Westmoreland Marcellus Citizens’ Group Updates
March 27, 2014
* For articles and updates or to just vent, visit us on facebook;
* To view permanent documents, past updates,
reports, general information and meeting information
http://westmorelandmarcellus.blogspot.com/
* Our email address: westmcg@gmail.com
*
To discuss candidates: http://www.facebook.com/groups/VoteProEarth/
* 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, the Pollocks, Marian Szmyd, Bob Donnan, Elizabeth Donahue, and Bob Schmetzer.
CAlendar
***
WMCG Meeting We meet the second Tuesday of every month at
7:30 PM in Greensburg. Email Jan for
directions. All are very welcome to attend.
***Delmont
Informational Meeting
Huntley and Huntley Activity in the Area
April 1, 2014 from
6:45pm-8:30pm. RSVP is requested.
Delmont Fire Hall
Dear
Resident,
Recently,
several people from the Delmont area reached out to us at the Mountain
Watershed Association because they wanted to learn more about the activities of
Huntley and Huntley, Ion Geophysical and other companies conducting shale gas
related activities in your area. At the residents’ request we are holding a
public meeting at the Delmont Volunteer Fire Department on April 1, 2014 from
6:45pm-8:30 pm. RSVP is requested.
The meeting will include a
presentation on lease terms; insurance and mortgage issues; health and
environmental impacts; what is and is not legally permissible; tracking
activities using online tools; and other topics. The presentation will be
followed by an in-depth question and answer session.
Through
our experiences with industry we are aware that not all the facts are put on
the table. We want to rectify this. We hope you will come and bring your
neighbors so you can make an informed decision about what you want to do with
your land in your community. If you do not attend this meeting we still
recommend you seek professional counsel before signing any agreements.
For questions please call
Kathryn or Nick at 724-455-4200 or e-mail mcsp@mtwatershed.com. Sincerely,
Kathryn
Hilton, Community Organizer
***Deer Lakes Park Meeting –A public hearing is
scheduled for 7 p.m. April 2 at Deer Lakes High School. To
comment at the public meeting sign up 24 hours before the meeting day.http://www.alleghenycounty.us/council/meetings/comment.aspx
Take Action!!
***Letters to the editor are important
and one of the best ways to share
information with the
public. ***
***Tenaska Plant
Seeks to Be Sited in South Huntingdon, Westmoreland County***
Petition !! Please
forward to your lists!
Please
share the attached petition with residents of Westmoreland and all bordering
counties. We need each of you to share the petition
with your email lists and any group with which you are affiliated. As
stated in the petition, Westmoreland County cannot meet air standards for
several criteria. Many areas of Westmoreland County are
already listed as EPA non-attainment areas for ozone and particulate matter
2.5, so the county does not have the capacity to handle additional emissions
that will contribute to the burden of ozone in the area as well as health
impacts. According to the American Lung
Association, every county in the Pittsburgh region except for Westmoreland
County had fewer bad air days for ozone and daily particle pollution compared
with the previous report. Westmoreland County was the only county to score a failing grade for particulate matter.
The
Tenaska gas plant will add tons of
pollution to already deteriorated air and dispose of waste water into
the Youghiogheny River. Westmoreland
County already has a higher incidence of disease that other counties in United
States. The pollution doesn’t stop at the South Huntingdon Township border, it
will travel to the surrounding townships and counties.
If you know of church groups or other
organizations that will help with the petition please forward it and ask
for their help.
***Forced Pooling Petition
“The PA DEP announced the
first public hearing on forced pooling in PA to be held in less than two weeks. We're pushing on the DEP to
postpone the hearings and address the many problems we have with their current
plans. In the meantime, we're circulating a petition to the legislature calling
on them to strike forced pooling from the books in PA.
Forced pooling refers to the ability to drill under private property
without the owner's permission. It's legal in the Utica Shale in western PA,
but the industry has not made an attempt to take advantage of it until now.
Forced pooling is a clear violation of private property rights and should not
be legal anywhere.
I know I've asked a lot of you.
Unfortunately, we're fighting battles on many fronts and they just keep coming.
But with your help, we've made lots of progress, so I'm asking you to help me
again by signing and sharing this petition.”
Appreciatively,
as always,
Karen”
from
DelawareRiverkeeper
Frack Links
***Act 13 Forum
Video Is Up
The video is split into 2 parts for a total viewing time of
about 2 hours. There is a small amount
of blank time (about a minute) at the beginning of Part 1, but just let it
play...
Our Water, Our Air, Our Communities — And Forced Gas
Drilling?
What:
Delaware Riverkeeper Network hosted a forum with the lead litigators and
litigants of the landmark Act 13 case – the case in which the conservative
Pennsylvania Supreme Court declared that the rights of pure water, clean air,
and a healthy environment, across the generations, must be protected by state
and local legislators.
The
forum included a discussion of how Act 13 came to be passed, how and why the
legal challenge was formulated, including the interesting alliance between the
7 towns and the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, and the implications for
environmental, municipal, and legislative decision making going forward.
***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
***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/
*** 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.”
Frack News
1. Contaminated
Water in Donegal PA
By Roger Drouin, Truthout | News Analysis
“As the first
official research is published that confirms water contamination by hydraulic
fracturing, an alarming amount and array of hazardous chemicals and compounds -
including arsenic, chloride, barium and radium - are found in Pennsylvania
groundwater.
Shortly after a
gas company in Donegal, Pennsylvania, began storing fracking wastewater in an
impoundment pit, a water well at a nearby home showed some alarmingly elevated levels of barium and strontium.
The home sits within 2,000 feet of the impoundment pit, which began
leaking in late 2012, Kathryn Hilton told Truthout. Hilton is a community
organizer at the Mountain Watershed Association.
In August, 2012, DEP test results showed levels
of barium and strontium above EPA standards. "Those are hazardous
chemicals that can cause health problems when exposed to for extended periods
of time," Hilton said.
The unidentified property owners were unable to
comment about the incident because they are involved in active litigation with
the gas company, WPX Energy. The company has since removed the impoundment
pit, but the homeowner is still "using a water buffalo" for drinking
water, Hilton told Truthout. In June,
2013, the DEP's Oil and Gas Program
issued a determination letter concluding that the high chemical levels were
caused by the nearby fracking activity, according to an agency
spokesperson.
Environmentalists,
scientists and residents worry that other homeowners may be facing similar,
often unknown, threats from contamination throughout Pennsylvania - where the fracking boom has positioned
the state as the third-largest producer of natural gas. Those concerns are
growing as shale development continues to expand and transforms Pennsylvania
communities that were once quaint rural areas into areas filled with drilling
equipment and trucks.
"These drilling sites are really
industrial sites," said David Brown, a toxicologist at the Environmental
Health Project in Washington County, Pennsylvania. "There is a lot of
diesel fuel around, a lot of chemicals brought in to frack the rock, and it is
all dumped in water or the air."
Significant Findings
At the well in Donegal, the levels of chemicals such as strontium that were measured in the well
could be high enough to cause some skin or gastrointestinal reactions,
environmental scientist Vanessa Lamers told Truthout. An elderly person or
infant would be even more susceptible.
"That's a lot
of strontium and barium," Lamers said after reviewing the sample results.
"The chloride is four times over the limit."
This case is not
the only example of chemicals and compounds contaminating drinking water in
areas with fracking activity. Between 2008 and fall 2012, state environmental
regulators determined that oil and gas development damaged the
water supplies for at least 161 Pennsylvania homes, farms, churches and
businesses.
The findings in Pennsylvania are
significant because they are some of the first official research to show
confirmed water contamination caused by hydraulic fracturing - an industry
environmental groups say the Environmental Protection Agency and feds are not
taking a serious look at and that state regulators are not equipped to
adequately regulate.
Last year, state
Auditor General Eugene A. DePasquale announced his office is conducting a
performance audit of the Pennsylvania DEP's water testing program to
"determine the adequacy and effectiveness of DEP's monitoring of water
quality as potentially impacted by shale gas development activities"
between 2009 and 2012. http://truth-out.org/news/item/22407-contaminated-water-supplies-health-concerns-accumulate-with-fracking-boom-in-pennsylvania
2. Fifth CNX Incident at Beaver Run Reservoir
March 2 Spill “An engine oil spill at a Marcellus shale
well pad at Beaver Run Reservoir in Washington Township caused a small fire
Saturday, state DEP officials said Wednesday.
The spill did not cause soil or
water contamination at the reservoir, which serves 150,000 residents of
Westmoreland County, including those in Murrysville, Export and Delmont, said
John Poister, DEP spokesman.
An unknown amount of engine oil was spilled
onto a holding tank at the Mamont South 1A pad, he said. A pump engine on site
failed, causing the spill. The spill caused a fire, which damaged the metal
cover put on top of the secondary holding tank.
CNX Gas, a
division of Consol Energy, has been conducting Marcellus shale drilling at the
reservoir since 2010.
“No environmental
impacts occurred and mitigation was successfully completed during each of these
events. Consol Energy was not issued violations for any of the incidents in
question,” Consol spokeswoman Kate O'Donovan said in an email Thursday.
Poister said there
is no visible damage to the holding tank, but state officials will return to
the site for further inspection.
This is at least the fifth incident
requiring DEP attention since June at Consol's drilling operation at the
reservoir in Bell and Washington townships.
In June, CNX Gas
was cited after a fracking fluid spill. Another spill occurred in November,
records show. In February, two barrels of oil-based mud were discharged on the
site.
The Municipal
Authority of Westmoreland County could not be reached for comment.”
Daveen Rae Kurutz is a staff writer for Trib
Total Media.
I can find no news report of the following spill cited on
the MACW site (If someone has seen information on this incident, please send me
the article). It appears this is not the same incident covered by Daveen Kurutz
in the above article. Jan)
March 12 Spill CNX
Gas Company Representative’s Report on Resevoir Spill
“3/12/14 ‐ Mamont South 1 Pad, in Westmoreland County, Calfrac
Mechanic Ron Simpson was performing preventative maintenance on the telebelt
(conveyor system for sand) when 2 gallons of used motor oil was spilled on
containment at 16:45. Due to heavy rain and strong wind gusts, we had a loss of
primary containment, contaminating a nearby puddle of water. The oil was
contained, cleaned up with oil soaks and a water truck. DEP has been notified
of the incident.”
MAWC’s Report on Resevoir Spill
“March 13, 2014 An
oil spill accident at the Mamont South 1 drilling pad from March 12 was
investigated. Bryan Anderson from Consol was interviewed. He stated that
routine maintenance was being performed on the semi‐trailer mounted sand
conveyer by an independent contractor. The contractor spilled app 2 gallons of
used oil under the trailer. The containment area directly under the trailer
consisted of black rubber with a curb and was full of water from that day’s
rain. The oil on water was blown by the wind over the black curb. Bryan stated that the contractor violated
site protocol which states that containment areas must be pumped before using
the equipment in them. The contractor also failed to report the spill which was
later found by Bryan. The oil was contained by the white boom socks that
are placed around the trailer perimeter and pumped off. No oil made it past the
white socks which are in a circle around the entire vehicle. The individual contractor was banned from
returning due to the above 2 infractions. The attached pics show the black
and white containments.”
To see photos:
3. Murrysville Park Petitioners Work For Signatures
“Alyson Holt, 41,
is helping lead the way to put a referendum question on the November ballot to
help council decide whether to lease the oil and gas rights under Murrysville
Community Park to Marcellus shale drillers.
Council is reviewing an ordinance that
would solicit bids for those rights under 262 acres of the park along
Wiestertown Road.
The municipality received an offer from Huntley & Huntley that
would net nearly $600,000 up front for the drilling rights and 12.5 percent of
the profit the company earned on any gas extracted.
Unsure of which
direction residents want council to go, officials asked residents to form a
group to devise a question that would appear on the November ballot, a feat
that requires more than 3,000 residents to sign a petition.
Each
spring, Holt watches her sons run around Murrysville Community Park, sprinting
across the soccer fields with hundreds of other children. But she doesn't think
that will be the case if a Marcellus shale well pad is erected nearby.
“There are
hundreds of kids that use that park on any given Saturday,” she said. “With the recent Greene County explosion,
I'm thinking, ‘What in the world would make us, as a community, want this next
to a park that we built for recreation?' ”
So Holt set up a Facebook page — Murrysville Fracking
Discussion — to start a community dialogue on the topic. That was the
quickest way to get word out about the petition and what Murrysville is
considering, she said.
She doesn't have
much time, due to guidelines set by the municipal home rule charter. Residents have 45 days to circulate a
petition in response to an ordinance adopted by council. To put a referendum question on the
ballot, the petition must have the signature of at least 20 % of registered
voters.
“It's (ridiculous) to ask residents to try
to get 3,009 signatures for a referendum in 45 days,” Perry said. “That's a
virtual impossibility. That's a very difficult bar to meet to get those
signatures.”
Huntley has acquired land
adjacent to the park. Perry said he expects drilling to occur near the park,
but he said officials hope to be able to work with Huntley to ensure that the
company goes above the requirements from the state and municipal regulations.
“Leasing
could help significantly lessen the impact in that area,” Perry said.
But drilling near any park
ignites fear in Holt.
She
worries that some children won't be able to participate in sports anymore
because of fumes and pollution.
“I
want it to send a strong signal to council that, hopefully, we don't want
fracking underneath our Murrysville Community Park,” Holt said.
“Why
did we build this park for our children's use if we're going to put something
that puts their health at risk next to it?
“Communities
like Murrysville have a huge amount to lose,” Holt added. “Not the least of
which are the health of their residents and the reputation of their communities
as a great place to live.”
Read more:http://triblive.com/neighborhoods/yourmurrysville/yourmurrysvillemore/5767953-74/holt-park-murrysville#ixzz2wjsBET1V
4. Murrysville Residents Want Drilling Ordinance Revisited
“Members of the
Citizens for the Preservation of Rural Murrysville asked council last week to
postpone any decisions about drilling — including whether to solicit offers to
drill under Murrysville Community Park — until municipal drilling regulations
have been revisited.
Board member Linda
Marts said the group's board of directors wants council to establish a task
force to revisit the municipal ordinance. That is in the works, chief
administrator Jim Morrison said.
Murrysville
resident Alyson Holt — who, along with the preservation group, plans to
circulate a referendum petition to help council determine if the park's gas
rights will be leased — agreed that revisions are needed.
“Much has been learned in that time,” Holt
said. “Municipalities now have both the constitutional right and the
public-safety obligation to enact zoning ordinances that protect their
citizens' constitutional rights to clean air; pure water; and to the
preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment.”
A municipal task
force met throughout 2010 and 2011 to craft the regulations, which include a
zoning district where surface drilling can occur. Seven members of that
committee —will review the regulations for ways to improve the ordinance.
“All are very well-versed in work done previously, as well as actions
done by the Supreme Court,” Morrison said.
Officials said
they planned to revisit the ordinance after the state Supreme Court overturned
significant portions of Act 13, the state's drilling regulations. The state
regulations had limited local officials' power to regulate the drilling
process.
Resident Leona Dunnett, who had been
outspoken against drilling in the past, said she thinks municipal officials
have more power since Act 13 was overturned.
“The precedent
set actually states that local zoning laws trump the state's power,” Dunnett
said.
Morrison said the
group will begin reviewing the ordinance in April. “
5. Letter To Editor by Kathryn Hilton
Many are sick of being exploited by gas interests
March 22, 2014
“It is true that I
am not a resident of Bobtown in Greene County, but I am a resident of Fayette
County and have plenty of experience dealing with Chevron. Professionally, I
support residents whose lives are unjustly and grossly impacted by Chevron and
other operators’ “do whatever we want, whenever we want, wherever we please”
attitude. The blatant disregard shown in how the company practices locally and
internationally supports the intended message of the petition delivery (asking
for an apology after Chevron offered pizza coupons to the community after a
natural gas well exploded): We are sick of being exploited for profit and we
deserve justice in our communities and some real compensation for losses.
One may argue
there are not many stories being told publicly regarding impacted families,
drinking water and so on, so natural gas development must not be as dangerous
as “sensationalists” claim. The residents I spend countless hours supporting do
not want to speak to reporters who are going to change the story and write as though
it is the impacted people on a limb instead of the offending parties. The March
7 Associated Press article “Chevron Pizza 'Scandal’ Isn’t One in Small Town”
(post-gazette.com) supports this conclusion. I am personally in contact with
many families in Fayette and other counties who agree with the message of the
petition, more than a few of whom are being exploited by Chevron. This is not
an exaggerated claim of frustration, but rather an international effort to draw
attention to the very real issue, which is that natural gas industrialization
is destroying the lives of Pennsylvanians.
Without more than two seconds of thought I
can identify at least a dozen households in Fayette and Westmoreland counties
in which lives are actively being destroyed by natural gas industrialization.
KATHRYN HILTON
Bullskin, Fayette County”
The writer is a community organizer with the Mountain Watershed
Association.
Read more:
http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/2014/03/22/lt-div-class-libPageBodyLinebreak-gt-Many-are-sick-of-being-exploited-by-gas-interests-lt-br-gt-lt-div-gt/stories/201403220007#ixzz2x2HqEGTv
6. Research –Some Tests Miss 99% of Radium in Fracking Waste
Brine Afffects Results
“Every year, fracking generates
hundreds of billions of gallons of wastewater laced with corrosive salts,
radioactive materials and many other chemicals. Because some of that wastewater
winds up in rivers after it’s
treated to remove dangerous contaminants, regulators
across the U.S. have begun to develop testing regimens to gauge how badly
fracking wastewater is polluted and how effective treatment plants are at
removing contamination.
A newly published scientific study,
however, shows that testing methods sometimes used by state regulators in the
Marcellus region can dramatically underestimate the amount of radioactive
radium in fracking wastewater.
These test methods
can understate radium levels by as much
as 99 percent, according to a scientific
paper published earlier this month in Environmental Science and Technology
Letters. The tests, both recommended by the EPA for testing radium levels
in drinking water, can be thrown off by
the mix of other contaminants in salty, chemical-laden fracking brine, researchers
found.
Not all the radium
tests from the Marcellus region dramatically understate radioactivity. Many
researchers, both public and private, have used a method, called gamma spectroscopy, that has proved far
more reliable than the EPA drinking water method. But the results of the
research serve as a warning to regulators in states across the U.S., as they
make decisions about how to monitor radioactivity in fracking waste.
“People have to know that this EPA method
is not updated” for use with fracking wastewater or other highly saline
solutions, said Avner Vengosh, a geochemist at Duke University.
The team of scientists from the University
of Iowa tested “flowback water,” using several different test methods. The EPA drinking water method detected less
than one percent of radium-226, the most common radioactive isotope in
Marcellus wastewater.
Several scientific studies have
cited radium results obtained using the flawed test methods, including a
widely-cited 2011 United States Geological Survey paper on radium from
Appalachian gas wells, a 2012 paper which nonetheless found that radium levels
in the wastewater were “commonly hundreds of times the US drinking water
standards,” and a 2013 paper that sought to “guide water management strategies”
by mapping where certain contaminants were most concentrated. Some of the
flawed test results cited in these papers were provided by Pennyslvania state
regulators.
Gamma spectroscopy has long been considered
the gold standard for this type of testing, and the new research helps
confirm that method’s accuracy.
In 2011, a front-page New York Times investigative report revealed that regulators in Pennsylvania had failed to
adequately monitor radioactivity and other contamination in Marcellus waste,
even though they knew it was being sent to ill-equipped waste treatment plants.
No tests,
regardless of methodology, have shown fracking wastewater on its own is so
radioactive that simply being near it could cause harm to a person. For radioactivity to be dangerous at the
levels found in fracking wastewater, a person must eat, drink or breathe in the
radioactive materials, either directly or from contaminated fish. However,
radioactive material can concentrate over time and levels can rise
dramatically. For example, the sediments downstream from one Pennsylvania
treatment plant were found to carry concentrated amounts of radium, enough to
potentially pose a radioactivity exposure threat.
This research
could, however, raise awareness of the EPA tests’ shortcomings and prevent
other states from adopting the recommendations from Marcellus-region
regulators.
Even when people
are directly caught dumping fracking waste, penalties can be merely a slap on
the wrist. Fracking wastewater has also been illegally dumped into public water
supplies and accidentally spilled into rivers in streams. On March 20, an Ohio
man was sentenced to 300 hours of community service and probation for illegally
dumping oil and gas waste into a Mahoning river tributary.
Given the flaws in
oversight and enforcement, some are skeptical that states can control the
radioactive waste from fracking.”
http://desmogblog.com/2014/03/23/some-testing-methods-can-miss-99-percent-radium-fracking-waste-new-research-reports
7. Marcellus Shale
Earth First! Halts Anadarko Fracking Operation In The Tiadaghton State Forest
“Waterville, PA -- In the pre-dawn hours, activists with
Marcellus Shale EarthFirst!, Pennsylvania residents and students took action to
halt Anadarko's hydraulic fracturing operation in the Tiadaghton State
Forest. Protestors blocked the only
access road to a wellpad by locking themselves to barrels of concrete,
preventing workers from entering the site. Dozens more activists rallied on the
state forest road nearby in support. The
activists are demanding an immediate halt to all plans for new drilling on
Pennsylvania's public lands.
Michael
Badges-Canning, retired school teacher from Butler County said: “The public
lands of Pennsylvania belong to all Pennsylvanians. It is my obligation as a resident of the
Commonwealth and a grandparent to protect our wild heritage, our pristine
waters and the natural beauty for my grandchildren, Dougie and Lochlin.”
Gov. Corbett has recently issued an
executive order to open Pennsylvania’s remaining public lands for hydraulic
fracturing. This includes state
forests that have been off limits to gas companies since 2010, when then
Governor Ed Rendell declared a moratorium on any new leases. The moratorium came in the wake of a
Pennsylvania DCNR study that concluded no remaining state owned lands were
suitable for oil and gas development without significant surface disruptions.
Corbett’s current move to lift the multi-year ban ignores the negative effects
that new leases will have on Pennsylvania’s most ecologically sensitive
forests, including those where species are at risk.
Anadarko’s proposed development of
the Clarence Moore tract, part of the Loyalsock Forest, has become the center
of the grassroots campaign to defend Pennsylvania’s remaining wild places.
Local residents packed DCNR hearings in protest of Anadarko’s plans, leading to
the ousting of former DCNR secretary Richard Allan. According to PA DEP’s Oil
and Gas Compliance Report, Anadarko has been cited with nearly 250 violations
over the last five years, ranking the company in the top three percent of
violators statewide.
Danielle
Dietterick with Marcellus Shale Earth First! said: “As a lifelong resident of
Pennsylvania, I feel a moral responsibility to protect my home from the
malicious onslaught of an industry with a track record of environmental
degradation and human rights violations. Our Governor's complicity has proven
he is an industry pawn who can ignore the words of our state constitution and
the desires of those who he is supposed to represent.”
Residents of Pennsylvania have
shown that they will not give up their wild places without a fight. In July 2012, nearly 100 activists with
Marcellus Shale EarthFirst! Forced a 70-foot-tall EQT hydrofracking drill rig
to suspend operations for 12 hours in the Moshannon State Forest. Last fall, students from around the country
rallied with Allegeny County residents in Pittsburgh to oppose County Executive
Rich Fitzgerald’s plan to open up county parks to hydrofracking. Marcellus Shale EarthFirst! has vowed to
prevent any new shale gas development in the Loyalsock State Forest.”
8. Gasland-MAJORSVILLE, WVA-Now Worse Than a Wasteland
(This is the video
to send people who think gas operations are great. I had to cut and paste
the link. Jan)
From Bob Donnan:
Several people have
told me recently,
“You gotta see Majorsville, have you driven through
there?”
Yes I had, several
years ago, and that March 2011 visit is captured in this video when everything
was on one side of the road:
The difference 3 years has made! The place has grown
exponentially, just like MarkWest’s ‘sister shop’ in Houston, Pa, that’s right,
the one we call ‘Ole Smoky.’
If you go looking
for the place, a warning, Majorsville is hard to find, and you may only have a
cell signal on the ridges.
The ‘shock and awe’ of Majorsville
is not just what is in that valley- it is the surrounding area sliced and dice
with pipelines, well pads and compressor stations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8hmGAVwseY
You can view the Majorsville area from the air 5 months
ago in: “Five Minutes over Majorsville”
The you tube site
also states:
“An old natural gas compression and pipeline facility in
Majorsville West Virginia has grown into a Marcellus Megopolis with
fractionation towers and pipelines replacing trees.”
9. Councilwoman Danko’s Letter to Editor:
PG Supports Deer Lakes Lease
March 26, 2014
12:00 AM
“To paraphrase
“Casablanca’s” Captain Renault, I was “shocked, shocked” to read that the PG
editorial board in its editorial “Prudent Drilling” (March 24) had determined
that “The county has a good deal at Deer Lakes Park” and that “this lease … is
carefully crafted and worthy of approval by county council.” Unfortunately,
given the economic realities of today’s newspaper business, no regular reader
of the PG should be surprised by this editorial.
However, as a member of Allegheny County
Council — the body which according to the home rule charter has ultimate
responsibility for all of the county’s land use decisions — I can say categorically
that as of Tuesday, neither I nor any of my colleagues had received legislation
from the chief executive related to Deer Lakes Park, nor have we seen a lease.
We have received a one-page press release which bears a striking resemblance to
the PG’s editorial. To be blunt, I
wonder how you’ve made the determination that the lease is “carefully crafted”
without actually having seen the lease? As with the deal between the
Allegheny County Airport Authority and Consol, the details are important. The
press release put forth by the county executive and his team needs to be
fleshed out via a careful and thorough review by county council and the public
hearing process.
To say I am
disappointed in the PG would be an understatement. Perhaps next time the PG can simply reprint the chief executive’s press release
and place it as an insert into my morning newspaper.
BARBARA DALY DANKO
Council Member, District 11
Allegheny County Council
Regent Square
Read more:
http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/2014/03/26/PG-support-for-the-Deer-Lakes-lease-is-premature/stories/201403260027#ixzz2x2qKbZiE
10. Would Fracking Under Deer Lakes Park Run Afoul of State Constitution
by Bill O'Driscoll
“In the 1980s, when John Dernbach
was a lawyer and special assistant for PA DEP, the agency's offices featured
posters trumpeting the Commonwealth's Environmental Rights Amendment. The 1972
addition to the state's constitution guaranteed a right to clean air and pure
water. "Pennsylvania's public natural resources are the common property of
all people, including generations yet to come," reads Article 1, Section
27. And the trustee of these resources, it adds, is the Commonwealth itself.
"Three really
nice sentences," Dernbach remembers thinking. "Wouldn't it be nice if
the courts treated them like law?"
Mostly ignored for
40 years, the amendment resurfaced dramatically in December, when the state
Supreme Court scrapped major provisions of Act 13. Dernbach's scholarship (he's
now a law professor) figured in that ruling — a decision that might have
bearing on Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald's drive to drill for gas
under the county's Deer Lakes Park.
No wellpads would go in the park itself; Range would
use neighboring wellpads to drill horizontally beneath the park. Before the
lease can be executed, the deal must pass Allegheny County Council.
The 1,180-acre
park is named for its spring-fed lakes, and the county's website touts it as
"a paradise for fishermen."
Activists
denounced the deal as misguided and environmentally risky, especially the
threats of air and water pollution. And some predict that the Act 13 ruling —
and Article 1, Section 27 itself — will help activists derail the proposal.
Mel Packer, of
anti-drilling coalition Protect Our Parks, says that in case the lease goes
through, "We're talking to lawyers."
The parks are a public trust, and
"the government is limited by the constitution in what it does with trust
resources," says Jordan Yeager, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs
who won the Act 13 fight. "When you are engaged in [fracking], you are ...
injecting toxic chemicals into those public resources," says Yeager, of
Doylestown, Pa.-based firm Curtin & Heefner.
John Smith, another plaintiff's attorney in
the case, says that until now, government decisions about drilling have
considered only revenue.
"There was never a question
about the health and safety," said Smith at a March 12 panel discussion.
Under the Act 13 ruling, however, governments must consider, "Do my
actions further constitutional objectives?" says Smith, of Smith &
Butz, based in Washington County.
Dernbach, who teaches at Widener
University, says it's unclear whether a lease that disallows well pads on a
parkland proper would violate Article I, Section 27.
Still, "it would be prudent for the
county to investigate those questions" before approving this lease, says
Dernbach, whose scholarship Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille cited seven times
in his Act 13 ruling.
Fitzgerald touts
lease provisions for testing groundwater near wells accessing Deer Lakes. But
critics call such provisions insufficient. "All he's saying is, ‘If
there's a problem, we are more likely to catch it, maybe,'" says Adam Garber, of Penn Environment. "If
he was about keeping the park safe, we would do everything to minimize drilling
near the parks."
Another issue is
the county's plans for spending gas revenue. Under public-trust criteria, all
such revenue must help conserve or improve trust lands themselves, says George
Jugovic, chief counsel for environmental group PennFuture. But despite
Fitzgerald's argument that drilling revenue is the best way to refurbish the
park system's battered infrastructure, the county executive proposes feeding
the vast majority of the money into the general operating budget.
"There's a
real concern that this violates the constitution," says Jugovic. "Our
concern is more based on principle and this trend of shifting funding of
government operations on the backs of things that were intended to be conserved
for future generations."
"I think [Fitzgerald's spending plan]
would leave the county vulnerable" to a lawsuit, agrees Dernbach.
In 2012, the
Pennsylvania Environmental Defense Fund sued the Commonwealth over gas revenue
from state forestland, claiming that the state fattened the general operating
budget with $600 million that should have aided conservation efforts instead. A
decision from Commonwealth Court is expected shortly, says PEDF attorney John
Childe.
Allegheny County
officials sound unconcerned about the possibility of legal action over Deer
Lakes. Of the six justices who weighed in on the case, only two others backed
Castille's reliance on the Environmental Rights Amendment. That may weaken its
power to set a legal precedent.
Other Pennsylvania
municipalities have leased parkland for drilling. Washington County's Cross
Creek Park, for instance, already hosts wellpads. But Allegheny County would be
the largest local government to do so, and activists especially distrust Fitzgerald. During his campaign for county
executive, county records show, he accepted lots of gas-industry money,
including nearly $20,000 from political-action committees or executives
associated with Range and Huntley & Huntley alone. Huntley executives
contributed another $10,000 to Fitzgerald in 2013.
Neither has some
of Fitzgerald's rhetoric inspired confidence among environmentalists. At county
council's March 18 meeting, he told councilors, "We're lucky to partner with a good company like Range."
At a March 12 panel discussion on fracking, before a vocally anti-drilling
audience, he said that "hopefully" state regulators will police the
wells properly. "Hopefully," he added, "we learn from some of
the past mistakes with our air quality, our water quality."
"‘Hopefully'?" piped up someone in the crowd.
http://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/public-trusts-proposed-fracking-under-deer-lakes-park-could-run-afoul-of-state-constitution/Content?oid=1739291
Fitzgerald
Accused of Snooping
“Some Allegheny
County Council members said on Monday they want to begin a deeper investigation
into whether county Executive Rich Fitzgerald's office snooped on their
internal email system, a charge Fitzgerald's spokeswoman denied and said is
“politically motivated.”
Others on council said the inquiry into a possible security breach has
gone far enough.
Councilwomen Heather Heidelbaugh, R-Mt. Lebanon, and Barbara Daly Danko,
D-Regent Square, said they want to pursue hiring a third-party firm or
consultant who could investigate.
Councilman Bill
Robinson, D-Hill District, who first raised concerns about security breaches,
said he isn't satisfied with investigations Allegheny County police and the
county's Department of Computer Services conducted. He wants to review reports
from the investigations.
Concerns over
potential snooping by Fitzgerald's office prompted council to seek an
independent server separate from the one it shares with the county
administration.”
74/council-fitzgerald-county#ixzz2x3VtGEHv
11. Examples of Exempt and Nonexempt Oil and Gas Wastes
EPA Resource
Conservation Recovery Act, Table 4-3
Exempt
wastes
Produced
waters, Drilling fluids, Drill cuttings, Rigwash
Well completion fluids, Workover wastes
Gas plant dehydration wastes, Gas plant sweetening
wastes, Spent filters and backwash Packing fluids
Produced sand
Production tank bottoms, Gathering line pigging
wastes, Hydrocarbon-bearing soil, Waste crude oil from primary field sites
Nonexempt
wastes
Unused fracturing fluids/acids Painting wastes
Service company wastes, Refinery wastes
Used equipment lubrication oil, Used hydraulic oil
Waste solvents
Waste compressor oil, Sanitary wastes
Boiler cleaning wastes, Incinerator ash
Laboratory wastes, Transportation pipeline wastes,
Pesticide wastes
Drums, insulation, and miscellaneous solids
12. Home Loan Denied Due to Water Contamination
(The following email was sent to Bob Donnan. The bank’s letter of
denial was included. Jan)
Feb 27 – FROM CLEARVILLE, PA
“You won't believe
what is happening to us!! For 32 yrs. we have lived here and we went for a loan
at our bank and first we got a call everything was great. Almost a perfect
credit score, so we needed to sign the papers to go forward. We did that and
put down payments on what we were going to buy. Then a few days later we are told that we can't borrow any money
because our well was condemned. Which we don't even have the well hooked up to
our house, we use our spring that HAS been tested numerous times and it has
bacteria so we installed a UV light. We were told our property is not worth
anything until we cement the well shut.
We
never had these problems until this gas company came through and started
destroying everyone's property. I watch commercials and see people praising
these gas companies, but it's all lies. I am very upset and I will voice my
opinion [with written proof] about this situation. People need to know the
truth about the air pollution and water contamination.
Please let
everyone you know about this. I am so upset about this whole situation. I have
so much more to tell, but it is getting late. We will talk again.”
13. Number of Firearms Licenses Issued Doubles
“The number of firearms licenses issued by the sheriffs’
offices in Washington and Greene counties has doubled over a two-year period
and a handful of potential gun purchasers cited personal safety as the reason
why they carry concealed weapons. The number of applications to carry concealed
weapons jumped considerably from 2011 to 2013.
FIREARMS LICENSES
Greene County
2011 – 504
2013 – 1,214
Washington County
2011 – 3,676
2013 – 7,010
Those age 21 and over purchasing the $20 licenses, which
are good for five years, as well as those who are renewing existing licenses,
must appear at the sheriff’s license in person, pay cash and provide two
character references.”
14. Hundreds Of Gas Wells In PA Have Been Reported For Air And Water
Violations
“Hundreds of fracking wells in Pennsylvania have been
reported for failures that could lead to air and water pollution, according to
a new report.
The report, which focused on
fracking wells in the U.K. and Pennsylvania, looked at multiple datasets of
wells in Pennsylvania to determine their rate of well failures. Researchers
found that one-third of a dataset of 3,533 wells in the state had been
reported for environmental violation notices between 2008 and 2011. These
violations included surface water contamination, land spills, site restoration
problems and well barrier failures, including four violations for well
blowouts.
Another dataset of 8,030 wells
contained 506 reports for well barrier failures between 2005 and 2013.”
15. Water Pollution from Drilling Confirmed in 4 States
Industry’s Assertions of No Contamination Disproved
“In at least four states, hundreds of
complaints have been made about well-water contamination from oil or gas
drilling, and pollution was confirmed in a number of them, according to a
review that casts doubt on industry suggestions that such problems rarely
happen.
The Associated
Press in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Texas and found major
differences in how the states report such problems. Texas provided the most
detail, while the other states provided only general outlines.
The AP found that
Pennsylvania received 398 complaints in 2013 alleging that oil or natural gas
drilling polluted or otherwise affected private water wells, compared with 499
in 2012. The Pennsylvania complaints can include allegations of short-term
diminished water flow, as well as pollution from stray gas or other substances.
The McMickens of
Penn were one of three families that eventually reached a $1.6 million
settlement with a drilling company. Heather McMicken said the state should be
forthcoming with details.
Complaints about water contamination can come
from conventional oil and gas wells, too. Experts say the most common type of
pollution involves methane, not chemicals from the drilling process.
There's been considerable confusion over how widespread
such problems are. For example, starting
in 2011, the DEP aggressively fought efforts by the AP and other news
organizations to obtain information about complaints related to drilling. The department has argued in court filings
that it does not count how many contamination "determination letters"
it issues or track where they are kept in its files.
Among the findings in the AP's review:
— Pennsylvania has confirmed at
least 106 water-well contamination cases since 2005, out of more than 5,000 new
wells. There were five confirmed cases of water-well contamination in the
first nine months of 2012, 18 in all of 2011 and 29 in 2010. The Environmental
Department said more complete data may be available in several months.
In
Pennsylvania, the number of confirmed instances of water pollution in the
eastern part of the state "dropped quite substantially" in 2013, compared
with previous years, DEP spokeswoman Lisa Kasianowitz wrote.
In
Pennsylvania, the raw number of complaints "doesn't tell you
anything," said Rob Jackson, a Duke University scientist who has studied drilling
and water contamination issues. Jackson said he doesn't think providing more
details is asking for too much.
"Right or wrong, many people in the
public feel like DEP is stonewalling some of these investigations,"
Jackson said of the situation in Pennsylvania.
In
contrast with the limited information provided by Pennsylvania, Texas officials
supplied a detailed 94-page spreadsheet almost immediately, listing all types
of oil and gas related complaints over much of the past two years. The Texas
data include the date of the complaint, the landowner, the drilling company and
a brief summary of the alleged problems. Many complaints involve other issues,
such as odors or abandoned equipment.
"If the industry has nothing to hide, then
they should be willing to let the facts speaks for themselves," he said.
"The same goes for regulatory agencies."
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/01/05/some-states-confirm-water-pollution-from-drilling/4328859/
16. WVU Scientist Monitoring Air At Wells
“Ensuring that thousands of Marcellus shale drilling sites
comply with environmental regulations is a gargantuan task that one West Virginia
University researcher is working to make as simple as checking a
computer monitor from the office. In West Virginia alone, more than 1,400 Marcellus
shale natural gas wells drilling permits have been issued for another 1,200 and
the count keeps climbing. Often, the terrain makes the sites difficult to work
in, and the lack of nearby power and phone lines makes them impossible to
monitor using traditional systems.
McCawley, interim chair of the Department of Environmental
Health in WVU’s developing School of Public Health,
has placed three wireless monitoring modules – one upwind, one downwind, and
one crosswind – at a test site in Washington County, PA,
where a Marcellus well is about to be drilled. He is interested in measuring
dust and volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, as well as light and sound coming
from the site.
For
the past year, he has been testing the wireless system and gathering background data before any drilling
activity begins.
Each
module includes a radio transceiver, a 12-volt, battery-powered monitoring
device and a battery sheltered in a bright orange case. A 2-foot-by-5-foot
solar panel keeps the battery fully charged even on cloudy days.
A base
station module which houses a small, notebook-sized computer with cell phone
modem receives the data from the monitoring modules.
Each case is small enough to be hauled on an all-terrain
vehicle and handled by an individual worker.
“Set
it and forget it. Let it do its job,” said McCawley.
Untethered from phone and power lines, the
monitors easily can be placed between the source of possible emissions and the
“receptor” – a school, hospital or community – that may be in the path of
any potential pollution.
The
wireless system wings data from the test site to a website server that McCawley
accesses with a few keystrokes at his desktop computer in his office in
Morgantown.
“The radio transceivers can send
data up to 15 miles away, as the crow flies. They work by line of site,”
McCawley explained.
No
cell phone access? “Simply daisy chain the radio transceivers in the base
stations along ridges until you get somewhere that has a cell phone signal,”
said McCawley who has deployed a similar system at Coopers Rock State Forest
nine miles east of Morgantown.
“Now
you can monitor where it makes the most sense technically. Also, because the
system is so portable, it can be rapidly deployed even in emergencies,” he
said.
“The system is designed to be cheap, portable,
off-the-shelf, and easy to use in a wide variety of situations. Plug and play,”
he said.
McCawley
expects each module to cost around
$1,200 while the monitors in them could range, “from a couple hundred dollars
to five or six thousand depending on the bells and whistles you want to add. In
terms of cost and range, our system is more advanced than anything else. One
manufacturer wanted $1,000 per radio transceiver that had only a little more
than half a mile range.”
“Energy can be developed in an environmentally
sound manner and that involves quality control. Quality control requires
monitoring. We need to give industry the right tools to control this thing.
“Companies could see a lot of benefits from the system. They could monitor their sites 24-7 to detect
problems early when they are easier to handle. And they could promote good
community relations by making the data publicly available on their own
websites. In fact, Chevron has shown some interest in the technology,” said
McCawley.”
17. Laura Legers Now
with Post Gazette
From Bob Donnan
“
Laura Legers, formerly of the times-tribune.com is now with the Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette. I understand she will be
working at the P-G two days a week, covering energy regulatory issues and
things that arise in eastern Pennsylvania, mostly in Scranton and
Harrisburg. Laura is a great
investigative reporter and I credit her with the Right to Know request that
revealed 161 cases of contaminated Pa. water wells from fracking, buried in the
PA DEP files. Hopefully the P-G uses her investigative skills. Good luck to
Laura in her new assignment!”
From John
Trallo:
18. Vera Scroggins This story is getting picked up all over
So far: 7 states, 3 countries, US National News Media, 2 wire services
International: France (Le Monde), Russia (RT)
Wire Services: Reuters, AP,
National: Huffington Post, Yahoo News (front page!), Bloomberg
Business Week, Washington Post
*Why is this so important? If Cabot gets away with this bogus 'slap
suit' against Vera Scroggins, it will set a dangerous precedent and the oil and
gas industry will take steps to silence anyone who dares to tell the truth
about their activities. We cannot allow that to happen. Vera deserves our full
public support. I was proud to stand with her and the crowd of other socially,
environmentally, and morally responsible citizens at the Montrose Court house
today, and intend to be there with her when the judge announces his decision.
We all need to stand in support of each other if we are to win this battle for
our children, and our children's children and stop this industry from advancing.
I refuse to accept, or believe this is a lost cause. - JT
From Bob Donnan:
BIG TEXAS OIL vs
PA. CITIZEN
“Scot Michelman of Public Citizen said the real intent of the
injunction is to intimidate demonstrators. "It tells them you will pay for
what is going on at these sites. You will pay for speaking out against the big
oil and gas companies."
From
Huffington Post:
HARRISBURG, Pa., March 24 (Reuters) - An anti-fracking activist is set
to ask a Pennsylvania judge on Monday to lift an injunction that bars her from
her local hospital, grocery and other properties that sit atop vast lands
leased by a Texas-based company for shale gas extraction.
A five-month-old injunction prohibits Vera
Scroggins, 63, of Brackney, Pennsylvania, from setting foot onto 40 percent of
Susquehanna County that is leased by Cabot Oil and Gas.
At Monday's
hearing in Susquehanna County Court of Common Pleas in Montrose, Pennsylvania,
Scroggins and her lawyers from the
Pennsylvania ACLU and Public Citizen in Washington, D.C., will argue that the
injunction was legally flawed, unconstitutional, and set a dangerous precedent
by making much of the region where she lives off limits.
Judge Kenneth
Seamans, who issued the injunction in October at the request of Cabot, will
rule on the request.
"In the company's view, the right to extract
gas also includes the right to control the movements of an individual protesting
the company's activities," Scroggins said in court documents. "In
short, the right to extract gas is, according to the company, also the right to
banish."
Scroggins is known
for recording anti-fracking video footage, some of which was used in "Gasland,"
an Oscar-nominated documentary by Josh Fox.
According to
Cabot, Scroggins engaged in at least 11 incidents of trespassing to make her
anti-fracking videos or lead tours, one of which included the participation of
celebrities Susan Sarandon, Yoko Ono, and Sean Lennon.
Donations
We are very appreciative of donations
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:
In the Reminder
line please write- Westmoreland Marcellus Citizens’ Group (no
abbreviations). You can send checks to
Jan Milburn, 114 Mountain Road, Ligonier, PA 15658 or you can give your check
to Jan or Lou Pochet, our treasurer. Cash can also be accepted.
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.
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
Science
Advisor-Dr. Cynthia Walter
To receive our news updates, please email jan at westmcg@gmail.com
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the subject line
