Fraccidents Map – Google Maps
April 26, 2011
Fraccidents Map – Google Maps. Earth Justice
Fracking’s Environmental Footprint to Transform Pennsylvania Landscape | SolveClimate News
April 25, 2011
Fracking’s Environmental Footprint to Transform Pennsylvania Landscape | SolveClimate News.
Fracking’s Environmental Footprint to Transform Pennsylvania Landscape
Residents fear that fracking for gas will cause permanant harm to their forests, state parks and agricultural fields — in addition to their water and air
By Elizabeth McGowan, SolveClimate News
Apr 25, 2011
Image: Map showing the Marcellus Shale formation/Credit: U.S. Geological SurveyEditor’s Note: Some laud natural gas as cleaner burning, home-grown energy — a “bridge” fuel to a renewable future. But others fear the environmental costs of the industry’s newest extraction technique — a combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing or fracking — are too high. SolveClimate News reporter Elizabeth McGowan traveled to Northeastern Pennsylvania in late March to find out how this quest for energy is affecting the landscape and the people who call it home. This is the second in a multi-part series. (Read part one.)
MONTROSE, PA.—Executives in the energy exploration and drilling industry practically salivate when talk turns to possibilities in Pennsylvania.
Perhaps fittingly, their nickname for the Keystone State is “the Saudi Arabia of natural gas.”
Being heralded as twin energy founts, however, is about where the similarities between the natural gas-rich Middle Atlantic state and the oil-laden Middle Eastern nation end. Their geographies are studies in extreme contrast and size-wise, two Pennsylvanias could be shoehorned into just one Saudi Arabia.
Right now, the hydraulic fracturing fever sweeping their state has many Pennsylvanians in turmoil. In addition to concerns about impacts on their water and air, state residents are worried about the indelible footprint fracking infrastructure is in the midst of stamping on the forests, open spaces, rural hamlets, agricultural fields and public lands they call home.
After all, William Penn is the Englishman and Quaker credited with founding the state. Back in 1681 he christened the region Sylvania — the Latin word for woods — for obvious reasons.
So, just how will this hunt for buried energy treasure transform the landscape of a state that draws millions of tourists to its state parks and prides itself on its productive forests?
“This is going to be like a spider web spun across the state,” John Quigley, a former state environmental leader, told SolveClimate News in an interview. “The scale of this is just unimaginable. At this point, I don’t think anybody can fathom how much.”
Quigley served as secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources from April 2009 until January when a new administration headed by Republican Gov. Tom Corbett took office. He is now an adviser to a former employer, Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future. Known as PennFuture, it’s a statewide public interest organization based in Harrisburg.
“Hydraulic fracturing will dwarf the cumulative impact of all of the previous waves of resource extraction that punctuate Pennsylvania history,” Quigley said, ticking off a list of successive destructive acts that began with the clear-cutting of old growth trees across the states northern tier to fuel the Industrial Revolution, then morphed into the drilling of the first oil well in Titusville and the rise of King Coal. “It’s impossible to downplay or avoid the environmental impacts.
“Not only is this going to cause massive habitat fragmentation but what emerges will be a fundamentally different Pennsylvania,” he continued. “The question is, are we going to repeat the mistakes of the past?”
Why Pennsylvania?
Geologists hail Pennsylvania as a natural gas mother lode because nearly two-thirds of the state’s 28 million acres rests atop a yawning sheath of sedimentary rock formed around 400 million years ago during what scientists label the Devonian Period.
What’s called the Marcellus Shale is basically a thick horizontal seam undulating anywhere from 4,000 feet to 10,000 feet beneath the Earth’s surface. It measures about 150,000 square miles and stretches from the lower tier of New York State south through parts of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, West Virginia and a sliver of Virginia.
The Appalachian Basin is reportedly packed with enough natural gas, experts estimate, to meet the nation’s energy needs for nearly two decades — or perhaps longer.
The organically rich shale is already naturally pocked with fissures. Companies use a relatively new technology known as hydraulic fracturing to open up those cracks and release the trapped gas.
This technology, which combines traditional vertical drilling with horizontal drilling and rock fracturing appeared on the scene in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale close to six years ago.
In a nutshell, fracking requires companies to drill a vertical well about a mile deep. From that point, the well can “grow” a long “arm” that bores horizontally into the shale formation for close to a mile. Drillers then inject sand, millions of gallons of water and a special recipe of potentially toxic lubricants and chemical additives under extremely high pressure to further fracture the dense black shale and draw the liberated gas to the surface. Wells can be fracked numerous times.
Unparalleled Footprint
In Pennsylvania, the Marcellus Shale rests beneath the entire western half of the state and the northeastern corner. Numbers gathered by state authorities reveal that natural gas companies have thus far leased about 7 million acres of public and private property — about one-quarter of the state’s entire land mass.
That high volume prompted the Pennsylvania chapter of The Nature Conservancy to delve into what impact such an intense fracking footprint will have on the flora and fauna the nonprofit organization is dedicated to protecting.
Already, 2,000-plus wells have been drilled statewide. But state figures reveal that the number of permits issued to companies has ballooned from a mere four in 2005 to 3,314 through 2010.
By collaborating with state authorities and gas companies for its research, the conservancy figures at least 60,000 new wells will be drilled through the year 2030. That will eat up at least 90,000 acres over the next two decades, with the potential to double to 180,000 acres if the number of new wells grows at the same pace through 2050.
That might not seem egregiously enormous in a state as massive as Pennsylvania, but consider this. A footprint such as that would stomp over close to one-third of Rhode Island.
Nels Johnson, director of conservation programs for the conservancy’s Pennsylvania chapter, told SolveClimate News that the northwestern segment of the state has a long tradition of shallow natural gas development.
“With the Marcellus, there might be fewer pads because of a company’s ability to drill horizontally but the tradeoff is that each pad is bigger and much of this infrastructure is going into areas not previously impacted by gas development,” Johnson emphasized. “It’s a new impact.”
Alarming Conservancy Arithmetic
The Nature Conservancy lays out its concerns about the effects of hydraulic fracturing in a November 2010 report titled “Pennsylvania Energy Impacts Assessment.”
“Many factors — including energy prices, economic benefits, greenhouse gas reductions and energy independence — will go into final decisions about where and how to proceed with energy development,” the report states. “Information about Pennsylvania’s most important natural habitats should be an important part of the calculus about trade-offs and optimization.”
Arithmetic shows that while each drilling pad covers a relatively reasonable 3.1 acres, the footprint for each well actually rings in at 8.8 acres because of the accompanying roadways and other infrastructure — such as that for hauling and storing water — that have to be built.
Each pad can accommodate up to 10 wells; the conservancy used an average of six for the sake of its calculations. So 8.8 acres multiplied 10,000 times (60,000 total wells with six wells per pad) is where the 90,000-acre figure originated.
“When you look at how much of the Marcellus Shale covers Pennsylvania, 90,000 acres isn’t a huge percentage but this is about where it happens and how it happens,” Johnson said. “A lot depends on where those 90,000 acres get cleared because this is a major conversion.”
Johnson and others pointed out that Pennsylvania’s mountainous terrain is forcing gas companies to be more judicious with drilling decisions than they might be in a state such as Texas with mile after mile of flat, open terrain.
Oddly enough, even though everything about Marcellus development is big — including pad size, water use and supporting infrastructure — the ability to accommodate up to 10 vertical wells per pad actually offers a bit of solace to conservationists.
Think about this. One vertical well on a single pad can “drain” natural gas from, say, 10 to 80 acres. But a heftier pad with numerous vertical wells to accommodate far-reaching horizontal drilling technology can pull in gas from 500 to 1,000 acres.
Thus, the impact on forests, freshwater and rare species can be lessened if those pads are strategically placed instead of scattered willy-nilly without forethought.
“The lateral reach of Marcellus wells means there is more flexibility in where pads and infrastructure can be placed relative to shallow gas,” the conservancy report states. “This increased flexibility in placing Marcellus infrastructure can be used to avoid or minimize impacts to natural habitats in comparison to more densely spaced shallow gas fields.”
Conservancy in Midst of Second Study
Soon, the conservancy will be releasing a second report that piggybacks onto its initial release by examining the environmental impact of the four levels of underground pipelines that are constructed to eventually deliver natural gas to customers once it is harvested from the Marcellus Shale.
For instance, a gathering pipeline is built near each drilling pad to collect the freshly extracted gas. From there, it is shipped to what’s called a midstream pipeline, an intermediary that connects it to the backbone of the system, a transcontinental pipeline that delivers natural gas long distances to major markets. These large cities have storage facilities that tie into a network of distribution pipelines that deliver the finished product to commercial, industrial and residential customers.
“Those distribution lines don’t have too much impact on the environment,” Johnson noted. “The concern is with those other three levels of pipelines.”
Preliminary estimates collected by researchers at Pennsylvania State University show that new well development will require about 10,000 miles of gathering lines that measure 18 to 24 inches in diameter and require 100 feet of right-of-way. That alone would devour another 90,000 acres of land — doubling the impact of wells, roads and accompanying infrastructure by the year 2030 to 180,000 acres.
The Penn State figure doesn’t include the potential footprint of midstream or transcontinental lines, Johnson said, adding that they likely won’t be included in the conservancy report because those numbers are too difficult to project at this juncture.
“Clearly, the heart of some of Pennsylvania’s best natural habitats lies directly in the path of future energy development,” the conservancy report warned. “Integrating … conservation priorities into energy planning, operations and policy by energy companies and government agencies sooner rather than later could dramatically reduce these impacts.”
Tomorrow: Number-Crunching the Footprint of a Gas Fracking Boom
Regulatory Takings By Mary Jo Long, Esq.
April 25, 2011
Banning Hydrofrackingg Is Not A “Taking” of Property
By Mary Jo Long, Esq.
As the public sentiment grows for a ban on High Volume Hydrofracking (HVHF), lawyers and others who speak for corporate profit-making opportunities in natural gas say that laws banning or limiting gas drilling is a “taking” of property. Even some who seem to be on our side make the same claim. This claim is groundless and misguided. It is a scare tactic to prevent public pressure on our elected officials against HVHF.
What is the Legal Status of These Claims?
- All property in this country is held under the implied obligation that the owner’s use of it shall not be injurious to the community. There is no compensation for limiting that type of use of property, and
- A “taking” claim does not apply if the property can be used for other purposes even if those uses are not as profitable.
Consider the Source
The claim that the government (fed, state or local) will be sued to recover the value of lost property is made by attorneys and others supporting HVHHF as a method of gas drilling. They say that we, the taxpayers, will have to pay for the lost profits due to the government’s taking of their property. Always bear in mind that lawyers are advocates for their clients. When a Landowners’ Coalition lawyer claims that a ban will be a taking, that lawyer is making an argument in support of his client’s position. Making a claim (I’m going to sue you) doesn’t mean that a lawsuit will really happen nor that a Court will agree with the argument if an actual lawsuit is filed.
What Is the Law on Taking Property by the Government
The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides certain protections to persons. Included in the protections is the phrase “nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.”[i] This is the “taking” referred to by the anti-ban people. This obligation to compensate for taking private property only applied to the federal government until the 14th Amendment to the Constitution expanded the application to state governments as well. Eminent domain is the term most frequently used when a government takes a piece of property: land for a public park, a public road, a public school, etc. The owner of the land is entitled to be paid for the value of the land taken from her. Historical evidence suggests that the original intent of the takings clause did not include mere restrictions on use.
But what if the government, say through a town zoning law or a state law, BANS gas drilling without taking over title to the property where gas companies and gas leaseholders expect to drill for gas? Are governmental laws that restrict the use of the land by restricting a profit making opportunity a “taking” when actual ownership does not change?
The notion that one can do anything he wants on his property is not the law of the land. The US Supreme Court has said “all property in this country is held under the implied obligation that the owner’s use of it shall not be injurious to the community.” Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U.S. 623, 665 (1887) This principle still remains the law of the land even as Court rulings on “takings” have muddied the waters.[ii]
A town government can use its police power[iii] and zoning/land use power to restrict and prohibit uses that it considers to be detrimental to the community. The exercise of these powers does not constitute a “taking.” For example, the Town of Hempstead passed a law prohibiting gravel pit from excavating below the town’s water table. This law was upheld in Goldblatt v. Hempstead, 369 U.S. 590 (1962) as a valid use of the town’s police power. The Supreme Court conceded that the law completely prohibited a prior use by Mr. Goldblatt who had operated a gravel pit for 30 years. But the Court held that depriving the property of its most profitable use does not make the law unconstitutional, nor a taking.
The present case must be governed by principles that do not involve the power of eminent domain, in the exercise of which property may not be taken for public use without compensation. A prohibition simply upon the use of property for purposes that are declared, by valid legislation, to be injurious to the health, morals, or safety of the community, cannot, in any just sense, be deemed a taking or an appropriation of property for the public benefit. Such legislation does not disturb the owner in the control or use of his property for lawful purposes, nor restrict his right to dispose of it, but is only a declaration by the State that its use by any one, for certain forbidden purposes, is prejudicial to the public interests.” Goldblatt at p.593 quoting Mugler v. Kansas.
In 1992 the Supreme Court carved out an exception to this concept in Lucas v. S.C. Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003. The Supreme Court expanded the right to be compensated when new laws deprived land of all economically beneficial use. Although Lucas still owned the land, a lower court at trial had found that the property was rendered of zero value by the law which prohibited residential construction beyond a baseline on the beachfront. While the Supreme Court described these as “relatively rare situations”[iv], it has encouraged litigation. At the same time as Lucas slightly expanded the takings doctrine it also reaffirmed the principle that government does not have to pay compensation when it limits “harmful or noxious uses” of property.
It is correct that many of our prior opinions have suggested that ‘harmful or noxious uses’ of property may be proscribed by government regulation without the requirement of compensation. . . .[G]overnment may, consistent with the Takings Clause, affect property values by regulation without incurring an obligation to compensate – a reality we nowadays acknowledge explicitly with respect to the full scope of the State’s police power”[v]
The Court further acknowledged that Lucas would not be entitled to compensation even though he was deprived of all economically beneficial use if his “bundle of rights” did not include the prohibited use to begin with.[vi] Some uses of land are not a part of the land title to begin with. When someone owns property the owner does not have the property right to have a common law nuisance. Government actions that abate common law nuisances are per se not takings. The Court acknowledged there are inherent limits on landowner rights, imposed under background principles of the State’s law of property and nuisance. Thus government can still forbid deleterious uses even to the point of total takings.
Justice Scalia, who wrote the majority opinion in Lucas, says that a “total taking” of personal property would be subject to a lower standard “by reason of the State’s traditionally high degree of control over commercial dealings”[vii] This means that there is no claim of a taking based on a gas lease, which is personal property rather than real property, i.e. land.
Those opposing a ban on hydrofracking base their claims of a “taking” on Lucas but subsequent cases have confirmed the narrowness of the ruling in Lucas.
- Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 535 U.S. 302 (2002) (Court said moratorium was not a regulatory taking);
- Palazzolo v. Rhode Island, 533 U.S. 606 (2001) (part of parcel was worth $200,00, so was not a total taking);
- Lingle v. Chevron U.S.A. 125 S. Ct. 2655 (2005) (recognized that Takings cases were inconsistent. Tried to clarify by saying the inquiry is whether the regulation is “so onerous that its effect is tantamount to a direct appropriation or ouster” i.e. functionally equivalent to the classic taking in which government directly appropriates private property or outs the owner from his property.);
- Gazza v. NYSDEC 89 NY 2d 603 (1999), cert. denied. (Mere diminution in value of property, however serious, is insufficient to demonstrate a taking.)
Conclusion
- To make a takings argument, the following conditions apply:
- A taking claim cannot be based on an interest the owner never had, e.g. the right to create a nuisance.
- A taking claim does not apply if the property can be used for other purposes. i.e. the economic value has not been totally extinguished. Just because the value of the property has been reduced does not mean the owner gets to claim his “expected” profits if he were allowed to fully exploit the property.
- Personal property, such as a gas lease, has even less recognition as a taking, even if it is a total taking.
- Property rights, as well as other rights, are limited by the neighborhood of other public interests. The highest court in NYS said in Gernatt Asphalt Products v. Town of Sardinia, 87 N.Y.2d 668 (1996):
A municipality is not obliged to permit the exploitation of any and all natural resources within the town as a permitted use if limiting that use is a reasonable exercise of its police power to prevent damage to the rights of others and to promote the interests of the community as a whole. (at page 684)
- The police power of the state is the power to regulate persons and property for the purpose of securing the public health, safety, welfare, comfort, peace and prosperity of the municipality and its inhabitants.
[i] “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
[ii] In 1922 the Supreme Court ruled that the Pennsylvania legislature had overstepped the line by enacting a law forbidding people from removing coal from under other people’s houses and was held to effect a taking. The Court said, “While property may be regulated to a certain extent, if regulation goes too far it will be recognized as a taking.” Penn. Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U.S. 393, 415. In 1987 the Supreme Court in Keystone Bituminous Coal Association v. DeBenedictis, 480 U.S. 470 held that a nearly identical law was not a taking. Property is held under the implied obligation that the owner’s use of it shall not be injurious to the community. That principle, the court held, does not require compensation whenever the state asserts its power to enforce a prohibition that is injurious to the community. It is a question that “necessarily requires a weighing of private and public interests.” (pp. 491-492)
[iii] Police power is the power to regulated persons and property for the purpose of securing the public health, safety, welfare, comfort, peace and prosperity of the municipality and its inhabitants. This include prevention, suppression and abatement of public nuisances, including street nuisances and air pollution, preservation of the public peace and tranquility, protection of the public health through sanitation and disposal of waste and from the harmful effects of industrial and commercial development and proper growth of the municipality through zoning. Article IX of the NY State Constitution; Section 10 of the Municipal Home Rule Law; Section 130 of the Town Law; Section 20 of the General City Law and Section 4-412 of the Village Law.
[iv] Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, at p. 1018
[v]Lucas at p. 1022-1023 citing Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City, 438 U.S. 104, 125 (1978)
[vi] Lucas at p. 1027.
[vii] Lucas at 1027.
Pickens Thinks New Yorkers Don’t Understand Fracking | Food & Water Watch
April 25, 2011
Pickens Thinks New Yorkers Don’t Understand Fracking | Food & Water Watch. Video of National Press Club interview with Ted Turner and T.Boone Pickens
April 21st, 2011
Pickens Thinks New Yorkers Don’t Understand Fracking
By Rich Bindell and Emily Wurth
Yesterday, the nation saw another example of the cost of doing business with the natural gas industry when a natural gas well operated by Chesapeake Energy blew out in Canton, Pennsylvania.
According to T. Boone Pickens this week, New Yorkers need an enlightened, “intelligent” leader on energy … like T. Boone Pickens.
On the subject of fracking (about 39 minutes into the video), Pickens said…
“Western New York is concerned about it. They now have said, ‘You’re gonna frack these wells in the watershed? What? The Watershed! They don’t even know what the watershed is. That’s where it rains. It rains in the watershed and then runs into a lake. And you’re not gonna frack a lake or the watershed or whatever. You’re fracking down 10,000 feet, two miles under the surface. But my God you say that to people, in New York, they don’t know what’s gonna happen to their water. Well what they need is somebody intelligent, a leader to say this is what the deal is. Don’t worry. Just watch what I’m telling you, listen to what I’m saying and check the facts. That’s all you have to do. It’s not complicated It’s very simple.”
This “reassurance” from a representative of the natural gas industry came courtesy of Pickens while he and Ted Turner were guest speakers earlier this week at the National Press Club event promoting his Pickens Plan to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil and invest in alternative fuels and natural gas in particular. It sounds like Pickens wants residents of New York State and even President Obama to trust him and the rest of the natural gas industry and not concern themselves with any of the details of fracking.
Before implying New Yorkers were incapable of grasping what a watershed was, he glossed over the fact that vertical fracking is currently taking place in Western New York using dangerous chemicals and the state’s water supply to extract methane from shale and the industry is poised to expand drilling in New York when the current state moratorium on horizontal fracking expires. The toxic chemicals used in fracking are exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act thanks to the artful politicking of Dick Cheney and the “Cheney Loophole.” Shale gas drilling has rapidly expanded across the state of Pennsylvania in recent years.
38:30 into the video…
“If you notice, all the complaints are coming from Pennsylvania. And that’s in the Marcellus. How long have you been developing the Marcellus? About three years. You’ve been…I drilled over 800,000 wells in Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas and fracked those wells. And I do not know of any lawsuit or any complaint or anything else about that.”
But there is a distinction in the type of natural gas drilling that’s going on in the Marcellus Shale. The hydraulic fracturing that’s used to extract methane in shale formations is a much more water intensive and dangerous process than in many of the conventional natural gas sources out west. Shale rock formations are much more dense so it takes much more water and pressure. Regardless of how many wells Pickens claims that he fracked safely, clearly there are problems right now in Pennsylvania and New York and that’s where much of the natural gas industry has turned to lately.
As Bryan Walsh at TIME wrote this morning in response to the unfolding disaster in Branford County, Pennsylvania, “You don’t have to fear the contamination of underground aquifers to worry about the impacts of shale gas drilling.” Accidents at the surface can release toxic fracking fluid into local streams and onto agricultural fields. Since the fracking wastewater cannot be treated by standard treatment plants, it could potentially make its ways into drinking water supplies.
The Pickens Plan is really a plan to frack America. The Food & Water Watch plan is to fight for a ban on fracking.
Meanwhile, we’re following these blogs for their good earlier coverage of the Pennsylvania disaster:
Shale gas drilling likely to be banned in France | EurActiv
April 20, 2011
Shale gas drilling likely to be banned in France | EurActiv.
Shale gas drilling likely to be banned in France
Published: 12 April 2011
The French government has backed a draft bill that would ban shale gas
drilling in the country, citing fears that the extraction method is a
risk to water quality. However, for other countries like Poland, shale
gas has become a national priority to win independence from Russian
imports. EurActiv France reports.
MPs from the ruling centre-right UMP party tabled the bill in the
National Assembly using an accelerated procedure. As a result, it will
only be examined in a single reading in the Assembly and the Senate.
If adopted, the text would suspend drilling permits granted in March
2010 to Total, GDF Suez, and Schuepbach Energy by former Environment
Minister Jean-Louis Borloo.
A shale gas drilling ban is also supported by the opposition Socialist
Party, which presented its own alternative text with the same aim.
In March, the French government had prolonged a moratorium on shale
gas drilling until June.
This had followed protests opposing the drilling method, notably in
the village of Villeneuve-de-Berg in southern France, with over 20,000
people voicing their opposition chanting “No gazaran!” Shale gas
drilling near the town had been planned for the end of 2011.
Scientists relieved, oil business fears red tape
After the announcement of the suspension of drilling, researchers at
the hydro-science centre at the University of Montpellier said they
were reassured. In the event of shale gas drilling, Montpellier’s
region “and all the water reserves close to the drilling area would
have been seriously threatened,” said researcher Françoise Elbaz.
“There is always a technological risk. In going back up, the drill can
release toxic gases such as the radioelements naturally contained in
the rocks,” she said. “And the authorities would have to cut off the
water supply.”
No such drilling has yet taken place in France, but researchers cite
the example of the city of Pittsburgh in the United States. Elbaz says
that following the use of chemicals to fracture the rock and ensure
permeability, the waters of the city have reached a salinity level
inappropriate for consumption.
During a presentation of his company’s annual results last February,
the director-general of Total, Christophe Margerie, said he was
“annoyed by the noise” surrounding shale gas. He expressed frustration
with excessive concern about the safety of drilling, saying “it’s good
to talk about the problems this can pose – if one day there are some –
but today, there are none”.
Margerie also raised fears that red tape could hinder production.
“[If] we need to ask the authorisation to one day ask for
authorisation, we’re going to start falling into useless paperwork,”
he said.
EU to assess shale gas potential in Europe
If the law is passed, the French debate on shale gas should be closed,
but the discussion continues at the European level.
Last February, European leaders agreed that “Europe’s potential for
sustainable extraction and use of conventional and unconventional
(e.g. shale gas, oil shale) fossil fuel resources should be assessed”.
A report by the consultancy firm McKinsey – commissioned by major gas
giants Gazprom, Centrica and others – claimed that shale gas could
meet the continent’s energy needs for 30 years.
Cuadrilla Resources, a British energy company, has begun exploratory
drilling near Blackpool, Lancashire. Drilling of shale gas is already
taking place near Gdansk, Poland.
For certain European countries, Poland in the lead, the drilling of
shale gas is seen as an alternative to Russian gas, which would allow
for greater energy independence.
Local group warns Auburn on gas well water Apr. 18, 2011
April 18, 2011
Local group warns Auburn on gas well water
Christopher Caskey / The Citizen | Posted: Monday, April 18, 2011 3:05 am
A group of local citizens concerned about natural gas drilling is calling on the city of Auburn to tighten regulations related to gas well water at its sewage treatment plant.
A letter signed by 75 people questioned how the city can trust that the companies currently dumping well water at the plant to follow the rules. They specifically pointed to a recent public notice that announced citations against six natural gas drilling companies for failing to file proper monitoring reports in 2010.
The group, which calls itself the Cayuga Anti-Fracking Alliance, wants the city to do one of two things. Either charge an “exorbitant price” to take the water and require all drilling firms to accept any future liability related to environmental or health impacts from the water, or refuse to take natural gas well water altogether.
City and state regulations currently ban any water from the controversial Marcellus shale formation and from wells that use a process known as high-volume, horizontal hydraulic fracturing (or fracking, for short) from going into the city’s wastewater plant.
The firms cited in March for the reporting violations were also forced to produce certification that no water from the Marcellus Shale was discharged into the local plant.
“How do we know that this is the case apart from taking natural gas companies at their word?” the group asks in their letter to the Auburn City Council.
“Bluntly put, the natural gas industry has no incentive to tell the truth,” the letter later states.
Members of the city council say they are intrigued by the group’s concerns. Auburn Mayor Michael Quill said on Thursday that the council will hold a work session in the coming weeks to try and answer some questions and discuss issues related to processing well water at the city plant.
Quill said he is interested in studying legislation in other municipalities about processing well water and see if the city should change its own regulations. A work session on the issue would be a way to “get everyone in a room together talking to each other” about the issue, he said.
“None of us want anything (processed at the plant) that’s detrimental to the environment,” Quill said.
Councilor Gilda Brower said she’s also watching the issue closely. She said on Thursday that the city may have to do more testing of the water that comes through. Though Brower said she’s in favor of going even further, at this point.
“I would support a ban, for sure,” Brower said.
The city’s wastewater plant has accepted natural gas well water for more than a decade. But that water, and natural gas drilling, has become the focus of controversy in recent years.
The horizontal hydrofracking process is used to pull large amounts of natural gas from the Marcellus Shale, a large underground formation that runs through parts of New York’s Southern Tier and Pennsylvania.
The natural gas well water processed at the Auburn plant mostly comes from wells in the Trenton Black River, Queenston, Oriskany and Oneida formations in New York state and is hauled by a handful of companies. The water is considered industrial waste, and the city must include all sources in an industrial pretreatment program filed with the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
Each hauler must report the wells and formations from which the water comes.
The wastewater from the Marcellus wells contains higher levels of contaminants, radioactive materials, chlorides and dissolved solids than water from a typical gas well that uses a conventional, vertical drilling process. The water coming into the Auburn site contains lower concentrations of contaminants, according to city officials.
The state is currently in the process of finishing an environmental review for horizontal drilling in the Marcellus formation. And as that process continues, the members of the Cayuga Anti-Fracking Alliance are one of dozens of environmental groups looking to ban horizontal drilling in New York state.
Auburn resident Beth Cuddy, who helped bring the local group together, said she started focusing on the issue recently when she saw in a national media report that said Auburn accepts well water.
She described the organization as an “informal group,” though she said they plan to organize local rallies and events to raise awareness about the hydrofracking issue. This weekend they held private screenings of a documentary on the issue, and Cuddy said they are looking for other times and places to hold similar screenings.
They also plan to continue lobbying local officials and raise awareness about environmental issues surrounding hydrofracking.
“I don’t see any way it (hydrofracking) can be done where it doesn’t affect the water,” Cuddy said. “I don’t understand why anyone would want to destroy the one resource we need to survive as a human race.”
Staff writer Christopher Caskey can be reached at 282-2282 orchristopher.caskey@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter at CitizenCaskey.
Methane and the greenhouse-gas footprint of natural gas from shale formations
April 15, 2011
Methane and the greenhouse-gas footprint of natural gas from shale formations: A letter
SpringerLink – Climatic Change, Online First™.
Here’s the direct link TO THE SITE
LINK TO PDF OF STUDY
LINK TO SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL
Bromide linked to oil/gas “brines”
April 12, 2011
Dr. Conrad Voltz, formerly of the Center for Environmental Health and Justice at U Pitt, testified in front of a Senate subcomittee today. (4/11/11)
From a study he and his students did at a treatment plant that only handled “brine” from oil and gas operations in Pennsylvania, they found amongst 8 other effluents at levels that exceed standards:
Bromide, which forms mixed chloro-bromo byproducts in water treatment
facilities that have been linked to cancer and other health problems were found in
effluent at 10,688 times the levels generally found acceptable as a background in
surface water.
On March 7, 2011 Melody Kight at SUNY-ESF presented the initial
findings of her research on identifying flowback fluid contamination.
“It’s very difficult to distinguish” the source of elevated chlorides
in well or surface water, whether they’re from road salt, frack fluid,
or other sources of NaCl (salt). Her studies indicate that the Na:Cl
ratio is at approximately 1:1 in all of them. Therefore, a different
ratio must be used to “fingerprint” frack fluid contamination.
Parker in 1978 characterized Appalachian Basin formation brine. He
found that as NaCl precipitates out of solution, bromide remains
dissolved in the brine.
Therefore, Ms. Kight rationalized, the Br:Cl ratio is the key. Her
studies, using water samples from the PADEP and various calculating
and modeling software, showed that salty water from frack fluid and
from other sources have different Br:Cl ratios.
Bromide has a 0.01 mg/L detection limit. Ms. Kight calculated that a
solution contaminated with as little as 0.0015% frack fluid could be
fingerprinted in this way.
http://sites.google.com/site/melodykight/home/research/abstracts
Ms. Kight is known to be a vocal supporter of natural gas drilling, but her research may prove useful. Landowners should ensure their water, both pre- and post- drilling, has been checked for bromide.
Marcellus just start of rich Pa. reserves | Philadelphia Inquirer | 04/10/2011
April 10, 2011
Marcellus just start of rich Pa. reserves | Philadelphia Inquirer | 04/10/2011.
Marcellus just start of rich Pa. reserves
New discoveries could hold even more natural gas.
By Andrew Maykuth
Inquirer Staff Writer
Natural gas drillers are accelerating exploration of several Appalachian rock formations that sandwich the Marcellus Shale beneath Pennsylvania, and some experts say the new discoveries may be as prolific as the Marcellus itself.
“What we’ve got is Marcellus times two,” said Terry Engelder, the Pennsylvania State University geosciences professor whose Marcellus Shale estimates in 2008 first drew public attention to the region’s shale gas potential.
Since The Inquirer reported in May that drillers had found recoverable gas in the Utica and Upper Devonian Shales, several operators have become more openly optimistic about a potential natural gas triple play in the region. The new discoveries add momentum to an industry that is rapidly reshaping the economy and the environment of large swaths of rural Pennsylvania.
“A year ago, I didn’t have a feeling the tests were going to be as large as I’ve seen,” Engelder said. “The implications of this are just amazing.”
Range Resources Corp., the Texas company that drilled the first Marcellus well in 2004, is bullish about multiplying output from its acreage, mostly in southwestern Pennsylvania.
“The Utica and Upper Devonian could combine to equal the Marcellus,” Range spokesman Matt Pitzarella said, though he cautioned that the estimates were preliminary.
At least four gas drillers, including Range, told investors this year they were exploring the formations, which lie above and below the Marcellus in a geological layer cake.
The expanding outlook of shale gas reserves goes far beyond Pennsylvania.
Worldwide estimates of gas reserves are growing because of revolutionary advances that couple horizontal-drilling techniques with hydraulic fracturing to unlock gas in long reaches of tight rocks.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration on Tuesday said technically recoverable shale gas worldwide could add 40 percent to global gas supply. China, South Africa, Argentina, and Australia have big reserves. So do Mexico and Canada.
According to the administration, American natural gas reserves are now at the highest level in 40 years. By 2035, shale gas will account for 46 percent of U.S. natural gas production.
Though gas burns cleaner than coal or oil, the escalation of an industrial extraction process that produces large volumes of toxic wastewater has raised fears about the trade-offs of shale gas. President Obama has championed natural gas development, but only if it can be done without endangering water supplies.
“It’s a little disheartening the industry is wringing its hands in excitement when they clearly haven’t figured out how to drill in the current shale without creating problems,” said David Masur, executive director of PennEnvironment, a lobbying organization.
Pennsylvania regulators on Wednesday pressed Western Pennsylvania water suppliers to expand the scope of tests to screen for radioactive pollutants and other contaminants from the natural gas drilling industry.
So far, 2,748 Marcellus wells have been drilled in Pennsylvania – 399 in the first three months of 2011. Experts say 50,000 wells could be drilled in the coming decades, not counting wells in other formations.
“We’re still in the early stages of this,” Masur said.
Awareness of the presence of gas in other Appalachian formations – even deep ones – is hardly new. Some operators, such as Anadarko Petroleum Corp., were attracted to Pennsylvania to explore other deep formations and then switched to the Marcellus. Range’s first Marcellus well had targeted a deeper formation called the Lockport Dolomite.
The potential of the Marcellus has eclipsed all other formations. In the last 150 years, operators have produced 47 trillion cubic feet of gas from Appalachian wells, Pitzarella said. By comparison, the Marcellus Shale is believed to contain 500 trillion cubic feet, though the amount eventually recovered will be less.
In recent months, operators have begun to focus capital on some of the other formations.
Atlas Energy Inc. executives, before their company was sold to Chevron Corp., told analysts they were exploring the Utica formation and the Upper Devonian Shale.
“Both of these shale packages are prevalent throughout Western Pennsylvania and New York, where we have over 630,000 net acres,” Atlas president Richard D. Weber said in August.
Consol Energy Inc., a Pennsylvania coal producer that last year moved aggressively into natural gas, said it had a promising Utica well last year in eastern Ohio.
Brandon Elliott, Consol’s vice president for investor relations, told investors on Feb. 28 that a vertical well produced 1.5 million cubic feet of gas from a 200-foot-thick Utica layer 8,450 feet below the surface.
That production, which required no hydraulic fracturing, “actually would be greater than any of our other vertical wells that we drilled in the Marcellus,” Elliot said.
Consol has budgeted $35 million to drill six more Utica wells later this year, he said.
GDACC 
