shale-bills-to-have-just-one-northeastern-pa-lawmaker-1.1094559
DEP losing staff to gas drilling industry
The Marcellus Shale natural gas industry has jobs to offer in Pennsylvania and, in many cases, environmental regulators that once watched over the drillers are stepping in to fill the openings.
The state Department of Environmental Protection does not track where former employees work after they leave the agency or count how many have left for jobs with regulated businesses, but officials admit that competing with the booming – and well-paying – industry for employees has become an ongoing challenge.
“Losing good employees, for whatever reason, is always a problem,” former DEP Secretary John Hanger said before he left the state’s top environmental post with the change of administrations last week. “The turnover in staff is one of the hurdles that has to be overcome.”
On Wednesday, L.R. Kimball, an architecture and engineering firm, announced it hired J. Scott Roberts as an adviser to help the company expand its operations in the Marcellus Shale. Roberts, a 25-year DEP employee, retired as deputy secretary for mineral resources management in December. He was one of the department’s most knowledgeable leaders on Marcellus Shale issues and often testified along with, or in place of, Hanger at public hearings concerning the industry.
Prior to Roberts’ hiring, the highest profile departure from the department to the industry was Barbara Sexton, then the department’s second-highest ranking official, who left to become director of governmental affairs in the state for Chesapeake Energy last year.
Lower-profile senior staff members that offered the department decades of knowledge and experience also have found jobs with the industry.
Richard Adams, a 30-year veteran of the department who played an influential role when DEP began developing rules for treating the salty wastewater that comes from the deep shale wells, is now senior environmental adviser for Chief Oil and Gas.
Joe Umholtz, the former surface activities division chief in the department’s bureau of oil and gas, joined Colorado-based MWH in the environmental engineering firm’s oil and gas sector last year.
Gary Byron, who worked for the department for 33 years before retiring as assistant regional director in the Williamsport office in 2008, founded Dux Head Environmental Services, which specializes in environmental consulting for the natural gas industry. He is a frequent contractor with Carrizo Oil and Gas.
And Helen Humphreys, a seven-year spokeswoman for the department’s Pittsburgh office who served as the agency’s communications director for five months last year, has been senior corporate communications specialist at Williams, a natural gas production and transportation company, since November.
At a time when DEP is building its staff of oil and gas regulators, the industry has also attracted employees from among those ranks, although a complete list has never been compiled.
Range Resources, Chesapeake Energy and Atlas Energy have together hired at least four former well-site inspectors to work in environmental compliance and other aspects of their Marcellus Shale operations.
The competition has not hampered the department’s ability to build its oil and gas program from 88 to 202 employees since 2008, Hanger said.
“In this period of time when we have very high unemployment, we’ve been able to recruit people to these positions by and large,” he said.
“Retaining them has been a second challenge.”
The retention problem is not unique to employees whose experience is desired by the gas industry. The department has trouble retaining employees in information technology and engineering, as well as those who work in positions, like mine inspectors, whose equivalent jobs are paid more by federal agencies, Hanger said.
“This is a clear demonstration that state wage rates and salary rates are not competitive with the private sector in many cases,” he said.
“The truth is, in many cases, the private sector is paying much more.”
Department officials are careful not to imply that the movement from the agency to the Marcellus Shale industry has been a stampede for the door.
Daniel Spadoni, a spokesman for DEP’s Williamsport office, said the department’s Eastern Region Oil and Gas Program began in the office with 17 people in 2008 and was increased to 50 people about a year ago. The program has filled 47 of the 50 positions, he said. “DEP does not formally track where people go when they leave our employment, but probably only two staff have left here for industry positions,” he said.
Some landowners at odds with the gas companies and the advocates that work with them have noted the departures and say they erode public trust in the state’s environmental oversight.
Jan Jarrett, president of the environmental organization PennFuture, said the departures sap experience from the agency “that it could really badly use,” but it does not indicate to her a lack of commitment among the former employees to the department or to environmental protection in general.
“With the uncertainty about what budget cuts will do to the agencies, you can’t blame these folks,” she said. “But it does weaken the department, and it diminishes its institutional memory.”
A reverse migration, however unlikely, would be more disturbing, she added.
“I’d be more concerned if it were gas industry people all of a sudden infiltrating the department.”
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer llegere@timesshamrock.com)
Published: January 24, 2011
http://republicanherald.com/news/dep-losing-staff-to-gas-drilling-industry-1.1094487
Peer-review panel for EPA fracking study includes six Pa. scientists
Peer-review panel for EPA fracking study includes six Pa. scientists
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: January 18, 2011
A panel of geologists, toxicologists, engineers and doctors that will peer-review a high-profile Environmental Protection Agency study of hydraulic fracturing will include six scientists from Pennsylvania, more than any other state.
The panel will review the techniques and analysis the EPA uses to draft a study of the potential environmental and health impacts of hydraulic fracturing – the process used in natural gas exploration of injecting a high-pressure mix of chemically treated water and sand underground to break apart a rock formation and release the gas.
The panel might also be called on to review the conclusions of the study, which are slated for release in 2012.
The board, called the Hydraulic Fracturing Study Plan Review Panel, was narrowed to 23 members from a list of 88 nominated candidates, some of whom were criticized in public comments submitted by industry or environmental groups for being biased.
All but four members selected for the panel are affiliated with research universities and none is currently employed by an oil or gas company.
Five of seven members of a previous peer-review panel involved in a 2004 EPA study of hydraulic fracturing in coal-bed methane wells were current or former employees of the oil and gas industry. That study’s findings, that hydraulic fracturing poses “little or no threat” to drinking water aquifers, has been touted by the industry but challenged by an EPA whistle-blower.
In a memo announcing the new panel, the EPA found “no conflicts of interest or appearances of a lack of impartiality for the members of this panel.”
It will be led by David A. Dzombak, professor of environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, and include Michel Boufadel of Temple University; Elizabeth Boyer of Penn State University; Richard Hammack, a Pittsburgh-based roject manager for the U.S. Department of Energy; Jeanne VanBriesen of Carnegie Mellon and Radisav D. Vidic of the University of Pittsburgh.
Contact the writer: llegere@timesshamrock.com
http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/gas-drilling/peer-review-panel-for-epa-fracking-study-includes-six-pa-scientists-1.1091757#axzz1BD70q5Rd
Departing DEP secretary says more rules needed for Marcellus Shale
http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/departing-dep-secretary-says-more-rules-needed-for-marcellus-shale-1.1091068#axzz1BD70q5Rd
Departing DEP secretary says more rules needed for Marcellus Shale
By Laura Legere (staff writer)
Published: January 16, 2011
The maximum fines that environmental regulators can issue to violators of the state’s oil and gas law are “way too low,” and the bonds drillers post to guarantee plugging of all their natural gas wells are “scandalously low,” the departing secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection said last week.
State law does not currently give regulators the right to ban gas drilling in floodplains nor has it mandated a large enough distance between gas wells and drinking water reservoirs, Secretary John Hanger said.
And state legislators need to amend sections of the oil and gas law to give regulators clear legal authority to deny permits to drillers that habitually cause significant environmental and safety problems.
“Right now the department really has very questionable authority to tell a company you operate so badly we’re not going to give you any more permits,” he said.
Hanger led the state’s environmental oversight agency during two-and-a-half years when Marcellus Shale drilling grew from an infant industry in Pennsylvania to an established one, and the department under his guidance made substantial updates to the Oil and Gas Act and other environmental laws to respond to that growth.
But in an interview last week with Times-Shamrock newspapers about the past and future of Marcellus Shale oversight, Hanger said many more changes are necessary to ensure proper regulation of the industry, and many of those changes must come from the Legislature.
Despite the prominence of Marcellus Shale drilling as an environmental issue during his tenure, Hanger put it in the context of other environmental threats facing the state, including air pollution from coal-fired power plants, climate change that is contributing to the warming of the state’s rivers and thousands of miles of streams that remain dead from acid mine pollution.
“Marcellus Shale is both an environmental threat and an environmental opportunity,” he said.
The state should tax the industry and use some of the money to clean up legacy environmental problems that otherwise do not receive enough funding, and it should transition to using natural gas in fleet vehicles and power plants, he said.
“The worst case for Pennsylvania would be to be the host of natural gas and not use more natural gas to make electricity and to replace dirty diesel buses and trucks,” he said.
The state also must work to avoid creating future environmental problems from shale drilling by increasing the blanket bond for natural gas wells to make sure they are properly plugged at the end of their lives.
Currently, a $25,000 bond covers as many wells as a company wants to develop. Plugging one Marcellus Shale well costs about four times that much, he said.
“During the Rendell administration, we spent $16 million of taxpayer money to plug 1,600 oil and gas wells that had been abandoned by companies in the past,” he said. “We have these abandoned oil and gas wells with no money to pay for them because we didn’t require the gas companies decades ago to post a reasonable bond.
“We’re in the process of repeating the same mistake.”
Gov.-elect Tom Corbett included increasing well bonds in the environmental position he outlined as a candidate, and State Rep. Phyllis Mundy, D-Kingston, plans to re-introduce legislation to restrict drilling within floodplains and prohibit hydraulically fractured or horizontally drilled wells from being drilled under or within 2,500 feet of a drinking water reservoir.
Hanger also offered advice to Environmental Hearing Board Judge Michael Krancer, who has been nominated for the DEP secretary post.
“The single most important thing” is for the agency to be a “professional, independent watchdog,” he said, and echoed the words Corbett used to describe the appropriate role of the department: a “cop.”
“Sometimes I hear some in the industry and some in business say DEP should be the partner of the gas industry, or should treat the gas industry as a customer or a client,” Hanger said. “That’s not correct. The gas industry companies have partners. They’re called investors.”
If the agency falls short of being an independent, professional watchdog “it doesn’t matter how much staff you have, and it doesn’t matter how tough or weak the words on the rule page are,” he said. “The regulatory role won’t work.”
llegere@timesshamrock.com
Marcellus Shale Program set for Center Carbon Environmental Education Center, Carbon County PA
http://marcellusprotest.org/node/596
Marcellus Shale Program set for Center Carbon Environmental Education Center, Carbon County PA
March 30, 2011 – 6:00pm
The Carbon County Environmental Education Center [ http://www.carboneec.org/ ] is planning a program on Marcellus shale basics for the general public on Wednesday, March 30th, at 6:00 pm.
“Getting the Waters Tested: The Marcellus Shale Factor” will be presented by Brian Oram, a licensed Professional Geologist. Oram teaches at Wilkes University [ http://www.wilkes.edu/water ] and is a volunteer with the Carbon County Groundwater Guardians [ http://carbonwaters.org/ ]. He is familiar with water issues in our area, and plans to explain the basics of Marcellus shale, natural gas drilling, groundwater, and related issues- Free Booklet for Private Well Owner (download your pdf today !).
[ http://wilkes.edu/Include/WaterResearch/PDFs/Waterbooklet070610.pdf ]
For more information or to register, call (570) 645-8597. CCEEC is located just outside Jim Thorpe, at the west end of Mauch Chunk Lake Park along Lentz Trail.
Carbon County Environmental Education Center
151 East White Bear Drive
Summit Hill, PA 18250
United States
Phone: (570) 645-8597
See map: Google Maps [ http://maps.google.com/?q=151+East+White+Bear+Drive%2C+Summit+Hill%2C+PA%2C+18250%2C+us ]
Analysis of Marcellus Shale natural-gas legislation offered in webinar
http://live.psu.edu/story/50593#nw69
Friday, January 7, 2011
Analysis of Marcellus Shale natural-gas legislation offered in webinar
University Park, Pa. — An online seminar offered by Penn State Cooperative Extension at 1 p.m. on Jan. 20 will provide expert analysis of state legislation enacted and considered related to the exploration and production of natural gas in the Marcellus Shale formation.
Although the General Assembly was active during the 2009-10 legislative session in discussing and considering legislation, many issues remain unresolved regarding development of the Marcellus Shale, according to Ross Pifer, clinical professor and director of the Agricultural Law Resource and Reference Center at Penn State. The center is a collaboration between the University’s Dickinson School of Law and College of Agricultural Sciences.
In the webinar, titled “Marcellus Shale Legislation: What Was Accomplished in the 2009-10 Session and What Issues Remain to be Addressed,” Pifer will review the legislative session that ended Dec. 31 and preview the current session.
“I will discuss the details of natural-gas legislation enacted during the most recent legislative session as well as the various topics that were the subject of legislation introduced in, but not enacted by, the General Assembly,” he said. “I will then look forward to the legislative session that has just begun and discuss issues that are likely to be the subject of further legislative debate.”
In the 2009-10 session, legislation was enacted to provide for greater public accessibility to production data from Marcellus Shale wells. Legislation also was enacted to address the impact of natural-gas development on land that is enrolled in the Clean and Green preferential tax-assessment program.
“Through this legislation, counties across the state will be addressing this issue in a uniform fashion,” Pifer said. “Prior to the enactment of this legislation, counties across the commonwealth were treating this issue in a disparate manner.”
The topic that received the most attention throughout the conclusion of the last legislative session was whether or not Pennsylvania would implement a severance tax on natural gas. Ultimately, the General Assembly did not enact legislation providing for this tax, but the subject may be revisited.
“One issue that likely will be discussed in the new session is compulsory pooling,” Pifer said. “This has been a controversial topic as many landowners are concerned about the impact that such a law would have on their property rights. On the other hand, the state has a legitimate policy interest in ensuring that development occurs as efficiently as possible.”
The webinar is part of an ongoing series of workshops and events addressing issues related to the state’s Marcellus Shale gas boom. Information about how to register for the webinar is available on the webinar page of Penn State Cooperative Extension’s natural-gas impacts website.
Additional one-hour webinars will be held at 1 p.m. on the following dates:
— Feb. 16: “Dealing with Gas Tax Issues: What You Need to Know.”
— March 17: “Natural Gas Well Development and Emergency Response and Management.”
Previous webinars, publications and other information on topics such as water use and quality, zoning, gas-leasing considerations for landowners and implications for local communities also are available on the Cooperative Extension natural-gas impacts website.
For more information, contact John Turack, extension educator in Westmoreland County, at 724-837-1402 or jdt15@psu.edu.
No fracking way
http://www.observertoday.com/page/content.detail/id/554737/No-fracking-way.html?nav=5047
No fracking way
By NICOLE GUGINO
OBSERVER Staff Writer
January 9, 2011
Hydraulic fracturing – also known as hydrofracking or just fracking – may not sound familiar, but this process of extracting natural gas is becoming a household term as controversy emerges.
Hydrofracking is a complicated process of extracting natural gas from rock formations like the Marcellus Shale in the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio. This process can be vertical or horizontal – both of which may pose a threat to drinking water.
Hydrofracking uses three ingredients to access the gas – water, sand and fracking fluid. Water and sand alone are harmless enough; the fracking fluid is the reason groups are rallying against the drilling process. Fracking fluid is a mixture of 500 or more chemicals used for different purposes in the process that allows the drilling of a well and the fracturing of the rock to occur, releasing gas.
Fracking fluid has been described by different sources as very different things – from a detergent to a carcinogenic concoction.
SPRINGVILLE
Hydrofracking of gas wells has moved from the west to the east and has moved north from Pennsylvania to New York.
A meeting of anti-fracking groups in Springville last month brought a concerned crowd to hear about what may come to the area.
A woman in the audience warned that a gas company had surveyed Sprague Brook Park, north of Springville, for gas drilling.
The main concerns of anti-fracking groups center around a loophole in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 which exempts the gas industry and specifically hydrofracking from about 10 environmental regulatiosn including the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Another concern is contamination of ground water. In many places across the country people sign leases with gas companies. In most cases the companies extract the gas and nothing goes wrong. However, reportedly for some this is not true. If a well is not properly sealed from the water table during drilling, then natural gas and fracking fluid can leak into the ground water residents use in wells for drinking water.
“My husband and I didn’t know what was going on with our water until we watched this documentary on HBO called GasLand. After we watched GasLand he went to check our water to see if it lit on fire and it did,” Natalie Brant of Springville said.
Brant later had her water tested and was told not to drink, bathe or wash dishes or clothes in the water. Brant is frightened for the health of her eight children.
“Gas companies lead you to believe that drinking this is as safe as drinking laundry detergent. Who here thinks that drinking laundry detergent is safe?” she asked.
Another concern is that after a well has been fracked, the water (mixed with fracking fluid) is left over. The gas companies are supposed to have this water treated, but allegedly in the past have not done so. Instead, according to the documentary, gas companies allegedly evaporate the water (and chemicals) into the air or secretly dump it on dirt roads.
GASLAND
GasLand is a documentary on hydrofracking, written and directed by Josh Fox, a Pennsylvania native. This documentary has received notice from many for its disturbing images of water that lights on fire and the health and property damage allegedly caused by hydrofracking across the country.
In the documentary Josh Fox, who lives in the New York City Watershed, begins an investigation into hydrofracking after receiving a letter asking if a gas company could lease his land for gas drilling.
Fox tours the country and hears similar stories in many states of water contamination, heath problems and legally helpless land owners.
He brings the story back to his home where he fears that drilling will effect his childhood home and which has a creek that feeds into a water supply that distributes fresh water to over 15 million people in three states.
PROFESSOR WEIGHS IN
Since the release of the film GasLand, some organizations have tired to debunk the claims made in the documentary and others to affirm them. SUNY Fredonia Professor Gary Lash, an expert on the Marcellus Shale, had a few criticisms of the film himself.
“My problem with that whole thing is that there is no scientific backing to that whole movie and of course it’s a pretty complicated process that they are trying to do, but again the physics behind fracking are pretty inconsistent with cracks coming up the water table,” he explained the cracks made by the fracking in the shale will not work their way back up thousands of feet to the water table.
“But having said that, there is nothing wrong with regulating. Any responsible operator wants oversight because they don’t want to be blamed for something if anything goes wrong.”
He explained concerns with the left over water from fracking. “What they are doing now is these closed loop systems where they’re sending the water through a treatment system on site and then using that water again.”
He also explained that natural gas flowing in creeks is natural and can be found in creeks all over including the Canadaway creek. He explained that the pictures of the dead fish and birds in waterways near Pittsburgh in the film was not caused by natural gas.
“Some of the chemical fingerprints that they have found and which wasn’t addressed in the film, is chemical runoff from (coal) mining.”
“Just about any well that is drilled any more is fracked. You’ve got to break up the rock to release the gas from it. The water tables are generally no more than a couple hundred feet and their targets are at thousands of feet. What they will do is, when they drill, they will case the well, they put multiple layers of metal casing and each layer is separated by cement, so the goal there is to not allow anything that is going down into the well or coming out of the well to interact with the water table,” he explained.
“When they fracture they use water and a very small amount of chemicals, with things like detergent to reduce the surface tension of the water and there is some biocides in there to kill any microbes and some other things and then they pump in sand after that to hold the cracks open and the gas migrates out the cracks.”
Murphy’s law is still applicable to fracking process according to Lash. “There is a chance that anything could go wrong in anything we do,” he admitted.
When asked if residents should worry about their water if they have a gas lease, he said to do your homework.
“The question they would ask (the as company) is ‘what does the operator plan to do to protect the aquifer?’ and make sure they follow all of the state guidelines for casing the well … people entering into a lease have every right to make sure that’s going to be followed.” He recommended baseline testing before and after drilling.
It takes a great amount of pressure and high temperatures to create natural gas. Chautauqua County, according to Lash, is undesirable for fracking. However the Marcellus Shale near Binghamton, Cayuga and Chemung counties is a mile down and thick – perfect for drilling.
Lash originally estimated 1,500 trillion cubic feet of gas in the marcellus Shale, but new research may show that that is a low estimate. “This takes on more meaning when you know that the U.S. uses 19 trillion cubic feet of gas per year,” Lash explained the potential of the shale.
“I’m as much of an environmentalist and liberal politically as anybody but I think this is something that can done responsibly. I think that there is an awful lot of misinformation out there right now and if we look at this scientifically, and it is a scientific and engineering problem, I think with the proper safeguards in place that it can be done responsibly. And if you combine natural gas with wind and solar I think we are moving in the right direction,” he added.
WHAT LANDOWNERS CAN DO
Due to the lack of action at the federal and state level, groups at the meeting in Springville recommended bringing the fight to a more local forum.
Sarah Buckley, of Wales in Niagara County, recommended going to local town boards and recommending water bans to prevent drilling in areas.
“Where I have some hope for protecting ourselves is in the towns … Some towns in New York state and Pennsylvania have passed bans … a small town in Pennsylvania has passed a ban that is a water rights ordinance … they said they would not allow the companies to source the water to frack, they won’t allow the water to be transported in to do the fracking … So, this in a sense prohibits the fracking,” Buckley said.
As a private land-owner Buckley recommended baseline water and foundation tests – which can be costly, just in case gas drilling on a property goes wrong and needs to be litigated. Buckley also recommended baseline tests of roads for towns to protect themselves.
Sarah Buckley can be contacted at 713-7780 or at ssbuckley@gmail.com for information on water testing and town level bans on hydrofracking.
The non-profit organization Western New York Land Conservancy offered help with conservation easements on land to protect land from anything that may harm its quality, like hydrofracking. The group can be contacted by phone at 687-1225 or on the their website www.wnylc.org.
Albert Brown of Frack Action Buffalo also noted that although Josh Fox was offered almost $100,000 to drill on his 19 acres, some who have leased their land in Western New York have sold their mineral rights away for $5 an acre.
Brown cited a Cornell University study that reported the towns drawn in to the fracking scheme with the promise of money in return, did not benefit at all from allowing gas companies to frack in their towns.
“If you look at increased truck traffic, for one fracking job you’re talking over 1,000 trucks and each of the wells on those paths can be fracked up to ten times. So 1,000 times 10 for one well and if there are 10 wells on that path, it’s just astronomical the number of trucks coming in and out,” Brown said.
According to Brown, because old wells are not producing gas like they used to, gas companies can use this new method of fracking to drill deeper, but are not obligated to notify residents if the company owns the mineral rights.
Frack Action Buffalo is trying to reach out to the Southern Tier and can be contacted through Albert Brown by e-mail at beingsamadhi@gmail.com.
There will be a follow-up meeting on hydrofracking in the Concord Town Hall, 86 Franklin Street, on Thursday Jan. 13 at 6 p.m.
IN SUMMARY
As one side argues that hydrofracking is safe and good for jobs and U.S. energy interests, the other side argues that the health and environmental risks are to great to continue.
The film GasLand is clearly lobbying for one side of the issue, however after viewing the documentary, some facts stood out.
The first, federal and state level regulation are lacking. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 exempted hyrdofracking from environmental safety laws and in a recent veto by former Gov. David Paterson. The moratorium to stop vertical and horizontal drilling in New York until it was further investigated was shot down. Instead, Paterson gave an executive order which only bans horizontal fracking and excludes vertical, which has been said to be the more popular of the two in New York state.
The second, expressed by John Hanger, the Secretary of Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection, in his interview with Josh Fox. He said no form of energy is perfect.
Whether it is fossil fuels, solar panels or wind mills, there is always a drawback.
Prof. Gary Lash agreed with this statement. “No, they aren’t. You aren’t going to get anything for free and what we are trying to do is reduce our impact on the environment. Even if you take something like windmills, for example, use light earth elements which are coming from countries that aren’t very friendly with us, and there are finite amounts available, there production is rough on the environment … the same thing with solar panels the rare earth elements that we need for solar panels are what they call ‘endangered elements’ and they are again in countries that aren’t very friendly to the United States … but if (fracking is) regulated and we do it responsibly I think it helps in the long run,” he said.
The Marcellus Shale is said to hold ‘an ocean’ of natural gas. For landowners with gas leases, the best policy appears to be, stay informed and be prepared. Both the anti-fracking groups at the meeting in Springville and Lash said that landowners have the right to ask questions and should do baseline testing, just in case.
Comments on this article may be sent to ngugino@observertoday.com
EPA considers using Dimock, Pa. for case study
http://www.pressconnects.com/article/20110107/NEWS01/101070383/EPA+considers+using+Dimock++Pa.+for+case+study
EPA considers using Dimock, Pa. for case study
By Jon Campbell •jcampbell1@gannett.com • January 7, 2011, 8:55 pm
When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency came to Binghamton last year for two days of hearings on hydraulic fracturing, it was looking for suggestions on where to do a case study.
The response heard over and over? Dimock, Pa., the tiny township in Susquehanna County where state officials say faulty gas drilling operations led to 18 methane-contaminated water wells and a community divided.
Those voices were apparently heard.
EPA officials have been in contact with some Dimock landowners, and an agency spokeswoman confirmed the once-sleepy hamlet that has gained national attention is under consideration to be a part of a $1.9 million study which is expected to last at least two years.
“We received many nominations for case studies,” said Betsaida Alcantara, the EPA spokeswoman. “We are evaluating the nominations, including Dimock, to determine which of them we will undertake as case studies.”
Last year, the EPA launched a study on fracking — a gas-stimulation technique that involves the use of a high-pressure mix of water, sand and chemicals blasted deep underground — and its possible effect on groundwater.
Supporters of the process say it’s safe and crucial for extracting massive amounts of gas from shale formations. Critics say it could wreak havoc on the environment and taint water.
Robert Puls, director of research for the EPA’s Ground Water and Ecosystems Restoration Division, met a month ago with a number of Dimock homeowners whose water wells had been contaminated with high levels of methane, according to Victoria Switzer, a resident who took part in the meeting.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has held Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. responsible for the contamination, but the company has denied responsibility, instead opting to settle with the department to end nearly two years of legal wrangling.
Switzer is one of about a dozen Dimock residents who have sued Cabot for damages, claiming their drilling operations led to their ruined water wells.
“(Puls) met with us and asked us if we would be interested in the possibility of a being a case study,” Switzer said. “It would be great. To me, my goal has always been to protect my home and my land. I now know that the DEP isn’t going to do that, and Cabot certainly isn’t going to do that. I’m hopeful, and maybe I’m naïve, that the EPA can help us if they take us as a case study.”
Cabot spokesman George Stark said the company would be more than willing to cooperate with the EPA.
“Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation will participate in a fact-based hydraulic fracturing study regarding any locality where it currently operates,” Stark said. “It is Cabot’s opinion that too much misinformation exists today regarding hydraulic fracturing. Studies aimed at collecting valid facts and evidence regarding hydraulic fracture technologies, operations and practices are welcome.”
Dimock was the overwhelming choice of speakers at the September hearings at the Forum. Some from environmental groups pointed to the site as an example of the consequences of natural gas drilling, while landowners and industry representatives asked the agency to investigate the site and dispel myths.
If the township is going to be included in the EPA study, it may be contingent on how wide of a scope the agency takes.
A directive from Congress that kick-started the study asked the agency to look at the relationship between hydrofracking and groundwater. Many at the public hearings, however, urged it to take a wider approach, including all of the drilling activities that take place before and after the fracking process.
The DEP concluded the Dimock water well contamination was caused by faulty well casing and drilling operations and not the hydrofracking process, though a spill of a fracking solution made its way to a local stream.
“Should the community of Dimock be chosen as a community to be studied, Cabot notes for the record that the (Pennsylvania DEP) has stated that Dimock does not have a hydraulic fracturing issue,” Stark said.
Switzer said she’s hopeful the EPA will include Dimock, calling the agency her “last hope.”
“We’re waiting. I don’t have any assurances that they’re going to do it, but I’m in prayer mode,” Switzer said. “I’m hopeful that if EPA were involved, that they would gain from the experience. I don’t have anywhere else to go. They’re our last chance.”
Pa. official defends rules on gas drilling waste
http://online.wsj.com/article/APf1a0b0069bef43808fc2f7cde2c1a7bb.html
JANUARY 4, 2011
Pa. official defends rules on gas drilling waste
Pennsylvania’s top environmental enforcement official said Tuesday that he is confident that wastewater discharged into rivers and streams by the booming natural gas industry hasn’t degraded the state’s drinking water.
At least 3.6 million barrels of the ultra-salty, chemically tainted wastewater produced by gas drilling operations were discharged into state waterways in the 12-month period that ended June 30, according to records reviewed by The Associated Press. Drinking water for hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians is drawn from those rivers and streams.
Those discharges have troubled some environmentalists. Most of the big drilling companies digging thousands of new wells in Pennsylvania have committed to curtailing or ending the practice.
John Hanger, the outgoing secretary of Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection, said he believes the new regulations are adequate to protect water supplies.
“The drinking water at the tap in Pennsylvania is safe. It has not been contaminated by drilling,” he said.
The state set new standards in August governing discharges by any new drilling waste treatment plants, but allowed existing operations to continue putting partially treated wastewater into rivers and streams, as long as the water body’s quality does not fall below federal drinking water standards.
Hanger said state officials have been using a network of sensors operated by his department and water supply companies to monitor for signs that rivers may have sustained a significant drop in water quality.
So far, he said, they haven’t found any.
Many researchers have been particularly concerned with how the high levels of salt and dissolved solids in drilling waste might affect rivers, especially those that have already picked up unhealthy amounts of pollution from other sources, including abandoned coal mines.
If a river’s total load of dissolved solids gets high enough, it can make the water taste bad, leave a film on dishes, corrode equipment and could give people diarrhea. Researchers, some of them working under the auspices of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, are still trying to determine if Pennsylvania’s river discharges, at their current levels, are dangerous to humans or wildlife.
Hanger said no river used for drinking water has exceeded the EPA standard for dissolved solids for an extended period, although there have been some instances of seasonal spikes that can last for a few days.
“We are watching it very closely,” he said.
Pennsylvania is rare among gas-producing states in that it allows the wastewater that flows out of natural gas wells to be disposed of in rivers.
In most states, drillers are required to send the liquid back down deep shafts so it can’t pollute surface water.
Drilling companies use about 2 million gallons of water a day in Pennsylvania to help get at the gas locked in its vast underground Marcellus Shale gas field. During a process called hydraulic fracturing, the water — mixed with sand and chemicals, some of them toxic — is forced into the wells at high pressure, shattering the shale and releasing trapped gas.
There has been a fierce debate over whether the wastewater that returns to the surface is hazardous.
It can contain high levels of some toxins, like barium, strontium and radium, but the treatment plants handling the bulk of Pennsylvania’s gas drilling waste remove most of those substances before discharging the water.
State officials and industry participants say the amount of waste put back into waterways, while significant, is also safely diluted by the massive volumes of water in the rivers, reducing both any residual toxins and the salt to safe levels.
An AP review of state records found that the state couldn’t account for the disposal method for 1.28 million barrels of drilling wastewater, about a fifth of its total, because of incomplete record keeping.
Hanger said the state is working to improve its methods for tracking wastewater, including making recent hires of additional staff.
“There’s always room for improvement,” he said.
It also found that in 2009 and part of 2010, about 44,000 barrels of drilling waste produced by the energy company Cabot Oil & Gas were improperly sent to a treatment facility in Hatfield Township, a Philadelphia suburb, despite regulations intended to keep the liquids out of the watershed. The liquids were then discharged through the town sewage plant into the Neshaminy Creek, which flows through Bucks and Montgomery counties on its way to the Delaware River. Customers in 17 municipalities get treated drinking water from that creek.
Water quality test results reviewed by the AP also showed that some public water utilities downstream from gas wastewater treatment plants have struggled to stay under the federal maximum for contaminants known as trihalomethanes, which can cause cancer if people drink tainted water for many years.
Trihalomethanes can be created during the water treatment process by dissolved solids in drilling waste, but other types of pollution are just as often to blame for the problem.
Hanger said those trihalomethane readings are “of concern,” but he couldn’t say definitively whether there was any link to gas drilling waste.
Faced with opposition to river dumping and tightening state regulations, all of the state’s biggest drillers say they are now recycling a majority of the wastewater produced by their wells in new fracturing jobs, rather than sending it to treatment plants.
Hanger said about 70 percent of the wastewater is now being recycled, which he credits to the tighter state regulations.
Still, with dozens more energy companies drawn to the Marcellus reserves — more than 2,400 wells have been drilled and work has started on 5,400 more — operators of the largest of the state’s 16 most commonly used treatment plants say they haven’t lost much business. In midwinter, records will be available to verify company claims of any major drop-off in river disposal.