Gas Workers Make Themselves Butt of Jokes

These guys are busy building the Williams Compressor Station on Mt. Valley Road in Liberty township, Susquehanna County, PA. At least that's what they're supposed to do... and what they get paid big bucks to do.

So when a citizen reporter stopped by the other day to take a few pics of the construction - we learn what those gas field workers really do. Which raises many questions.... like the quality of work that goes into those compressor stations, and the quality of workers that man the stations.

You see, in the past 14 months four separate Williams Compressor stations have gone "boom":

March 29, 2012 - Lathrop Compressor in Springville, Susquehanna County, PA
July 23, 2012 - Windsor Compressor Station, Broome County, NY
May 15, 2013 - Williams Central Station, Brooklyn, Susquehanna County, PA
and most recently, May 30, 2013 in Branchburg, Somerset County NJ

Admittedly, lightening strikes are accidental, but the explosion at the Lathrop Compressor was found to be caused by human error. Given the display of professionalism by the gas field boys the other day, is it any wonder that Williams is having problems with their stations?

Meanwhile, the photo of the cheeky guy on the job has gone viral, making him - and gas field workers everywhere - the butt of jokes.  Will he still be on the job come Monday morning? Grab your camera and see for yourself - the work site is only a 10-minute drive from Hallstead.

Oops - There goes Another Road in the Gas Patch

The other day a huge truck - a 37-plus-ton monster with 14 rows of wheels (8 wheels per row) - got itself stuck on Turnpike road in Brooklyn Township, Susquehanna County, PA. Seems it was on its way to the Williams Central Compressor station and couldn't make the grade. Not only did it require a bit of pushing to get it out of stuck, but it left the road a mess - a road that, according to the residents, the company just "fixed" in order to accommodate their trucks.

Frank Finan posted a video of how they finally got the monster truck moving again. This is what traffic looks like, say the locals. Plus they can hear drilling and fracking all around them, so there's never a dull - or quiet - moment.

How Far is "Safe" when Protecting Aquifers?

Like land use, making pro-gas political statements is within a town’s rights. And the Joint Land Owner’s Committee is encouraging towns to do so. But the impacts of drilling don’t stop at municipal borders. That means that neighbors in the next town – even a town with a moratorium or a drilling ban – may feel the impacts of industrialized drilling.

A couple weeks ago I asked Don Barber, supervisor for the Town of Caroline what it’s like sharing a border with a “pro-drilling” town. Last March the Caroline town board passed a moratorium, and tonight they’re considering a ban.

“We anticipate that drilling activity will take place around us,” says Barber. The moratorium and ban effort are to allow the town more time to “address a number of impacts that the SGEIS (Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement) doesn’t address.” A big concern for Barber is road preservation. Most wells will be sited off a town road, he says. So those roads will see more traffic than ever before – traffic that the roads were not designed to handle.

 

Caroline also wants to look at site plan reviews, as drilling creates a lot of ancillary activities: transfer stations for drilling wastes and materials, gravel pits, staging areas and more. “These will be changes to agricultural land,” says Barber. “Our site plan review process needs to ensure that any development is done in a way that preserves the town’s character.”

Another big concern is groundwater protection. Whether there’s drilling in town or frack trucks passing through, there are many opportunities for spills and accidents, says Barber. So Caroline is developing an aquifer protection plan.

But part of Caroline shares an aquifer with Candor, a town that just last month passed a “pro-drilling” resolution. Drilling activity in Candor could potentially affect the water that Caroline residents drink, says Barber. “But there’s not anything we can do about it.”

As if to underscore this sort of quandary, some residents in Great Bend Township, PA found their water affected by drilling the next town over. The well is located in Liberty Township and feet from the township line. It is also about 2500 feet – a distance far enough that the affected residents were not notified about predrilling tests, nor did WPX, the drilling company, conduct any.

According to residents, their water turned black and stayed that way for at least three days. It eventually cleared up, but questions remain:

• Is there any contamination that residents should be aware of?
• If residents 2500 feet away are seeing effects, what about the protected aquifer areas along the Susquehanna River that is only 5200 feet away?
• And how far away is “safe”?

Explosion Doesn't Slow Compressor Station Plans for Susquehanna County

Smoke billowing from Lathrop compressor station. (by Frank Finan) 

On Tuesday, April 17 the PA Department of Environmental Protection will hold a public meeting and hearing to discuss air quality plan approval applications from Laser Northeast Gathering, a subsidiary of Williams Partners. The company plans to construct three separate natural gas compressor stations in Liberty, Middletown and Forest Lake townships in Susquehanna County, PA.

This hearing comes less than 3 weeks from an explosion and fire at the Williams Partners’ Lathrop compressor station in Springville Twp, also in Susquehanna County. On the morning of March 29 neighbors were surprised with a bang and shaking ground, followed by thick, black smoke spewing from the Lathrop compressor.

The facility, which houses seven compressor engines, has only been on-line just under two years – they started operations in June of 2010. The compressor station is linked to at least 10 wells and, according to a Cabot Oil & Gas spokesperson, moves approximately 365 million cubic feet of gas every day.

Media reports place blame for the explosion on a small gas leak. Fortunately, the leak triggered an evacuation alarm and automatic shut-down procedure.

On-scene investigators speculated that it might take months for the station to resume operations, and DEP told Williams not to restart the compressor without the agency’s permission. But within a couple days the company had the compressor up and running again. Everything worked properly, claims the company. As for state agencies, they don’t seem to have any regulatory authority. The PA state Public Utility Commission halted its investigation after determining the station was “outside its regulatory reach”.

As for the new compressor stations Williams has planned for Susquehanna County – well, maybe the public will have something to say about those.

The April 17 Public Hearing is scheduled for 6 pm at Montrose High School, 75 Meteor Way.
Rescheduled for Thursday April 26 at 6 pm in Elk Lake High School, 2380 Elk Lake School Road in Springville.  DEP will explain the review process. The hearing portion opens at 7:30 pm and people will be allowed to present up to 5 minutes of testimony. DEP is accepting written comment submitted by May 17; mail comments to: DEP Air Quality Program Manager, 2 Public Square, Wilkes-Barre, PA 18703. For more information, visit www.dep.state.pa.us or call 570-826-2511.

Methane found in More PA Wells

This past August methane was found in three private water wells in Lenox Township, located about 10 miles east of Dimock, PA. Investigators from the PA Department of Environmental Protection determined that the gas migrated from a flawed well drilled by Cabot Oil and Gas Corp.  

Local news reports that video taken inside one of Cabot’s wells shows that steel casing was improperly constructed. Also that methane was found between the cemented strings of casing in all three gas wells on the well pad – evidence, state regulators note, of flaws in construction.  

How much methane are we talking about? Before drilling, the methane level in one well was 0.3 milligrams per liter (about 0.3 ppm). Post drilling those levels shot up to 49 ppm (measured on Aug. 16) and 57 ppm (measured on Aug. 18).

At this time Cabot has installed methane detection alarms in the homes, vented the affected water wells, and is delivering replacement drinking water to two of the homes. The methane level in the third well has decreased to a level not requiring an alternate water supply, explains DEP.

Cabot spokesman George Stark told the press that “Cabot is committed to safe and responsible operations and takes matters like this very seriously.”

Until a journalist followed up on this investigation, DEP had not posted the results of their investigation. That, DEP says, was an “oversight”. Read more here.

What Fracking Sounds Like

One of the things that residents in NY have been asking their towns to do before Marcellus drilling takes off is develop some noise and light ordinances. In fact, Tioga Investigates Natural Gas (TING), an advisory group in Tioga County, NY includes information on developing such ordinances in their resource binder (along with road agreements and lots of other useful stuff).

If you have never seen - or heard or smelled - fracking, here's a video of  a fracking operation by Williams Gas Company at the Hollenbeck well site on Franklin Forks Rd., Franklin Forks, PA in Susquehanna County. The video was recorded on December 15 - just yesterday - at 6:30 pm. The active drilling site is across the road from a home; pay attention to the truck traffic.

Much thanks to Vera Scroggins, Citizens for Clean Water (Susquehanna County, PA)for the video.
If for some reason the video below doesn't work, here's the link:  http://youtu.be/zPE2RU5099U

DEP Counters Misinformation Campaign about Providing Water to Dimock

Last week some "concerned citizens" took out a full page ad in the Mulligans Shopping Guide (click to page 2/3). "Enough Already" screamed the red letters above a graphic of a waterline stamped with the red circle-and-slash. No waterline to Dimock, these people say. Why should the taxpayers of PA pay so a dozen people, whose wells have been rendered useless from gas drilling, can have safe drinking water? It would be cheaper just to drill another well, right?

And so, these good people have invited one and all to a Public Meeting tomorrow night, October 21, at 7 pm in the Elk Lake High School Auditorium. And they have invited people to sign petitions available at these places of business: The Inn at Montrose, Warner Quarries, Guy Parrish's, Lockharts, Brunges Commercial Supply, Taylor Rentals, PJ's Cafe and the Rock Mountain Sporting Clays. I don't know about you, but I'm thinking that even people who don't have drinking water might have been inclined to drop by the Inn at Montrose for a bit of food and grog.... at least till now.

Not so fast, says the PA Department of Environmental Protection. Yesterday DEP Secretary John Hanger issued an Open Letter to the Citizens of Susquehanna County who are impacted by the gas migration issues. Here is what he wrote:

To Whom It May Concern:
The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) recently announced a permanent solution to the drinking water problems in Dimock caused by gas migration from Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation wells. DEP was forced to take action since Cabot continues to deny responsibility for the contamination, despite overwhelming evidence of its responsibility. Since that announcement was made, Cabot has launched a public relations campaign and much misinformation has been brought forth concerning who will be party to that solution and who will end up paying for it.

Cabot is responsible for the gas migration that has caused families to be without a permanent water supply for nearly 2 years and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania will seek court orders to make Cabot pay for all costs. But we cannot wait for Cabot to fix the problems it caused and to do the right thing. In the interim, PENNVEST, an agency that finances water and sewer infrastructure projects, will be asked to provide funds to pay the estimated $11.8 million cost for Pennsylvania American Water Company to construct a new, 5.5-mile water main from its Lake Montrose treatment plant to provide water service to the residents of Dimock. Again, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania will then aggressively seek to recover the cost of the project from Cabot.

No one in Dimock or Susquehanna County will pay for it and local taxes will not be increased as the result of it. Residents along Route 29 will have the option to tap into the line if they so choose. No one will be forced to hook up to the new public water supply. The new water line will also boost the value of homes and businesses near it.

This action is being taken based on overwhelming evidence that proves the Cabot wells are the source of the contamination. DEP has collected ample evidence tying methane found in private water supplies to Cabot’s wells. We have witnessed and chronicled bubbling gas and high pressure readings from a number of wells that prove poor well construction, and taken readings that show excessive gas levels that could only exist in wells that are leaking. Sophisticated testing has “fingerprinted” gas samples and matched the gas found in five homes to the gas leaking from the nearby Cabot wells. Additionally, the gas wells in many cases are less than a thousand feet from the homes where, by law, it is presumed gas drilling caused any pollution of water wells that may result.

The residents of Dimock have already paid a high price for Cabot’s unwillingness to accept responsibility and provide a satisfactory solution. Cabot will be the one paying the final bill. Perhaps next time Cabot will do the job right the first time and avoid expensive repairs.
Sincerely,
John Hanger, Secretary

read official press release here.