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TO:
Attn: dSGEIS Comments
Bureau of Oil & Gas Regulation
NYSDEC Division of Mineral Resources
625 Broadway, Third Floor
Albany NY 12233-6500
dmnsgeis@gw.dec.state.ny.us

FROM:
Brian Brock, retired geologist
Franklin NY

DATE:
30 December 2009

RE:    CONSIDERATIONS  FOR  REVISIONS  TO  dSGEIS

Aquifer Depths, Database of BOGR states that depths to the base of aquifer is so poorly known that they need to set a default value of 850 feet.  Despite this, there in no mention of a database for the driller’s report of the depth of fresh and brine waters at each well, which could be then used to predict depths to the base of the aquifer for future well permits.

Bedding Planes and Fractures Flow of groundwater is usually controlled by these discontinuities, but there is no adequate discussion of bedding planes and fractures in Chapter 4, Geology.  Large roadcuts, quarries, railroad tunnels, and aqueduct tunnels can provide data.

County Health Departments Many have neither the expertise or resources to investigate reports of water pollution, as suggested by SGEIS.  This responsibility is an unfunded mandate.  Health departments from counties in the fairways of the black shales should provide input.

Cumulative Impact Draft SGEIS has only a few scattered and brief discussions of this.  If a boom in extraction of gas from black shales develops in NYS (as it has elsewhere), then cumulative impacts will be substantial.  Final SGEIS should have comprehensive Cumulative Impact Assessment to include: water withdrawal, waste disposal, traffic, road damage, air pollution, manpower, and community.  Current SEQRA handbook covers cumulative impact.

Disclosure of Frac Chemicals to Public While BOGR requires that companies report all chemicals used to them, there is no provision for releasing this information to the public.  These chemicals will be injected below the public’s property and might contaminate the public’s drinking water.  Without such information, the public can not monitor the purity of its drinking water.

Fairway, Extent of Alpha Environmental consultants defines “fairway” by rock properties (pages 4-14 and 4-18) without considering the setting of the rock units.  As a result, Fig. 4.7 and 4.12 show fairways of Utica and Marcellus shales extending north and east to outcroppings.  Production of economic quantities of gas require the hydrostatic/lithostatic pressure differential produced by thousands of feet of overlying rock.  As drawn, these figures give the mistaken impression that areas that are immediately south and west of shale outcroppings will have gas extraction and should be revised.

Faulting
Figure 4.13 gives the mistaken impression that the fairways for Utica and Marcellus shales are mostly free of faults — faults that could provide pathway for waters from black shales to aquifers.  True the figure is labeled “Mapped Faults …”, but the distinction between mapped faults and total faults is not discussed.   The bedrock is monotonous and poorly exposed, so probably many faults have gone unmapped.  This figure is based on a compilation over 30 years old, and could be updated with data from natural seismicity, seismic imaging, and mapping from NYC reservoir and tunnel construction.

Figure 5-1 This schematic of a well pad  is confusing at best, and much of it is wrong.  If it is of a multi-well pad in development, then it should be so labeled.  This figure should be completely redrafted.  There is too much wrong to detail here, but contact me if you want suggestions.

Flowback Disposal
Destination  Within months of the approval of the final SGEIS, wells will each begin producing hundreds of thousand or millions of gallons of flowback.  A safe way to dispose of this is required, but there appears to be none in NYS.  Draft SGEIS does not estimate the volume of flowback expected nor discuss which sites could accept this volume.
Reporting  In Appendix 6, the proposed Environmental Assessment Form does not require reporting of frac fluids that leave New York State.  Given the lack of a significant disposal option in state, most of this water may be sent out of state.

Formation Waters, Composition of Draft SGEIS provides a summary of flowback analyses but not analyses of formation waters, despite BOGR regulating gas drilling for over a century.  Without such, several key points of the SGEIS can not be finalized, including:
* How can formation waters be distinguished from flowback?
* Can formation waters be processed through POTW?
* Can formation water be safely spread on roads?

Frac Trespass
CI Hearings Currently a hearing for compulsory integration can be held after well work is completed as long as land has been leased where drilling takes place.  Presumably a frac job is designed to fracture throughout entire drilling unit.  May they frac before the whole unit is leased or integrated?
Taking Fracing is a new technology with imperfect control of the extent of resulting fractures.  How can neighbors to the drilling unit be assured that fracing will not extend under their properties, neither trespassing nor taking “their” gas?

Funding and Staffing Although this is outside the scope of SGEIS, until BOGR obtains adequate resources for enforcement, the public can have no confidence that GEIS and SGEIS are anything more than ink on paper.

ICF International Analysis. Appendix 11
Pore Flow The mathematical analysis of fluid flow through intact rock via pore space (pp. 24 – 31) is a pointless.  There is no doubt that 1000 feet of unfractured rock would provide a barrier to frac fluids over short times, but how often is this the case?
Fracture Flow Despite wasting pages on calculating pore-flow rates, ICF dismisses chances of an open flow path from fractures, faults, or well bores as “theoretically possible but extremely unlikely” (pg. 31) without attempting to quantify this risk.  The experience of NYC in drilling their aqueduct tunnels suggest that the risk could be substantial.
Reporting Fluid Flow Even if the odds of an open flow pathway “is very small” (pg. 32), given the large number of wells expected, then occurrence of open pathways is almost certain.   Therefore one of the required non-routine incidents that drillers should report (Appendix 10, Supplementary Permit Conditions, #46) should be failure to hold pressure or anomalous fluid loss during fracing.
Injection Wells ICF consultants may be correct that high-pressure fracturing for a short time (“typically less than a day per stage”, pg. 34) make it unlikely that frac fluids could immediately reach aquifers.  On the other hand, injection wells do pump waste water at high pressures for longer times.  The consultants neglect to consider long-time flow of fluids from injection wells.  Injection wells remain one of the few ways to dispose of waste water from drilling, flowback, or plugging.
Lack of Evidence The final conclusion (pg. 34): “There are no known incidents of ground water contamination due to hydraulic fracturing.” is deceptive.  Because there has been no testing of groundwater before and after fracing by either drillers or BOGR, it is more correct to say that no proof exists that groundwater remains uncontaminated due to hydraulic fracturing.  “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

Incident Response With a large enough number of wells, everything that could go wrong will go wrong: surface spills, well seeps, aquifer pollution, fires, explosions, etc.   While SGEIS requires the reporting of any non-routine incidents by drillers, there is no mention of the response required by BOGR.

Inspections
Frequency For most wells, no inspections are required during the entire life cycle of a site: site preparations, drilling, fracturing, completing, and production.  (A single inspection during surface casing is required only for the minority of wells in primary and principal aquifers.)  Considering that much of the BOGR oversight is limited to the review of paperwork self-reported by drillers, a minimum number of random and unannounced inspections is necessary to encourage honest reporting and should be required.
Surface Casing and Initial Fracing Site visits should be required for these two steps.  These two visits by Mineral Resource Specialists would also allow inspection of the general operation.  If this is beyond the current staff, it only argues for an increase in staffing.
Transparency There is no written procedure for monitoring and inspecting a well over its life cycle from site preparation to production.  Without this, the public has no way to determine if BOGR is fulfilling its responsibility to protect the environment.
Workload BOGR has stated that it has and will continue to provide sufficient oversight of each gas well.  Should there be a rush of permit request, the number of permits issued would be limited by the workload of mineral resource specialists.  Neither final GEIS nor draft SGEIS lists what the workload is for permitting and oversight of a single well.  Nor is there a limit to the number of active wells in a mineral resources specialist’s caseload.  Without such information, the public can not be assured that BOGR is providing sufficient oversight.  Without sufficient oversight, GEIS and SGEIS are only ink on paper.

Loss of Springs and Wells During the drilling of the first several hundred feet through aquifers, there is a risk of loss or fouling of neighboring water sources until the surface casing is cemented.  Special attention in inspection or reporting should be required during this period.

LPG Fracing If this water-free fracing may someday be proposed for use in NYS, will a second SGEIS be required?  Wouldn’t it make sense to include this technology in the current SGEIS?  Obtaining and disposing of millions of gallons of water for each well constrains future fracing.

Metering Currently BOGR does not require periodic recertification of gas meters at well heads, spot check reading of meters that is done by companies, or audit company records – procedures that are routine in other states.  (These deficiencies were cited in NYS Comptroller audit 2005-S-54.)  Such procedures are required to assure that landowners and state receive what are legally due them.  The much greater volumes of gas produced by horizontal wells make a true accounting all the more important.

Methane in Groundwater Draft SGEIS mentions that methane naturally occurs in groundwater.  It does not discuss that this proves that there are pathways between black shales and aquifers — although not necessarily the targeted shales.  Gas is much more buoyant and less viscous than frac fluid, and therefore it is not clear how much of these fluids would follow the same pathways and over what time.  Nevertheless the nature and implication of these pathways should be discussed.

Multiple Plays There is substantial overlap of the fairways for Marcellus and Utica shales.  A smaller area additionally includes the fairway for Herkimer tight sandstones.  (Indeed Nornew brags that it has this “triple play” in Madison and Chenango Counties.)  There is also a chance of the spotty occurrence of Trenton/BlackRiver plays   Multiple plays multiply the effects at each well pad, but the draft SGEIS ignores the effects of multiple plays of gas, particularly on cumulative impacts.

Pollution
Bonding Drillers should be bonded for the clean-up of any pollution caused by their activities.  (Currently they are bonded only for plugging well and restoring the site.)  Commonly companies will set-up a shell company for drilling each well with assets just sufficient to cover expenses.  Without bonding, should there be major pollution, the company has no reserves that could recovered for the clean-up.
Database BOGR can state that it knows of no incident of pollution from fracing in NYS.  This claim can not be confirmed because BOGR does not maintain a database of reports of pollution.  Such a database should be built.
Liability In neighboring Pennsylvania, any pollution within 1000 feet of well head is presumed to be the responsibility of the driller who must provide sufficient water and remediate the pollution to the satisfaction of DEP.  (Purity of the provided water must be independently certified.)  There is no such provision in the final GEIS or draft SGEIS.  Without it, a individual land owner could have the expense and aggravation of dragging a polluting company through the courts for years to get satisfaction, whereas the owner needs are immediate.
Risk Despite BOGR statement that there are no case of pollution of aquifers from fracing, there are numerous documented cases of pollution of aquifers from gas drilling.  To the land owner who has lost their drinking water and a much of the value of their property, the distinction between drilling and fracing is academic.  The SGEIS should more fully discuss causes of pollution during the entire drilling process and how to eliminate any causes not covered in GEIS.

Publicly-Owned Treatment Works, Appendix 21 Despite this list of 135 POTWs, there is no guarantee that a single one of these works is capable of treating of produced waters, from drilling, flow back, or plugging.  POTW do not remove the chemicals from these waters but only dilute the toxins to below legal limits.  All the toxins are dumped into the river.  Without representative analyses of produced waters, it is not possible to even know if it is safe to pass these waters through these works or what dilution is required.  Indeed the vast majority of operators are not even considering applying for permission from DEC to accept this waste.  Including this long list in the SGEIS deceptively give the impression that there are many possible sites to receive the waste waters produced.

Refrac Permits Black shales in NYS may be refraced as soon as one year after the initial frac – although five years is more typical elsewhere.  Draft SGEIS requires a permit for refracing (8.3.2), but does not specify what information will be necessary to obtain this permit.

Road Spreading of Produced Fluids Permitting for a Beneficial Use Determination for road spreading does not specify what are the acceptable concentration of pollutants.

Set Backs, Residential GEIS requires set backs of 100 feet from drill pads to residences for a single well and this is not increased in the draft SGEIS.  This is the smallest setback of any state, with most having setbacks of 200 to 600 feet.  Even if this is adequate for single vertical wells, this is inadequate for single horizontal wells, let alone pads of multiple wells, multiple plays, and refacturings.  One site could be actively drilled and fractured for three years for a single play.

Seismic Monitoring Fracing is a developing technology with an imperfect control of the extent of resulting fractures.  Without seismic monitoring during fracing, the owners of neighboring can not be assured that gas will not be withdrawn from beneath them.  At least for a trial period, this should be required for a few wells and the results reported.

Toxicity of Chemicals Draft SGEIS does not compare the toxicity of chemicals used in drilling and fracing, claiming that there is no way to measure this: “there does not seem to be a US-based metric” pg. 9-10.  However the Federal Mineral Management Service does such rating of such chemicals in its capacity of regulator of off shore drilling. Their methodology should be applied to the land-based use of such chemicals.

Trial Period Once the final SGEIS is adopted, BOGR should begin with a limited number of permits for the new horizontal drilling and high-volume hydraulic fracturing of low permeability gas shales — maybe one multi-well pad in each county.  After a formal review, the annual number of such permits could be gradually increased.

Unconventional Gas Reservoirs While they are mentioned, it would help if there was a brief discussion of the differences among coal beds, tight sandstones, and black shales and of the differences in extracting gas from them.

Water Testing
Composition While water testing is required around the drill site, what is required to be tested does not include chemicals in frac fluids.  Without these, results  will be less useful for showing contamination.  What is more, this testing is not required to be done such that the results would be admissible in a court of law, thereby giving a false sense of security to the property owner.
Location For vertical wells, testing within a circle1000 feet in diameter may be sufficient, but for horizontal wells, a corridor at least 330 feet on either side of the horizontal well bore should be included.  Without this, BOGR is assuming that fracing could never pollute aquifers and avoiding any evidence that could contradict.

The Bureau of Oil and Gas Regulation is to be commended for compiling so much information for the SGEIS, but much work remains to be done.  Indeed, so much needs to be revised in and added to the draft SGEIS that a second round of comments will be necessary before the final SGEIS is adopted.  However from my experience with the public hearings this fall at Chenango Valley High School, comments should be limited to written submissions.