Speaks for itself, no?

Report: Firms commit 1,500 infractions in Pa. in 30 months

STEVE MOCARSKY smocarsky@timesleader.com

Marcellus Shale gas drilling companies have racked up nearly 1,500 environmental violations in Pennsylvania in the last two and a half years, according to a report released on Monday.

The Pennsylvania Land Trust Association reviewed environmental violations accrued by natural gas drillers [...]]]>

Speaks for itself, no?

Report: Firms commit 1,500 infractions in Pa. in 30 months

STEVE MOCARSKY smocarsky@timesleader.com

Marcellus Shale gas drilling companies have racked up nearly 1,500 environmental violations in Pennsylvania in the last two and a half years, according to a report released on Monday.

The Pennsylvania Land Trust Association reviewed environmental violations accrued by natural gas drillers working in the state between January 2008 and June 25. The records were obtained through a Right to Know Law request to the state Department of Environmental Protection.

DEP records showed a total of 1,435 violations of state oil and gas laws associated with drilling or other earth disturbance activities related to natural gas extraction from the Marcellus Shale, the report said. More.

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New content coming soon, so hang tight.

Some drillers, including Range Resources and Chesapeake Energy, are simply reusing their water. By the end of last year, Range was recycling all of its [...]]]> And here’s why. This is from the Keystone Edge site, a seemingly reputable outfit covering economic change and other programs in certain area of MI and PA.

Some drillers, including Range Resources and Chesapeake Energy, are simply reusing their water. By the end of last year, Range was recycling all of its “produced” water, or the liquid that flows up in a well that’s producing gas after the fracturing process. Chesapeake recently announced its Aqua Renew program, an initiative to recycle all of the water the company uses in the Marcellus (). Already, that process is reusing 4.3 million gallons a month.

Seems like a good thing, reusing 4.3 million gallons of water, right? Until you find out, in Chesapeake Energy’s own presskit, that 4.3 million gallons is less than miniscule. That amount won’t even hydrofrack one well. See my cut below, emphasis mine.

Water is also used in hydraulic fracturing, where a mixture of water and sand is injected into the deep shale at a high pressure to create small cracks in the rock and allow gas to freely flow to the surface. Hydraulically fracturing a typical Chesapeake Marcellus horizontal deepshale gas well requires an average of five and a half million gallons per well.

By the way, Chesapeake’s reusing 4.3 million gallons a month. Bully for them. How many wells are in Bradford County? 853, by the government’s count, of which 201 are Chesapeake wells (see here for details).Which makes, um, 1,105,500,000 gallons used to frack for Chesapeake alone. And they talk of saving 4.3 million as if it’s anything more than the little old lady pissing in the sea.

Make no mistake, most of the rest of that water is ending up in trout streams, wells, rivers, and unsightly open pits, waiting for reclamation. Read this article for a bit of the other side.

Protestors outside the Penn-Wells Hotel, Wellsboro PA

Cheryl Clark writes in the Sun-Gazette:

WELLSBORO, PA – As gas drilling protestors staged a vigil outside, state and federal legislators spoke about that hot topic Thursday at the Tioga County Development Corp.’s 14th annual Legislative Breakfast at the Penn [...]]]>

Protestors outside the Penn-Wells Hotel, Wellsboro PA

Politicians propound challenge of gas growth is balancing fact, fiction

Cheryl Clark writes in the Sun-Gazette:

WELLSBORO, PA – As gas drilling protestors staged a vigil outside, state and federal legislators spoke about that hot topic Thursday at the Tioga County Development Corp.’s 14th annual Legislative Breakfast at the Penn Wells Hotel.

The economic future of the area looks bright, compared to what it looked like a year ago when the sagging economy and massive job losses took center stage, agreed U.S. Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-Howard, and state Rep. Matthew E. Baker, R-Wellsboro.

Before an audience of 200, Thompson jokingly compared Tioga County to Washington, D.C.

“You’ve managed to replicate the traffic in Washington, made it impossible to find a motel room and mobilized citizens with placards protesting out front,” he said, referring to a group calling themselves “Citizens Concerned About Natural Gas Drilling.” Their placards told passing motorists and pedestrians they are against the hydro fracturing process used by the gas industry.

Referring to the Marcellus Shale, Thompson said, “It’s right underneath our feet. We are standing on prosperity. We’ve faced some tough economic times here in rural Pennsylvania, with high unemployment and the tough times it brings, for some time.”

With the discovery of the second largest pool of natural gas in the world, enough to provide the energy needs of the nation for the next 100 years, he said, “We can move toward energy security and independence.”

You can find more info on a convenient page the paper’s put up. Buyer beware.

According to Steve Reilly at the Sayre Morning Times, the hits are already here and will keep coming. I’ll link the whole article, but let me just cut to the good stuff (emphases mine):

Several incidents and fines related to natural gas activity, including notable a spate of arrests [...]]]>

Sayre Morning Times file photo

According to Steve Reilly at the Sayre Morning Times, the hits are already here and will keep coming. I’ll link the whole article, but let me just cut to the good stuff (emphases mine):

Several incidents and fines related to natural gas activity, including notable a spate of arrests stemming from overweight and oversize trucks, were reported in February:

• On Feb. 2, DEP fined Talisman Energy $3,500 for violations at its “Cease” well pad in Troy Township discovered during inspections in 2009. A February 2009 inspection revealed that the company had not publicly posted the permit number and other required information at the entrance of the well pad. During a follow-up inspection in June 2009, a DEP statement explains, “flow-back fluids — or the fluids that are used to break up underground rock and then return to the surface — were found discharging into a drainage ditch, an adjacent sediment basin, and eventually through a vegetated area into an unnamed tributary of the south branch of Sugar Creek.”

• On Feb. 3, Pennsylvania State Police arrested and jailed four drivers employed by TK Stanley, a rig moving company headquartered in Waynesboro, Miss., for driving a convoy of oversized trucks through North Towanda Township on U.S. Route 6.

• On Feb. 6, state police cited three men employed by T.A.W. Inc. of Wysox for driving trucks with weight, size and permit violations.

• On Feb. 7, Arthur H. Dawes of Blossburg, Pa., was arrested and jailed after his overweight and oversized truck was involved in three separate accidents as he traveled through Bradford County. Dawes and his employer, Todd Berguson Trucking, received over $15,000 in citations as a result of the incident.

• On Feb. 8, James Matusek of Shavertown, Pa., and his employer, Latona Trucking, were fined over $31,300 after state police discovered a truck driven by Matusek to be 49.7 tons overweight.

• On Feb. 23, Arron Waddy, an driver for MARMC Transportation of Caspar, Wyo., was cited with $24,089 in fines after state police stopped his vehicle on U.S. Route 220 in Albany Township and discovered it was 71,707 pounds overweight.

To all the new gas-lease millionaires in Bradford and Tioga counties: this is just begun. Nice job.  And before you say anything, I understand. If someone dangled what seemed like free money in front of my nose, I’d likely take it, especially if I lived in these traditionally poorer counties still. But you’re risking turning the way of life you so value into a horror-show. For those of you who haven’t leased yet, please don’t.

]]> http://www.friedchickenandcoffee.com/2010/03/07/marcellus-shale-issues-in-february-alone/feed/ 1 http://www.friedchickenandcoffee.com/2010/02/18/hydraulic-fracturing-fracking/ http://www.friedchickenandcoffee.com/2010/02/18/hydraulic-fracturing-fracking/#comments Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:57:53 +0000 Rusty http://friedchickenandcoffee.com/?p=353

This first article, basically a rehashed press release if you ask me, gives you the gas company perspective, as well as the web address of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, a group of (wait for it–not government regulators, not community members, not EPA reps) gas companies (oh, we can trust them, big business has never [...]]]>

This first article, basically a rehashed press release if you ask me, gives you the gas company perspective, as well as the web address of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, a group of (wait for it–not government regulators, not community members, not EPA reps) gas companies (oh, we can trust them, big business has never screwed over rural communities) who assure us through their pretty website that everything is A-OK, and boy,  isn’t this a great opportunity for Pennsylvania. Entire article follows:

Gas industry responds to flowback concerns

Published: Wednesday, February 10, 2010 3:54 PM CST, in the Wellsboro (PA) Gazette

The Marcellus Shale Coalition issued the following statement Feb. 4 regarding water use and flowback water management in the development of natural gas from the Marcellus formation:

“Pennsylvanians deserve to get the facts about water management for Marcellus shale development. We need to put an end to the suppositions that could threaten our state’s ability to create jobs and investment here at home.

“Regulations governing the use and management of water needed to drill a Marcellus shale well in Pennsylvania are among the most stringent in the nation, and ensure the protection of the commonwealth’s water resources. Water withdrawals from streams and rivers must be approved, including the withdrawal location and amount of water required for each well, as well as detailed storage and treatment plans.

“The industry currently treats or recycles all of its flowback water. Recycling accounts for approximately 60 percent of the water used to complete Marcellus shale wells, with greater percentages predicted for the future. There are more than a dozen approved water treatment facilities available to treat flowback water, with plans for additional capacity in the future.

“Companies are working with international water quality experts and are funding research and development projects to develop mobile and permanent treatment technologies such as evaporation and crystallization. These efforts will enhance the commonwealth’s overall water treatment capabilities, while bringing more commerce into Pennsylvania. We’re also researching and developing deep underground injection well technology, which is a proven, safe disposal method in other regions of the country.

“Claims about elevated levels of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) in the Monongahela River from natural gas development have been refuted by studies that attribute a minimal amount of the total TDS levels to Marcellus shale drilling activity. In fact, historical monitoring shows the variability of TDS levels in the Monongahela and other rivers to be a cyclical phenomenon over the past 30 years.

“The industry is committed to the use of Best Management Practices in all aspects of its operations, including significant investment in advanced flowback water treatment capabilities and recycling technologies.”

The Marcellus Shale Coalition is comprised of dozens of drilling and service companies who work in Pennsylvania’s oil and gas industry. Its Web site is www.pamarcellus.com.

It’s a damned good thing the US Supreme Court recently granted ‘personhood’ to corporations. These newly made Adams can now spend all the money they like supporting their favored candidates, and we can look forward to more of this PR tripe even out of election season. This is how the business conglomerate-person speaks, as if it has no personal stake nor responsibility. In vapid, Orwellian PR-speak, it pays lip service to the idea that it supports the people it’s bending over a chair and screwing. For all those quotation marks in this piece, not one is attributed, and therefore no one is responsible for its veracity. Just this newly-made ‘person’: the gas companies.’

capped well, Spring Lake, Bradford County PA

Here’s another perspective from Laura Shin’s blog on http://www.solveclimate.com, dated 9/29/09:

Last week, three spills of potentially carcinogenic hazardous chemicals at a natural gas drilling site in Pennsylvania prompted the state’s environmental protection agency to suspend Cabot Oil & Gas’s operations in the county.

The spills were just a small part of a larger phenomenon — accidents at natural gas drilling sites that have imperiled the drinking water of nearby communities in states from Pennsylvania to Wyoming and that have no governmental oversight.

They call it the “Halliburton Loophole” — an exemption for oil and gas companies to inject hazardous materials directly into or near underground drinking water supplies in a process called hydraulic fracturing.

Hydraulic fracturing, commonly called “fracking,” is used in natural gas wells to push fluid and sand at very high pressure into rock formations to release gas. Fracking fluid can contain chemicals that are hazardous and carcinogenic. Halliburton, a pioneer of the technique, says 35,000 wells are fracked each year.

As more accidents are reported at wells being “fracked” (undergoing hydraulic fracturing), both houses of Congress are considering legislation to close the Halliburton Loophole, so nicknamed not just because Halliburton developed the technique but also because former Halliburton CEO and ex-vice president Dick Cheney urged the creation of the exemption in 2005. More than 160 community and national groups have signed a letter of support for the bills in Congress.

“We think everybody deserves to have their drinking water protected. It’s pretty simple,” says Amy Mall, senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, who has blogged regularly about fracking accidents. Continue reading.

Some other links of interest:

http://un-naturalgas.org/weblog/tag/hydraulic-fracturing/

http://frackmountain.wordpress.com/2010/02/04/educate-yourself-7-minutes-2/

http://www.donnan.com/Marcellus-Gas_Hickory.htm

The Associated Press Tuesday, February 2, 2010; 2:40 PM

HARRISBURG, Pa. [...]]]> Why isn’t anyone talking about this? Or am I not looking in the right places? And by the way, duh.

Gas drilling in Appalachia yields a foul byproduct

Map shows the Marcellus Shale formation in the Eastern U.S. (P. Prengaman – AP)

By MARC LEVY and VICKI SMITH

The Associated Press
Tuesday, February 2, 2010; 2:40 PM

HARRISBURG, Pa. — A drilling technique that is beginning to unlock staggering quantities of natural gas underneath Appalachia also yields a troubling byproduct: powerfully briny wastewater that can kill fish and give tap water a foul taste and odor.

With fortunes, water quality and cheap energy hanging in the balance, exploration companies, scientists and entrepreneurs are scrambling for an economical way to recycle the wastewater.

“Everybody and his brother is trying to come up with the 11 herbs and spices,” said Nicholas DeMarco, executive director of the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association.

Drilling crews across the country have been flocking since late 2008 to the Marcellus Shale, a rock bed the size of Greece that lies about 6,000 feet beneath New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. Geologists say it could become the most productive natural gas field in the U.S., capable of supplying the entire country’s needs for up to two decades by some estimates.

Before that can happen, the industry is realizing that it must solve the challenge of what to do with its wastewater. As a result, the Marcellus Shale in on its way to being the nation’s first gas field where drilling water is widely reused.

The polluted water comes from a drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” in which millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals are blasted into each well to fracture tightly compacted shale and release trapped natural gas. Read more.

This series of videos taken in Colorado tells me it’s not just coal, either. In Northern Appalachia now (where I grew up) there has been a boom–maybe even a mega-boom–in natural gas drilling of the Marcellus Shale area, and particularly in my two home counties, Bradford and Tioga in Pennsylvania.  From what I understand, most [...]]]> [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVNgwMGEObE&feature=player_embedded]

This series of videos taken in Colorado tells me it’s not just coal, either. In Northern Appalachia now (where I grew up) there has been a boom–maybe even a mega-boom–in natural gas drilling of the Marcellus Shale area, and particularly in my two home counties, Bradford and Tioga in Pennsylvania.  From what I understand, most home and land purchases generally don’t have an agreement about mineral rights. They’re sold separately, so many of the folks living there are getting wells drilled on their property whether they like it or not, and those who are savvy enough to know this are buying their mineral rights back and then, in a heinous lack of forethought, selling them to the gas companies. It’s hard to argue when you have money in large sums just waiting for a signature, but what about the drinking water and other environmental impact?

The hydro-fracturing process these gas companies are using drills down to 8000 feet or so using water and assorted chemicals whose impact on the surrounding groundwater is largely unknown. Since the companies don’t have to observe the Clean Water act–why is that, again?–they simply don’t.

And look at the sheer number of drilling permits issued here:

http://php.pressconnects.com/pawells/pawells.php

This is a screenshot of that map. That big purple cluster in the middle-left are the well permits issued for my home territory. Hell, the water we got from our well sucked growing up anyway. It bubbled ferociously, tasted like shit, and turned my clothes all kinds of funky colors. What’s a few more toxic chemicals whose effects no one knows?

I’m one of the Appalachian brain-drain kids. I left my home for grad school and the city, probably forever, so I don’t have a stake in this except that I spent the first 21 years of my life there, and 95% of my family live within fifty miles or less of these two counties, and my preoccupation with the place has fed my writing life for twenty-odd years now. Nothing big. :-/

But I’m at a loss for what to do and how to help. I have to think more about this, so forgive me the scattershot approach, and watch the series of videos, and imagine it happening in a place you love.