Westmoreland Marcellus Citizens’ Group Updates February 6, 2014
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* To contact your state
legislator:
For the email address, click on the envelope
under the photo
* For information on PA state gas legislation
and local control: http://pajustpowers.org/aboutthebills.html-
WMCG
Thank You
* Thank you to contributors to our Updates: Debbie Borowiec, Lou
Pochet, Ron Gulla, Marian Szmyd, Bob Donnan, Gloria Forouzan, Elizabeth Donahue,
and Bob Schmetzer.
Donations- Our
Sincere Thanks For Your Support!
Mike
Atherton and Cynthia Walter
The
Marc Levine family
The
Paluselli family
Jan
Kiefer
Annie
Macdougall
Mary
Steisslinger
Calendar
*** WMCG Meeting We meet the second Tuesday of every month at
7:30 PM in Greensburg- next meeting Feb 11.
Email Jan for directions. All are very welcome to attend.
***As always letters to the editor are
important and one of the best ways to share information with the public. ***
Everyone Must Do This To
Have An Impact
EQB Comments
Many of us braved the cold to testify at hearings in
Indiana and Washington PA. Others attended hearings in other parts of the
state. The industry is out in full force. They have paid employees at every
hearing-actually they have the same people sometimes reading the same
statements at every hearing. It is up to us, to you, to speak for the air and
water quality and property values that we feel need to be protected. My award
for most unbelievable comment of the night goes to the representative from
Dogwood Energy who said that the regs should be established without the input
of citizens’ groups. So
apparently the democratic process to drillers means only the industry speaks
and they write their own rules.
We have more wells going
in every day. I receive, on average, a call a week from a distraught area
resident whose neighbor sold out to the industry. PA doesn't have a moratorium
as do more cautious states, so these regs are critical. Zoning can help to
restrict the placement of gas operations but not the "how they
operate aspect”. If fracking occurs
anywhere near you, these are the regulations that govern much of that process,
that, for example, allow a toxic frack
pit near your home or school or radioactive drill cuttings to be stored or
buried on site.
The PA oil/gas regs were never meant to
regulate fracking. They were written for shallow gas wells and do not protect
the public. Below are links to comments. You can rephrase and add your thoughts
to send in a statement of your concerns. jan
To view what other people wrote thus far: http://www.irrc.state.pa.us/full_list.aspx?IRRCNo=3042&type=1
To view what we presented:
Online Comments
The public is being invited to submit comments to the EQB regarding the
proposed rulemaking by March 14. Along with their
comments, people can submit a one-page summary of their comments to the EQB.
Comments, including the one page summary, may be submitted to EQB by accessing
the EQB’s Online Public Comment System at http://www.ahs.dep.pa.gov/RegComments.
Written Comments
Written comments and summaries should
be mailed to Environmental Quality Board, P.O. Box 8477, Harrisburg, PA
17105-8477.
The summaries and a formal
comment and response document will be distributed to the EQB and available
publicly prior to the meeting when the final rulemaking will be considered.
Email Comments
Online
and email comments must also be received by the EQB on or before March 14.
If an acknowledgement of comments submitted online
or by email is not received by the sender within two business days, the
comments should be re-sent to the EQB to ensure receipt.
To view materials for the
proposed regulation, visit www.dep.state.pa.us and click
the “Proposed Oil and Gas Regulations” button.
2 Petitions to DEP To
Ban Frack Pits
***1. Petition From Penn Environment
Dear Janice,
Here in Pennsylvania, fracking is one of the biggest threats
to our communities and our environment.
In 2012 alone, the fracking industry created 1.2 billion gallons of
fracking wastewater--laced with cancer-causing chemicals, contaminated with
radioactivity, and polluted with heavy metals.
This toxic waste sits in exposed pits, which often leaches
into our rivers and contaminates our air.
It's both disgusting and frightening.
The DEP is
taking public comment right now on a proposal to manage this fracking waste.
This is our best chance to end this dangerous practice and limit fracking's
damage.
Submit your comment right now to tell the DEP: Ban all
fracking waste pits today.
When a wastewater pit caught
fire in Hopewell Township, flames shot 100 feet into the air and block smoke
spread across the countryside. It was so bad that days later, nearby residents
still couldn’t stay in their homes.
With
stories like this, you would think these toxic sites would have already been
banned. Leaks from pits can contaminate drinking water supplies, and
evaporation of these chemicals threatens our air quality. The pollutants pose risks for acute and
chronic health impacts, from dizziness to rashes and even cancer.
There's
no way to get around it: These pits are dangerous.
We need thousands of
Pennsylvanians telling the DEP to ban them all.
Take
action now to ban all toxic and dangerous fracking waste pits in Pennsylvania.
Sincerely,
David
Masur
PennEnvironment
Research & Policy Center Director
PS.
If you have friends or family who are concerned about fracking, please forward
this to them. We need to get 10,000 comments in to the DEP by the end of the
comment period if we’re going to ban all fracking waste pits.
***2. Petition by Ron to Ban Frack Pits To the DEP Environmental
Quality Board
Hello everyone,
Frack pits
are a source of toxic waste-waters and cancer causing agents and pollute our
environment through leakage, spillage, and evaporation of toxic VOCs, thus
contaminating water, soil, and the air we breathe.
Frack pits are a danger to animal, plant, and human life and
have no place in our Commonwealth.
In place of the frack pit, all gas operators should be
required to use some form of a closed loop system for waste storage.
We, the undersigned, demand an end to the open impoundment
or frack pit and demand PA place the health and welfare of its citizens above
all other interests.
That's why
I created a petition to PA DEP's Environmental Quality Board, which says:
" This petition will be forwarded to the PA DEP's
Environmental Quality Board that is accepting comments on proposed regulations
and will demand an end to open impoundments or frack pits as they are commonly
known. "
Will you sign my petition? Click here to add your name:
Thanks!
Ron Slabe
***Other Legislation***
From Sierra Club, Allegheny Group
Pressure continues from the gas industry to drill wherever
and however they wish.
Say No to:
***Avoiding liability
for treating acid mine pollution with fracking waste water (SB411) http://alleghenysc.org/?p=16175
***Fracking and the
Trans-Pacific Partnership. ACTION:
Tell President Obama that no trade agreement should pave the way for increased
fracking. http://alleghenysc.org/?p=16163
***Tell Congress to
CLOSE THE FRACKING LOOPHOLES!
NRDC
Five
Congressional bills, the Frack Pack, would force the industry to follow the
environmental laws that protect our air and water.
Use this automatic
form or contact your Congressman on your own, https://secure.nrdconline.org/site/Advocacy;jsessionid=C93FD11CD0E3ACF78C2A6A63B0708B44.app337a?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=3181&autologin=true&utm_source=alert&utm_medium=text1&utm_campaign=email
These are all issues that we ordinary citizens can help
control, by speaking out and writing to our elected officials.
***Petition to Protect Deer Lake Park Allegheny County
sign the CREDO petition to stop the fracking of Allegheny
County’s Deer Lake Park. You and over 3,500 others are making a
difference. Your voices are being heard
on the Allegheny County Council.
In order to
keep you informed of events, as they are about to unfold in the County Council,
I ask that you take the time to visit the Protect Our Parks web page.
By signing up at
Protect Our Parks you’ll provide POP with the ability to mobilize Allegheny
County residents who’ve already signed the CREDO petition. I hope you can do
this today!
In the
coming weeks, the Allegheny County Executive, Rich Fitzgerald intends to present
legislation to the County Council that would enable the leasing of gas rights
in Deer Lakes Park to notorious drilling operator, Range Resources - the only
driller to submit a proposal to the County.
We
certainly appreciate the support of non-county residents as well. I invite you
to sign on to the Protect Our Parks page too!
However, the County Council has stated that they will give greater
weight to the opinions of the citizens of Allegheny County. It looks like it will be a very close
vote. If you live outside of the county
and have friends and/or family in Allegheny County, I hope that you will reach
out to them and ask them to sign up with Protect Our Parks.
Widely circulating the Protect Our
Parks link on social media is also very much appreciated.
I am depending upon
you to help put a stop to the fracking of our county parks.
I do hope you will
continue to be a part of this effort.
Please, go to the Protect Our Parks link today - sign up and, together,
we’ll protect our parks!
Sincerely,
Douglas Shields
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania http:
P.S. Be sure to visit the PROTECT OUR PARKS homepage! http://www.protectparks.org
Frack Links
***Concerned
about the air quality in your community due to drilling?—Speaker Available
Southwestern Pennsylvania
Environmental Health Project will provide a professional speaker if you host a
community meeting. “Tyler Rubright is available throughout the next couple of
weeks to come to meetings and present and/or help to facilitate and answer any
questions.”
Contact Jessa Chabeau
***Energy
Industry Runs Roughshod Over North Dakota-Video
Rachel Maddow reports on recent oil disasters in North
Dakota and how accountability is sacrificed for fear of discouraging energy
industry. http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/watch/energy-industry-runs-roughshod-over-nd-105687108001/www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/watch/energy-industry-runs-roughshod-over-nd-105687108001
***Profiles in Environmental Leadership: Jesse White
Video of fracking with interviews
***Video: Hidden Financial Dangers of Fracking--
16-25 % drop in Property Value--Two Studies cited in the video:
Property values drop if you have a water well and live within 1 km of a gas
well, property values drop by 16%: Denver study if you live near a well
values drop by 25%.
Reuters recently told the story of one Los Angeles man who blames Freeport
McMoRan (NYSE: FCX) for the fact that his property's value has plummeted,
leaving him unable to sell his house for anything near what he bought it for.
Brian Stoffel discusses how those who hold out are being hurt, and what
they are threatening to do. Lawsuits are being filed by affected landowners.
***To sign up for notifications of
activity and violations for your area:
*** List of the Harmed--There
are now over 1600 residents of Pennsylvania who have placed their names on the
list of the harmed when they became sick after fracking began in their area. http://pennsylvaniaallianceforcleanwaterandair.wordpress.com/the-list/
*** Link to the Duquesne Seminar:
Mediasite presentation -- Facing the
Challenges Conference, Duquesne University, November 2013
List of Presentations:
Bain - Establishing a
Water Chemistry Baseline for Southwest Pennsylvania: The Ten Mile Creek Case
Bamberger, Oswald - Impacts of gas
drilling on human and animal health: updates
Boufadel - The potential for air
migration during pneumatic drilling: Recommendations for best performance
Brittingham - The effects of shale
gas development on forest landscapes and ecosystems
Brown - Understanding exposures from
natural gas drilling puts current air standards to the test
Capo, Stewart - Isotopic signatures
as tracers for shale gas fluids
Christopherson - Why local
governments take action in response to shale gas development
Collins - Regulatory structures for
reuse and disposal of shale gas wastewater
Drohan - How fracking technology is
changing landscapes compared to past resource extraction disturbance
Grant - Marcellus shale and mercury:
assessing impacts on aquatic ecosystems
Howarth - Shale gas aggravates global
warming
Ingraffea - A statistical analysis of
leakage from Marcellus gas wells in Pennsylvania
Jackson - Water interactions with
shale gas extraction
Jansa - Gas Rush Stories
Kelso, Malone - Data inconsistencies
from states with unconventional oil and gas activity
Porter - Impact of Marcellus activities
on salamanders and fish populations in the Ten Mile Creek watershed
Rabinowitz - Health complaints, water
quality indicators, and proximity to gas wells in Washington County PA
Robinson - Air Quality and Climate
Issues with Natural Gas Development and Production
Stolz - The Woodlands: a case study
of well water contamination related to unconventional shale gas extraction
Stout - Wheeling, West Virginia
Experience with Frackwater: What "Brinewater" and "Residual
Waste" Trucks are Really Carrying
VanBriesen - Challenges in assessing
effects of shale gas produced water on drinking water treatment plants
Ward - Measuring the human and social
service impacts of natural gas development
Ziemkiewicz - What does monitoring in
the three rivers tell us about the effects of shale gas development?
All articles are excerpted or summarized. Please
use links to read more.
Fracking News
1. Gas Lease Debate Over Murrysville Park
Jan 25 – Drilling in a community park could
rake in millions of dollars for the Murrysville, but residents need to weigh
the risk versus the reward, officials said. On
Wednesday, municipal officials confirmed that Monroeville-based drilling
company Huntley & Huntley has offered $2,250 per acre for the right to
drill under 260 acres of Murrysville Community Park in addition to 12.5 percent
of the royalties earned from selling whatever gas is extracted. By
mid-April, officials will review an ordinance that would allow the municipality
to seek bids for the gas rights. However, officials said that they hope
residents petition for a referendum on the November ballot to allow residents
their say.
“The
citizens are the best ones to make the decision,” Councilman Dave Perry said.
“Is it worth doing?” Some residents don't think so. The park was placed in the
municipal drilling district in 2010, when officials developed its drilling
ordinance, resident Leona Dunnett said that at the time, officials offered
assurances that the municipality would have more control over the park if it
was in the drilling district.”
Murrysville
Council wants referendum vote on park drilling
“Hillebrand
said his company welcomes community input regarding the future of shale-drilling
in the municipality.
“We invite that debate and the input of the
community,” Hillebrand said. “I live in Murrysville. My kids go to school there
and play soccer at the Murrysville Community Park. This isn't just a Huntley
opinion — all of the community needs to chime in for the community park.”
Murrysville
chief administrator Jim Morrison said he hopes residents will get involved.
“Council
feels the input of the residents of the community is paramount in helping guide
an appropriate course of action on this very important issue,” Morrison wrote
in an email.
The
park, located along Wiestertown Road, is one of two parks included in the
municipal drilling district. No shale-gas drilling has occurred in the
municipality.
According
to council documents, members of a residents committee would work to obtain the
signatures from at least 20 percent of the 4,137 residents who voted in the
last election so that a referendum could be placed on the November
general-election ballot. The group also would help educate other residents on
the positives and negatives of leasing the gas rights and develop the yes/no
question that will ultimately decide whether council will allow competitive
bidding for the rights.
Jim
Montini, director of the Westmoreland County Bureau of Elections, said most
requirements for the referendum are set by Murrysville's home-rule charter.”
2. NPR Report--How
Fracking Fuels Prostitution and Organized Crime in Bakken Shale Region
From a fiery oil train crash in December, crude oil spill in
September and growing concerns of flared natural gas, North Dakota continues to
make headlines.
Yesterday, National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition report,
Booming Oil Fields May Be Giving Sex Trafficking a Boost, shows how drinking, drugs, prostitution and organized
crime are major concerns in the Bakken Shale region of North Dakota.
http://ecowatch.com/2014/02/02/fracking-prostitution-organized-crime-bakken-shale/
3. Big Pipelines
and Compressor Stations…
From Kathryn, Mt Watershed (from Pa. Bulletin):
“On February 24, 2013, Texas
Eastern filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)
in Docket No. CP13-84-000 under Section 7(b) and (c) of the Natural Gas Act
(NGA)……. The proposed facilities would
consist of approximately 33.6 miles
of 36-inch-diameter (yard stick size) natural gas pipeline comprising seven separate pipeline loops and associated facilities and horsepower (hp)
upgrades at four existing compressor
stations in Pennsylvania. Additional piping modifications and maintenance
would occur at sites within Pennsylvania to accommodate bi-directional flow.
The four existing compressor station
upgrades proposed in Pennsylvania are as follows: the Uniontown Compressor Station
in Fayette County; the Delmont Compressor Station in Westmoreland County; the
Armagh Compressor Station in Indiana
County; and the Entriken Compressor Station in Huntingdon County.
The pipeline facilities are
loops that are collocated with existing natural gas pipelines except for 0.2
mile along the Perulack East Loop. This segment of the Perulack East Loop has
been sited away from the existing right-of way due to a combination of steep vertical and horizontal slope areas.
The proposed Project’s pipeline facilities in Pennsylvania new loops of 36-inch
diameter piping as follows: Holbrook Loop, 6.7 miles,
Fayette County; Perulack West Loop, 2.7 miles, Perry County; Perulack East
Loop, 5.4 miles, Perry County; Shermans Dale Loop, 7.1 miles, Dauphin County; Grantville West Loop, 2.3 miles,
Lebanon County; Grantville East Loop 3.8 miles, Lebanon County; and the
Bernville Loop, 5.6 miles, Berks County. The project also includes various
aboveground facilities, including pig launchers, pig receivers, and valves,
that would be constructed to support the pipeline system expansion in
Pennsylvania at these new loops.”
4. Southwest PA Environmental
Health Has Air Monitors
From
Ryan Grode at the SWPA-EHP:
“I
am beginning a distribution of new air
quality monitors for individuals who are living near any type of drilling
activity. If you know of anyone who
would want to have one of these monitors at their home I would visit them and
set up the monitor for them, then come back in a few weeks to pick up the
monitor and perhaps our nurse practitioner will join me and conduct an exposure
assessment on the family.
If you hear of anyone who would like help
dealing with issues because of drilling please refer them to me. The office
number is 724-260-5504. As mentioned I'll personally be able to go out to see
the family and speak with them and possibly set up air quality, water quality,
and possibly in the future soil quality monitors.”
5. North Dakota To
Cut Flaring
“Faced with
growing criticism and lawsuits, an oil industry task force representing
hundreds of companies in North Dakota pledged
to make an all-out effort to capture almost all the natural gas that is being
flared in the Bakken shale oil field by the end of the decade.
The gas being flared as a
byproduct of a rush of oil drilling releases roughly six million tons of carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere every year, roughly equivalent to three
medium-sized coal plants. Because of a lack of gas-gathering lines connecting
oil wells to processing plants, nearly 30 percent of the gas flowing out of the
wells has been burned as waste in recent months.
The task force reported to the
North Dakota Industrial Commission, the state regulator, that the industry
could in two years improve the percentage of gas captured to 85 percent, from
70 percent, and to as much as 90 percent in six years.”
6. Letter to the
Editor by David Ball- Peters Township Council
Local zoning law
protects residents
“In his recent article in
the Energy Report, Chamber of Commerce President Jeff Kotula bemoans the fact
that Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court struck down parts of Act 13 as
unconstitutional.
What part of “unconstitutional” does he not
understand? If a law is unconstitutional, it cannot exist. The citizens of
Pennsylvania have rights and they are protected by our Constitution. Among
those rights are the right to health, safety and welfare and the right to not
have their rights infringed upon by others. That’s what zoning does; it allows activities to be grouped in
designated areas with similar activities so one person’s rights don’t infringe
upon another’s. Zoning assures planned and orderly development. It protects
property values.
One
of the 12 parts of Act 13 that were challenged as unconstitutional was the
delusional concept that one set of zoning regulations could be imposed upon
every municipality in the state, one that allowed an industrial activity such
as gas drilling and frack ponds, and that, not knowing the specifics of each
community, such a zoning law would not infringe on the rights of the citizens
who own property and homes in those municipalities. It allowed one industry to trump
the rights of the citizens.
Kotula goes on to say that striking down parts of Act
13 “has placed gas drilling under a cloud of regulatory uncertainty.” How so?
They must operate exactly as they have operated from the time the first well
was drilled, because those parts of Act 13 never were in effect and now never
will be. Nothing changed. The industry has drilled more than 8,000 wells and
permitted many thousands more without Act 13. There is a glut of gas on the
market. They have not been impeded.
Kotula raises the specter of de
facto moratoriums, litigation and slow-walking approvals. Why? Nothing has
changed. The industry has done well and will continue to do well.
The court’s decision clearly says that municipalities have not only the
right, but the obligation to protect their resident’s health, safety and
welfare and to protect their property values. I would think Kotula, as the president of the Chamber of
Commerce, would applaud such a ruling. He implies that the court put new power
in the hands of the townships.
Again, nothing has changed.
The municipalities have no more power now than they did in the past.
What is clear is that the gas
industry has no mandate to ride roughshod over the rights of the citizens of
Pennsylvania and that is a good thing.”
David
M. Ball
McMurray Member
of Peters Township Council.
7. Letter to the
Editor… Karen Feridan
Public is unaware of gas drilling fallout,
and industry likes it that way
Excerpt
Feb 3 –
“….Most Pennsylvanians are unaware that drilling
has contaminated at least 161 private wells or that the families who rely on
them are often left to their own devices to find clean water. They’re not aware
of the respiratory illnesses, nosebleeds, and “frack rash” that are so
prevalent in the Marcellus.
They
don’t hear about the homeowners stuck with properties that are worth less than
they owe or the lifetime gag orders placed on 7- and 10-year old children so
their parents could reach a settlement that let them move somewhere safe. Even
stories that hit closer to home like the compressor station in Berks County
that failed, releasing 61 tons of volatile organic compounds and 174 million
cubic feet of methane in a matter of minutes, are unknown to most.
Last
summer, the Pennsylvania Democratic Party’s vote to support a moratorium on
fracking came on the heels of another poll that said the majority of
Pennsylvanians support one, too, so drilling’s impacts on health, safety, and
the environment can be assessed. After all, when drillers can legally avoid
disclosing the chemicals they use and impose gag orders on not just kids, but
physicians, to keep it that way, one thing is clear. Nobody is in a position to
say it’s safe.”
KAREN FERIDUN, Berks Gas Truth, Kutztown
http://www.pennlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/02/fracking_gas_drilling_public_unaware_of_risks_cant_say_its_safe.html
8. Westmoreland
County Men Sentenced For Mineral Rights Fraud
“Two landmen were sentenced for stealing $2.4
million from dozens of mineral rights owners. They saw their elaborate scheme
unravel when a Michigan woman couldn't get a natural gas lease on her
Washington County property.
Range Resources told Irene
Bakalis that she had signed over her mineral rights, and as proof, the firm
showed her a notarized deed. That's when Bakalis called Washington lawyer Frank
Arcuri.
“It was so
sophisticated that they got the name of the notary in the county where she
lived and forged her signature (on the deed),” he said.
He found evidence of other
fraudulent deeds by Derek A. Candelore, 34, of Hempfield and William J. Ray,
30, of Monroeville that brought the total taken to about $2.4 million. After
two days, Arcuri was talking with the U.S. Attorney's Office and the Postal
Inspection Service.
U.S. District Judge Arthur
Schwab on Friday sentenced Candelore to 31⁄2 years in prison and 3 years of
probation. He sentenced Ray to 1 year and 8 months in prison and 2 years of
probation.
The two worked for Penn-Star Energy LLC, a Butler County company, as
landmen — a job that entails contacting mineral rights owners and negotiating
leases for those rights. That gave them a working knowledge for committing the
frauds.
Between February 2011 and June
2012, they set up shell companies, forged deeds to make it appear they had
purchased mineral rights and then sold those apparent rights to Range Resources
and oil and gas investors, prosecutors say.
The judge ordered the men to share in paying $2.4 million in
restitution to Range Resources and the investors who bought the bogus mineral
rights.
The
restitution amounts are complicated because Candelore carried out some of the
frauds without Ray. Schwab said Candelore swindled the mineral rights of 42
owners. Ray joined in defrauding 31 of those owners.
The judge set the total amount
Ray is responsible for helping to pay at about $1 million. Candelore must help
pay the entire $2.4 million.”
Read
more:
http://triblive.com/news/adminpage/5513090-74/candelore-fraud-cohen#ixzz2sH0c22oK
9. Riverkeeper Can
Pursue Act 13 Challenge
Jan. 6 – “The court also found the Delaware
Riverkeeper Network has standing to have
its eminent domain appeal heard in the lower Commonwealth Court, thereby
reversing an earlier ruling by that court. The network is challenging a provision saying drillers can use eminent domain
powers to acquire storage space for natural gas, said Maya K. van Rossum,
the Delaware Riverkeeper. Drillers are
interested in underground geological formations for storage space even if that
space is underneath private land, she added.
This
provision provides for an improper use of eminent domain for a private
commercial purpose rather than for a public purpose, said Ms. van Rossum. "The Supreme Court
has said you can't turn a blind eye to this issue," she added. Ms. van
Rossum thinks lawmakers should repeal Act 13 and write new legislation to
regulate natural gas drilling in light of the court ruling overturning key
sections.”
Complete story:
10. Vera
Scroggins Anti-Fracking Activist Barred From 312.5 Sq Miles of PA
From Bob Donnan News
Court
injunction brought in by oil and gas company makes even supermarkets off-limits
for Vera Scroggins
Jan
29 –“ Vera Scroggins, an outspoken opponent of fracking, is legally barred from
the new county hospital. Also off-limits, unless Scroggins wants to risk fines
and arrest, are the Chinese restaurant where she takes her grandchildren, the
supermarkets and drug stores where she shops, the animal shelter where she
adopted her Yorkshire terrier, bowling alley, recycling centre, golf club, and
lake shore. In total, 312.5 sq miles are no-go areas for Scroggins under a
sweeping court order granted by a local judge that bars her from any properties
owned or leased by one of the biggest drillers in the Pennsylvania natural gas
rush, Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation.
"They
might as well have put an ankle bracelet on me with a GPS on it and be able to
track me wherever I go," Scroggins said. "I feel like I am some kind
of a prisoner, that my rights have been curtailed, have been restricted."
The ban represents one of the most extreme measures taken by the oil and gas
industry to date against protesters like Scroggins, who has operated peacefully
and within the law including taking Yoko Ono to frack sites in her bid to
elevate public concerns about fracking.”
11. Senior DEP Official
Invested Money In Gas Industry
“Jeffrey
Logan was appointed to be the DEP’s Executive Deputy Secretary for
Administration and Management by Governor Corbett in January 2011. Since then,
ethics filings show Logan held several natural gas investments, including Cabot
Oil and Gas, a natural gas index fund, and Westport Innovations — a major
supplier of natural gas vehicle engines.
“[Logan]
deals with administration and management issues such as HR, budget issues and
information technology among other things,” Shirk wrote in an email. “He does
not issue or review permits, he does not issue fines, penalties or conduct
investigations, he does not award grants.”
“He no longer has the holdings”
It’s not clear how much money he was
investing. Forms requested under the state’s Right To Know Law were heavily
redacted.
“Because Logan wanted to avoid even the
appearance of a conflict – he no longer has the holdings,” Shirk wrote. Logan
no longer has any natural gas-related investments, according to the DEP. Shirk
says Logan bought the natural gas index fund in 2010, before he joined the
department, and sold it in August 2012, after he’d been in the job for over a
year and a half. Logan invested in Westport during his time at DEP, from April
2012 through August 2012.
Logan bought Cabot stock in 2010, but Shirk
gave conflicting accounts of when he sold it. It was either August 2011 or
sometime in 2012.
Shirk did not respond to a request for
clarification.
“It’s a conflict of interest” “Anytime an agency charged with regulating
an industry has people investing in the same industry, it is a conflict of
interest, whether real or perceived,” says government reform advocate Eric
Epstein of Rock the Capital. ”One of the
problems with the ethics law in Pennsylvania is that it has no teeth.”
Even
though Logan may not have dealt directly with gas companies, he could have had
access to information that was not public, says Barry Kauffman of the
government reform group Common Cause Pennsylvania.
“We
want to make sure public officials aren’t getting insider information which
could help them with their investments,” he says. “Anybody at a senior level of
an agency like DEP should not be investing in companies over which that
department has authority.”
Logan
previously served as a deputy secretary at the Department of State and the
Department of Public Welfare under Governor Ridge. He is married to another Corbett
appointee, Office of Administration Secretary Kelly Powell Logan.”
http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2014/02/03/senior-dep-official-invested-in-natural-gas-companies/
12. Radionuclides
In Fracking Wastewater–
BlendValerie
J. Brown, based in Oregon, has written for EHP since 1996. In 2009 she won a
Society of Environmental Journalists’ Outstanding Explanatory Reporting award
for her writing on epigenetics.
The Marcellus is known to
have high uranium content, says U.S. Geological Survey research geologist Mark
Engle. He says concentrations of radium-226—a decay product of uranium—can
exceed 10,000 picocuries per liter (pCi/L) in the concentrated brine trapped in
the shale’s depths. After fracking, both gas and liquids—including the injected
water and any water residing in the formation (known as “flowback” and “produced
water”)—are pulled to the surface.
Several
studies indicate that, generally speaking, the saltier the water, the more
radioactive it is.
Dissolved compounds often
precipitate out of the water, building up as radionuclide-rich “scale” inside
pipes. To remove the pipe-clogging scale, operators might inject chemicals to
dissolve it. Scale also may be removed mechanically using drills, explosives,
or jets of fluid, in which case it joins the solid waste stream.
Wastes
are often stored temporarily in containers or in surface impoundments, also
called pits and ponds. Data on how many such ponds are used in shale gas
extraction are sparse, but according to Kasianowitz, there are 25 centralized
impoundments in Pennsylvania. Centralized impoundments can be the size of a
football field and hold at least 10 million gallons of liquid. Although at any
given time the number of smaller ponds is probably much higher, she says these
ephemeral lagoons are used mostly in the early phase of well development and
are rapidly decommissioned.
Most impoundments are lined with
plastic sheeting. Pennsylvania requires that pit liners for temporary
impoundments and disposal have a minimum thickness of 30 mm and that seams be
sealed to prevent leakage. Ohio’s only requirement is that pits must be “liquid
tight.” However, improper liners can tear, and there have been reports of pit
liners tearing and pits overflowing in Pennsylvania and elsewhere.
“Evaluating the single
radionuclide radium as regulatory exposure guidelines indicate, rather than considering all radionuclides,
may indeed underestimate the potential
for radiation exposure to workers, the general public, and the environment,” the
authors wrote.
Ultimately most wastewater is
either treated and reused or sent to Class II injection wells (disposal or
enhanced recovery wells). A small fraction of Pennsylvania’s fracking
wastewater is still being treated and released to surface waters until
treatment facilities’ permits come up for renewal under new, more stringent
treatment standards, Kasianowitz says.
Concerns about NORM in the
Marcellus have recently focused on surface waters in Pennsylvania. That’s
because until 2011, most produced water was sent to commercial or public
wastewater treatment plants before being discharged into rivers and streams,
many of which also serve as drinking water supplies. In April of that year PADEP asked all Marcellus Shale fracking
operations to stop sending their wastewater to treatment plants, according to
Kasianowitz. Although voluntary, this request motivated most
producers to begin directly reusing a major fraction of their produced water or
reusing it after treatment in dedicated commercial treatment plants that are equipped
to handle its contaminants.
A team of Duke University
researchers led by geochemist Avner Vengosh sought to characterize the effluent
being discharged from one such plant, the
Josephine Brine Treatment Facility in southwestern Pennsylvania. The researchers
compared radioactivity and dissolved solids in sediment both up- and downstream
of the facility and found a 90% reduction in radioactivity in the effluent. The
radioactive constituents didn’t just disappear; the authors noted that most had
likely been transferred and accumulated to high levels in the sludge that would
go to a landfill.
` Stream sediments at the discharge site also had high levels of
radioactivity, keeping it out of the surface water downstream but posing the
risk of bioaccumulation in the local food web. The outflow sediment radiation
levels at the discharge site were 200 times those in upstream sediments.
The study highlighted “the potential of radium accumulation in stream and pond
sediments in many other sites where fracking fluids are accidentally released
to the environment,” says Vengosh.
The study also demonstrated
another potential impact of treated brine on water quality. Most produced water
contains bromide, which can combine
with naturally occurring organic matter and chlorine disinfectant to form
drinking water contaminants called trihalomethanes.
These compounds are associated with liver, kidney, and nervous system problems.
The Duke researchers reported highly
elevated concentrations of bromide over a mile downstream from the plant—a
potential future burden for drinking water treatment facilities downstream.
Beneficial
Uses and Landfills
Fracking wastes may also be
disposed of through “beneficial uses,”
which can include applying produced water as a road de-icer or dust
suppressant, using drilling cuttings in road maintenance, and spreading liquids
or sludge on fields. Pennsylvania allows fracking brine to be used for road
dust and ice control under a state permit. While the permit sets allowable limits for numerous constituents, radioactivity is not included.
Conventional wisdom about
radium’s stability in landfills rests on an assumption regarding its
interaction with barite (barium sulfate), a common constituent in drilling
waste. However, Charles Swann of the Mississippi Mineral Resources Institute
and colleagues found evidence that radium
in waste spread on fields may behave differently in soil than expected. When
they mixed scale comprising radium and barite with typical Mississippi soil
samples in the laboratory, radium was gradually solubilized from the barite,
probably as a result of soil microbial activity. “This result,” the authors
wrote, “suggests that the landspreading means of scale disposal should be
reviewed.”
Solids and sludges can also go to landfills. Radioactivity limits
for municipal landfills are set by states, and range from 5 to 50 pCi/g.25
Since Pennsylvania began requiring radiation monitors at municipal landfills in
2001, says Kasianowitz, fracking sludges and solids have rarely set them off. In
2012 they accounted for only 0.5% of all monitor alarms.
At the federal level,
radioactive oil and gas waste is exempt from nearly all the regulatory
processes the general public might expect would govern it. Neither the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 nor the Low-Level Radioactive
Waste Policy Act covers NORM.2 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has no
authority over radioactive oil and gas waste. State laws are a patchwork.
Workers are covered by some federal radiation protections, although a 1989
safety bulletin from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration noted
that NORM sources of exposure “may have been overlooked by Federal and State
agencies in the past.”27
Fracking in the Marcellus has
advanced so quickly that public understanding and research on its radioactive
consequences have lagged behind, and there are many questions about the extent
and magnitude of the risk to human health. “We
are troubled by people drinking water that [could potentially have] radium-226
in it,” says David Brown, a public health toxicologist with the Southwest
Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project. “When somebody calls us and says ‘is
it safe to drink our water,’ the answer is ‘I don’t know.’”
PADEP is conducting a study to
determine the extent of potential exposures to radioactive fracking wastewater.
The PADEP study will sample drill cuttings, produced waters, muds, wastewater
recycling and treatment sludges, filter screens, extracted natural gas, scale
buildup in well casings and pipelines, and waste transport equipment. PADEP
will also evaluate radioactivity at well pads, wastewater treatment plants,
wastewater recycling facilities, and landfills.
The
EPA study includes research designed to assess the potential impacts from
surface spills, well injection, and discharge of treated fracking wastewater on
drinking water sources. One project will model the transport of contaminants,
including radium, from treatment outflows in receiving waters. Field and
laboratory experiments will characterize the fate and transport of contaminants
in wastewater treatment and reuse processes. Groundwater samples are being
tested for radium-226, radium-228, and gross alpha and beta radiation. The
overall study does not include radon.
Both radon and radium emit alpha particles, which are most dangerous
when inhaled or ingested. When inhaled, radon can cause lung cancer, and
there is some evidence it may cause other cancers such as leukemia. Consuming radium in drinking water can
cause lymphoma, bone cancer, and leukemias. Radium also emits gamma rays, which
raise cancer risk throughout the body from external exposures. Radium-226
and radium-228 have half-lives of 1,600 years and 5.75 years, respectively.
Radium is known to bioaccumulate in invertebrates, mollusks, and freshwater fish,
where it can substitute for calcium in bones. Radium eventually decays to
radon; radon-222 has a half-life of 3.8 days.
Geochemically, radon and radium
behave differently. Radon is an inert gas, so it doesn’t react with other
elements and usually separates from produced water along with methane at the
wellhead. Although there are few empirical data available, the natural gas
industry has not been concerned about radon reaching its consumers in
significant amounts, in part because of radon’s
short half-life and because much of it is released to the atmosphere at the
wellhead.”
The pdf: http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/wp-content/uploads/122/2/ehp.122-A50.pdf
13. Commentary From
Bob Donnan
On the State of the Union Address
….
President Obama: “Now, one of the biggest factors in bringing more jobs back is our
commitment to American energy. The
all-of-the-above energy strategy I announced a few years ago is working, and
today, America is closer to energy independence than we’ve been in decades.”
[He obviously drank industry’s “energy
independence” Kool-Aid!]
“One of the reasons why is natural gas – if extracted safely, it’s the bridge fuel that can power our
economy with less of the carbon pollution that causes climate change. Businesses plan to invest almost $100
billion in new factories that use
natural gas. I’ll cut red tape to help
states get those factories built, and this Congress can help by putting people
to work building fueling stations that shift more cars and trucks from foreign
oil to American natural gas. My
administration will keep working with the industry to sustain production and
job growth while strengthening protection of our air, our water, and our communities. And while we’re at it, I’ll use my authority
to protect more of our pristine federal lands for future generations.”
[Great, let’s change our fossil fuel addiction
from oil to natural gas! Feel the knife in your back yet?)
“It’s
not just oil and natural gas production that’s booming; we’re becoming a global
leader in solar, too. Every four
minutes, another American home or business goes solar; every panel pounded into
place by a worker whose job can’t be outsourced. Let’s continue that progress with a smarter
tax policy that stops giving $4 billion a year to fossil fuel industries that
don’t need it, so that we can invest more in fuels of the future that do.”
[We’ll see how well that O&G lobbying money
will work on this idea!]
“And
even as we’ve increased energy production, we’ve partnered with businesses,
builders, and local communities to reduce the energy we consume. When we rescued our automakers, for example,
we worked with them to set higher fuel efficiency standards for our cars. In the coming months, I’ll build on that
success by setting new standards for our trucks, so we can keep driving down
oil imports and what we pay at the pump.
Taken together, our energy
policy is creating jobs and leading to a cleaner, safer planet. Over the past eight years, the United States
has reduced our total carbon pollution more than any other nation on
Earth. But we have to act with more
urgency – because a changing climate is already harming western communities
struggling with drought, and coastal cities dealing with floods. That’s why I directed my administration to
work with states, utilities, and others to set new standards on the amount of
carbon pollution our power plants are allowed to dump into the air. The shift to a cleaner energy economy won’t
happen overnight, and it will require tough choices along the way. But the debate is settled. Climate change is a fact. And when our children’s children look us in
the eye and ask if we did all we could to leave them a safer, more stable world,
with new sources of energy, I want us to be able to say yes, we did.”
[At least he gets part of it]
Complete address:
14. Sold A Bill Of
Goods-- Seismic Testing In Peters Twp.
Bob Donnan
“Seems to me the seismic
company representative said they would only use 3 of their smaller ‘thumper
trucks’ but I count 4, and if these are their smaller ones, I would hate to see
their big ones! Anyone have a guess what the GVW (Gross Vehicle Weight) of this
model truck would be?
A
reliable source tells me those trucks weigh 20-30 tons”
Video
of seismic testing:
PROTECTING HOMES
& WATER WELLS?
During the companies presentation to our township council they said they
would have an individual walking along the road where the trucks were close to
houses to monitor the strength of the vibration and reduce it close to houses
and water wells to prevent potential damage… Do you see anyone doing that in
this video? Maybe the single digit temperature made them skip that step
yesterday morning.
LOSERS ALONG THE WAY
One well got knocked
out when they were doing seismic testing in North Strabane near Lindenwood Golf
Course. Now the family uses a water buffalo... the fastest growing herd in
Washington County!”
More on Geokinetics which is
conducting this seismic survey in Peters Twp:
Damage in Denver:
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_22803371/seismic-surveying-rattles-colorado-homeowners
Wyoming
Woes:
http://wyofile.com/dustin/surface-damage-from-niobrara-seismic-work-results-in-citations/
GeoKinetics
files for bankruptcy:
http://bankruptcynews.dowjones.com/article?an=DJFDBR0020130311e93bczgc1&r=wsjblog&ReturnUrl=http%3a%2f%2fbankruptcynews.dowjones.com%2farticle%3fan%3dDJFDBR0020130311e93bczgc1%26r%3dwsjblog
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-11/geokinetics-files-for-chapter-11-bankruptcy-in-delaware.html
15. Range
Resources Appeals Mt. Pleasant Decision
(Bob Donnan
Commentary: They get what they want and still aren’t happy… Dencil Backus voted in favor of their plan
and they are still after him.)
“Jan 30 - Range Resources is
appealing a decision by Mt. Pleasant Township officials pertaining to the
conversion of a freshwater impoundment into a recycled wastewater facility. Last month, the board of supervisors
approved Range’s conditional use application to construct above-ground holding
tanks at the site of the current Stewart impoundment and outlined eight special
conditions that Range must follow. Range is appealing half of those conditions,
in addition to the board’s denial of Range’s request for Supervisor Dencil
Backus to excuse himself and refrain from voting at the Dec. 20 meeting. Range
attorney Shawn Gallagher filed the appeal Tuesday in the Washington County
Court of Common Pleas on behalf of the natural gas drilling company.
Range is disputing one condition that would
require the company to investigate complaints of odor or air pollution on any
adjoining property to the Stewart facility. Range would be required to inspect
the vent and filtering systems installed inside the tanks and report all
findings to the township. If the investigation reveals odor or air pollution,
Range would be required to remedy the problem and conduct ongoing tests “for a
reasonable time” to confirm whether the remediation was successful.”
http://www.observer-reporter.com/article/20140129/NEWS01/140129215#.Uuo_TyKYbcs
16. RESEARCH- Fracking Increases Heart Defects and Neural Tube Defects in Babies
Environ Health Perspect; DOI:10.1289/ehp.1306722
Birth Outcomes and Maternal
Residential Proximity to Natural Gas Development in Rural Colorado— Heart and
Neural Tube Defects
Lisa
M. McKenzie,1 Ruixin Guo,2 Roxana Z. Witter,1 David A. Savitz,3 Lee S. Newman,1
and John L. Adgate1Department of Environmental and Occupational Health,
Colorado School of Public Health, Aurora, Colorado, USA; 2Department of
Biostatistics and Informatics, Colorado School of Public Health, Aurora,
Colorado, USA; 3Department of Epidemiology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode
Island, USA
In
this large cohort, we observed an
association between density and proximity of natural gas wells within a 10-mile
radius of maternal residence and prevalence of congenital heart defects and
possibly neural tube defects. Environmental
Health Perspectives.
Abstract
Background: Birth defects are a
leading cause of neonatal mortality. Natural
gas development (NGD) emits several potential teratogens and US production is
expanding.
Objectives: We examined
associations between maternal residential proximity to NGD and birth outcomes
in a retrospective cohort study of 124,842 births between 1996 and 2009 in
rural Colorado.
Methods:
We calculated inverse distance weighted natural gas well counts within a 10-mile radius of maternal residence to
estimate maternal exposure to NGD. Logistic regression, adjusted for maternal
and infant covariates, was used to estimate associations with exposure tertiles
for congenital heart defects (CHDs),
neural tube defects (NTDs), oral
clefts, preterm birth, and term low birth weight. The Association with term
birth weight was investigated using multiple linear regression.
Conclusions: In this large cohort, we observed an
association between density and proximity of natural gas wells within a 10-mile
radius of maternal residence and prevalence of CHDs and possibly NTDs.
From Environmental Health News
January 31, 2014
Women who live near natural
gas wells in rural Colorado are more likely to have babies with neural tube and
congenital heart defects, according to a new study.
As
natural gas extraction soars in the United States, the findings add to a
growing concern by many activists and residents about the potential for health
effects from the air pollutants.
Researchers from the Colorado
School of Public Health analyzed birth defects among nearly 125,000 births in
Colorado towns with fewer than 50,000 people between 1996 and 2009, examining
how close the mothers lived to natural gas wells.
Babies born to mothers living in areas with the
highest density of wells – more than 125 wells per mile – were more than twice
as likely to have neural tube defects than those living with no wells within a
10-mile radius, according to the study published Tuesday. Children in those areas also had a 38 % greater risk of congenital
heart defects than those with no wells.
Both types of birth defects were
fairly rare, occurring in a small percentage of births, but they can cause
serious health effects. The researchers did not find a significant association
between gas wells and other effects, including oral cleft defects, preterm
births and low birth weight.
Neural tube defects, such as spina bifida, are permanent deformities of
the spinal cord or brain. They usually occur during the first month of
pregnancy, before a woman knows she is pregnant. Congenital heart defects are problems in how the heart's valves, walls,
veins or arteries developed in the womb; they can disrupt normal blood flow
through the heart.
“Taken together, our results and
current trends in natural gas development underscore the importance of
conducting more comprehensive and rigorous research on the potential health
effects of natural gas development.” –study authors For
babies born to mothers in the areas with the most wells, the rate of congenital
heart defects was 18 per 1,000, compared with 13 per 1,000 for those living
with no wells within a 10-mile radius. For neural tube defects, the rate was
2.87 per 3,000, compared with 1.2 per 3,000 in areas with no wells.
The Colorado Oil and Gas
Conservation Commission estimates that 26 percent of the more than 47,000 oil
and gas wells in Colorado are located within 150 to 1,000 feet of homes.
“Taken
together, our results and current trends in natural gas development underscore
the importance of conducting more comprehensive and rigorous research on the
potential health effects of natural gas development,” the researchers wrote in
the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
It is unclear
what, if anything, related to the natural gas wells could raise the risk of
birth defects. However, benzene and other hydrocarbons, particulate matter,
sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide, are emitted by trucks, drilling and
pipelines near the wells.
Benzene previously has been linked to neural tube defects in other
areas, including Texas, where exposure is high from petrochemical industries.
Benzene and several other air pollutants around natural gas wells are known to
cross the placenta from mother to the fetus.
“One plausible mechanism could be an association between air pollutants
emitted during development and congenital heart defects, and possibly neural
tube defects,” McKenzie said.
McKenzie
said she is more cautious about the neural tube findings than the heart
findings because the rate was elevated only among women who lived with the
highest density of wells, and because there were only 59 babies with the neural
defects.
Wright said the study had some “good news for the energy industry”
because when the researchers tightened the radius to two and five miles within
the mothers’ homes, the odds of some birth defects dropped lower than the odds
at 10 miles.
However, for the congenital
heart and neural tube defects, increased risk was found at distances of two,
five and 10 miles for the mothers living in areas with the highest densities of
wells compared with areas with no wells.
Communities
should decide whether they want to put pregnant mothers at risk, said Lindsey
Wilson, a field associate with Environment Colorado, an environmental group.
From Aljazeera America-Facking linked to Birth
Defects in Heavily Drilled Colorado
“What
we found was that the risk of congenital heart defects (CHD) increased with
greater density of gas wells — with mothers living in the highest-density areas
at greatest risk,” Lisa McKenzie, a research associate at the Colorado School
of Public Health and lead author of the study, told Al Jazeera.
The study examined links between
the mother's residential proximity to natural gas wells and birth defects in a
study of more than 124,842 births between 1996 and 2009 in rural Colorado.
The study found that
"births to mothers in the most exposed (areas with over 125 wells per
mile) had a 30 percent greater prevalence of CHDs than births to mothers with
no wells in a 10-mile radius of their residence."
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/1/30/new-study-links-frackingtobirthdefectsinheavilydrilledcolorado.html
from TXSHARON on JANUARY 29, 2014
Birth Outcomes and
Maternal Residential Proximity to Natural Gas Development in Rural Colorado
Some
of the findings:
**Births
to mothers with greater than 125 wells/mile had a 30% greater prevalence of
congenital heart defects (CHD) than births to mothers with no wells within a
10-mile radius of their residence.
**Births
with greater than 125 well/mile were 2.0 times more likely to have a neural
tube defect (NTD) than those with no wells within a 10-mile radius.
**Air
pollutants emitted from diesel engines used extensively in natural gas
development also may be associated with CHDs and/or NTDs.
**This
study suggests a positive association between greater density and proximity of
natural gas wells within a 10-mile radius of maternal residence and greater
prevalence of CHDs and possibly NTDs.
So right now I’m really angry at
EagleRidge and the City of Denton for exposing pregnant mothers to natural gas
development only a couple of hundred feet from their homes.
A
Canadian also study linked toxins to heart defects.
17. Chevron Ad Causes
Family Dissent
“Dan and Dave Hughes, are Pittsburghers
involved in environmental and social justice causes, and Lily Hughes volunteers
with the Shalefield Organizing Committee in NE PA.
Family member Dick Hughes had
agreed to do an ad for Chevron which would be stripped across the bottom half
of two newspaper pages. “Drill the right
way, or don’t drill at all.’ It was
stamped with a red “We agree.” and was signed by Chevron’s head of Marcellus operations,
Bruce Neimeyer, and University of Pittsburgh professor Radisav Vidic. It ran in
the post Gazette five times during fall 2012
The most vocal criticism came from
inside the family. ‘If you lend your skills and your photo to a company like
Chevron, and they can use that to promote their fracking business, you’re sort
of an accomplice in my view,” Dave Hughes said.
When Dick Hughes heard from his
Pittsburgh- based family about the dangers of fracking, he donated half of his
earnings to the Shalefield Organizing Committee.
“Wait til Chevron finds out that
half the money went to my niece’s anti- fracking group” Hughes chuckled. He also sent the ad image to Lily Hughes and
encouraged her to use it in anti- fracking literature to bait Chevron into
suing her group and bringing more attention to her cause.”
Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Amy
Litvak, Jan 19, 2014, P. 11
18. On- Site
Compressor Stations
Bob Donnan
(Some
people surmised a couple years ago that we may see more stand alone compressors
on Marcellus Shale gas well pads to circumvent air pollution regs. Bob)
“Jan 25 – Horseheads
NY town officials have scheduled a public hearing on the construction of a
natural gas well compressor and a protective building . The compressor will be built on the existing
Anschutz Exploration Ruger well pad that taps into the Trenton-Black River
formation. “http://www.stargazette.com/article/20140125/NEWS01/301250009/Hearing-set-in-Horseheads-on-gas-well-compressor?gcheck=1&nclick_check=1
Lowry
Compressor Station by Cross Creek County Park PA
Now look at it with
an $80,000 FLIR camera that detects VOC’s
Source: SHALETEST –
Frank Finan
VIDEO: http://youtu.be/-IK3vALj288
19. Ron Gulla-One
of the First Landowners To Deal with Range Resources
“When
Ron Gulla, a heavy-machinery salesman, leased the mineral rights on his
Pennsylvania property in 2002, he said, he was told that standard vertical gas
wells would be drilled and that in exchange for allowing the work, he’d get
more natural gas than he could ever use on his 141 acres. “I thought it was a
good deal,” he said recently. “Standard wells and I’d get free gas forever.”
But
when Range Resources began actual drilling on his property in 2005, he
discovered that the company was drilling horizontal wells into a deep shale
formation. Those wells — four in all — had to be blasted open with millions of
gallons of water, sand, and poisonous chemicals, most of which returned to the
surface with a vengeance and were put into huge ponds dug into his property
near the wells. Within months, Gulla’s
two-and-a-half-acre stocked fishpond had turned black and the fish were dying.
He contends that was a result of the chemical-laden water in the frack pond
leaking downhill into his fishpond, but when he complained to Range that its
flow pits were responsible for the damage, the company denied responsibility.
That was the beginning of a several-year-long
battle that ultimately cost Gulla his peace of mind, his family’s security, and
the farm.
When
the first well went in on Gulla’s property, it was only the second horizontal
well ever drilled in what’s now known as the Marcellus Shale,
the largest known gas play in the U.S., stretching from Ohio through
Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, and down into West Virginia.
As
happened with the gas boom in Fort Worth, people like Gulla and thousands of
others had no idea what was coming. The landmen who secured the leases talked
about the bonus money and royalties or the free gas that landowners would get.
They talked about the 350,000 wells already dug in Pennsylvania over the last
hundred years and had people thinking of oil crickets in their front yards
pumping money all day long.
According
to Gulla and others, residents weren’t told about the fracking fluids that
would poison the air they breathed or the thousands of trucks that would tear
up their roads transporting the millions of gallons of water each well fracture
would require. They weren’t told about
fugitive methane and volatile organic compound emissions that would continually
leak from wells, compressor stations, and other equipment and would make them
sick. They had no idea that water wells would go bad, that leaks from waste
pits would kill their cattle and horses. They had to discover those things as
they went along.
Gulla
and others whose leases were owned by Range Resources, a Fort Worth-based
company and the major player in the Marcellus Shale, also discovered that asking Range to rectify a problem could lead to
lawsuits: The company is known for aggressively going after people it thinks
are threatening its brand.
All
oil and gas companies screw up occasionally: There are spills, leaks, pipe
failures, well blowouts, and sometimes explosions. The industry as a whole
fights tooth and nail to avoid taking responsibility for those things.
In
the case of horizontal gas fracking,
there are also hundreds, perhaps thousands of cases where nearby water wells
went bad shortly after the drilling started. Wells that produced clean,
drinkable water for years suddenly changed color and smell, becoming heavy with
gas and other chemicals. Since a direct
connection between the gas well and the water well is difficult to prove,
drillers generally fight to avoid accepting responsibility for as long as they
can before, in many cases, ponying up and paying off the aggrieved landowners.
Then they usually seek confidentiality agreements permanently prohibiting the
landowners from talking about the problem or the settlement.
Ruggiero:
“Range just seems to love the conflict.”
pic: Sucking water out of a small Pennsylvania stream
for fracking
20. Dallas Texas Passes Tough Ordinance- 1500 Feet
“On
December 11, the Dallas City Council passed America's most restrictive
hydraulic fracturing ordinance. In
Dallas, the new restrictions - including outlawing drilling closer than 1,500
feet from residences and other sensitive areas - essentially prevent drilling
from taking place at all, according to oil and gas industry representatives.
Dallas just passed the strictest ordinances in the region that restrict
drilling to no closer than 1,500 feet from homes, schools, day care centers,
hospitals, nursing homes, hotels, motels, parks, playgrounds, places of
employment and other sensitive areas.
The
Dallas ordinance is THE strongest in the nation! Not only does it mandate a setback of at least 1,500 feet, but it also
measures that setback from the nearest edge of the pad site to the nearest edge
of the protected use property line. (Most ordinances measure setback from
the center of the first well bore to the physical structure on the protected
use property.) It also prohibits
injection (wastewater disposal) wells within city limits, restricts compressor
stations to Industrial Manufacturing (IM) districts only, mandates 100
percent chemical disclosure with no exception for trade secrets,
requires use of discrete tagging agents in frac fluid to track fluid migration
in soil and groundwater, has increased insurance requirements (at a time
when insurance companies are starting to pull back from covering gas well
operations due to inherent risks), and includes other restrictions that are
going to be very hard for industry to overcome.
There
can be no doubt that fracking outside of Dallas is adversely impacting the city
of Dallas. According to a study by the
Southern Methodist University Environmental Sciences Department, releases of
VOCs and NOx from Barnett Shale gas production account for 55 percent of all
harmful air emissions in the DFW metro area. Earthquakes are being felt in
Dallas, and though they are minor, that does not mean a future quake of
significant magnitude will never be felt. DFW International Airport closed two
injection wells on airport property because they were causing earthquakes under
the runways of the fifth-largest airport in the world, and the airport board
feared a runway failure leading to possible deaths and injuries, as well as major
economic disruption for the DFW area, the state of Texas, the United States and
the entire world.”
21. Center for Biological Diversity Lists Effects to Wildlife in California -- PA Cited as Bad Example
“Fracking
in California poses serious risks to the state’s wildlife. Endangered species
like California condors, San Joaquin kit foxes and blunt-nosed leopard lizards
live in places where fracking is likely to expand, and these animals face
direct and indirect harm.
Research
and reports from other areas suggest links between fracking and a wide range of threats to wildlife and
domestic animals like horses, cats and dogs. Among the most serious:
Fish
kills in Pennsylvania have been associated with the contamination of streams,
creeks and wetlands by fracking fluid.
Farmers, pet owners and veterinarians in five states — Colorado,
Louisiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas — have reported deaths, serious
illnesses and reproductive problems among wildlife, as well as horses, cattle,
cats and dogs exposed to fracking infrastructure or wastewater.
Withdrawing
water from streams and rivers for fracking can threaten fisheries.
Birds
and other wildlife have been poisoned by chemical-laced water in wastewater ponds
and tanks used to dispose of fracking fluids.
Equipment
used to withdraw water for fracking activity has been implicated in the
introduction of invasive species into creeks and rivers, causing fish kills.
Sensitive
bird species and other wildlife can be affected by drilling noise, truck trips
and other effects from gas drilling pads — one
study found that a single drilling station can affect 30 acres of forest.
Effects on wildlife include degradation of habitat and interference with
migration and reproduction.
The diversity of species in streams close
to fracking activity in Pennsylvania was found to be reduced, even though
drilling was done in accordance with all current state rules.
Wastewater
ponds resulting from gas extraction provide breeding grounds for mosquitoes
that can transmit diseases such as the deadly West Nile Virus to wild birds. In
California, oil and gas companies are fracking in several counties with West
Nile virus activity, including Kern County, which has had a human case.
The
six California counties in which fracking is likely to expand are home to about
100 plants and animals on the endangered species list. These species are
already struggling against extinction — fracking would only compound their
troubles.”
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/california_fracking/wildlife.html
22. PROPANE SHORTAGE & PRICE GOUGING
From Bob Donnan
Even though propane is more abundant, Americans are paying much more due
to increased exports.
Feb 3 – Prices jumped 181% since
October.
The US is now
exporting record amounts of propane to more lucrative markets.
Video:
http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/propane-prices-high-as-demand-soars-bad-weather-slows-deliveries/
23. Natural Resources Defense Council Criticizes Obama Administration
“Over
15 million Americans now live within a mile of a frack well. The Obama Administration
has failed to curb the environmental and health threats posed by fracking. “The administrator is basically rolling out
the welcome mat to the oil and gas industry” said Sharon Buccinon director of
NRDC Land and Wildlife program. “No region of the country will escape.
Not
even national parks are immune to the ravages of nearby fracking. Newly drilled
wells in Montana are already visible from Glacier National Park. The front door
to Glacier has been proposed for major industrialization . In Wyoming, oil and
gas development near Grand Teton National Park is fragmenting the habitat that pronghorn
an other species need outside the part for migrations
“We
must hold president Obama accountable here”, says NRDC president Frances
Ceinecke. “He made a promise e last year in his State of the Union address to develop
Americas gas resources with out putting the health and safety of out citizens
at Risk. Instead his administration has caved to the oil and gas lobby.”
NRDC
Natures Voice
24. States urged to ‘step up’ and fund new gas pipelines
“Operators require 15
years of guaranteed deliveries to build new interstate pipelines. Increasing
the United State’s reliance on natural gas for electricity may require state
governments to take on new roles to ensure power reliability, experts told an
ICF International forum in Washington, DC, last week.
The core issue, they
said, is how to raise the long-term capital needed for pipelines to transport
gas to generators – since those generators must sell into day-ahead power
markets.” http://interfaxenergy.com/natural-gas-news-analysis/north-america/states-urged-to-step-up-and-fund-new-gas-pipelines/
Donations
We are very appreciative
of donations, both large and small, to our group.
With your help, we have handed out thousands of flyers on
the health and environmental effects of fracking, sponsored numerous public
meetings, and provided information to citizens and officials countywide. If you
would like to support our efforts:
Checks to
our group should be made out to the Thomas
Merton Center/Westmoreland Marcellus Citizens’ Group. And in the Reminder line
please write- Westmoreland Marcellus Citizens’ Group. The reason for this
is that we are one project of 12 at Thomas Merton. You can send your check to:
Westmoreland Marcellus Citizens’ Group, PO Box 1040, Latrobe, PA, 15650. Or you
can give the check or cash to Lou Pochet or Jan Milburn.
To make a contribution to our group using a credit card, go to www.thomasmertoncenter.org. Look for the contribute
button, then scroll down the list of organizations to direct money to. We are
listed as the Westmoreland Marcellus Citizens’ Group.
Please
be sure to write Westmoreland Marcellus
Citizens’ Group on the bottom of your check so that WMCG receives the
funding, since we are just one project of many of the Thomas Merton Center. You
can also give your donation to Lou Pochet or Jan Milburn.
Westmoreland Marcellus Citizen’s Group—Mission Statement
WMCG is a project of the Thomas
Merton Society
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 and Thomas Merton Liason-Lou Pochet
Secretary-Ron Nordstrom
Facebook Coordinator-Elizabeth Nordstrom
Blogsite –April Jackman
Science Advisor-Dr. Cynthia Walter
To receive our news updates, please email jan at westmcg@gmail.com
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