Marcellus Shale drilling waste OK for area landfills – Chambersburg Public Opinion

February 1, 2011

Marcellus Shale drilling waste OK for area landfills – Chambersburg Public Opinion.

Filed under events

Chesapeake is selling-off more US assets, this time to the Chinese.

February 1, 2011

Cnooc Pays $570 Million for Chesapeake Shale Stake – Businessweek.

Cnooc Pays $570 Million for Chesapeake Shale Stake

January 31, 2011, 4:12 PM EST

More From Businessweek

By Jim Polson and John Duce

(Updates share price in eighth paragraph.)

Jan. 31 (Bloomberg) — Cnooc Ltd., China’s largest offshore energy producer, agreed to pay $570 million in cash for a one- third stake in Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s Niobrara shale project, adding to its U.S. holdings in crude oil production.

The Chinese explorer also agreed to pay as much as $697 million, up to two-thirds of Chesapeake’s costs to drill and complete wells in the area, the companies said in a statement yesterday.

The deal follows Chinese President Hu Jintao’s first state visit to the U.S. this month to expand economic ties and would be Cnooc’s second U.S. energy asset purchase from Chesapeake, five years after political opposition derailed its $18.5 billion bid for Unocal Corp. The company will pay about $2,140 an acre for its stake in Niobrara and has the right to a one-third share in future acquisitions in the shale formation.

“If you look at President Hu’s recent trip to Washington, there seems to be a greater willingness in the U.S. to encourage Chinese investment,” said Wang Aochao, head of China energy research at UOB-Kay Hian Ltd. in Shanghai. “We don’t have all the details at hand, but it appears to be a fair price for these assets. The Chinese oil majors still think valuations generally for oil and gas assets are reasonable.”

Niobrara covers 8,400 square miles (21,756 square kilometers) in Colorado and Wyoming and may contain 103.6 million barrels of oil, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated in 2006 before Chesapeake, EOG Resources Inc. and other producers began drilling the formation.

‘Seems Rich’

Cnooc, which is listed in Hong Kong, has risen 54 percent in the past 12 months, outpacing the 16 percent gain in the benchmark Hang Seng Index. The shares fell 0.7 percent to HK$17.20 today. The Hang Seng also declined 0.7 percent.

Chesapeake rose $2.20, or 8.1 percent, to $29.53 at 4:02 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, its largest gain in five weeks. Other U.S. oil and gas producers with Niobrara leases also rose, including Petroleum Development Corp. and Andarko Petroleum Corp.

“This price seems rich,” Eric Hagen, an analyst for New York-based Lazard Capital Markets, said in a note today to clients affirming a hold rating on Chesapeake shares. “Cnooc is seeking access to technology more than U.S. assets.”

The Chinese energy explorer forecast a 12 percent increase in oil and gas production in 2011 after spending about $8.4 billion in the past year acquiring assets in the U.S., Africa and Argentina. By contrast, output rose 44 percent in 2010.

Prior Shale Purchase

Cnooc, based in Beijing, completed its $1.08 billion purchase of a one-third interest in Chesapeake’s 600,000 acres in the Eagle Ford project in South Texas in November. The Niobrara deal may be completed in the first quarter of this year, according to yesterday’s statement.

“The win-win deal valuation is fair based on our estimates and Cnooc’s strategy to further expand into the oil-rich shale deposits in the U.S.,” said Gordon Kwan, head of regional energy search at Mirae Asset Securities in Hong Kong. “The total investment of $1.27 billion in the deal through 2014 is manageable and equates to about 14 percent of Cnooc’s budgeted $9 billion for 2011.”

The Niobrara deal will lead to a reduction in U.S. oil imports over time and the creation of thousands of jobs, Aubrey McClendon chief executive officer of Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake, said in the statement.

“This transaction will provide the capital necessary to accelerate drilling of this large domestic oil and natural gas resource,” McClendon added.

Doubling Rigs

Chesapeake expects to double its drilling rigs in Wyoming’s Powder River and Colorado’s Denver-Julesburg basins to 10 by the end of the year. It plans to have 20 rigs working by end-2012.

Chesapeake, the most active U.S. gas and oil driller, has 16 wells producing in those basins with initial output of as much as 1,000 barrels of oil and 3 million cubic feet of natural gas a day, according to the company.

The companies plan to eventually produce the equivalent of as much as 5 billion barrels of oil from the basins.

–Editors: Tina Davis, Jessica Resnick-Ault

To contact the reporters on this story: Jim Polson in New York at jpolson@bloomberg.net; John Duce in Hong Kong at jduce1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Susan Warren at susanwarren@bloomberg.net

Filed under Energy Independence? Tagged with , ,

Enbridge denies responsibility for oil spill | Michigan Messenger

February 1, 2011

Enbridge denies responsibility for oil spill | Michigan Messenger.

Enbridge denies responsibility for oil spill

Refuses to pay some claims of property damage, business loss, health problems
By Eartha Jane Melzer | 01.31.11 | 8:22 am

Despite public promises to compensate residents for losses associated with the summer oil spill, in Calhoun county court Enbridge is arguing that it is not legally liable for damages from the spill.

Last July a pipeline rupture on Enbridge’s 6B pipeline spilled an estimated million gallons of Canadian tar sands crude into the Kalamazoo River system. The oil traveled 30 miles down the rain-swollen river, coating the floodplain.

Officials declared a state of emergency, recommended evacuation because of unsafe levels of benzene in the air, and closed the Kalamazoo River to all activity by the public.

In numerous public statements Enbridge CEO Pat Daniels apologized for the spill and promised to take responsibility for the cleanup and address the needs of the affected people and businesses.

But six months after the spill, the river remains closed and some residents have not been able to get compensation through the claims process set up by the company.

Attorney Bill Mayhall represents 10 households in Marshall and Battle Creek that were not able to find satisfactory arrangements with the pipeline company for property damages and health issues such as headaches, nausea, vomiting, and respiratory issues.

These clients are accusing Enbridge of nuisance and negligence for failing to adequately maintain its pipeline and are seeking damages in Calhoun Circuit Court.

Enbridge is fighting the claims. The company has retained Dickinson Wright attorneys Kathleen Lang and Edward Pappas — the same team that is defending Dow Chemical against a class action suit over dioxin contamination in the Saginaw River watershed — and its answer to the legal claims sounds very different from the friendly promises offered by Daniels at community forums.

In the days after the spill Enbridge representatives went door to door promising that they would pay for spill damages, Mayhall said.

“Now they want us to prove that they are responsible for the spill.”

Enbridge argues that it cannot be held liable for the oil spill because it has followed all relevant laws, regulations and industry standards and the damage was not foreseeable.

The company also argues that the charges against it are improper “because federal, state and/or local authorities and agencies have mandated, directed, approved and/or ratified the alleged actions or omissions.”

And though Enbridge repeatedly told residents it would pay all legitimate expenses, in filings with the Calhoun court the company says:

“The statements at issue, that were made in Defendants’ press releases and brochure, were mere expressions of intention, not offers.”

The owners of the Play Care Learning Center in Marshall are suing Enbridge for interfering with their daycare business, which was located a half mile from the spill site.

Play Care, represented attorney Donnelly Hadden, says that they were forced to close their business when parents pulled their kids out of care because of the air pollution from the spill.

Play Care argues that Enbridge failed to maintain its pipeline and failed to adequately protect them against a long list of chemicals related to the contamination.

In an answer to this lawsuit Enbridge argues that the day care center can’t know what chemicals it was exposed to because no one knows what chemicals were released during the oil spill.

“Defendants state that different types of oil contain different constituents and substances in varying quantities and that the investigation of the nature and extent of the crude oil discharged is ongoing,” the response said.

“It is time for Enbridge to state in court if they really meant what they said to those injured by the spill,” said Mayhall, “or whether their statements to pay legitimate damages were simply a public relations ploy to calm community anger.”

Enbridge Spokeswoman Terri Larson said that the company “remains committed to paying all non-fraudulent claims that are directly related to the incident.”

A schedule for the cases is expected to be set at a conference on March 7.

 

Filed under Official Actions--Legislation, judgments,regulation, Pipelines, Spills-Accidents-Suits Tagged with , , , ,

Diesel Use in Gas Drilling Cited as Violation of Safe-Water Law – NYTimes.com

February 1, 2011

Diesel Use in Gas Drilling Cited as Violation of Safe-Water Law – NYTimes.com.

Gas Drilling Technique Is Labeled Violation

By TOM ZELLER Jr.
Published: January 31, 2011

Oil and gas service companies injected tens of millions of gallons of diesel fuel into onshore wells in more than a dozen states from 2005 to 2009, Congressional investigators have charged. Those injections appear to have violated the Safe Water Drinking Act, the investigators said in a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency on Monday.

Ralph Wilson/Associated Press

Workers at a natural-gas well site near Burlington, Pa.

Green

A blog about energy and the environment.

The diesel fuel was used by drillers as part of a contentious process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which involves the high-pressure injection of a mixture of water, sand and chemical additives — including diesel fuel — into rock formations deep underground. The process, which has opened up vast new deposits of natural gas to drilling, creates and props open fissures in the rock to ease the release of oil and gas.

But concerns have been growing over the potential for fracking chemicals — particularly those found in diesel fuel — to contaminate underground sources of drinking water.

“We learned that no oil and gas service companies have sought — and no state and federal regulators have issued — permits for diesel fuel use in hydraulic fracturing,” said Representative Henry A. Waxman of California and two other Democratic members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, in the letter. “This appears to be a violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act.”

Oil and gas companies acknowledged using diesel fuel in their fracking fluids, but they rejected the House Democrats’ assertion that it was illegal. They said that the E.P.A. had never properly developed rules and procedures to regulate the use of diesel in fracking, despite a clear grant of authority from Congress over the issue.

“Everyone understands that E.P.A. is at least interested in regulating fracking,” said Matt Armstrong, a lawyer with the Washington firm Bracewell & Giuliani, which represents several oil and gas companies. “Whether the E.P.A. has the chutzpah to try to impose retroactive liability for use of diesel in fracking, well, everyone is in a wait-and-see mode. I suspect it will have a significant fight on its hands if it tried it do that.”

Regardless of the legal outcome, the Waxman findings are certain to intensify an already contentious debate among legislators, natural gas companies and environmentalists over the safety of oil and gas development in general, and fracking in particular.

Oil services companies had traditionally used diesel fuel as part of their fracturing cocktails because it helped to dissolve and disperse other chemicals suspended in the fluid. But some of the chemical components of diesel fuel, including toluene, xylene and benzene, a carcinogen, have alarmed both regulators and environmental groups. They argue that some of those chemicals could find their way out of a well bore — either because of migration through layers of rock or spills and sloppy handling — and into nearby sources of drinking water.

An E.P.A. investigation in 2004 failed to find any threat to drinking water from fracking — a conclusion that was widely dismissed by critics as politically motivated. The agency has taken up the issue again in a new investigation started last year, although the results are not expected until 2012 at the earliest.

The House committee began its own investigation in February last year, when Democrats were in the majority. In Monday’s letter, Mr. Waxman, along with Representatives Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts and Diana DeGette of Colorado, said that they were so far “unable to draw definitive conclusions about the potential impact of these injections on public health or the environment.”

Still, the investigators said that three of the largest oil and gas services companies — Halliburton, Schlumberger and BJ Services — signed an agreement with the E.P.A. in 2003 intended to curtail the use of diesel in fracking in certain shallow formations.

Two years later, when Congress amended the Safe Water Drinking Act to exclude regulation of hydraulic fracturing, it made an express exception that allowed regulation of diesel fuel used in fracking.

The Congressional investigators sent letters to 14 companies requesting details on the type and volume of fracking chemicals they used. Although many companies said they had eliminated or were cutting back on use of diesel, 12 companies reported having used 32.2 million gallons of diesel fuel, or fluids containing diesel fuel, in their fracking processes from 2005 to 2009.

The diesel-laced fluids were used in a total of 19 states. Approximately half the total volume was deployed in Texas, but at least a million gallons of diesel-containing fluids were also used in Oklahoma (3.3 million gallons); North Dakota (3.1 million); Louisiana (2.9 million); Wyoming (2.9 million); and Colorado (1.3 million).

Where this leaves the companies in relation to federal law is unclear.

Mr. Waxman and his colleagues say that the Safe Drinking Water Act left diesel-based hydraulic fracturing under the auspices of E.P.A.’s “underground injection control program,” which requires companies to obtain permits, either from state or federal regulators, for a variety of activities that involve putting fluids underground.

No permits for diesel-based fracking have been sought or granted since the Safe Drinking Water Act was amended in 2005.

Lee Fuller, a vice president for government relations with the Independent Petroleum Association of America, said that was because the E.P.A. had never followed up by creating rules and procedures for obtaining such permits and submitting them for public comment.

The agency did quietly update its Web site last summer with language suggesting that fracking with diesel was, indeed, covered as part of the underground injection program, which would suggest that permits should have been obtained. But Mr. Fuller’s organization, along with the U.S. Oil and Gas Association, has gone to court to challenge the Web posting, arguing that it amounted to new rule-making that circumvented administrative requirements for notice and public commentary.

The E.P.A. said Monday that it was reviewing the accusations from the three House Democrats that the companies named were in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act.

“Our goal is to put in place a clear framework for permitting so that fracturing operations using diesel receive the review required by law,” Betsaida Alcantara, an E.P.A. spokeswoman, said in an e-mail message. “We will provide further information about our plans as they develop.”

Filed under EPA, Industry claims Tagged with , , , , ,

The story behind a deadly typhoid epidemic in Ithaca: (a historical precedent)

February 1, 2011

The story behind a deadly typhoid epidemic in Ithaca | syracuse.com.

The story behind a deadly typhoid epidemic in Ithaca

Published: Sunday, January 30, 2011, 6:54 AM     Updated: Sunday, January 30, 2011, 11:26 AM
Hart Seely / The Post-Standard By Hart Seely / The Post-Standard
Building the Dam (2)_2.JPGGlobe Pequot PressWorkmen pour concrete to build the Six Mile Creek Dam in the summer of 1903. Poor sanitation caused a typhoid epidemic in Ithaca.

In 1903, Americans watched in horror as a typhoid epidemic — born from the greed and stupidity of some prominent Central New York businessmen — raged though Ithaca, striking down hundreds and killing at least 82 people, including 29 Cornell University students. Almost 1 in 10 residents became ill. Award-winning journalist David DeKok has written “The Epidemic,” (Globe Pequot Press, $22.95) a book about an otherwise forgotten public health catastrophe. He spoke with Hart Seely.

How did it start?

A businessman by the name of William T. Morris acquired Ithaca Water Works from the Treman family in Ithaca. Morris, a close friend of Ebenezer Treman, was able to afford the company because Cornell University loaned $100,000, an enormous amount at that time. He paid too much, more than Wall Street valued the deal, so he decided to build a dam to increase the amount of water he could sell. … Strict warnings on sanitation were not enforced by Morris or his people. One or more of the workers were carriers, a concept not really understood at that time, and through bad sanitation, the typhoid spread into the water supply and the town.

You write that at one point, a third of Cornell’s student population was fleeing the city.

IMG_1706.JPGDavid DeKok

It was a terribly scary thing. By the time it was over, one in 10 people in Ithaca was ill. That’s a huge percentage — one of the worst typhoid epidemics, in percentage, in American history. Students were getting on trains and going home. For some, they thought they were getting away from death, but it ended up finding them anyway. A number of them died in their parents’ homes.

OK, let’s talk about the main villain, William T. Morris.

He was from Penn Yan. His father, Daniel Morris, had been a two-term U.S. Congressman during and after the Civil War, a Republican. In fact, he was among the congressmen who passed the 13th Amendment, outlawing slavery. … Daniel Morris sent young Will to Cornell, and he became a lawyer. He came back to Penn Yan and set up a law practice. He did not seem to have a high ethical standard. There’s an incident where he and some of his partners took retainer money from a client and bought new linoleum for their office. … The law firm broke up, and Morris got interested in the utility business. He acquired the Penn Yan Gas Light Company, then started acquiring small-town utilities in New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Eventually, he set his sights on Ithaca.

What was Morris like?

Very narcissistic. Everything was about him. And very clueless. It was not necessarily conscious criminal behavior. He was more reckless.

The story includes many prominent figures. For example Frank Gannett (founder of the Gannett newspaper chain).

William T. Morris-5_2.JPGWilliam T. Morris

He was the city editor on the Ithaca Daily News. It was his first real newspaper job — actually, I believe he was a stringer for your paper in summers during college — working for Duncan Campbell Lee, the (Ithaca) publisher, one of the heroes… Gannett ran a crew of hard-working reporters, out all the time, getting long lists of patients’ names, people who had come down with typhoid. … They reported every little thing that was going on.

The industrialist, Andrew Carnegie.

He was on the Cornell Board of Trustees. He didn’t actually come to meetings often, but Jacob Gould Schurman, the president of Cornell, was more than happy to have him, because he was one of the wealthiest men in the world. He became a hero, at least to some, when he agreed to pay medical and/or funeral expenses of students.

Some references to the name “Vonnegut.”

Obviously, Kurt Vonnegut came much later, but three great uncles from Indianapolis were students at Cornell during the epidemic.

How do Cornell officials come off?

Sage co-eds 1903_3.JPGGlobe Pequot PressSix Cornell coeds pose on the balustrade in front of Sage College around 1903.

They had a real problem. They did not handle this particularly well. Schurman, the president, was a prominent intellectual, a very smart guy, but he had to deal with a board of trustees primarily made up of people from the local community. … It was not Schurman who came up with the idea to help Morris buy the water company. It was the Tremans and the Van Cleefs, so conflicts of interest were immense — but overlooked. In the early stages of the epidemic, there was a reluctance to do anything that would offend William Morris, a good friend of the Cornell board.

So they let it spiral out of control?

They did, for a while. There was severe criticism of the university, locally and in newspapers around the state, about the quality of medical care that was being given.

You say the story has a modern legacy.

William Morris got rid of his holdings in 1909, in part because he never really recovered from the costs of the epidemic, and he didn’t want to have the Public Service Commission telling him how to run his business. The company in 1921 was acquired by two fellows, John Mange and Howard Hopson. … It collapsed, went into bankruptcy and emerged in 1946 as the General Public Utilities Corporation, which ran the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant (site of the 1979 accident).

What lessons should we learn?

Certainly, the need to regulate businesses that affect the public interest. In 1903, there was no regulation of water companies, and little litigation if anything happened to you. … I also think the story is a good lesson about what happens when an infectious disease epidemic strikes a town. … With things like SARS or H1N1 flu, something could happen again.

Giveaway
We have a copy of “The Epidemic” to give away. To be eligible, send your name, address and phone number on a postcard or in a letter to CNY, “Epidemic” giveaway, P.O. Box 4915, Syracuse, NY 13221. It must be postmarked by Tuesday. One entry per person, please.

About typhoid

Typhoid fever is a life-threatening disease of the intestinal system caused by the typhoid bacillus, Salmonella typhosa.

It is spread by infected people who handle food or fluids without washing their hands or when sewage carrying the bacteria contaminates water, milk and other foods.

the-epidemic.JPG

Typhoid was famously spread around the same time as the Ithaca epidemic by “Typhoid Mary,” a cook named Mary Mallon who was quarantined for life against her will after personally causing at least a dozen outbreaks.

Symptoms show up one to two weeks after infection and include sore throat, fever, headache, nausea and loss of appetite and, in severe cases, delirium and death. The bacteria can invade the bloodstream and cause meningitis. The fever generally lasts three to four weeks.

Today, only about 400 cases are reported annually in the US, 70 percent acquired through international travel.

— Source: World of Health, 2007

Filed under Water Tagged with , , ,

Gas Drilling Technique Is Labeled Violation

January 31, 2011

Gas Drilling Technique Is Labeled Violation

By TOM ZELLER Jr.

Published: January 31, 2011

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Oil and gas service companies injected tens of millions of gallons of diesel fuel into onshore wells in more than a dozen states from 2005 to 2009, Congressional investigators have charged. Those injections appear to have violated the Safe Water Drinking Act, the investigators said in a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency on Monday.

A blog about energy and the environment.

The diesel fuel was used by drillers as part of a contentious process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which involves the high-pressure injection of a mixture of water, sand and chemical additives — including diesel fuel — into rock formations deep underground. The process, which has opened up vast new deposits of natural gas to drilling, creates and props open fissures in the rock to ease the release of oil and gas.

But concerns have been growing over the potential for fracking chemicals — particularly those found in diesel fuel — to contaminate underground sources of drinking water.

Filed under EPA Tagged with , , , ,

FOX 40 WICZ TV – Stormy Meeting Among Gas Drilling Factions [1/27/2011] – News, Sports, Weather, Contests and More – Binghamton, NY

January 29, 2011

FOX 40 WICZ TV – Stormy Meeting Among Gas Drilling Factions [1/27/2011] – News, Sports, Weather, Contests and More – Binghamton, NY.

Thursday night economist and Delaware County landowner Dr. Jannette Barth drilled a crowd of local residents at the Vestal Public Library on what she says are startling facts about gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale.

Dr, Barth finds that natural gas drilling isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be and says it’s not the way to go for economic relief.

“Gas industry type things like fossil fuel extraction industries
usually cause a short term boom followed by a long term bust so if you’re concerned about the long term steady growth in a region gas drilling may no be the answer,” says Dr. Barth

Filed under events Tagged with , , ,

Local law prohibits even trace amounts of radiation in landfill Chenango Co. Jan 28, 2011

January 29, 2011 1 Comment

Local law prohibits even trace amounts of radiation in landfill

By: Melissa deCordova, Sun Staff Writer
Published: January 28th, 2011

PHARSALIA – A local law barring any radioactive materials from disposal at the Pharsalia Landfill would have to be changed if Chenango County decides to go into the business of accepting rock cuttings brought to the surface during the process of well drilling.

As more natural gas is being produced from the Herkimer Sandstone in the northern part of the county, lawmakers have been weighing the potential revenue from taking in the formation solids versus uncertainty about whether the deep subsurface rocks and soils will be too dangerous to dispose of safely.

The matter came to a head this fall when Norse Energy Inc., the energy company currently drilling in the towns of Smyrna, Plymouth and Preston, paid a laboratory to have a sample of cuttings tested for radiation. The results, which were shared with members of the Chenango County Public Works Committee last week, stated that radiation in the sample material was “declared undetected.”

However, Chenango County Department of Public Works Director Randy Gibbon said the 40-page lab document’s summary sheet proves there were “units of radiation” indicated because the gross beta and gross alpha tests were reported as ‘less than’ certain levels, but not zero.

“It doesn’t matter what the level. As long as there’s radiation at all, we can’t accept it with our local law,” he said.

More in-depth analysis of uranium 238, radium 226, thorium 232 and potassium, among other isotopes, would be required to cancel out electromagnetic energy, Gibbon added. But he said it most likely wouldn’t be a matter of Norse going back for more tests.

“You are never going to get zero,” he said.

Local Law No. 3 enacted back in 1989 prohibits radioactive waste in the county’s landfill. The law was later amended and made even more restrictive when parcels in Chenango County were being considered for a low level radioactive waste dump in the early 90s.

As a result, everything entering the Pharsalia Landfill, including cell cover and refuse from the county’s transfer stations in Norwich and Brisben, is first passed through a Geiger counter set at three times the background level for radiation.

The landfill’s Geiger counter was set at levels recommended by the New York State Department of Health, Gibbon said. The detection device has rejected loads of garbage twice through the years.

Norse contacted Gibbon to recommend a testing laboratory, and paid $2,000 to Upstate Laboratories for the analysis. A commercial hauler contracted to truck construction debris from Norse’s well sites invested in equipment specifically to handle the additional business.

Mike Holden, whose Whitney Point company has taken refuse off Norse’s well sites since 2007, said he invested “five figures” last summer to purchase new equipment for the tailings. He said he is still waiting to see which direction the county is going to go in.

“It would have been a great market for me and for the county, too,” he said.

Public Works Committee member Peter C. Flanagan, D-Preston, commented that the best place for the formation solids would be to leave them on site.

Town of Otselic Supervisor David J. Messineo warned that spreading them on the surface and enabling rain and surface water to mix in could leach the material’s radioactivity level to greater degrees.

“We have a huge aquifer in South Otselic to worry about,” he said.

City of Norwich Public Works Superintendent Carl Ivarson said the city’s water treatment plant would no longer accept leachate from the Pharsalia Landfill if the law were to change to permit radiation.

Extension director says landfill already accepts radioactive materials


By: Melissa deCordova, Sun Staff Writer
Published: February 7th, 2011
NORWICH – Radiation is already in the Pharsalia Landfill despite a local law intended to exclude it, says Cornell Cooperative Extension Director Ken Smith in a letter to the Chenango County Natural Gas Committee Jan. 31.
Smith’s claim contradicts what the county’s public works department director insisted during a meeting of town supervisors last month, that absolutely no radiation at any level was permitted in the landfill.
The Chenango County Public Works Committee was interpreting a recent laboratory analysis of drill cuttings from a Norse Energy well site in Smyrna. Using a testing company recommended by the county, Norse had invested in the screening as a precautionary measure.
“Regarding radioactive materials being admitted to the Chenango County Landfill, everything that has ever been delivered to the county landfill has contained radioactive materials, and everything that will ever be delivered to the Chenango County Landfill will contain radioactive materials,” said Smith in his letter to the gas advisory committee.
Even though the lab declared that radiation was undetected in the cuttings, Department of Public Works Director Randy Gibbon said some units were present as indicated by ‘less than’ arrows, but not zero. Gibbon backed up his refusal of the waste with Local Law No. 3, an ordinance enacted in 1989 and later amended in the early 90s when parcels in Chenango County were being considered for a low level radioactive waste dump.
And therein lies the misinterpretation. According to Smith, the local ordinance refers to radioactive waste as defined by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or items that have become contaminated with radioactive material or have become radioactive through exposure to neutron radiation such as contaminated clothing, filters, equipment and tools, medical tubes and syringes and laboratory animal carcasses and tissues.
“I think that these are the sorts of materials that the supervisors intended to restrict. … I do not believe that it is the intent of Local Law Number 3 to prevent acceptance of all naturally radioactive material,” Smith said.
Based on the large number of jobs and increased revenues from Marcellus Shale development in Pennsylvania over the past two years, Smith said taking in the drilling solids could mean “significant economic importance to Chenango County.” Supervisors on the natural gas advisory committee have suggested using the material as cell cover at the landfill.
A private hauler from Whitney Point, that regulary contracts with Norse to take consturction debris from well sites, recently purchased trucking equipment to dispose of the cuttings. The loads could mean revenue for them, as well as for the county.
Smith also said tht the City of Norwich’s refusal to accept leachate from the landfill if formation solids were permitted is unrealistic, noting that every aquifer in Chenango County receives water leached through radioactive rock deposits.
“I think it may be important to make clear that all soil, water, and air naturally contain radioactive materials. Also, all plants and animals naturally contain radioactive materials,” he wrote.
In earlier conversations with this reporter, Smith said all residential water wells located north of state Rt. 20 in upstate New York are drilled in the Marcellus Shale formation (because it is much shallower there and outcrops in the town of Marcellus) with no public concern about radiation or heavy metal content in drinking water.
On a separate topic, during a recent Regional Natural Gas Committee meeting, it was clear that many in the audience were worried about the toxic effects of methane, the primary component in natural gas. Smith said methane, which is biologically inert, is a normal, non-toxic component of drinking water in many locations and that developing the natural gas deposits from shale poses no risk to the water or air.
“We all have methane in our digestive systems every day of our lives. One recent study in West Virginia found that methane was present in 70 percent of the drinking water wells tested,” he said.

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Filed under Waste Tagged with , , , , ,

Official calls well leak ‘very, very worrying’

January 29, 2011

Official calls well leak ‘very, very worrying’.

Official calls well leak ‘very, very worrying’

By Kevin Dougherty, Montreal Gazette January 28, 2011
Workers drill for natural gas in Hickory, Pa. The industry claims shale gas extraction is safe, but problems at wells in Quebec are worrying officials.

Workers drill for natural gas in Hickory, Pa. The industry claims shale gas extraction is safe, but problems at wells in Quebec are worrying officials.

Photograph by: Jeff Swensen, NYT

QUEBEC – An Environment Department official calls an uncontrolled gas leak at a shale gas well near St. Hyacinthe “very, very worrying,” and fears the leak “could lead to contamination of underground water.”

The well, operated by Calgary-based Canbriam Energy Quebec Partnership, is giving off methane gas that could threaten “the life, health, safety, well-being or comfort of human beings,” the Environment Department says in a notice sent the company.

“We ask you to proceed immediately with the necessary corrections to stop these emissions,” the notice adds. “As well, safety measures at the site should be established to ensure the protection of persons and property.”

Filed under Official Actions--Legislation, judgments,regulation, Spills-Accidents-Suits Tagged with , , , , , ,

Joshua Kors: Oscar Nominee Josh Fox Speaks Out About Oil Lobby’s Efforts to Crush His Film

January 29, 2011

Joshua Kors: Oscar Nominee Josh Fox Speaks Out About Oil Lobby’s Efforts to Crush His Film.

 

Joshua Kors

Joshua Kors

Investigative Reporter, The Nation

Posted: January 27, 2011 02:03 PM

 

Josh Fox’s home sits in the woods of Milanville, Pennsylvania, near the rushing waters of the Delaware River. In May 2008, a strange letter appeared in his mailbox. A natural gas company was offering him $100,000 if he granted them permission to drill on his property.

Instead of signing, Fox decided to investigate. Armed with a video camera and a banjo, he set off on a journey up and down the Marcellus Shale, a massive reserve of natural gas that stretches 600 miles from Pennsylvania to Maryland, Virginia and into Tennessee. Known as the “Saudi Arabia of natural gas,” the shale contains billions of dollars in untapped fuel.

Fox wanted to know: What happened to other families who agreed to drilling on their property?

What he found was a heartbreaking collection of severely ill families whose aquifers had become so tainted by the gas, they could literally light their tap water on fire. He edited his footage into a modest documentary, Gasland, which was soon embraced by outraged viewers across the country. It won the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, the Lennon-Ono Peace Prize, and now has been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary.

Filed under Industry claims, Video, Water Tagged with , , , ,

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