Have you noticed how often the industry and its sympathizers repeat the refrain that fracking happens so far below the water table from which drinking water is drawn that there’s no danger of frack fluids getting into drinking water? This despite the evidence that stuff really does get around, even if they don’t understand how.
There’s another way drinking water gets contaminated: surface spills. Spilled substances can seep down to groundwater. Or, as at Buckeye Creek, a town’s drinking water can be contaminated by spills that find their way into surface waters.
In late November the Sootypaws website and blog posted an extensive update on the mysterious spill at Buckeye Creek, in Doddridge County, WV.
Make yourself a cup of coffee and settle in for an excellent and thorough account of what is known.
Timeline and links to more
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Tags: Buckeye Creek, Doddridge County, WV
A November 4th press release from the PA DEP reveals that while “numerous” people in Dimock have been without good water for, oh, a year, give or take, it takes an agreement process with DEP to force Cabot Oil & Gas to address residents’ need for “replacement” water. It takes an agreement process with DEP to force Cabot Oil & Gas to release to DEP a complete list of people who have reported issues with their water.
DEP says this will provide a “long-term solution.” That seems optimistic. How do you “replace” someone’s own clean, clear, safe spring or well water? And, you have to wonder, eventually, after northeastern PA and New York’s Southern Tier are pincushioned with gas wells, where will the “replacement” water come from? And what will we use to schlep it from hither to thither? Oh, yeah, now I remember: diesel fuel made from foreign oil. Yup, that stuff that natural gas was supposed to free us from depending on.
________________________________
Pennsylvania DEP Reaches Agreement with Cabot to Prevent Gas Migration,
Restore Water Supplies in Dimock Township
Agreement Requires DEP Approval for Well Casing, Cementing
MEADVILLE, Pa., Nov. 4 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Department of
Environmental Protection and Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. have executed a consent
order and agreement that will provide a long-term solution for migrating gas
that has affected 13 water supplies in Dimock Township, Susquehanna County.
The affected area covers nine square miles around Carter Road.
The consent order and agreement outlines a process that will give DEP more
oversight of Cabot’s new well construction work in the affected area. Prior to
drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or hydro fracking, the company will submit
well casing and cementing plans to DEP. Once DEP provides written approval,
Cabot may proceed.
“The goal of the consent order and agreement is to ensure a long-term
resolution to issues that have emerged in Dimock,” said DEP Northwest Regional
Director Kelly Burch. “The company will focus on the integrity of the wells in
the affected area in an attempt to determine the source of the migrating gas.”
This past week, Cabot has provided an interim solution for all of the homes
where water supplies have been affected. Cabot must develop a plan by March 31
to restore or replace the affected water supplies permanently.
Under the consent order and agreement, Cabot must additionally submit to DEP:
– Information on all parties who have contacted the company about water
quantity or quality issues; and
– A plan that specifically identifies how the company intends to prove the
integrity of the casing and cementing on existing wells and fix
defective casing and cementing by March 31.
If Cabot fails to fix the defective casing and cementing by the March
deadline, the company must plug defective wells or implement another
alternative as approved by DEP.
In addition, Cabot paid a $120,000 civil penalty for violations of the Oil and
Gas Act, the Solid Waste Management Act and the Clean Streams Law.
The consent order and agreement caps a DEP investigation that began early this
year when numerous Dimock area residents reported evidence of natural gas in
their water supplies. DEP inspectors discovered that the well casings on some
of Cabot’s natural gas wells were cemented improperly or insufficiently,
allowing natural gas to migrate to groundwater.
On Sept. 25, following a series of wastewater spills, DEP ordered Cabot to
cease hydro fracking natural gas wells throughout Susquehanna County. The
prohibition was removed after the company completed a number of important
engineering and safety tasks.
Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. is a Delaware-based company with a mailing address in
Pittsburgh.
For more information on oil and gas wells, visit www.depweb@state.pa.us,
keyword: Oil and gas.
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From the Chesapeake Bay Foundation blog:
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My Road Trip to Frackville, Heart of the Drilling Boom
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“Downstream Strategies, the company I used to analyze the water forwarded the WVDEP report to me and they said that all of their questions were not answered from the WVDEP which they requested under the FOIA. The just sent a second FOIA request to get the info they originally asked. Sen. Rockefeller’s office out of Fairmont called me last Thursday (I sent a letter and pictures to him in D.C.) and said they wanted to make sure the Governor had responded to me (he did) and that I had received the answers I had been seeking. After I found out they had to do a 2nd FOIA request I called them back and left a message, suggesting a phone call from them to James Martin would be helpful.
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“The creek cleaning consisted of the drilling company spraying the rocks and gunk downstream into cachment areas and then being vacuumed up. My concern was the high orange marks in the sandy soil going up the banks and being imbedded into the soil. I don’t know if they addressed that or not, they may not have even seen that. Also they had pulled the used filters out of the creek and had left them on the soil for some time also. Those were recently picked up though. I am coming back from Colorado and will be there Wednesday for a week and will spend some time going up and down the creek looking closely. I guess the lack of rain and low water has hindered the process. My new beef is that if a drilling company, the ones who produce this toxic waste, will be cleaning up their own mess, they really need to know what they are doing and have a plan in place. According the report from officer Scranage, per the DEP report I just read, he found that a new crew was on the job the second day and was going about it backwards. If the water is low and there is a lack of rain to help move the water down into cachment areas, they need to be doing something else, rather than waiting for rain. For the first 2 weeks the creek languished with oil covering the water and smelling acrid. I believe they improperly ‘limed the area’ on our property. When I questioned the inspectors and also asked James Martin about all the lime put down along the stream banks, changing the ph of the water, he only said ‘there won’t be any more liming’.
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“Thanks again for the support.”
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Louanne Fatora
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Tags: accident, Buckeye Creek, contamination, deaths, Doddridge County, hydraulic fracturing, spill, wildlife, WV
Drilling Contamination Spreads as Polluter’s Bankruptcy Looms
Joint Release: Powder River Basin Resource Council * EARTHWORKS
Clark, WY, 10/01 — Clark Resource Council has learned that Windsor Energy Group, LLC recently put its assets up for bid. At a public meeting in September Windsor representatives explained that benzene is also above regulatory levels east of Line Creek where Windsor had guaranteed it would not go. Assuming no buyer is found, the logical next step is bankruptcy: leaving the community’s groundwater, and cleanup of the pollution, in doubt.
“Every thing Industry told us would not happen, has,” says Deb Thomas local resident and organizer for the Clark Resource Council. “Before the first operators of this project bankrupted, we were told that drilling was safe and no toxic chemicals were used. Since Windsor bought the development, we’ve had years of leaking waste pits, illegal dumping of drilling fluids, inadequate engineering, and finally, the blow out, which left us with contaminated drinking water aquifers. Windsor said the contamination plume wouldn’t move into private water wells or jump the Creek, and it did both. Now we fear that Windsor will join their predecessors by bankrupting and simply walk away from their mess.”
Windsor Energy Group’s Crosby 25-3 gas well blew out in the small community of Clark, Wyoming three years ago. Contamination plumes have continued to move since then, and how clean up will occur remains undecided. The blowout resulted in a 10 million cubic foot plume of groundwater contamination or more than 100 Olympic-size swimming pools worth.
The plume has contaminated drinking water aquifers, 2 private water wells and natural springs with benzene, diesel range organics, and an extensive list of toxic chemicals. The plume is also putting more than 20 downstream drinking water wells at risk. As much as 300,000 gallons of contaminated water has dumped daily into the Line Creek drainage, which then flows into the Clark Fork of the Yellowstone River.
Clark Resource Council, Powder River Basin Resource Council and Earthworks’ Oil and Gas Accountability Project emphasize that the experience in Clark shows that State agencies are not adequately equipped to address the impacts and risks associated with drilling projects.
“I want other communities who are facing development to understand that they’re at risk from the oil and gas industry’s cavalier regard for the environment and human health, ” says impacted resident, Dick Bilodeau. “When oil and gas companies screw up, the results are neither simple, nor cheap, to clean up. We need adequate federal oversight to protect areas under development, and complete disclosure so that impacted people can determine what health problems they’re facing now and will be in the future.”
In Wyoming the State’s Voluntary Remediation Program allows polluters like Windsor to remediate contamination and then be released from liability. With Windsor Energy Group’s bankruptcy looming, Bilodeau and other community members fear that the extent of the contamination will never be adequately assessed and clean up will never happen.
The news of contamination crossing under Line Creek and Windsor’s asset sale comes just after the EPA released it’s investigative finding on water contamination in Pavillion, Wy, which residents fear is associated with EnCana’s deep gas operations.
“These cases demonstrate the clear and present danger posed by drilling operations under current regulation,” says Bruce Baizel, staff attorney for EARTHWORKS’ Oil & Gas Accountability Project. “They clearly show the urgent need for incremental federal regulation, like the FRAC Act now before Congress, and they also show that the FRAC Act only begins to address the need for stronger oversight.”
http://www.earthworksaction.org/PR_ClarkWindsor.cfm
Tags: bankruptcy, benzene, Clark, groundwater, water wells, Windsor Energy Group, WY
- Dimock, PA, approximately Thursday, 9/3:
A blowout occurs during drilling under a road and wetland for a gas pipeline, resulting in a large spill of drilling mud. Witnesses report a greasy, gray film running down a water body. Local people who hear about the blowout have difficulty getting the straight story, despite persistently asking questions of DEP and drilling company representatives. - Dimock, PA, Wednesday, 9/16, afternoon:
“At least a thousand” gallons of frack fluid escape from the Heitsman2 well site and run down into Stevens Creek. According to the fracturing subcontractor, Halliburton, the fluid contains carcinogenic substances. - Dimock, PA, Wednesday, 9/16, late evening:
A much larger spill of the same fluid occurs. Reports say the total volume of both spills the released frack fluids is as much as 8500 gallons. - Dimock, PA, Tuesday, 9/22
Another spill of the same fluid occurs. This one is of “hundreds of gallons.”
DEP reports fish swimming erratically and kills of small aquatic life.
On 9/22, after the third spill in a week’s time, DEP cites Cabot with 5 violations.
Following DEP’s action, the fish are still dead.
On 9/25, DEP orders Cabot to stop all hydraulic fracturing activities in Susquehanna County.
Reports indicate that, subsequent to DEP’s order, the fish are still dead.
. . . .
Why do regulating agencies pretend that physics pays any attention to regulations?
Why do they pretend that their disciplinary action is effective, when no disciplinary action can reverse the damage once it’s done?
On 9/30, the NYS DEC will issue its draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement, the next step in paving the way for New York to enjoy the benefits of industrial-scale gas drilling with horizontal drilling / high-volume hydraulic fracturing in low-permeability gas reservoirs.
The fish in our brooks and rivers are, for the time being, still alive. But it’s only a matter of time and physics – not regulation – before the same fate befalls them.
See:
http://www.timesleader.com/news/ap?articleID=2868477
http://www.wayneindependent.com/news/x1699593258/Third-natural-gas-chemical-spill-reported
http://www.wayneindependent.com/news/x1128380990/DEP-notes-5-violations-for-gas-drilling-spill
http://www.wnep.com/sns-ap-pa–gasdrilling-spill,0,7426305.story
http://www.ahs2.dep.state.pa.us/newsreleases/default.asp?ID=5676&varQueryType=Detail
http://www.ahs2.dep.state.pa.us/newsreleases/default.asp?ID=5678&varQueryType=Detail
Tags: contamination, dead, DEP, Dimock, Halliburton, hydraulic fracturing, PA, SGEIS, spill, wildlife
Copied with permission from http://sootypaws.livejournal.com/
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Buckeye Creek
In late August the pit holding fracture flowback “water” for natural gas well 47-017-05815 was breached near Sherwood in Doddridge County (the north central part of the state). The pit was constructed within feet of Buckeye Creek (the state has no requirement for a minimum distance between ground or surface water for pits — see our Pits post) so the “water,” at least 2500 gallons, went into the creek.
The red gelled liquid has had a negative effect on wildlife. People were told “it was ‘just oil’ and hadn’t killed any fish and okay to be in” — kids swim and play in the Creek. Already, before the spill, a decline in fish and mussels had been noted by residents and some of the fish had raised nodules on the skin.
Here are some photos:
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Buckeye Creek was a good place to fish for bass and muskie. The contamination is plainly visible from fracture flowback chemicals and formation material (the color may be due to high iron) from a Marcellus well.
Gels are created by chemicals which can include diesel fuel or ethylene glycol, neither of which is good to swim in. A similar fracture gel release in Pennsylvania caused a fish kill. |
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A high chloride concentration is a feature of fracture flowback but we don’t think chloride killed this muskrat near its den.
High chloride will kill fish and other aquatic organisms. |
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Two ducks were unable to fly. |
Louanne (who furnished these photos and information) has a letter she wrote to Governor Manchin available online. The last I’ve heard, the gunk has been skimmed from the Creek but is lying in piles beside the Creek.
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Please visit Sootypaws at http://sootypaws.livejournal.com/
Tags: accident, Buckeye Creek, contamination, deaths, Doddridge County, hydraulic fracturing, spill, wildlife, WV
… and what if the well had ignited?
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports:
Trucks and other equipment worth about $8 million were destroyed late Tuesday in an explosive fire at a natural gas drilling site northwest of Joshua, officials said.
The fire started in one of the eight Kenworth trucks parked at the site operated by Chesapeake Energy in the 3200 block of County Road 913, said Gerald Mohr, emergency management coordinator for Johnson County.
Mohr said no one was hurt, but the flames were intense.
“It was a pretty good fire that generated a good bit of heat,” he said. “We had quite a few tankers hauling water.”
No natural gas contributed to the fire, which was reported at about 11:15 p.m., said Lt. Tim Jones, Johnson County Sheriff’s spokesman.
“It was all equipment and no gas,” he said. “There wasn’t a blowout or anything like that.”
Flames, however, spread to the other trucks, which were parked very close to each other, Mohr said.
The vehicles were destroyed along with pumps, blenders and other equipment used in the process of hydraulic fracturing of a gas well.
Members from several Johnson County fire departments battled flames for about four hours at the drilling site. The area is about a half-mile west of the intersection of Farm Road 1902 and CR 913, which is also called Caddo School Road.
Firefighters came from Joshua, Briar Oaks, Mid North, Godley, Bono, Burleson, Cleburne and Tarrant County, Jones said.
A lot of them were needed to haul water and operate long-distance nozzles and aerial ladder trucks, Mohr said.
He said that the blaze had to be fought at a distance to protect the firefighters, but not because it was a natural gas drilling site.
“There were trucks in there with diesel tanks on them,” he said. “All those trucks have two or three fuel tanks on them. “We had a couple explosions.”
The fire’s cause was being investigated Wednesday, said Jerri Robbins, Chesapeake spokeswoman.
“A contractor was finishing hydraulic fracturing operations when one of the blender trucks caught on fire,” she said.
She added that “it is likely that tires on the trucks made a sound like an explosion as they were burning, not the diesel tanks.”
The equipment was operated by Denton-based Liberty Pressure Pumping which. Jones said, reported that the estimated cost of the equipment lost was $8,310,000.
Officials for that company could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.
http://www.star-telegram.com/news/story/1581059.html
Tags: Chesapeake, explosion, fire, gas well, hydraulic fracturing
Letter published today in the Cleveland Sun Star Courier:
by James W. Cowden, Guest Columnist
Monday August 31, 2009, 9:24 AM
This is being sent as a result of the several letters on oil and gas drilling that have appeared in your pages over the past month.
The other paper has also published material including a column on the financial benefits to Ohio.
What has not been publicized has been the impact of oil and gas drilling on the natural resources and the public health of Ohio and its citizens.
I have been a consultant on environmental and resource issues for over 30 years. I have worked with Ohio EPA and the Division of Oil and Gas to curb and control the problems associated with the industry for a number of those years.
I have written ordinances for many cities in Northeast Ohio to allow them to control drilling in their communities. I have written a technical guide book for Ohio EPA. I have testified in court cases against drillers and their haphazard waste disposal practices, their drilling proposals, and the lack of adequate regulation.
The development of oil and gas wells is inherently a dangerous activity. Although there are few deaths and injuries reported, they do occur.
For instance, two men were killed in Marion County last October by an explosion of a crude oil storage tank.
The industry has too little concern for public health, for our groundwater resources, and for facts.
Natural gas is a highly compressible, highly expansible mixture of hydrocarbons, with approximate percentages of Methane-80%, Ethane-7%, Propane-6%, Butane-2.5%, Pentane-3% and Isobutane 1.5%.
In addition, natural gas may contain quantities of nitrogen, helium, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide and water vapor. In Pennsylvania, methane related to the natural gas industry has contaminated water wells in at least seven counties since 2004.
In one case, methane was detected in water sampled over 15 square miles. In another, a methane leak led to an explosion that killed a couple and their 17 month old grandson. These cases were linked to newly drilled, active natural gas wells.
Essentially, the methane migration was linked to improper construction of gas wells that allowed gas to seep out of the well structures and into water supplies.
An adequate inspection system would have prevented these accidents from happening. Since the passage of HB 278 by our feckless state legislature, neither regulation nor inspection has been carried out adequately by the state.
Groundwater constitutes the most important mineral resource annually extracted from beneath the earth’s surface.
Water is an economic resource for Ohio and preservation is an economic necessity. Groundwater monitoring in the state is inadequate to detect water quality problems.
A product of oil and gas well drilling is brine.
What’s so bad about brines?
Brines are too concentrated, they have too much sodium and there is far too much of it, Clinton brines have 175,000-210,000 parts per million of sodium.
For comparison, ocean brines have only 18,000-35,000 ppm of sodium.
The USPHS standard at one time was a maximum of 250 ppm. One volume of Clinton brine can raise 800 volumes of fresh water above the 250 ppm limit.
There is no adequate program to address lack of disposal capacity. I do not have data beyond the 1980’s but I have no reason to believe the ratios have changed.
At that time, there were 56,000 producing wells with an average brine production of 184,000 barrels with an estimated injection well capacity of 36,000 barrels. The excess was 148,000 barrels.
That is roughly 6.2 million gallons, which if dispersed could make 4.8 billion gallons of fresh water unsuitable for use.
I tried to get legislation passed to prohibit brine in surface or groundwater in such quantity as to cause:
1. Taste and odor problems
2. Exceedance of safe drinking water standards or limit of 100 ppm of sodium
3. Damage or injury to public health or safety to include damage to the environment beyond the immediate site of drilling and storage of oil and gas.
4. This would include exposure to benzene, ethyl benzene, alkyl benzene, toluene, xylene, naphthalene, and 2,4 dimethyl-phenol that exceed drinking water standards. Also exposure to concentrations of silver, arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, mercury, lead and zinc that exceed drinking water standards.
This came from “Toxicological Analysis of Ohio Brine Constituents and Their Potential Impact on Human Health.” By Dr. Gerald Poje.
Regulation 1501-9-9-02 at one time required all reasonable means to safeguard against hazards to life, limb and property. It should require notification of local fire officials of fire, explosion, major gas leaks, water and air pollution and training on how to cope.
There are a number of recommendations I would make to amend state law and regulations and require compliance.
First would be to abolish the subservience of the legislature to the oil and gas industry and think about the public they supposedly serve.
There is a need to redefine the ground surface water system and restructure the approach from correction to prevention.
But unless the Division of Mineral Resources is mandated to protect human health and drinking water and is given the funds and staff to accomplish this, both public health and the economy will continue to suffer.
__________________________________
James W. Cowden is a resident of Brecksville. He has been a researcher, educator, coordinator and consultant at Kent State University and Hiram College and has written extensively and provided expert testimony on a range of topics including water resources planning, pollution control, public health and public involvement in policy development.
http://www.cleveland.com/sunstarcourier/index.ssf/2009/08/brecksville_resident_weighs_in.html
Tags: brine, contamination, DMR, explosion, gas leak, groundwater, Marcellus, natural gas, OH, regulators
The Shreveport Times reports:
Recent incidents raise issues on drilling, environment
By Alisa Stingley
astingley@gannett.com
Blanche Jefferson lives in Shreveport, but her worries are all south of here.
Her granddaughter and five great-grandchildren live south of Spring Ridge and close to where 17 cows died after ingesting liquid that spilled from a nearby natural gas drilling rig site into a pasture.
“I’m mostly concerned … stuff might get in the water,” said Jefferson, 79, adding that the family depends on well water.
The environmental impact of drilling has her so concerned that she’s rethinking whether she wants to lease mineral rights from property she owns in that area to an energy company in the future.
“Money is nothing if something happened to them,” she says of the children.
. . . . . Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality is reviewing several area incidents:
April: Seventeen cows died in a south Caddo Parish pasture after ingesting a liquid found pooled in the pasture, a spill from a nearby Chesapeake Energy drilling site. No reports on what killed the cows have been made public.
May: Fifteen Naborton families evacuated when a Chesapeake well east of Mansfield began blowing natural gas into the air. The air quality was monitored, and a Chesapeake spokesman said there was no threat to public safety or the environment. According to DEQ files on the case, 50 million standard cubic feet of methane gas — the main component of natural gas — was discharged after a casing valve failed.
DEQ doesn’t require notification of the release of 1 million standard cubic feet but does require notification of more than 2.5 million in a planned release. The Naborton release, however, was unplanned. Otis Randle, manager of the DEQ regional office here, said 50 million is “a lot of gas.” But he said people would not suffer health problems unless they breathed in a concentrated amount.
The main risk to nearby residents is the potential for explosion, and methane causes an adverse impact on the planet’s ozone layer, since methane is a greenhouse gas. The DEQ report on the Naborton well said the release did not have an off-site environmental impact. (un-naturalgas.org note: guess the atmosphere doesn’t count)
July: A natural gas well blowout occurred in north Sabine Parish, about six miles east of Converse. No residents were evacuated. The well was owned by Chesapeake, whose spokesman said there was no threat to the public or environment, and air quality was being monitored as a precaution. DEQ’s regional office in Shreveport investigated the blowout, finding it “pretty routine,” said Randle. No details on the amount released were available.
There are environmental concerns beyond reported incidents too:
Ground and surface water issues have arisen, particularly in south Caddo and DeSoto parishes, which heavily depend on the fragile Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer. On the last day of June, about 1,000 customers of South DeSoto Water System had no water while workers replaced a pump. Officials wondered publicly if a natural gas drilling operation just 500 feet from their water well was making their equipment work harder to pump.
. . . . .
Many of the Web sites of the major competitors in the Haynesville Shale tout their dedication to preserving the environment.
Chesapeake’s page notes that it is a key contributor to The Nature Conservancy, and “our objective is to leave each site in as good, if not better, condition than when we started drilling.”
The U.S. Department of Interior recognized Devon Energy with a national award for its outstanding environmental and safety performance in the Gulf of Mexico.
And EnCana’s page notes: “We are looking at opportunities to recycle water and this option will become more viable as the play is further developed.”
While the proliferation of drilling in the Haynesville Shale is making environmental issues more visible and prominent, such concerns didn’t just arrive with the shale. Two cases from DEQ files:
In June, a Carthage, Texas, man pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of illegally discharging a pollutant into Louisiana waters after ordering a truck driver to discharge well treatment fluid into a Natchitoches Parish creek in April 2006. The man was sentenced to 24 months probation and agreed to pay a $5,000 criminal fine.
“Unfortunately, economic incentives drive environmental crime,” said Jeffrey T. Nolan, DEQ’s criminal investigations division manager.
In August 2006, DEQ responded to a landowner’s complaint that a well site where Winchester Energy was operating near Frierson had released at least four barrels of saltwater from a fracturing tank. According to DEQ files, the company had not contacted DEQ about the spill, which violates regulations. Also, the landowner said he asked Winchester to clean up the site but it refused. A few days later, DEQ noticed a cleanup in progress at the site, where vegetation had been killed in an area about 20 feet by 100 feet. DEQ in April this year deemed the site OK and did not take any action against Winchester.
For complete article, visit:
http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20090809/NEWS01/908090333/1060
Tags: cattle, cows, DEQ, explosion, family, greenhouse gas, groundwater, hydraulic fracturing, Louisiana, methane, money
From The Shreveport Times:
The ’stuff’ killed the cows, sheriff says
• Prator questions whether drilling company has reported incident.
By Vickie Welborn • vwelborn@gannett.com • June 25, 2009
That’s Caddo Sheriff Steve Prator’s assessment of what contributed to the deaths of 17 cows in late April near a natural gas drilling location south of Spring Ridge.
Until now, none of the state agencies involved in the ongoing inquiry into the incident has stated what caused the cattle to drop dead in Skipper Williams Jr.’s pasture on state Highway 169.
The deaths were reported at some point after a liquid leaked from the well, which was in the completion process, and pooled into a low area accessible to the cows. The substance later was determined to contain elevated chlorides, oil, grease and some organic compounds.
But no state agency took responsibility for testing the animals. Results from a necropsy performed by Williams’ private veterinarian are unavailable.
On Wednesday, Prator gathered representatives of his and Caddo District Attorney Charles Scott’s offices, the Caddo Commission, state police and the state Environmental Quality, Natural Resources and Agriculture and Forestry departments in one room to review all the reports connected to the incident.
“We went over for an hour exactly what everybody’s response was, and everybody’s response and cooperation was really good,” the sheriff said. “We responded to the scene well. When everyone found out about it we all worked together very well.
“We have determined — although no one agency except me will say this — by piecing everything together, there was a spill from the site that ran off of the site and that was ingested by the cows and that’s what caused the cows to die.”
State veterinarian Michael Barrington confirmed the cows’ deaths were neither natural nor caused by disease, a release from Prator’s office states.
. . . . .
Still undetermined is whether the spill was reported and, if so, whether it was reported in a timely manner. “We contend it should have been reported. And the timeliness of it we’re investigating,” Prator said.
. . . . .
State police, the sheriff’s office and Environmental Quality still are looking into the timeliness of the reporting. Findings of the sheriff’s office and state police will be turned over to Scott for review. Environmental Quality will move its report through its channels.
Environmental Quality was notified via its hotline when Chesapeake Energy learned of the dead cattle. And over the next 72 hours, the company worked with Schlumberger, the sheriff’s office and other agencies involved to investigate the incident, McCotter said.
. . . . .
“While Chesapeake, Schlumberger and others have conducted water and soil analysis, Chesapeake and Schlumberger have not had access to the cattle owners’ necropsy and toxicology reports and have, therefore, been unable to draw any conclusions as to the cause of the cattle deaths,” McCotter said.
. . . . .
“If at the time it happened proper notification had been made, there are chances cows would still be alive right now,” the sheriff said. “In this case, this was cows. How unfortunate. But what if it was children?”
For complete story, see: http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20090625/NEWS01/906250326/0/L/The–stuff–killed-the-cows–sheriff-says
For an important post on gas drilling’s effects on livestock and farmers, see also:
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/amall/oil_and_gas_impacts_on_livesto.html
Tags: cattle, Chesapeake, deaths, Louisiana, Schlumberger, spill, toxic
Meanwhile, from just on the other side of the hill from Bradford Township, 1490newsblog.blogspot.com reports:
“Some Foster Township residents seem to be having a problem Hedgehog Lane residents have been dealing with for months – oil and gas drilling affecting their water wells.
“Interstate Parkway resident Joe Piganelli told Foster Township Supervisors Monday night that the water in his neighbor’s well turned brown, but DEP told him his well had gone bad. However, it went bad the day fracking was done in the area.
“Piganelli asked that the supervisors contact the drilling company.
“‘If the three of you got a hold of US Energy and said ‘Hey, what the heck’s going on?’ … We had pristine water and now it’s garbage. Pretty soon you’ll be able to drink out of your sewer better than you can your water.’”
. . . . .
“Piganelli also raised several concerns about drilling company trucks and what they’re doing on the roads.
“One concern is speeding.
“‘They’re going fast up there at 2, 3, 4, 5 o’clock in the morning,’ he said. ‘And I’ll tell ya – they’re raising hell.’
“Another concern he has is the drivers using Jake Brakes when they come down the hill.
“He also said they’re leaving mud on the road, which could be dangerous. He specifically mentioned driving out of Allegany State Park when it’s raining.
“‘If you hit that mud that they’ve left there … When I worked for Halliburton we had to clean up the highway,’ he said, adding that if they came out of the woods and had mud and dirt all over their trucks they had to clean the road.
“‘There’s no reason they can’t do that,’ he said.”
The same blog post reports this irony:
“Also Monday night, supervisors reminded residents that if they’re going to repave their driveways, they need a permit.
“Supervisor Chairman Bob Slike said the reason for the permit “is not to make a buck or anything off of it. It’s to make sure that driveway is put it so in the wintertime the plows don’t gouge it out.
“Supervisors said it’s the homeowner’s responsibility to get the permit, but the contractor should know enough to ask if they have one.”
That is, townships are allowed to protect their residents from building driveways less than optimally but they’re not allowed to do much to protect their residents from gas drilling … which presents just a few more risks than a gouge or two in some asphalt.
For the complete post, visit http://1490newsblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/water-well-problems-in-ft-too.html
Tags: DEP, Foster Township, fracking, gas drilling, hydraulic fracturing, Marcellus, PA, traffic, trucks, water well
http://arklatexhomepage.com/content/fulltext/?cid=62992
Update On Dead Cows In Caddo Parish
by Erica Bennett
Thursday, May 7, 2009 @06:16pm CST
“The scene of a cow pasture in south Caddo Parish Wednesday was calm, uneventful and peaceful. But, that was not the case a week ago. A spill from a natural gas well caused at least 20 cows to drop dead.
. . . . .
“C.C. Canady is head over the United Neighbors for Oil and Gas Rights in south Caddo Parish. Canady says other animals have died near this site before, and they’ve had problems with the oil and gas companies for quite some time.
“Tammy Sepulvado’s 3 day old calf died the same day the other cows did. She says she has alot of money invested in her animals, so she can’t afford anymore problems from the nearby drilling site.
. . . . .
“Early tests by the Department of Environmental Quality revealed high levels of chloride in and adjacent to the cow pasture. DEQ representatives tell us Chesapeake Energy or Shlumberger are responsible.
“‘The only thing that we’re really waiting on is something definitive of who it was - somebody did have a release. After that we will take some kime of enforcement action,’ Otis Randle with the DEQ said.”
“We asked Chesapeake Energy if it was responsible for the spill and a representative sent us this response. ‘All results are preliminary and inconclusive, so it would be innappropriate at this time to speculate on the cause of death and responsible party.’
“The DEQ is expecting their results back sometime Wednesday or Thursday. Once they’re in, they’ll know what exact chemical killed the cows and who is responsible.”
Tags: cattle, Chesapeake, dead, deaths, fracking, hydraulic fracturing, livestock
N E W S R E L E A S E COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
Dept. of Environmental Protection
Northwest Regional Office
230 Chestnut St.
Meadville, PA 16335
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
5/4/2009
CONTACT:
Freda Tarbell
Phone: (814) 332-6816
DEP IDENTIFIES RESPONSIBILITY FOR BRADFORD TOWNSHIP GAS MIGRATION/WATER SUPPLY PROBLEMS
MEADVILLE – The Department of Environmental Protection has determined that Schreiner Oil and Gas Company has affected at least seven water supplies along Hedgehog Lane in Bradford Township, McKean County, and has notified the company of its responsibilities to those residents.
Two of the water supplies were affected by methane and five supplies have iron and manganese above established drinking water standards.
Schreiner has been actively drilling combination oil and gas wells in the area since last fall and did not establish background water quality in the area prior to drilling. Therefore, Schreiner is presumed responsible for restoring water supplies within 1,000 feet of the drill sites.
Last week DEP also issued a notice of violation to Schreiner for failure to submit well records in a timely manner, the second notice of violation that the company has received regarding this issue.
“On Thursday, we notified the affected residents that Schreiner will be taking measures to restore or replace their water supplies,” said DEP Regional Director Kelly Burch. “It is our intention that this action will resolve the water issue for residents who have been living with major inconvenience and disruption.”
At this time, the operator is providing bottle water to many of the residents in the affected area.
On April 30, DEP Regional Director Kelly Burch met with about 30 neighborhood residents to discuss their worries about water quality, concerns associated with a natural gas stripper plant installed behind some of the homes, and accelerated erosion and sedimentation associated with the drilling activity.
Previous to last week’s notice of violation, DEP had issued three notices of violation to Schreiner pertaining to drilling on Hedgehog Lane. On November 13, DEP cited Schreiner for over-pressured wells. On February 19, DEP issued a notice of violation for pit violations and failure to post a well permit. On March 20, DEP cited Schreiner for new over-pressured wells and failure to submit well records.
All of the violations were corrected except for the submission of well records.
The department assessed 17 water supplies during the investigation. One water well still has methane present and the resident currently is staying at a motel provided by Schreiner as a precaution. DEP continues to monitor the water well that was affected by this gas migration on a daily basis and has observed a decrease in the amount of natural gas evident in the water well.
The department suspects the stray gas occurrence is a result of 26 recently drilled wells, four of which had excessive pressure at the surface casing seat and others that had no cement returns. In an effort to eliminate the source of methane, Schreiner has installed packers on all hydraulically fractured wells and has vented all of the wells that have been drilled but have not been fractured to stimulate production.
Until the gas migration issue is resolved, Schreiner will not be drilling any new wells.
To address another neighborhood concern, the company has added stone to stabilize the access roads to reduce sedimentation on Hedgehog Lane. Schreiner also is seeding and mulching disturbed areas to stabilize the drilling sites and access roads to further reduce sedimentation and accelerated erosion.
For more information, visitwww.depweb.state.pa.us., keyword: Oil and Gas.
Tags: contaminated, contamination, DEP, gas drilling, hydraulic fracturing, methane, migrated, water wells
_________________________________________________________________
http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20090429/NEWS01/904290368/1060
http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20090430/NEWS01/90430061/0/NEWS
Click on links for complete story and photo galleries
DEQ: ‘Nobody is owning up to it’
SPRING RIDGE – An unidentified substance that apparently flowed from a natural gas drilling site into a pasture is is being eyed as a potential cause of the deaths of 19 head of cattle Tuesday evening, according to the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality.
The contaminated area is … adjacent to the well that Chesapeake Energy Corp. is drilling on state Highway 169 near the corner of Keatchie-Marshall Road in south Caddo Parish. Tests to determine the nature of the milky white substance that had pooled into a low area could take a week to complete, Northwest Regional Director Otis Randle said today.
Authorities believe the cows ingested the liquid before dying. Tracks went to and from the puddles, a Caddo sheriff’s office spokeswoman said.
Chesapeake and its fracing contractor, Schlumberger, have denied knowledge of a chemical release on the site, Randle said. “Nobody is owning up to it.”
See also:
http://txsharon.blogspot.com/2009/03/video-cattle-drink-barnett-shale.html
http://www.unitedneighborsforoilandgasrights.org/
http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/newscience/2007/2007-0410dahlgrenetal.html
http://splashdownpa.blogspot.com/2009/04/19-cows-die-near-chesapeake-energy-gas.html
http://txsharon.blogspot.com/2009/04/hydraulic-fracture-fluid-kills-cattle.html
Tags: cattle, Chesapeake, contamination, dead livestock, hazardous, hydraulic fracturing, Schlumberger
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