Westmoreland
Marcellus Citizens’ Group Updates July 19, 2013
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* To contact your state
legislator:
For email
address, click on the envelope under the photo
For information on the state gas legislation
and local control: http://pajustpowers.org/aboutthebills.html-
Thank you
Thank you to everyone who took the
time to add your name to letters to Senators asking for a moratorium on
drilling. jan
Calendar of Events
***Westmoreland County
Commissioners Meeting- 2nd
and 4th Thursday of the month at the County Courthouse at 10:00
***July 20 Fracking Forum in Shadyside
Saw
Gasland II? Stay involved. 1-4 pm. Friends Meeting House, 4836 Ellsworth Ave
For a full calendar
of area events please see “Marcellus Protest” calendar:
http://marcellusprotest.org/
TAKE
ACTION!! 3 Alerts
***Tell DEP
To Revise Critical Policy on Public Participation
The PA
DEP is currently revising a policy on how the public participates in the
permitting process. Many of these policies and procedures will directly impact
how residents living near polluted facilities will be able to participate in
decisions about shale gas infrastructure in Pennsylvania. This is your chance to tell PA DEP what you
think about their proposed policy changes and make your own suggestions.
Comments
are due on Monday, July 22nd by 5PM.
Thank you for helping to protect everyone's right to breathe
clean air!
Matt Walker Clean Air Council Community, Outreach Director
Take Action Here:
Copy of the
action alert:
“My
biggest concern is that the public participation policy will be almost useless
for most shale gas facilities that are now permitted because of the stream-lined General Permit 5 (GP-5), which
doesn’t allow for public comment and public hearings. Since the great majority
of new facilities in Pennsylvania are part of the oil and gas industry and
falls under GP-5, this is extremely relevant. I urge PA DEP to change the
participation policy to allow for meaningful public participation in polluting
facilities like compressor stations that are now being quickly permitted with
the GP-5, often in close proximity to each other.
Documents with PA DEP’s
analysis of a permit application are often not available prior to a comment
deadline and this prohibits the public from having meaningful input on PA DEP’s
analysis and decision-making. The Department should allow for two separate
comment periods so the public has the opportunity to comment on a company’s
application and DEP’s analysis of the application. I’m concerned about PA DEP’s
proposed timing of comment periods and public hearings. Public hearings should
not occur during the initial 30-day comment period, but should occur only after
a comment period is over (if substantial interest has been shown).
I urge PA DEP to put all permit applications, technical review
documents, and any other associated documents or maps online for free public
access. It is extremely difficult to obtain files from regional offices in
enough time to allow for well-informed comments.
I support the idea of webinars for educational purposes, but urge the
Department to never substitute a webinar for a public meeting or public
hearing. Not all residents interested in participating in the permitting
process can attend online webinars could be excluded from the process.
Thank you for considering my
comments. Please keep me informed about any decisions related to the Policy on
Public Participation in the Permit Review Process.”
***Tell the Obama Administration: Don't put fracking advocates in charge of a fracking
pollution investigation The
state of Wyoming is taking over a U.S. EPA investigation into the possible
contamination of Pavillion, WY area groundwater by fracking.
EPA had already concluded -- for the first
time -- that fracking had polluted groundwater, and was getting their
conclusion peer reviewed when Wyoming's Governor Mead announced it was taking
over.
The state could only take control if the
Obama administration allowed it. In allowing it, the White House is
allowing the very interests who denied there was a problem in the first place
to -- in essence -- investigate themselves. And now the people around Pavillion
have been abandoned, their polluted drinking water unresolved.
All-of-the-above
energy myth abandons communities.
This
decision continues a nationwide pattern of Obama Administration walk backs of
EPA investigations whose preliminary results indicate fracking-enabled oil and
gas development presents real risks to public health and water. Similar actions have occurred in Parker
County, Texas, and Dimock, Pennsylvania.
From Earthworks
TAKE ACTION Here: Tell President
Obama and the EPA to stand by their own study!
***Tell Gov
Corbett- Time to Clean Up the Fracking Mess-
Clean Water Action
“We know
that fracking is contaminating our water. We know that DEP knows. So is DEP
doing anything about it? We deserve better from our State Government - take
action today!
Every
day families receive no action from the DEP is day they have to live without
access to one of our most basic needs, clean drinking water. Tell Governor
Corbett his DEP must take action to protect our drinking water from natural gas
drilling!
Send your message to Governor
Corbett and your State Legislators:
Please personalize your message! We've provided a sample
email, but your message will have a bigger impact if it is in your own words.”
Frack Links
***To sign up for
notifications of activity and violations for
your area:
***List of the Harmed--There are now
over 1200 names of residents of Pennsylvania who became sick after fracking
began in their area and have placed their name on the list of the harmed. http://pennsylvaniaallianceforcleanwaterandair.wordpress.com/the-list/
The Daily Show’s John Oliver interviews Gasland Director
Josh Fox on his new film, Gasland Part II, which elaborates on the government’s
role in promoting the fossil fuel industry’s practice of or fracking for
natural gas and oil. Exposing the grave warning signs coming from U.S. “energy
sacrifice zones,” Fox warns of the systemic corruption with regard to our
regulatory agencies and industry influence. He also discusses the technical and
engineering problems of the fracking process and the effects of methane
emissions being worse for climate change than coal.
***Health Problems Forum-Video
Mac Sawyer, former gas field truck driver, Joe Giovannini mason and resident of
Cannonsburg, Robert McCaslin who
worked as master driller. Larysa Dyrszka, MD, Board certified pediatrician, former director of pediatrics at Holy
Name Hospital in Teaneck, NJ, attendee at the first US Health Impact Assessment
Conference in Washington DC., and affiliate member of Physicians Scientists and
Engineers for Healthy Energy and Lauren
Williams, Esq, PA attorney specializing in environmental and public law who
focuses on land use issues including those that relate to gas drilling. Lauren
William’s discussion of the gag order on doctors is a good explanation of the
problems surrounding the Act 13 order.
You must click on each speaker in turn to hear all the presentations.
***Green and
Clean?
WTAE TV Under the Green
and Clean tax law, farmers get tax breaks for farming the land. The tax break was not intended
to give breaks to landowners who lease for gas drilling.
Frack News
1. Toxic Wastewater Used For Surface Application for
Consumption by Wildlife and Livestock
(I
have read this article three times and never cease to be stunned by the lack of
regulation regarding fracking. It is the government employee members of PEER
who are fighting to right this particular wrong. Jan)
“Millions of gallons of water laced with toxic
chemicals from oil and gas drilling rigs are pumped for consumption by wildlife and livestock with formal approval from
the U.S. EPA, according to public comments filed today by Public Employees for
Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Contrary
to its own regulations, EPA is issuing permits for surface application of
drilling wastewater without even identifying the chemicals in fracking fluids,
let alone setting effluent limits for the contaminants contained within them.
EPA has
just posted proposed new water discharge permits for the nearly dozen oil
fields on or abutting the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming (EPA has Clean
Water Act jurisdiction on tribal lands). Besides
not even listing the array of toxic chemicals being discharged, the proposed
permits have monitoring requirements so weak that water can be tested long
after fracking events or maintenance flushing. In addition, the permits
lack any provisions to protect the health of wildlife or livestock.
“Under the less than
watchful eye of EPA, fracking flowback is dumped into rivers, lakes and
reservoirs,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, pointing out that in
both the current and the new proposed permits EPA ignores its own rules
requiring that it list “the type and quantity of wastes, fluids, or pollutants
which are proposed to be or are being treated, stored, disposed of, injected,
emitted, or discharged.” “Gushers of putrid, grayish water encrusted with
chemical crystals flood through Wind River into nearby streams.”
Surface disposal of water produced by oil
and gas drilling is forbidden in the Eastern U.S. but allowed in the arid West
for purposes of “agricultural or wildlife propagation,” in the words of the
governing federal regulation. Thus, the
“produced water,” as it is called, must be “of good enough quality to be used
for wildlife or livestock watering or other agricultural uses.”
In the
last decade, fracking fluids often
consisting of powerfully toxic chemicals have been included in this surface
discharge. The exact mixture used by individual operators is treated as a trade
secret. But one recent analysis identified 632 chemicals now used in shale-gas
production. More than 75% of them affect the respiratory and gastrointestinal
systems; 40-50% impact the kidneys and the nervous, immune and cardiovascular
systems; 37% act on the hormone system; and 25% are linked with cancer or
mutations.
“Amid
all the controversy on this topic, there is one point of agreement: drinking
fracking fluids is not a good idea,” added Ruch, pointing to cases where cattle
drinking creek water contaminated with fracking fluids died or failed to
produce calves the following year. “The more than 30-year old ‘produced water’
exception was intended for naturally occurring fluids and muds from within the
geologic formations, not this new generation of powerful chemicals introduced
downhole.”
PEER is
asking the EPA to rewrite the permits to regulate all the chemicals being
discharged and to determine whether the produced water is potable for wildlife
and livestock. The public comments period on the proposed Wind Reservation
permits closes on July 26, 2013.
2. Smoke from Gas Plant in Washington County
Alarming Neighbors
"Over the weekend, while MarkWest installed
the equipment, liquid fuels from natural gas drilling were sent up the plant's
smokestack to be flared, burned off in open air. But tests of the new equipment produced
roiling black clouds of pollution along with giant flames that made it appear
from a distance as a major house fire. [
John L.
Obenour, 84, whose Hornhead Farm sits next to the plant, said he went to the plant
Monday to complain after repeated episodes of billowing black smoke found their
way to his property. He said he has black soot on his window seals and black
streaks on his roof. Such episodes have happened several times, he said.
"I could detect a smell because the atmosphere was so heavy, as it
is," he said. "The last couple of days I could detect that smell and
the god-dang black stuff in the air was settling this way and that. "You
can't stop progress, and I never want to be a thorn in their side," he
said. "But I also want to have clean air." Raina Rippel, director of
the Environmental Health Project based in Peters, said, "We have had
concern for some time about residents' health and safety living in close
proximity to this site, and this event magnifies those concerns.""
3. Violation Report from Derry from Skytruth alert
(There are many
violations listed on Skytruth. I
sometimes pull one to illustrate that we should all subscribe and pay attention
to what is spilled or released in our area.
Drill cuttings are often radioactive and toxic, jan)
Report Details
Operator Wpx Energy Appalachia Llc
Violation Type Administrative
Violation Date 2013-07-11
Violation Code 78.61A - Improper pit disposal of drill cuttings from above the casing seat
Violation ID 672525
Permit API 129-28841
Unconventional Y
County Westmoreland
Municipality Derry Twp
Inspection Type Routine/Complete Inspection
Inspection Date 2013-07-11
Comments violations issued 78.61 (d)
Violation(s)
ID: 672525 Date: 2013-07-11 Type: Administrative
78.61A - Improper
pit disposal of drill cuttings from above the casing seat 78.61 (d)
ID: 672526 Date: 2013-07-11 00:00:00 Type: Environmental Health
& Safety
401CSL - Discharge of pollultional material to
waters of Commonwealth.
ID: 672528 Date: 2013-07-11 00:00:00 Type: Administrative
201H - Failure to
properly install the permit number, issued by the department, on a completed
well. 32.11 (g)
Enforcement
Action(s)
ID Code
299703 NOV - Notice of Violation
4. Pennsylvania Shale Gas Drilling Update
From Sierra Club:
“How far
has shale gas drilling advanced in Pennsylvania? According to the Web site
Marcellus.org, of the 12,584 ‘unconventional’ wells permitted in the state as
of July 2, 2013, 29 percent are now producing. How quickly the remaining wells
begin to produce depends in large part on the price of natural gas.
12,584 Unconventional wells are permitted in PA
10,636 are horizontal wells
7,205 are drilled or under development
3,696 have reported production values
125 new wells added in the last 21 days”
5. Corbett Signed Pooling Legislation Into Law
“Gov. Corbett defended
legislation he signed into law this week that critics say will undercut some
landowners in lease negotiations with Marcellus shale gas drillers.
The new
law, which was tacked onto legislation to clarify information on gas royalty
payments, empowers oil and gas drillers
to combine land into larger drilling units as long as a property owner's lease
doesn't prohibit it.
It
effectively forces people with existing contracts to allow their land to be
pooled into larger drilling units without having full power to negotiate better
deals in return, legal scholars and landowners’ advocates have said.
“We're
going to have to have a difference of opinion,” Corbett told the
Tribune-Review. “It does not empower a company to take gas from an individual
who has not signed a lease. People are trying to use the term forced pooling.
It doesn't do forced pooling. You cannot take from somebody who has not signed
a lease.”
That's false logic, countered George
Jugovic, a senior attorney at Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future,
reiterating comments from several of the law's critics. The provision may apply only to people who have gas leases, but those
people still have a legal right not to allow their land to be pooled into
larger drilling units, they said.
The
change likely will affect Western Pennsylvania most, because many people here
hold old oil and gas leases that don't mention that type of pooling, experts
have said. Now drillers want to combine
those lands so their horizontal wells can go sideways to tap shale gas from
several properties at once.
“Who
would know (Corbett) was from southwestern Pennsylvania? Could be a reason he
has a 26 percent approval rating,” said Jugovic, a former state environmental
lawyer who resigned early in Corbett's tenure. “He's either ignorant or lying.
One's the truth. I'm not sure which is worse.”
Landowner
advocates have criticized not only the effect of the provision but the way it
passed. It was two sentences in a five-page bill drafted primarily to get
better information to royalty recipients that received overwhelming approval in
weekend votes at the end of June.”
To read the article: http://triblive.com/state/pennsylvania/4340341-74/gas-drilling-corbett#ixzz2Ytft6YGy
6. Another Duke Study Finds Elevated Methane in Water
Near Fracking in NE PA
First Study to Verify Ethane and Propane Contamination
Nicholas School of
the Environment at Duke University
Published: the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Science
“Some homeowners
living near shale gas wells appear to be at higher risk of drinking water
contamination from stray gases, according to a new Duke University-led study, Increased Stray Gas Abundance in a Subset of
Drinking Water Wells Near Marcellus Shale Gas Extraction.
The
scientists analyzed 141 drinking water samples from private water wells across
northeastern Pennsylvania’s gas-rich Marcellus Shale basin.
They
found that, on average, methane
concentrations were six times higher and ethane concentrations were 23 times
higher at homes within a kilometer of a shale gas well. Propane was detected in
10 samples, all of them from homes within a kilometer of drilling.
“The
methane, ethane and propane data, and new evidence from hydrocarbon and helium
content, all suggest that drilling has affected some homeowners’ water,” said
Robert B. Jackson, a professor of environmental sciences at Duke’s Nicholas
School of the Environment. “In a minority of cases the gas even looks
Marcellus-like, probably caused by poor well construction.”
The
ethane and propane data are “particularly interesting,” he noted, “since there is no biological source of ethane and
propane in the region and Marcellus gas is high in both, and higher in
concentration than Upper Devonian gases” found in formations overlying the
Marcellus shale.
The team
published its peer-reviewed findings this week in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences. The new study is the first to offer direct evidence of ethane and
propane contamination.
“The
helium data in this study are the first in a new tool kit we’ve developed for
identifying contamination using noble gas geochemistry,” said Thomas H. Darrah,
a research scientist in geology, also at Duke’s Nicholas School. “These new
tools allow us to identify and trace contaminants with a high degree of
certainty through multiple lines of evidence.”
Co-authors
of the new study are Nathaniel Warner, Adrian Down, Kaiguang Zhao and Jonathan
Karr, all of Duke; Robert Poreda of the University of Rochester; and Stephen
Osborn of California State Polytechnic University. Duke’s Nicholas School of
the Environment and the Duke Center on Global Change funded the research.”
http://ecowatch.com/2013/duke-study-gas-water-wells-marcellus-fracking/
7. PA Rep. Evankovich
Wants to Remove Allegheny Co. Ability to Regulate Air Pollution
Allegheny County is Pennsylvania's second-most populated
county, an urban center that surrounds the city of Pittsburgh and serves as
home to 1.2 million people.
One
service funded by county residents is a Department of Health, whose mission is,
in part, "protecting the population from harmful effects of chemical,
biological and physical hazards within the environment."
How could state Rep. Eli Evankovich have a
problem with that?
The Murrysville
Republican, who lives in Westmoreland County, is pushing a legislative proposal
that would strip the Allegheny County health department of its power to monitor
and regulate air pollution. He thinks county residents should just rely on
the state Department of Environmental Protection.
The people of Allegheny County, who for
generations have lived next to steel mills, coke plants and other polluters,
deserve better. The quality of their air should get county-based oversight
from a health department that is both professional and familiar with local
industry. How else do you protect the public?
We
wouldn't expect a lawmaker from Murrysville to get that. Mr. Evankovich should
keep his hands off this health agency and save the crackpot ideas for his own
county.
8. Using Recycled Frack Water
“Slightly
dirty water, it seems, does just as good a job as crystal clear when it comes
to making an oil or gas well work.
Exploration
and production companies are under pressure to reduce the amount of freshwater
used in dry areas like Texas and to cut the high costs of hauling millions of
barrels of water to oil and gas wells and later to underground disposal wells.
To
attack those problems, companies are treating water from "fracked"
wells just enough so that it can be used again.
It doesn't lessen the potential for
groundwater contamination, and it can increase the amount of contaminants that
you are exposing the groundwater to," said Myron Arnowitt, Pennsylvania
director for Clean Water Action.
The U.S.
EPA could also implement rules concerning recycled water when it delivers its
study of hydraulic fracturing next year.
Transportation
is by far the costliest element of water management for fracking, and local
communities like recycling because it takes trucks off the road.
But the
industry has a long way to go, Halliburton's Dale said, adding that recycling
is still in a "pilot" period.
Water
use and resources are local issues, and approaches to managing water will vary
by geography, XTO said in a statement, adding, "Recycling is not a
universal solution."
9. Many Gas Spills & Mishaps, Few Fines
“If Kristi Mogen causes a crash on the road, she knows
she'll probably get a ticket and have to pay a fine.
So she's
frustrated that Wyoming officials didn't fine Chesapeake Energy Corp. for an
April 2012 blowout near her home outside Douglas, Wyo. The ruptured gas well
spewed gas and chemicals for three days, forcing her and her neighbors to
evacuate their homes.
There
are thousands of oil spills at the nation's onshore oil and gas well sites
every year. But the data are scattered
amid databases, websites, and even file drawers of state agencies across the
country. EnergyWire spent four months mining the data for the most
comprehensive report available on the spills that result from the nation's
booming oil and gas industry.
"There's no
punishment on that. There's nothing," said Mogen, who believes the gas and
chemicals released in the spill sickened her family. "They're just going
around with business as usual."
It may have surprised Mogen, but it's
actually rare for state oil and gas regulators to hit companies with fines
after spills and blowouts.
There
are no national figures on oil and gas spills or enforcement. But where state
records are available, they show agencies pursue fines against oil and gas
producers in only a small minority of spill cases.
The
Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality pursued water quality fines against
10 producers in 2012, records show, as it recorded 204 oil and gas production
spills.
In
Texas, the leading producer of oil and gas, regulators sought enforcement for 2
percent of the 55,000 violations identified by drilling inspectors in the last
fiscal year.
In Pennsylvania, the heart of the Marcellus Shale gas
drilling boom, 2012 records show state regulators levied fines in 13 percent of the cases
where inspectors found violations.
And in
New Mexico, oil and gas regulators haven't issued fines in years.
State
oil and gas agencies are the main regulators of the nation's drilling boom.
That boom is creating new wealth for oil and gas drillers and some landowners,
but it's also leading to more accidents and pollution.
Spills, blowouts and other mishaps rose 17
percent from 2010 to 2012 in states where comparable data was available, an
EnergyWire investigation found (EnergyWire, July 8). Drilling activity in those
states went up 40 percent.
Overall, there were more than 6,000 spills in 2012, an average of more
than 16 spills a day.
In Texas, officials say they
take a "compliance-based" approach. Oil and gas drilling in Texas is
overseen by the Texas Railroad Commission, which doesn't regulate trains but is
instead an influential regulator among oil and gas agencies. Commission
inspectors place a premium on helping drillers get back into compliance with
the rules rather than hitting them with fines.
Oklahoma has a similar
compliance-based approach. An inspector succinctly laid out the thinking last
year after following up on a spill of 300,000 gallons of oil and wastewater
into pastureland.
"Reinspected spill area," the inspector wrote. "Found
spill has been cleaned up. Looks OK. Please close incident. No further action
anticipated."
Environmentalists and other critics say state regulators' reluctance
fails to deter repeat violations.
States track accident data in
many different ways
No state had more oil and gas
spills reported last year than North Dakota -- 1,129. But that figure may
demonstrate more about how states track spills than it does about which has the
worst record.
In North Dakota, companies have to report any spill that's 1 barrel
(42 gallons) or larger. In Texas, the
threshold is 5 barrels. And in Oklahoma
and Montana, it's 10 barrels.
"That's really jacking the
number up significantly," said Kari Cutting, vice president of the North
Dakota Petroleum Council, adding that although companies have chafed at the
limits, the group has elected not to try to get the threshold raised.
More
than half of North Dakota's spills -- 588 -- were 5 barrels or less, while only
6 percent of Texas' 914 spills (53) were 5 barrels or less. Without the 588
smaller spills, North Dakota would have ranked fourth behind Texas, Oklahoma
and New Mexico.
Just as the reporting
requirements differ in most states, no two states disclose their spill records
to the public in the same way. None meshes spill data with details of fines or
other enforcement. Besides that, every state is different.
New Mexico and Texas post the
data online. Montana and Alabama keep their records only on paper in the
central office.
North Dakota has a detailed spill
database that lists details such as the distance from water wells and
buildings. But it's not online.
Louisiana and Pennsylvania officials said they had no list of spills.
Louisiana officials said the information can be found in the database of the
Coast Guard's National Response Center.
But Pennsylvania DEP spokesman Kevin Sunday said there were 365 spills
last year, a slight increase over the 345 in 2011.
In some states, such as
California and West Virginia, oil and gas agencies don't track spills, but the
state environmental protection agency does. In Wyoming, both the state
Department of Environmental Quality and the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission
track spills. The situation is similar in Montana, Ohio and other states.
States also track very
different information.
New Mexico and Colorado note whether spills affect water. Colorado
had 400 spills, 154 that weren't contained within a berm and 22 of which
affected surface water. An additional 63 affected groundwater.
Of New Mexico's 734 spills last
year, seven affected groundwater. Seven others affected a waterway, such as the
pump line that froze in December near Navajo Lake and leaked drilling
wastewater over a canyon rim.
Most state oil and gas agencies
are charged with promoting drilling in the state, in addition to regulating it.
Inspectors and the people who oversee them often come from the oil and gas
industry. It's not considered a conflict of interest. It's often a job
requirement.
"When you deal with the oil
and gas agencies, their primary concern is to get the drilling going,"
said Wilma Subra, a Louisiana-based environmental scientist who monitors state
regulation of oil and gas. "Environmental contamination is not a big
deal."
Industry officials say state
regulators aggressively protect the environment and enforce safety.
Under President Obama, EPA has frequently retreated from big drilling
enforcement cases, such as those in Dimock, Pa.; Parker County, Texas; and
Pavillion, Wyo. (EnergyWire, June 13).
Mogen said she wants to see her
state government take a harder line.
"Why not take away
their permits [to drill] until Chesapeake gets their act together?" she
asked.
Some states do hit companies with six-figure fines after major
incidents.
North Dakota officials demanded a
fine of more than $100,000 from Newfield Exploration Co. for a blowout that
sprayed oil, gas and produced water for two days near Watford City in December.
Newfield is contesting the penalty.
A $100,000 fine is large in the world of state oil and gas enforcement.
But Newfield is a $2.5 billion company that takes in that much money every 22
minutes.
And the deterrent effect of the
fine may be limited because it's not widely known. Even David Drovdal, a
longtime Republican state legislator who owns the land where the spill
occurred, said he wasn't aware of the fine levied for the spill on his property.
The North Dakota Department of
Mineral Resources also sought a $75,000 fine from Slawson Exploration Co. for a
December 2012 blowout near the banks of Lake Sakakawea and $300,000 more for
failure to disclose hydraulic fracturing fluid ingredients to the FracFocus
website as required. Slawson is contesting the charges.
But enforcement is essentially
nonexistent in New Mexico, which had some of the biggest spills last year.
Inspectors with the state Oil Conservation Division have issued no fines since
2009, when a judge ruled that the agency doesn't have the authority to do so.
That means there likely won't be
a state fine for a spill of more than 45,000 gallons of oil and brine near
Artesia, N.M., in late May that reached the Pecos River.
The Chesapeake blowout in April 2012 blew a mist of gas and oil-based
drilling mud over ranches and homes in Wyoming, including the one where Mogen,
her husband and two daughters raise organic vegetables and grass-fed cattle.
A cloud settled over their low-lying property, thick
enough that they couldn't see their calf barn 200 feet from their house. When
the evacuation ended, they returned to find a petroleum sheen in the water in
their stock tank.
Kristi Mogen evacuated her Wyoming home after a well
blowout in April 2012 left a chemical cloud hanging over her farm. Photo
courtesy of Stop the Frack Attack.
One of their daughters had nosebleeds for 29 straight
days, and a checkup showed she and her husband had dangerously low levels of
oxygen in their blood.
Mogen says she's perplexed by reports that the state
penalizes farmers who break the rules on selling raw milk or green, leafy
vegetables for fear of contamination.
"But oil and gas companies are allowed to put
chemicals in our air and in our soil," said Mogen, who traveled to
Washington, D.C., earlier this year for a lobbying day organized by
environmental groups.
Attempts to get comment from
Wyoming Oil and Gas Supervisor Grant Black, who was not in charge at the time
of the blowout, were unsuccessful. The investigation report from his agency,
the state Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, found human error contributed to
the accident but said Chesapeake didn't break any of its rules.
"Accidents will happen," Bob King,
interim oil and gas supervisor at the time, explained to the Associated Press
earlier this year. "I mean, you can't prevent every accident that is
going to happen. We don't live in a perfect world."
To Mogen, the failure to even
cite Chesapeake for a violation added insult to the injury, essentially declaring
the blowout and evacuation "a non-incident."
"Making
people flee their homes, out here in Wyoming where we love our property
rights," Mogen said, "that is not a non-incident."
From
Energy Wire: http://www.eenews.net/stories/1059984342
10. Josh Fox on Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now!
Excerpt:
“JOSH
FOX: There was only one problem: The gas
industry denied everything.
GAS
INDUSTRY SPOKESPERSON: We have found no
instance of hydraulic fracturing harming groundwater.
JOSH
FOX: The war for who was going to tell this story was on.
JOSH
FOX: Well, the oil and gas industry has
been attacking the film, the families in the film, the scientists in the film,
consistently for the last three years since it came out, and they’re at it
again with this new film. It’s extraordinarily disheartening to see that this
is their strategy. It’s deny, deny, deny, spread money around, try to influence
politicians, spend lots and lots of money in the media to convince Americans
that it’s a great idea to drill one to two million new gas wells. Those are the
projections. The oil and gas industry
has leased more land than the total landmass of California and Florida
combined, which means that a lot of those adjacent properties in these 34
states where the drilling campaign is going on are also influenced, so it’s
maybe twice that amount of area.
What did you find in part two? And
start by talking about the significance of this Science journal study in
relating earthquakes with fracking.
JOSH FOX: Well, first, in terms of earthquakes, which we do cover in the
new film because there’s a huge shale play in California, and in fact there’s a
Legacy thousand-acre oil field in the center of Los Angeles, which is being
drilled and fracked right on top of the Newport-Inglewood fault line—the
earthquake study showed that earthquakes
far away, you know, on the other side of the planet, could then trigger bigger
earthquakes where they have injection well facilities. So, injection well
facilities are used for fracking waste. Fracking, you know, creates an
enormous amount of wastewater. When they frack the wells with two to nine
million gallons per well of fluid and water, that fluid has to come back up and
be disposed of somehow. The industry has a huge problem figuring out how to
dispose of it, so they inject it back down into the ground. And what the report says is that fault lines are becoming
critically stressed by the process of injection wells. It also says that the
fracking itself can cause minor earthquakes.
AMY
GOODMAN: Let’s go to Jeremiah Gee—is
that how you pronounce his name?
JOSH
FOX: Sure, yeah.
AMY
GOODMAN: —in Tioga County, Pennsylvania,
explaining what it’s like to live next door to land being leased to Shell
Appalachia for gas drilling.
JOSH FOX: Contaminants were
running off the site onto his property and killing his family’s pond. Under the
ground, methane had migrated into their water well.
JEREMIAH GEE: Holy cow!
AMY GOODMAN: The clip ends
with Jeremiah Gee showing how he can light his tap water on fire.
JOSH
FOX: Yeah. Well, this is very common. The gas migrates from these leaking gas
wells into aquifers and then people who are using their groundwater.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was Tom Ridge, former governor of Pennsylvania and an
outspoken supporter of the natural gas industry.
JOSH FOX: Well, Tom Ridge had a
$900,000 contract to be the chief spokesman for the Marcellus Shale Coalition.
At around the same time, we noticed that the Department of Homeland Security,
which—of course, Tom Ridge was the first Department of Homeland Security
chair—the Pennsylvania Department of Homeland Security started circulating
bulletins to law enforcement that listed anti-fracking organizations as
possible ecoterrorists, which had no basis in reality. There had never been
anything at all violent. These were people doing democratic organizing and
organization. But then it was discovered that the Department of Homeland Security was actually circulating those
bulletins directly to the Marcellus Shale Coalition and to other gas industry
lobbyists and stakeholders. This was a scandal in Pennsylvania, which ended
up with the DHS head resigning. But Tom Ridge and a lot of—three Pennsylvania
governors in a row—Tom Ridge, Ed Rendell and now Tom Corbett—have heavy ties to
the gas industry and go on to advocate for fracking and drilling without
disclosing those ties in the media. It’s a situation where, in a report by the Public Accountability Initiative called "Fracking
and the Revolving Door in Pennsylvania," they describe as having the
regulatory agencies and the democracy itself being taken away from the
citizens. And that’s really the journey and the question behind this new film.
The film is—you know, the first film features a lot of people lighting their
water on fire. This is a film about the natural gas industry lighting our
democracy on fire.
JOSH FOX: Well, this is President
Obama advocating for fracking without ever saying the word
"fracking," both domestically, also for export, and around the world
in an initiative to promote shale gas and fracking around the world. What’s
really disappointing about this is that this is a moment when an American
president has come forward and spoken about climate change and exhibited his
obvious and earnest desire to take on the problem; however, the emphasis on
fracked gas makes this plan entirely the wrong plan. The plan focuses on carbon
dioxide, but how we count global warming potential is in carbon dioxide
equivalence, and methane, which is leaking out of these sites in very large
quantities, is a super greenhouse gas. It’s up to a hundred times more potent
than CO2 in the atmosphere, which means if you have more than 1 percent methane
leakage, it’s like burning the gas twice. In the field, we’re seeing 7 to 17
percent of total production methane leaking into the atmosphere. Moving from
coal to fracked gas doesn’t give you any climate benefit at all. So the plan
should be about how we’re moving off of fossil fuels and onto renewable energy,
which is what we know can power the planet, as we—with current technology. So,
this administration—
AMY GOODMAN: What’s stopping that?
JOSH FOX: Well, you know, this administration has done a lot of meetings
with the natural gas industry. We know that. There is, I think, an undue
influence of their promotion of themselves on the policy. And what we’re doing
right now is asking President Obama, "Please, meet with the families and
the scientists and engineers in the new film.”
11. PA Health Advisory
Panel
Comment by Johen:
“In observing who determines is going to be
on this panel, and by doing so, controlling the study, don't expect this health
impact study to be anything but a political green-washing. The bias is
already built in. It's not independent;
there will be no peer review.
According
to Scarnati, the panel would be chaired by the Secretary of the Department of
Health. Other members of the panel would include the Secretary of Environmental
Protection, as well as individuals
appointed by the Governor, Senate President Pro Tempore, Speaker of the House
and the Senate and House Minority Leaders.”
(Scarnati
is the pro- gas industry senator who fought for the passage of Act 13, jan)
“Sen. Scarnati said: “The Marcellus Shale industry has been a
tremendous economic driver for our state, has brought numerous family
sustaining jobs and is helping Pennsylvania become a leader in energy
independence.” “It is important that as this industry continues to
expand, we ensure our families are protected and that questions regarding
public health in the region are addressed.”
12. Research: Wastewater Wells Triggering Earthquakes
Published in the Journal, Science
“There's
new research that reveals two trigger mechanisms that may be setting off wastewater
quakes — other, larger earthquakes (some as far away as Indonesia), and the
activity at geothermal power plants.
Most of these little quakes in the U.S. are too small to
feel. They tend to happen in "swarms." Over the past year,
geoscientists traced some of these swarms to underground faults near deep wells
that are often filled with waste fluid from the oil and gas drilling boom.
Nicholas
van der Elst, a geophysicist with Columbia University's Lamont Doherty Earth
Observatory, says there are lots of small faults all over the country. The injection of fluids migrates in and
around the fault itself, "and kind of pushes outward on the fault walls
and makes it easier for the fault to slip," he says.
The wastewater "loads up" these faults with
tension until, at some point, they slip and the earth moves.
So
what van der Elst wanted to know was: "What prompts that slip?"
Sometimes it's just all that water building up. However, he discovered that in
three cases in the past decade — in Oklahoma, in Colorado and in Texas — the
trigger was yet another earthquake, a really big one, thousands of miles away.
In each case, the large earthquakes set up large seismic waves that traveled
around the surface of the earth "kind of like ripples," van der Elst
says. "You can even see them on seismometers, going around the world
multiple times."
Those
three big quakes rang the planet like a bell. And when their seismic waves reached underground faults near waste
wells in those three states, they nudged the tension in the faults past the
brink. Soon, the area near the wells was swarming with mini-quakes.
And some of those swarms eventually culminated in pretty
big temblors — in the magnitude-4.0 to -5.0, which is big enough to do some
damage.
Waste
wells often go deeper than gas drilling wells, down into basement rock, where
faults are more common. Scientists think the water may be lubricating faults in
the Earth's crust, causing them to slip. Credit: Alyson Hurt / NPR
Van der Elst's findings appear in this week's issue of the
journal Science.
And from Mother Jones http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2013/07/earthquakes-triggered-more-earthquakes-near-us-fracking-sites: Major
earthquakes thousands of miles away can trigger reflex quakes in areas where
fluids have been injected into the ground from fracking and other industrial
operations, according to a study published in the journal Science on Thursday.
13. Good Worms
Affected by Coal Seam Gas Drilling?
“Worms and mites
burrow into coal seam gas plans. Questions are being raised about the impact of
coal seam gas drilling on some little critters that most people don't know much
about: Stygofaunas, which live in underground water systems, act as water
purifiers, process energy, consume bacteria and assist in producing good water
quality.”
Australia ABC
News, Australia.
14. W VA Explosion
Not First Safety Issue With Antero
“The Pitcocks have been plagued by noise,
lights, dust, emissions and truck traffic after a neighbor leased his land to a
drilling company, which has erected several well pads on the land adjacent to
their property. Over the last year
trees have been clear cut, miles of roads built through their rural
neighborhood, and drilling has begun. On Friday, July 5, I visited their
home and witnessed gas being flared from a well through the night—the light
illuminated their front yard from a ridge top about 2,000 feet away.
John Pitcock
reported that the well continued to flare through the next day and night and
another well beside it was loudly venting gas on and off. What became a
nuisance turned to a real fright during the early morning hours of July 7, when
an explosion occurred. While the cause of the fire hasn’t been determined,
writing for the Gazette-Mail, David Gutman explained that this is not
the first safety issue that Antero
has had recently:
•
Last August a spark at an Antero-owned well in
Harrison County ignited methane gas several hundred feet underground, causing a
fireball and a fire that burned for about an hour. Three workers were injured
in that fire.
•
DEP cited Antero for failure to maintain well
control for that incident.
•
DEP has cited Antero for 17 violations of state
code in the past three years. Those have been primarily environmental
violations—for things like failing to prevent waste runoff, failure to report
discharges and contaminating waterways.
•
One violation, from Jan. 4, warned, “Imminent danger water supplys [sic]
threatened by allowing pollutants to escape and flow into the waters of the
state.”
•
In June of last year Antero was drilling using
water in Harrison County when they accidentally repressurized some old water
wells, causing several geysers, one about 10 feet high, that flooded one nearby
home and several garages.
•
In March 2011, state regulators shut down an
Antero gas well in Harrison County after mud contaminated with drilling
chemicals spilled into a nearby stream.
John Pitcock says that he doesn’t think companies should be drilling
in this manner
in proximity to people’s homes.”
http://www.alternet.org/fracking/explosion-rocks-natural-gas-drilling-well-marcellus-shale-west-virginia
15. Frack Sand Creates
Environmental Problems
“Wisconsin’s burgeoning
frac-sand industry, regulators have found, creates waste streams they are
scrambling to understand and control.
From pyramids of
discarded sand to sludge that accumulates in filtering devices, the mines
create tons of waste byproducts that must be managed until they can be plowed
back into the ground as part of reclamation plans designed to protect the
environment and preserve the rural landscape.
“The industry just
came on too fast,” said Ruth King, a stormwater specialist with the Wisconsin
Department of Natural Resources. “I wish we could turn back the clock a couple
of years and start over.”
In a rash of
continuing violations that started last year, heavy rains have combined with
sand-processing water to overflow
holding ponds on several mining sites. The breaches have dumped sandy sediment
into public waters, where it can suffocate fish eggs, kill aquatic plants and
rob fish of habitat they need to reproduce.
http://www.startribune.com/local/215335701.html
16. Houston Gas Plant Flare Visible For Miles
“John L.
Obenour, 84, whose Hornhead Farm sits next to the plant, said he went to the
plant Monday to complain after repeated episodes of billowing black smoke found
their way to his property. He said he
has black soot on his window seals and black streaks on his roof. Such
episodes have happened several times, he said. "I could detect a smell
because the atmosphere was so heavy, as it is," he said. "The last
couple of days I could detect that smell and the god-dang black stuff in the air was settling this way and that. "You
can't stop progress, and I never want to be a thorn in their side," he
said. "But I also want to have clean air." Raina Rippel, director of
the Environmental Health Project based in Peters, said, "We have had
concern for some time about residents' health and safety living in close
proximity to this site, and this event magnifies those concerns.""
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/washington/smoke-from-gas-plant-in-washington-county-alarming-to-neighbors-695704/
***************
Observer-Reporter newspaper:
Rob McHale, MarkWest manager of governmental and environmental
affairs, could not be immediately reached for comment. Poister said MarkWest engineers are working to get the de-ethanizer
to function properly. MarkWest received permission from the DEP to install
the equipment, but Poister said the agency is sending an inspector to the plant
to assess the situation. “We’re quite concerned about the heavy level of the
smoke in the air, particularly on a day like today when it is so hot and the
air is so thick anyway,” Poister said. The DEP received a number of calls from
concerned residents, as well as photos of the smoke. “We want to thank all the
people who sent us pictures,” Poister said. “That really helps.”
http://www.observer-reporter.com/article/20130715/NEWS01/130719657#.UeUiw4LD_cs
******************
MarkWest spokesman
Rob McHale said the flaring of natural gas liquid was the result of an “upset
condition” as workers at the processing plant attempted to configure the newly
installed equipment that separates propane and butane.
“It’s not a malfunction,” McHale said.
“That is a safety system that is designed to do exactly what it did.” State
environmental regulators traveled to the site Tuesday morning to investigate
the issue and discuss with MarkWest workers how it can be prevented in the
future. Department of Environmental Protection spokesman John Poister said
preliminary findings show the company committed no violations, but the flaring
and plume were still unsettling.
http://www.observer-reporter.com/article/20130716/NEWS01/130719553#.
UeZzT4LD_cs
Update on the UltraRAE
air testing meter in earlier photos (from Bob)…
…the cost is around $5000. It tests for VOC’s Nonspecific and Benzene
Specific. The monitor was set for VOC’s
Nonspecific when I took the photo. There
is another piece that needs to be added to the monitor in order to test for
Benzene only. That is not to say that
Benzene was not included in the total VOC’s.
Here is the link for the UltraRAE 3000
http://www.gassniffer.com/rae-systems-gas-detectors.html?gclid=CJii6b7ysrgCFZGi4AodvzcAfw
Westmoreland
Marcellus Citizen’s Group—Mission
Statement
•
To raise the public’s general awareness and
understanding of the impacts of Marcellus drilling on the natural environment,
health, and long-term economies of local communities.
Officers: President-Jan
Milburn
Treasurer-Wanda Guthrie
Secretary-Ron
Nordstrom
Facebook
Coordinator-Elizabeth Nordstrom
