U.S. takes action to protect public health in TX Jan 18, 2011

January 20, 2011

Environmental Protection Agency Region 6 South Central – Top Stories.

U.S. takes action to protect public health and enforce EPA imminent and substantial endangerments order in southern Parker County

The United States Department of Justice filed a complaint today against Range Production Company and Range Resources Corporation (“Range”) in federal district court, seeking enforcement of a Dec. 7, 2010, emergency order issued by the Environmental Protection Agency against the companies. In the order, the EPA determined that Range had caused or contributed to the contamination of a drinking water aquifer in Parker County, Texas. The complaint asks the Dallas court to direct the companies to comply with portions of the order and to pay a civil penalty of up to $16,500 per day of violation.

EPA issued the order following an investigation into complaints from residents about methane contamination in their private drinking water wells. According to allegations in the complaint filed today, testing confirmed the presence of methane gas and the presence of other contaminants, including benzene, a known human carcinogen, in the well water

Residents noticed problems with their private drinking water wells soon after Range completed drilling and well stimulation operations on two natural gas wells located near the residents’ drinking water wells. During the course of conducting its investigation and while consulting with various state authorities, EPA determined that the risk of explosion warranted the issuance of an emergency order.

While Range offered to provide two affected residences alternative drinking water and installed explosivity meters in their homes after issuance of the emergency order, it has failed to comply with other requirements to conduct surveys of private and public water wells in the vicinity, to submit plans for field testing, and to submit plans to study how the methane and other contaminants may have migrated from the production wells, in addition to plans to remediate affected portions of the aquifer.

Complaint against Range Production Company (10 pp, 27 KB, About PDF)
Exhibit A to the complaint (12 pp, 2.87 MB, About PDF)

Filed under EPA, Official Actions--Legislation, judgments,regulation, Water Tagged with , , , , , , ,

EPA Gas-drilling/peer-review-panel-for-fracking-study-includes-six-pa-scientists Jan. 18, 2011

January 18, 2011

List of EPA Peer Review Panel http://yosemite.epa.gov/sab/sabpeople.nsf/WebCommitteesSubcommittees/Hydraulic%20Fracturing%20Study%20Plan%20Review%20Panel

Gas-drilling/peer-review-panel-for-epa-fracking-study-includes-six-pa-scientists-1.1091757.  Times Tribune

Peer-review panel for EPA fracking study includes six Pa. scientists
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: January 18, 2011
A panel of geologists, toxicologists, engineers and doctors that will peer-review a high-profile Environmental Protection Agency study of hydraulic fracturing will include six scientists from Pennsylvania, more than any other state.

The panel will review the techniques and analysis the EPA uses to draft a study of the potential environmental and health impacts of hydraulic fracturing – the process used in natural gas exploration of injecting a high-pressure mix of chemically treated water and sand underground to break apart a rock formation and release the gas.

The panel might also be called on to review the conclusions of the study, which are slated for release in 2012.

The board, called the Hydraulic Fracturing Study Plan Review Panel, was narrowed to 23 members from a list of 88 nominated candidates, some of whom were criticized in public comments submitted by industry or environmental groups for being biased.

All but four members selected for the panel are affiliated with research universities and none is currently employed by an oil or gas company.

Five of seven members of a previous peer-review panel involved in a 2004 EPA study of hydraulic fracturing in coal-bed methane wells were current or former employees of the oil and gas industry. That study’s findings, that hydraulic fracturing poses “little or no threat” to drinking water aquifers, has been touted by the industry but challenged by an EPA whistle-blower.

In a memo announcing the new panel, the EPA found “no conflicts of interest or appearances of a lack of impartiality for the members of this panel.”

It will be led by David A. Dzombak, professor of environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, and include Michel Boufadel of Temple University; Elizabeth Boyer of Penn State University; Richard Hammack, a Pittsburgh-based roject manager for the U.S. Department of Energy; Jeanne VanBriesen of Carnegie Mellon and Radisav D. Vidic of the University of Pittsburgh.

Contact the writer: llegere@timesshamrock.com

Read more: http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/gas-drilling/peer-review-panel-for-epa-fracking-study-includes-six-pa-scientists-1.1091757#ixzz1BPnY6jzD

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Montco firm was ordered to stop accepting Marcellus wastewater – Philly.com

January 17, 2011

Montco firm was ordered to stop accepting Marcellus wastewater – Philly.com.

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New Nonprofit Offering Help With Tests That May Link Contaminated Water to Hydraulic Fracking | Shauna Stephenson | Energy | NewWest.Net

January 7, 2011

New Nonprofit Offering Help With Tests That May Link Contaminated Water to Hydraulic Fracking | Shauna Stephenson | Energy | NewWest.Net.

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Pennsylvania allows dumping of tainted waters from hydrofracking into drinking water streams | syracuse.com

January 4, 2011

Pennsylvania allows dumping of tainted waters from hydrofracking into drinking water streams | syracuse.com. Jan. 4, 2011

Pennsylvania alone allows waterways to serve as primary disposal sites for fracking waste
1/4/2011
Observer-Reporter

By David B. Caruso
The Associated Press
Monday, January 3, 2011

The natural gas boom gripping parts of the U.S. has a nasty byproduct: wastewater so salty, and so polluted with metals like barium and strontium, most states require drillers to get rid of the stuff by injecting it down shafts thousands of feet deep.
Not in Pennsylvania, one of the states at the center of the gas rush.

There, the liquid that gushes from gas wells is only partially treated for substances that could be environmentally harmful, then dumped into rivers and streams from which communities get their drinking water.

In the two years since the frenzy of activity began in the vast underground rock formation known as the Marcellus Shale, Pennsylvania has been the only state allowing waterways to serve as the primary disposal place for the huge amounts of wastewater produced by a drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

State regulators, initially caught flat-footed, tightened the rules this year for any new water treatment plants, but allowed any existing operations to continue discharging water into rivers.

At least 3.6 million barrels of the waste were sent to treatment plants that empty into rivers during the 12 months ending June 30, according to state records. That is enough to cover a square mile with more than 81/2 inches of brine.

Researchers are still trying to figure out whether Pennsylvania’s river discharges, at their current levels, are dangerous to humans or wildlife. Several studies are under way, some under the auspices of the Environmental Protection Agency.

State officials, energy companies and the operators of treatment plants insist that with the right safeguards in place, the practice poses little or no risk to the environment or to the hundreds of thousands of people, especially in Western Pennsylvania, who rely on those rivers for drinking water.

But an Associated Press review found that Pennsylvania’s efforts to minimize, control and track wastewater discharges have sometimes failed.

For example:

• Of the roughly 6 million barrels of well liquids produced in a 12-month period examined by The AP, the state couldn’t account for the disposal method for 1.28 million barrels, about a fifth of the total, due to a weakness in its reporting system and incomplete filings by some energy companies.

• Some public water utilities that sit downstream from big gas wastewater treatment plants have struggled to stay under the federal maximum for contaminants known as trihalomethanes, which can cause cancer if swallowed over a long period.

• Regulations that should have kept drilling wastewater out of the important Delaware River Basin, the water supply for 15 million people in four states, were circumvented for many months.

In 2009 and part of 2010, energy company Cabot Oil & Gas trucked more than 44,000 barrels of well wastewater to a treatment facility in Hatfield Township, a Philadelphia suburb. Those liquids were then discharged through the town sewage plant into the Neshaminy Creek, which winds through Bucks and Montgomery counties on its way to the Delaware River.

Regulators put a stop to the practice in June, but the more than 300,000 residents of the 17 municipalities that get water from the creek or use it for recreation were never informed that numerous public pronouncements that the watershed was free of gas waste had been wrong.

“This is an outrage,” said Tracy Carluccio, deputy director of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, an environmental group. “This is indicative of the lack of adequate oversight.”

The situation in Pennsylvania is also being watched carefully by regulators in other states, some of which have begun allowing some river discharges. New York also sits over the Marcellus Shale, but Gov. David Paterson has slapped a moratorium on high-volume fracking while environmental regulations are drafted. Read more of this post

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Pa. allows dumping of tainted waters from gas boom – Yahoo! News

January 3, 2011

Pa. allows dumping of tainted waters from gas boom – Yahoo! News.

Filed under Water

January 3, 2011

Filed under events, Water

December 29, 2010

Filed under Water

Incidents where hydraulic fracturing is a suspected cause of drinking water contamination | Amy Mall’s Blog | Switchboard, from NRDC

December 29, 2010

Incidents where hydraulic fracturing is a suspected cause of drinking water contamination | Amy Mall’s Blog | Switchboard, from NRDC.

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SURVEY: DRINKING WATER POLLUTION CONCERNS FUELING AWARENESS AMONG AMERICANS OF ‘FRACKING’ USED TO EXTRACT NATURAL GAS

December 25, 2010

SURVEY: DRINKING WATER POLLUTION CONCERNS FUELING AWARENESS AMONG AMERICANS OF ‘FRACKING’ USED TO EXTRACT NATURAL GAS.

SURVEY: DRINKING WATER POLLUTION CONCERNS FUELING AWARENESS AMONG AMERICANS OF “FRACKING” USED TO EXTRACT NATURAL GAS

Americans Unwilling to Trade Clean Drinking Water For Dirty Energy Production; Strong Support Across Party Lines Seen For Putting Emphasis on Energy Production With Minimum of Pollution.

WASHINGTON, D.C.///December 21, 2010///Do Americans think natural gas is as “clean” as it is touted as being by the energy industry? Nearly half of Americans (45 percent) are already very or somewhat aware of the controversy about hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) drilling used to tap cheap natural gas supplies in the U.S., according to a new Infogroup/Opinion Research Corporation (Infogroup/ORC) survey conducted for the nonprofit Civil Society Institute (CSI). Among Americans who already are aware of “fracking,” more than two out of three (69 percent) are concerned about the drilling technique’s possible threat to clean drinking water.

The U.S. fracking survey conducted by CSI – the first national poll to gauge the attitudes of Americans on the subject – was released today along with two separate survey reports for more than 800 New York State/New York City residents and over 400 Pennsylvanians. The national and two state-specific reports are available at http://www.CivilSocietyInstitute.org.

Key findings of the national survey include the following findings:

• More than three out of four Americans (78 percent) would “strongly” (49 percent) or “somewhat” (29 percent) support “tighter public disclosure requirements as well as studies of the health and environmental consequences of the chemicals used in natural gas drilling.” Fewer than one in five (16 percent) would oppose requiring such additional disclosure. More disclosure is supported across party lines by Republicans (74 percent), Independents (72 percent), and Democrats (85 percent).
• Over half of Americans (56 percent) who are very/somewhat aware of fracking think state and federal officials are either “not doing as much as they should” (42 percent) or “not doing anything at all” (14 percent) to “require proper disclosure of the chemicals used in natural gas drilling.”
• Nearly three out of five (72 percent) Americans say that they would tell their Member of Congress, governor or state lawmaker the following: “When it comes to energy production that requires large amounts of water or where water quality is in jeopardy as a result of the energy production, my vote would be for coming down on the side of the public’s health and the environment. We should favor cleaner energy sources that use the least water and involve the lowest possible risk to the public and environment.” Only about one in five (21 percent) would say the following: “When it comes to energy production that requires large amounts of water or where water quality is in jeopardy as a result of the energy production, my view is that energy production priorities have to come first. There is always going to be some risk involved when it comes to energy production. We have to accept that there are going to be tradeoffs when it comes to the public’s health and the environment.” Clean water is favored over energy production by Republicans (62 percent), Independents (80 percent), and Democrats (82 percent).

Pam Solo, founder and president, Civil Society Institute, said: “Clean energy production is strongly favored by Americans over energy sources that create a danger to human health and safe drinking water in particular. Fracking is a perfect illustration of the fact that Americans don’t think of an energy source as ‘cheap’ or ‘clean’ if there is a hidden price in terms of safe drinking water and human health. The message from our new survey is clear: Americans of all political persuasions prefer to see clean energy development that protects water supplies over traditional fossil fuel production that endangers safe drinking water and human health.”

Commenting on the survey, Anthony Ingraffea, PhD, P.E., Dwight C. Baum professor of engineering, Cornell University, said: “The results of this survey indicates that the public has been educated and sensitized to the issues arising from tradeoffs among energy production, the environment, and health. Americans now understand that, especially with the allure of gas production from unconventional gas plays, even ‘getting it right’ from a technical and regulatory point of view might still be wrong in terms of clean drinking water. The public is increasingly ready to commit to change in its energy use patterns, invest in its children’s energy futures, and is no longer willing to accept the notion that a corporate business plan is the same as a national strategic energy plan.”

Fracking, a technique used to extract natural gas from deep deposits, involves blasting vast amounts of water combined with chemicals and sand into the ground to release the gas from deposits. While industry experts claim that this is a relatively low-risk extraction method, there are growing concerns about the threat of contamination of drinking water supplies.

The nonprofit Civil Society Institute has carried out more than 25 major national- and state-level opinion polls on energy issues since 2003. The 100-percent independent CSI think tank receives no direct or indirect support of any kind from any natural gas industry interest, or any other energy-related company, trade group or related individual.

In addition to the national survey, the state-specific polls for Pennsylvania and New York State/City were conducted since: (1) Pennsylvania is a major site today for fracking-based efforts to access the enormous Marcellus Shale deposit stretching along the Appalachians from West Virginia up to the western half of the state of New York; and (2) concerns are rising that the use of hydraulic fracturing could lead to water contamination of the Catskill/Delaware River watershed that is a main source of drinking water for New York City and millions of other regional residents.

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