10/20/2011: EPA Announces Schedule to Develop Natural Gas Wastewater Standards/Announcement is part of administration’s priority to ensure natural gas development continues safely and responsibly
October 23, 2011
10/12/2011: Oil Company Pleads Guilty to Clean Air Act and Obstruction Crimes in Louisiana
October 13, 2011
10/12/2011: Oil Company Pleads Guilty to Clean Air Act and Obstruction Crimes in Louisiana.
HARRISBURG — Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Mike Krancer announced today that DEP has submitted technical guidance for single source determinations for oil and gas operations, also known as “air aggregation” determinations, to the Pennsylvania Bulletin for public comment. The public comment period will close Nov. 21.
This guidance deals with the process of determining whether two or more stationary air emissions sources should be aggregated together and treated as a “single source” when it comes to air permitting programs.
“Natural gas holds great promise as a clean-burning fuel that could greatly reduce air emissions associated with electricity production and transportation,” Krancer said. “It has been recognized that the use of natural gas can have very beneficial impacts on air quality.”
This guidance, which is subject to public review and comment, involves three sets of regulations: the federal Prevention of Significant Deterioration regulations, which the state incorporates and implements in their entirety; the Pennsylvania nonattainment New Source Review regulations; and the Title V permitting program.
“This takes a practical, common-sense and legally required approach to air aggregation issues,” Krancer said. “DEP’s state Air Quality program already regulates this industry.”
New sources, including some natural gas processing operations, are required by state law to meet stringent air emissions control requirements, which prevent, reduce or control emissions with the use of the best available control techniques or equipment, Krancer said.
Krancer said that the program also regulates air emissions in the oil and gas industry via plan approvals along with both general and operating permits.
The test for determining whether or not to aggregate comes out of federal case law from 1979 and the federal regulations stemming from that case, along with the commonwealth’s regulations, which mirror the federal regulations.
The law states that to be aggregated, the different sources must belong to the same industrial grouping, must be located on one or more contiguous or adjacent properties and must be under the control of the same person. All three of these conditions must be met if the sources are going to be aggregated.
“Over time, there was a tendency by some regulators to morph the meaning of ‘contiguous’ or ‘adjacent’ properties to mean only that operations on the properties be ‘interdependent,’” Krancer said. “This view has been expressed in various federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommendation letters or policy statements in recent years after the court case on this topic in 1979 and after the EPA’s adoption of the regulations on this topic in 1980. That interpretation is not supported by the court decision, the EPA or state regulations.”
DEP’s technical guidance relies on the plain meaning of the words in the regulations and the plain meaning of the words “contiguous or adjacent,” which mean the distance or spatial relationship between locations.
A similar approach was recently affirmed by the West Virginia Air Quality Board whose analysis focused on the proximity of the properties. In addition, other natural gas-producing states, including Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, use a quarter-mile rule of thumb, meaning that sources located a quarter mile apart are considered contiguous or adjacent.
“Every case remains, as it always has, unique, with its own facts and circumstances,” Krancer said. “The single source determination test will continue to be applied on a case-by-case basis, depending on the facts of each particular case.”
DEP’s Air Quality permitting staff will begin implementing the technical guidance in permitting decisions on an interim basis immediately, while public comments are being received and considered.
For more information and to view the technical guidance in its entirety, visit www.dep.state.pa.us.
Media contact: Katy Gresh, 717-787-1323
Perfectly safe? Apparently not – Times Union
August 5, 2011
Perfectly safe? Apparently not – Times Union. Aug. 5, 2011
100+ Groups from 23 States File Petition for Drilling and Fracking Chemical Testing, Info
August 4, 2011
Click to access fracking_petition.pdf
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 4, 2011
CONTACT:
Kathleen Sutcliffe, Earthjustice, (202) 667-4500, ext.235
Richard Denison, Environmental Defense Fund, (202) 387-3500
Roberta Winters, League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania (610) 527-3706
John Fenton, Pavilion Area Concerned Citizens, (307) 856-7098
100+ Groups from 23 States File Petition for Drilling and Fracking Chemical Testing, Info
Concerned about health impacts of drilling boom, groups press for answers from Halliburton and others
WASHINGTON, DC – A large coalition of public health, environmental, and good government groups filed a petition (PDF) today demanding that full health and safety information be made available for all of the chemicals used in oil and gas development, including the controversial process known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” Fracking is when oil and gas companies blast millions of gallons of water treated with chemicals into the ground to force oil and gas from hard-to-reach places deep inside the earth. Along with a fracking-fueled gas rush have come troubling reports of poisoned drinking water, polluted air, mysterious animal deaths, and sick families.
“The more information we have about the chemicals used in fracking and drilling, the easier it will be to keep people safe and healthy,” said Earthjustice Associate Attorney Megan Klein. “But EPA needs to move quickly – we learn of new problems related to this industry almost daily.”
Earthjustice filed the petition on behalf of Environmental Defense Fund, The League of Women Voters and more than 100 other groups from across America including those with national membership and others with membership from among 23 states (list). The petition asks the EPA to draft rules that — for the first time — would require manufacturers and processors of drilling and fracking chemicals to conduct testing and produce health and safety data needed to evaluate the health and environmental risks of their substances and mixtures.
“The complications linked to the chemicals used in oil and gas development are emblematic of a larger problem in this country — in which we allow dangerous or untested chemicals to be used in everyday consumer products and, in this case, mixed with water and pumped underground,” said Richard Denison, Senior Scientist with Environmental Defense Fund. “Ultimately, the goal of this petition is to encourage companies to do the right thing. If health impacts associated with their products are widely known, it will serve as a powerful incentive for companies to act more responsibly.”
Little is known about many of the chemicals used in drilling and fracking. What information is available is sobering: 78 percent of known fracking chemicals are associated with serious short-term health effects such as burning eyes, rashes, asthma-like effects, nausea, vomiting, headaches, dizziness, tremors, and convulsions. Between 22 and 47 percent of those chemicals also are associated with longer-term health effects, including cancer, organ damage, and harm to the endocrine system.
“People are understandably concerned about the potential health impacts posed by fracking. Here in Pennsylvania and across the region, as the pace of drilling has skyrocketed, so too have reports of illness and pollution,” said Roberta Winters of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania. “The League of Women Voters is deeply concerned about this national issue that threatens the environment and public health. The state Leagues of New York and Pennsylvania are working hard to educate the public about the environmental, public health, and economic impacts associated with fracking. As we continue to advocate for public participation and transparency, we encourage citizens to make their voices heard to regain necessary environmental protections. Our nation’s leaders are on notice that our organization, and more than a hundred others nationwide are pressing for swift action on this petition.”
The petition also asks the EPA to require Halliburton and 8 other fracking chemical companies to provide any documentation these companies have of environmental or health problems associated with the chemicals they manufacture, process, or distribute.
“Here in Pavilion, we’re surrounded by fracked gas wells. The EPA told us over a year ago not to use our well water anymore for drinking or cooking,” said John Fenton of Pavilion (WY) Area Concerned Citizens. “The way the rules work right now, it’s easy for companies to sidestep responsibility. I don’t think we should stand for it any longer, which is why I’ve signed onto this petition.”
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RESOURCES
- The petition filed today can be found at: http://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/fracking_petition.pdf
- A list of groups, organized by state, that signed onto today’s petition can be found at: http://earthjustice.org/documents/reference/xls/fracking-petition-groups
- Study guides on Natural Gas Extraction from Marcellus shale, Pipelines, and Pooling, are available on the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania website: http://palwv.org/issues/MarcellusShale/index.html
__________________________________
Kathleen Sutcliffe
Campaign Manager
Earthjustice
1625 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Suite 702
Washington, DC 20036
T: 202-667-4500, ext 235
F: 202-667-2356
www.earthjustice.org
Kathleen Sutcliffe
Campaign Manager
Earthjustice
1625 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Suite 702
Washington, DC 20036
T: 202-667-4500, ext 235
F: 202-667-2356
www.earthjustice.org
Because the earth needs a good lawyer
EPA Report: Fracking Contaminated Drinking Water | Environmental Working Group
August 4, 2011
EPA Report: Fracking Contaminated Drinking Water | Environmental Working Group.
EPA Report: Fracking Contaminated Drinking Water
Washington, D.C. – Contrary to the drilling industry claim that hydraulic fracturing has never contaminated groundwater, the Environmental Protection Agency concluded in a 1987 study that “fracking” of a natural gas well in West Virginia contaminated an underground drinking water source. That all-but-forgotten report to Congress, uncovered by Environmental Working Group and Earthjustice, found that fracturing gel from a shale gas well more than 4,000 feet deep had contaminated well water.
EPA investigators concluded that the contamination was “illustrative” of a broader problem of pollution associated with hydraulic fracturing but said the agency’s investigation was hampered by confidentiality agreements between industry and affected landowners. Environmental Working Group’s year-long investigation of the incident found that several abandoned natural gas wells located near the fractured well in West Virginia could have served as conduits that allowed the gel, a common ingredient in fracking fluid, to migrate into the water well.
“When you add up the gel in the water, the presence of abandoned wells and the documented ability of drilling fluids to migrate through these wells into underground water supplies, there is a lot of evidence that EPA got it right and that this was indeed a case of hydraulic fracturing contamination of groundwater,” said Dusty Horwitt, EWG’s senior oil and gas analyst and author of “Cracks in the Façade,” EWG’s report about EPA’s finding. “Now it’s up to EPA to pick up where it left off 25 years ago and determine the true risks of fracking so that our drinking water can be protected.”
Since the 1987 report, the industry has hydraulically fractured hundreds of thousands of wells and is continuing a historic push into natural gas-bearing shale formations, once considered inaccessible, that lie beneath populated areas in a number of states, including West Virginia, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Louisiana and Arkansas.
To access these formations, drillers often use a relatively new combination of horizontal drilling and higher-volume fracturing. As drilling activity has intensified, reports of pollution have sparked a growing national debate over the actual or potential environmental risks, including contamination of groundwater, the source of drinking water for more than 100 million Americans, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Congress exempted hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act in 2005 following an EPA study of hydraulic fracturing the previous year which found little risk to water supplies when fracturing is conducted in coal bed methane deposits. Neither Congress nor the EPA mentioned the agency’s 1987 finding. EPA is currently conducting a new study of fracking’s impact on water supplies.
“During the fracturing process,” EPA investigators wrote in the 1987 report, which focused on the handling of natural gas, oil and geothermal wastes generally, “fractures can be produced, allowing migration of native brine, fracturing fluid and hydrocarbons from the oil or gas well to a nearby water well. When this happens, the water well can be permanently damaged and a new well must be drilled or an alternative source of drinking water found.”
Environmental Working Group found that the evidence in the West Virginia case was consistent with pollution from hydraulic fracturing, though it is possible that another stage of the drilling process caused the problem.
In the EPA’s files in Washington, EWG also discovered a document submitted in 1987 by the American Petroleum Institute, the natural gas and oil industry’s major trade association, that appeared to agree with the EPA finding but suggested that it was not typical. “One case,” the API wrote, referring to the West Virginia contamination case, “resulted in a workover operation fracturing into groundwater as a result of equipment failure or accident. As described in the detail write-up, this is not a normal result of fracturing as it ruins the productive capability of the wells.”
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EWG is a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, DC that uses the power of information to protect human health and the environment. http://www.ewg.org
Follow EWG’s natural resources work on Twitter @EWGfracking
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