PA Researchers ask: Will increased family income from gas leasing benefit child-wellbeing?

A couple days ago Penn State University announced that a team of sociology researchers received a grant to study family income and well-being of children in the Marcellus shale region of Pennsylvania and New York. The burning question: is there a difference in the quality of life and academic achievement in children growing up in families that receive gas drilling money compared with those in the same area who receive no money?

According to PSU, the project is supported by a $150,000 grant from the Russell Sage Foundation. Molly Martin, associate professor of sociology and demography at Penn State, is leading the team of researchers who plan to review and analyze data from Pennsylvania and New York school districts located above the Marcellus Shale region. Using Geographic Information Analysis (GIS), they will be able to merge annual maps of Marcellus Shale wells and gas pipelines and locate them within school district boundaries. They will be able to study individual data in various categories by school district, analyzing differences in such things as health outcomes, academic achievement, obesity, teen pregnancy, high school graduation and juvenile delinquency.  

You would think this sort of research – the “do kids do better in families with more money” – has already been done. And you’d be right. In the 2002 Winter/Spring issue of the journal Children and Welfare Reform, Sheila Zedlweski writes, “It is well documented that children in families with greater incomes do better across a wide range of indicators. Economically secure children tend to be healthier and do better in school; they are less likely to be involved in criminal behavior and are more likely to graduate from high school and to earn higher incomes as adults. In contrast, poorer children tend to have fewer opportunities for success.”

Nearly a dozen years later Duncan, et al revisit the issue in the Sept. 2011 issue of Dev Psychol (vol. 47, no. 5). After reviewing the literature and data they suggest that “…a $1,000 increase in annual income increases young children's achievement by 5%–6% of a standard deviation. As such, our results suggest that family income has a policy-relevant, positive impact on the eventual school achievement of preschool children.” Their study, “Does Money Matter?”  – along with loads of links to other similar studies – is posted here in the US National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health.

So do we really need one more study about the effect of income on children’s wellbeing? Dr. Martin she sees this as a “rare opportunity for a natural experiment,” as she told the PSU reporter. “Some families will receive a significant number of royalty checks while others will not,” she said, “because of two factors – one determined by a geological formation created over 300 million years ago (Marcellus Shale) and the other by government policies decided in Harrisburg, PA and Albany, NY.

A more interesting question might be whether the wealth created for a few through gas royalties creates income inequality that affects the well-being of children in those communities.

Inadequate Oversight of NY Oil & Gas Wells

Bradford County, PA Sept 2012

While New Yorkers debate the safety of hydrofracking, state regulatory reports show problems with conventional oil and gas drilling. According to AP reporter Mary Esch, reports by NY regulators “reveal thousands of unplugged abandoned wells and other industrial problems that could pose a threat to groundwater, wetlands, air quality and public safety.”

Two days ago Walter Hang, president of the Ithaca-based firm, Toxics Targeting, released documents and a video highlighting some of those shortcomings. The big question, he wonders, is whether the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is equipped to regulate hydrofracking.

At the heart of the problem is the lack of inspections – and state inspectors. A July report by Earthworks found that oil and gas well inspections occur too infrequently and too irregularly; fines are inadequate; lack of data prevents public scrutiny of DEC's oversight; and citizen complaints seem to be ignored.

DEC has proposed, in the SGEIS,  that if high-volume hydraulic fracturing is used to drill wells in NY, drilling permits will be issued only to the extent that the department can review and oversee activities and adequately inspect well pads and enforce regulation. But their 15 or so inspectors can’t even keep up with wells already in production.

From 2001 – 2010 the number of oil and gas well inspections decreased by more than 1,000 per year. In 2001 the Division of Mineral Resources conducted one inspection per 2.6 active wells. By 2010 they were only able to conduct one inspection for every 4 active wells. During that same decade, the number of active wells increased by 1,000 – leaving 76% of New York’s active wells uninspected.

The low fines don’t seem to deter companies from taking shortcuts and polluting the soil and water. In 2006 only 12 enforcement cases resulted in penalties, and the fines are generally less than $2,000 per case. Low penalties certainly won’t deter violators and can’t even begin to compensate those harmed by methane migration and brine spills.

Pennsylvania DEP Calls for Better Rules to Protect Water from Drilling Waste

Yesterday, April 6, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection issued a call to action. "PA must take action to protect water resources from drilling wastewater and other sources of TDS pollution," they said in comments released to the press.

The problem:  high levels of total dissolved solids (TDS) pollution from natural gas drilling and other sources are threatening Pennsylvania’s streams and rivers, "including aquatic life," warned DEP Secretary John Hanger.

"Treating and disposing of gas drilling brine and fracturing wastewater is a significant challenge for the natural gas industry because of its exceptionally high TDS concentrations,” Hangar said. Pointing to the rapid growth of Marcellus drilling he added, "Our rules must be strengthened now to prevent our waterways from being seriously harmed in the future."

Hanger then listed some recent cases where TDS impaired streams and affected major sources of drinking water. In 2008 and 2009 the TDS levels exceeded drinking water standards along the Monongahela River, a major source of drinking water. And again in early September 2009, excessive TDS levels led to an environmental disaster that wiped out 26 miles of Dunkard Creek in Greene County, as well as many miles of the creek in West Virginia. High TDS concentrations, combined with temperature, nutrients and other environmental factors created the ideal conditions for a golden algae bloom - and inhospitable conditions for other aquatic life. The algae released toxins to the water column that "literally wiped out aquatic life, including at least 16 species of freshwater mussels and 18 species of fish," notes the press release.

"Dunkard Creek is an example of what can happen if TDS is not controlled," said Hanger, calling the loss of this important public resource  an environmental and economic tragedy. You may read the entire press release here.

 

How Can We Protect Our Roads from Overweight Gas Industry Trucks

... or any overweight trucks, for that matter? Owego residents raised this issue time and again during planning board meetings regarding Patriot Water Treatment LLC.

Residents all over upstate New York are concerned that taxpayers may end up bearing the economic brunt of natural gas development, leaving the industry - and a few lucky landowners - to benefit.  This week Broome County is looking into requiring a special permit for overweight trucks - $10 per truck.

To read more about how NY towns are dealing with road protection issues see this article in Daily Yonder.

DEP to Plug Abandoned Well in Moon Township, PA

The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection alerted the press that they have hired a contractor to plug an abandoned well in the residential area of Moon Township, Allegheny County. This action is being taken to prevent "potential gas migration" from an abandoned well that is currently releasing natural gas into the air.

 

The well is to be plugged by today (weather permitting maybe?). According to the DEP press release:

"The work, which is being performed under an emergency contract with Hydrocarbon Well Services of Buckhannon, WV, will protect the public by preventing gas from migrating through the soils and away from the well. There is no indication that the well poses a risk to area residents or to children attending the nearby J.A. Allard Elementary School, but until the work is completed, DEP advises the public to keep a safe distance from the well."

 

A property owner discovered the well last fall when he was clearing brush from the area. At that time DEP inspected the area and put the well on a list of abandoned wells to be plugged. But since February 6, residents have been calling DEP with numerous odor complaints. DEP inpsectors revisited the well and discovered that a hole had been eroded into the casing, allowing the release of pressurized gas. 

 

DPE spokesperson Helen Humphreys noted that because abandoned wells can cause many problems, the Oil and Gas Act of 1984 requires well operators to plug non-producing wells. "However," she told the press, "many wells were abandoned prior to when state regulations took effect." So the state legislature amended the Oil and Gas Act in 1992 to allow wells abandoned before April 1985 to be classified as “orphan” wells. That gives DEP the authority - and the financial means -  to plug them.

For more information, visit www.depweb.state.pa.us or call 412-442-4000.

EPA tells DEC to conduct more thorough review on Marcellus Drilling

Yesterday, December 30, Region 2 of the EPA sent 17 pages of formal comments to NY State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) regarding proposed rules for drilling in Marcellus and shales. According to the EPA, the DEC needs to review and expand their analysis on the cumulative and indirect impacts in the draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (dSGEIS). In addition, says the EPA, "greater emphasis needs to be placed on the potential health impacts that may be associated with gas drilling and hydrofracturing."

EPA is particularly concerned about the potential risks gas drilling poses to the New York City watershed. Despite the mitigation measures proposed in the SGEIS, EPA questions whether drilling in the NYC watershed is consistent with the long-term maintenance of the unfiltered water supply.

In addition, EPA lists a number of other issues of particular concern: water supply, water quality, wastewater treatment, local and regional air quality and management of Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORM) disturbed during drilling. The EPA monitors plans for disposal of water and brine containing NORM. In their comments, however, EPA notes that NORM concentrations in production brine of Marcellus wells have the potential to far exceed the Maximum Contamination Limits (MCLs) specified in the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). So if brine is going to go through pre-treatments and end up eventually discharged into somebody's drinking water, EPA wants New York to figure out how to meet the federal regulatory levels. They also question the inconsistency of reporting concentration levels; levels of some radionuclides are reported in pico-Curies per gram (pCi/g) while others are reported in parts per million (ppm). Using ppm as an analytical tool could "significantly underestimate the uranium concentrations," says EPA.

The EPA also notes that the dSGEIS supplements the existing 1992 GEIS. But in the 17 years since the GEIS was written, the "existing environment and conditions in New York State have changed significantly". Reliance on the original GEIS as a "baseline" does not take into account the cumulative impacts fom habitat fragmentation and other impacts that may have occurred during the intervening years.

Frack Chemicals are as safe as laundry detergent.....

If you ask folks around here (Upstate New York) what concerns them about gas drilling in the Marcellus shale, contamination of drinking water and groundwater aquifers usually tops their list. Given the number of brine spills already documented by DEC, not to mention the three frack chemical spills about two months ago just over the border, and you begin to understand the concern.

Cabot Oil and Gas had three spills at two of their wells. Eight thousand gallons of a water/gel frack mixture oozed across the soil and into Stevens Creek and into a nearby wetland. DEP slapped Cabot's hand, ordering them to halt operations for a couple of weeks and fining them $56,000 and change. But still, 8,000 gallons is a lot of frack gel to spill on the ground.

That same month Brad Gill, executive director of IOGA-NY tried to ease people's concerns about the potential contamination of water from chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing. “These chemicals are no more dangerous than those found in personal care products and laundry detergent,” he said at a public meeting in Corning, and flashed a slide of the Materials Safety Data Sheet for a common household cleaner on the screen.

His point? That people use products containing chemicals similar to those used in fracking fluid every day. Brad isn't the only one to compare frack chemicals to the stuff you wash your face with each morning or toss in with the diapers.

Christopher Helman, writing in Forbes last month, noted that the acids, surfactants, petroleum-based lubricants, corrosion inhibitors and microbe-killers are "basically the same carcinogenic chemicals found in household cleaners Formula 409 and Drano." So maybe we shouldn't drink it, but basically it's not scary stuff.

But many of the chemicals in the shampoos, cosmetics and household cleaning products contribute to cancer. They contain chemicals that mimic hormones - such as estrogen - and these synthetic chemicals disrupt normal hormone behavior in our bodies.

There are environmental estrogens in shampoos, body lotions and sunscreens; they may be absorbed into our bodies through the skin. And cleaning products and laundry detergents may contain nonylphenol polyethoxylate, a surfactant that breaks down into an estrogen mimic. But there's a whole lot of difference between the 32-ounces of detergent I might spill in my laundry room and the 8,000 gallons of gel Cabot spilled in PA.

To read more about laundry detergent, fracking chemicals and cancer click here.

 

270 Drilling Accidents in NY - So Far

For the past 18 months or more the NY Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has steadfastly clung to their mantra that there have been no drilling accidents in NY. Ever. And we've had lots of experience with drilling, they say, noting that since the 1800's there have been close to 70,000 wells drilled in the state.

Furthermore, many of these wells have used fracking, they add, claiming that what was safe in the past few decades will continue to be safe for the future.

Apparently they forgot about the 270 drilling accidents reported in the last three decades. Walter Hang, who owns a small research company called Toxics Targeting recently posted a file to his website listing 270 incidents of wastewater spills, well contamination, and other ecological damage related to gas production since 1979.

Hang, who has also mapped TCE plumes in the local neighborhoods in Ithaca, NY, is an environmental advocate. While he's never come out against gas drilling, he has said on many occasions that there are environmental risks, and has asked for public disclosure by DEC on well accidents. They didn't; Hang did, and now we can read all about it.

The interesting thing Hang noted is that of the 270 incidents he posted, DEC only caught 60 of them. The remainder were reported by citizens - people who were involved in the incident or folks who just happened to notice something looked wrong and called it in.

Hang's release of this data comes just as DEC announces a 30-day extension for comments on the draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (dSGEIS) for horizontal drilling/hydrofracking in the shales. You can find that 809-page document on the DEC website.

It also comes on the heels of an announcement by PA's Department of Environmental Protection fining Cabot Oil and Gas $120,000 for damages and ordering the company to restore or provide a permanent alternative for the drinking water wells destroyed by methane migration earlier this year. You can read the full announcement here.

The most interesting thing to notice about the spills Hang posted is that in the first dozen the cause is "equipment failure". The next interesting thing is that there are no penalties. Here's a sampling of incidents from Hang's files:

November 1996- a resident in Freedom complained about a problem with drinking water from his home well. He thought it might be related to the gas drilling over on Bixby Rd about a mile from his house. The DEC investigator commented that gas escaped through a fault in the shale and affected properties 1 and 1/2 miles away. He found gas bubbling up in ponds and ditches, and they evacuated 12 families. The problem? An equipment failure. The penalty? None.

October 1997 in Willing, NY - a brine tank overflowed spilling 15,000 gallons which flowed through a field and into a local creek. The brine spill killed vegetation, and a local farmer was concerned about his cows drinking from the creek. Solution: gas company erected a fence so cows wouldn't get to creek and provided temporary water supply. They decided to let natural vegetation grow back following season. The problem? A faulty valve. The penalty? None.

September 2003 in Independence, NY - another brine spill. This time 100,000 gallons spilling into Shanada Creek. DEC comments: no one saw any dead fish. (That means it's good, right?)
The problem? A broken valve. The penalty? Oh, come on.... do I have to really say it again?

You can read the entire report here. Just don't eat your lunch while reading....

Update on Owego Frack Fluid Treatment

On Oct. 27 Andrew Blocksom presented his plans for a frack fluid treatment plant to the Town of Owego Planning Board and was told to do a bit more homework (see Oct 28 entry). Patriot Water Treatment LLC had submitted a site plan and a "short-form" Environmental Assessment Form" (EAF).

The "short form" is indeed short - only two pages in length. Instead of the 20 or so questions about environmental impacts on the longer form, there are only seven concerning potential adverse action on the environment. At the meeting the planning board asked Patriot Water to provide more details - and complete the longer EAF - before bringing the proposal back to the board.

Which, Blocksom says, they are working on. He also says that he is working with the DEC to figure out what other permits may be required, as the type of treatment facility he hopes to build is very different from anything they've permitted. Apparently DEC is going to ask for some air quality information as well.

The biggest concern voiced by both residents and planning board members last week was the lack of detailed information about the recycling treatment process. Blocksom’s overly simplified description left people wondering what happened to the frack fluid when it entered the facility and where would the solids and salts be stored after their removal from the drilling waste fluid. People also wanted more details about the proposed impoundment and what actions Patriot Water Treatment would take in the case of a spill or a flood. Perhaps the thing that bothered people the most was Blocksom’s continual reference to frack waste as “non-hazardous” and “non-toxic” material.

When Blocksom submitted his plans to the town, he included some information about equipment developed by Aqua-Pure Ventures Inc., of Calgary, Alberta, and implied that Patriot would be leasing from that company. So I called up Aqua-Pure and spoke with Patrick Horner, the lead engineer.

The facility proposed for Taylor road will employ a process called “mechanical vapor recompression evaporation” (MVR) said Horner . He explained that Aqua-Pure already has nine well-site units using this process in Texas and they are working with Eureka Resources in Williamsport, PA to establish a permanent facility much like the one proposed for Owego.

IF Patriot does indeed use the NOMAD units built by Aqua-Pure, the frack fluid will go through a series of stages. During the first stage the pH (acidity or alkalinity) of the water is adjusted. This is when metals and solids precipitate, or drop out of the frack fluid. The solids go through a de-watering process and, once they are dried into cakes, transported to an industrial waste facility.

Meanwhile, the remaining liquid is subjected to the MVR process to reduce the salts. One of the problems both Blocksom and Horner raised is that fluid with extremely high levels of salts, above 80,000 to 100,000 parts per million (ppm), are hard to distill. “And the Marcellus wells tend to have higher levels of salinity in their flowback,” Horner said.

Fluid that has low salinity, and distilled water resulting from the treatment process will be trucked back to the wells for use in fracking.

The NOMAD isn't the only type of unit available, and Aqua-Pure isn't the only company developing this technology. In a telephone conversation today, Blocksom indicated that his company is considering other companies as well. With 20 tough questions to answer and some research to do, it's not likely that Patriot Water Treatment LLC will be ready with an updated proposal in time for the November 24 planning board meeting.

Owego Town Planning Board to Patriot Water: You've Got Work to Do

About 50 residents showed up to the Town of Owego Planning Board meeting last night (Oct. 27) to learn more about the Patriot Water Treatment LLC plans for recycling frack fluid. The planning board, which is the lead agency for this project, has the authority to approve or reject the site plan. Last night, after listening to the company's proposal and an hour or more of citizen comments, the board decided that they needed more information before making a decision. They gave Andrew Blocksom, one of the Patriot Water owners, a long list of items they'd like more information on by the next meeting.

Seems like the biggest issue that both residents and planning board had was the lack of detailed information: What exactly is this process of cleaning up the frack waste? Where will the recycled water go? What happens if there is a spill or a flood? Will there be open pits (impoundments) holding frack fluid? And why can't we find your company on the internet?

Turns out Patriot Water Treatment LLC is brand-spankin' new, created only recently by three guys who see the potential in offering a service to the gas companies. They'll be leasing the water treatment equipment from Aqua Pure, a company out of Calgary, Canada that is on the web. The process, Andy explained to me after the meeting, is one that precipitates out the heavy metals and solids (which get transported to a proper waste facility) and then - if the remaining water is not too salty or doesn't have too high a level of TDS (total dissolved solids) - they send it through a distilling process and the "clean" water is trucked back to the wells to re-use for fracking. The brine (wastewater) is sent to an injection well in Ohio - at least for now. (Fortuna has a permit to test a "non-producing" gas well in Van Etten for potential as an injection well - more on that later.)

Aside from the fact that this company is new, and that Andy gave what he called his "kindergarten" presentation [and clearly not enough details to satisfy the locals and the planning board], what really bothered folks was that he constantly said that the frack waste was "not hazardous" and "not toxic". The other issue was the amount of truck traffic - 4 trucks/hour, 24 hours/day, 7 days a week - routed up and down a steep hill near through residential areas.

"Why not follow the regular truck route through town?" asked one guy. Another wanted to know whether the planning board could put a route restriction on the trucks, and quite a few expressed concern about the taxpayers underwriting the road maintenance for repairs, as each truck will weigh something on the order of 80,000 pounds.

So, where will this treatment facility go? On the site of the old Chevy dealership on Taylor Road. This is zoned an "industrial" area, and sure enough there are a bunch of industries there already: Sanmina, Lockheed, Moore's Tires and service center, a bowling alley, a wastewater treatment plant and a small electrical business. There are also four churches and a preschool within a couple minute walk from the site, and the nearest residence is a mere 500 feet from the edge of the pavement, where the frack tanks will be lined up - not 1500 feet as stated a week earlier at the county planning board meeting. As some folks pointed out last night, the area is already zoned industrial, and the idea of recycling frack waste sounds good; it might reduce the amount of water pumped out of the local rivers and streams.

But, as the planning board said last night: there are a lot of unanswered questions.

Gas Leases & Real Estate

My neighbor down the road is a farmer. Like most of the farmers I know she is down-to-earth, can fix just about anything, and practical. During a discussion the other day about landowner's rights to lease, she raised two good points: that a landowner could be held liable for damages that might occur to a neighbor's water should contamination from drilling occur, and the difficulty of selling leased property.

Last spring I interviewed a few realtors in gas-drilling areas, asking them if they'd experienced any trouble selling properties. Dave Knudsen, a Sullivan County realtor with the Catskill Buyer Agency, said that during the summer of 2008 he fielded two calls a week from investors looking for "100 to 200 leaseable acres".

"They were asking for land near the pipeline," Dave said. But his other clients, downstaters looking for a quiet country home, had other priorities. Their first question was: are the neighbors leased? If so, they didn't want to look at the land.

Dave isn't the only one. A Finger Lakes area realtor said she had more than the usual trouble matching prospective home-buyers with their country dream house. One 32-acre parcel near Ithaca was rejected twice because of the lease. The second buyer even had a house package worked up for the land, but the bank denied him a loan because of an existing gas lease on the property. The ultimate buyer figured he could build a house before the gas company moved in to drill a well.

To read the complete article go to http://www.tiogagaslease.org/images/BVW_03_20_09.pdf

Paper Chase: getting a copy of the new Marcellus drilling regs

Want to read a copy of New York State’s new regulations for drilling in Marcellus Shale? Hope you’ve got a computer because the DEC (Dept. of Environmental Conservation) isn’t planning on printing them for a broad distribution.

On September 30, after more than a year of waiting, the DEC released their draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (dSGEIS) – but on-line only. It’s not just the folks living on top of the Marcellus shale who’ve been waiting to read this document; industry folks have been yammering for publication of the regs since spring.

What’s the big deal? The draft SGEIS is an environmental assessment that outlines safety measures, protection standards and mitigation strategies specifically for gas wells that rely on horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing.

It’s a hefty document - 809 pages, about the length of the most recent Harry Potter book. Unlike the Harry Potter book, print copies of the dSGEIS will be as rare as dragon teeth. Oh, they’ll be available – just not in convenient places.

“First we’ll make sure print copies are available in DEC offices,” said Yancey Roy. He’s the DEC spokesman who gets to answer all the hard questions. Then the DEC will place copies in certain libraries that are document repositories. In my library system, which serves five counties, there are 33 libraries. Only four will receive bound copies – that’s not even one per county!

The kicker – Yancey says that beyond that puny effort, DEC is “making no provisions to provide print copies to the public.” Not only would the cost be prohibitive but a large printing would level a small forest.

That means that the average Joe will need to go on-line to read the proposed regulations. And quickly, too, because comments are due by November 30.

Because the regulations outlined in the draft SGEIS impact everyone living above Marcellus shale, there is much public interest in the recently released document. But for people living in rural areas, many without access to high-speed Internet and some without home computers, reading the dSGEIS online is not a viable option.

The impending comment deadline has local municipal officials and county legislators scrambling for their reading glasses and other folks scrambling to figure out how they’re gonna read the document in 2-hour chunks at the library – assuming they’ve got a way to get to the library. Not so easy a thing to do in the rural areas.

Our library, which happens to be one of the regional repositories for DEC documents, is only open three hours each afternoon, and a couple hours in the mornings two days a week, plus Saturdays. Oh yeah, there’s a couple hours on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, too – but those are also the nights for Village and Town Hall meetings, not to mention that most people are probably down at the high school cheering on our “can we make it to state again” volleyball team.

So, while DEC dithered about printing costs, a bunch of local folks downloaded the draft SGEIS onto flashdrives and headed to the nearest copy center. Turns out it cost ‘em close to $77 to get the entire document printed, but they cracked open their piggy banks and donated copies to their communities. In one town where there isn’t a library folks can drop by the local market for a cuppa coffee and peruse a chapter or two whilst catching up on the latest gossip.

Of course Shaleshock has a copy or two up in their office for folks to read, and they made extra copies for the county library – which is a repository but didn’t get the document from DEC until late last week.

As one person said, if the DEC can’t get a print document to the stakeholders, how will the DEC be able to tackle the much larger issue of regulating the thousands of gas wells expected over the next couple of years?

No answer from Yancey on that one yet…. but if you want to read the document you can, at
http://www.dec.ny.gov/energy/58440.html