July 15, 2010
Clearfield County (PA) District Attorney, William A. Shaw, Jr., announced that an investigation is ongoing to determine the circumstances surrounding the recording of fraudulent deeds filed at the Clearfield County Courthouse.
Shaw reported that “the investigation is focusing on irregularities that appear in several deeds claiming ownership of gas rights for nearly 2700 acres of property in the Morrisdale area, known as the Wigton Coal Reservation”. Shaw stated that “the investigation began after the District Attorney’s Office received a complaint from a property owner seeking to enter a lease agreement with a gas company”.
Shaw said that “as a result of fraudulent deed recordings, land owners in the Morrisdale area seeking to enter lease agreements with gas companies may be required to file lawsuits to protect their legal interests. Gas companies intending to drill wells are reluctant to enter lease agreements when ownership of the gas rights is clouded by fraudulent deed recordings”.
Shaw stated that, “the investigation has identified what appears to be fraudulently recorded deeds claiming ownership of gas rights. The theft of gas rights may have an enormous economic impact on the true owners of the gas rights. Land owners should not be required to spend thousands of dollars to file lawsuits to protect their ownership interests”.
Shaw is concerned that “many property owners may be making life altering decisions based upon inaccurate or false information”. Shaw “encourages all landowners to exercise caution and seek the advice of legal counsel when entering into any type of agreement relating to gas rights”.
Shaw said that “any fraudulent recordings can impact land owners for many years if corrective action is not taken”. “Simply trying to buy or sell a house could become an issue if the fraudulent deeds are not identified and corrected”, Shaw said.
Shaw reported that the investigation has been referred to the Pennsylvania State Police, Woodland Barracks. Shaw anticipates that criminal charges will be filed in the near future.
Shaw described the land identified by the investigation as generally surrounded by or touching the Deer Creek Road to the Allport Cutoff to the Morrisdale Allport Highway to the Deer Creek Road.
Anyone with knowledge or information about a crime is asked to call Clearfield County Crimestoppers at (800)-376-4700.
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Excerpted from
Dubious Path to a Green Future
Originally published on 6/28/10
Many energy experts contend natural gas is the ideal fuel as the world makes the transition to renewable energy. But since much of that gas will come from underground shale, potentially at high environmental cost, it would be far better to skip the natural gas phase and move straight to massive deployment of solar and wind power.
by Daniel B. Botkin
For several years, many voices, including Texas energy baron T. Boone Pickens, have been touting natural gas as the best energy source to form a bridge between the current fossil-fuel economy and a renewable energy future. Proponents contend that not only is natural gas a cleaner-burning fuel than coal, producing lower greenhouse gas emissions, but that reserves of natural gas are far greater than previously believed because of vast reserves trapped throughout the U.S — and around the world — in huge underground formations of shale.
. . . . .
But what is the reality behind the optimistic claims for shale gas? The U.S. Geological Survey lists natural gas “reserves” — the amount believed to be in the ground — in four categories: readily available with current technologies, which accounts for only 1 percent of the known natural gas in U.S. territorial limits; technically recoverable (5 percent); marginal targets for accelerated technology (6 percent); and unknown but probable (84 percent). Shale gas shares the fourth category with coal gas and methyl hydrates. The latter are a kind of water ice with methane embedded in it and occur only where it is very cold, in Arctic permafrost and below 3,000 feet in the oceans.
In researching how best to make the transition to the green energy future, one of the first calculations I made was to find out how long the natural gas in each of the four categories would last if we obtained it independently — that is, only from U.S. territory. I was shocked by the result: Just using our 2006 rates of use of natural gas consumption — not including any major transition to fueling our cars and trucks — the “readily available” gas within the United States would be exhausted in just one year. That, plus what is called “technically recoverable” gas, would be gone in less than a decade. What is termed “unknown but probable” would last about a century.
This means that any significant increase in our consumption of natural gas will have to come from the “unknown but probable” reserves, much of which will be from formations of shale, a sedimentary rock formed from muds in which bacteria released methane. Most of this gas is so deep underground or otherwise not very accessible that nobody is really sure that we can get at a lot of it, or of how high an environmental price we must pay to retrieve it.
Read entire piece at e360.yale.edu
Analyst: Shale gas may be next bubble to burst
Eric Fox: What could go wrong with shale plays
Must-read: How neutral is the potential gas committee?
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Tags: alternative, Pickens, shale gas
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The lies, the cost-cutting, the diversionary tactics are all standard operating procedure for the natural gas industry and its regulatory agency pals
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Tags: BP
Independent Weekender story, 6/9/2010:
Dimock looking at frack facility
Dimock Township Supervisors discussed plans for a hydraulic fracturing solution facility which will prepare hydrofracking solution for the gas well industry as well as storage for produced water awaiting shipping and/or treatment.
Somerset Regional Water Resources has submitted plans to the state Department of Environmental Resources and hopes to obtain the necessary permits for waste transfer and storage. The supervisors noted concerns with possible tank registration requirements.
The property, which is owned by Joseph and Nicole Vibbard, will include a large residual waste storage facility, as well as a structure designed for the storage and mixing of gas industry “products” with water before being taken to gas well sites. The property was formerly a veal farm.
Township secretary Paul Jennings said there is a 30-day time line if residents wish to submit comments to DEP about whether to issue the permits.
. . . . .
Switzer said that there are seven driveways in a row, including hers, on the left side of SR 3023, and that with the speed of traffic on that state road passing through Dimock, “It’s there but for the grace of God we haven’t been killed” pulling out of their driveways onto the paved road.. . . . .
Norma Fiorentino asked if the supervisors knew what was in the water that Cabot Gas and Oil has been applying to the dirt roads in Dimock.Resident Catherine Probasco said that the water she has seen being applied to Baker Road last summer was oily and foamy. The supervisors said that the calcium for dust control approved at last month’s meeting has been purchased and applied.
Ellis said that Cabot should supply the supervisors with a letter specifying in writing what is in the water they are applying to township roads. “The supervisors should make Cabot give them a report of what they are putting on the road, instead of always praising them.”
Sautner said that he was wondering, “now that the gas wells are here, are we considered residential still, or commercial, or industrial?”
Paul Jennings answered, “That’s up to the assessment office.”
Sautner replied, “Our water is ruined, our property value has dropped down to nothing, but my taxes went up. We are still paying high taxes like anyone else with clean water.”
Lettie Ellis said, “Why not invite the assessment committee to come here to address this?”
Switzer said that there needs to be someone looking out for safety. “A pipeline in Texas exploded today, and there was a blowout at a gas well site in Clearfield,” she said. “Luckily, not in a school yard. Not two hundred feet from a home, like the Carters.”
She noted that there have been 50 incidents of gas migration into water in Pennsylvania. Several residents agreed that if an incident of any kind arose on Hunsinger Road, a disaster would be likely, due to the conditions of that dirt road.
For complete story, click here
Tags: Cabot, Dimock, road spreading, roads
Editor,
A May 13 article reporting on a ‘press conference’ that said $11.5 million generated last year from natural gas production in the Town of Smyrna will be handed over to officials presented misleading and factually incorrect information.
Gas production may have generated $11.5 million, but that is revenue for Norse Energy, not Chenango County, the Town of Smyrna, or Sherburne-Earlville [School District]. No amount of money was “handed over” to anyone during the orchestrated gas drilling promotional presentation, nor will any money be turned over to any of the noted entities (Town of Smyrna, Chenango County, or the Sherburne-Earlville School District) at any time in the future.
While Norse Energy will pay roughly the amounts stated in taxes(Smyrna, $83,312; Chenango County, $151,019; and Sherburne-Earlville School District, $264,569) the implication, and likely the perception of many of your readers, is that the Town, County, and School District will receive an unexpected windfall. These entities (school, town, county) annually develop a budget and determine the tax levy based on their budget. Only the amount of the levy will be collected from taxpayers, no more, no less. Based on the stated $11.5 million revenue this year for Norse Energy, they will pay only about 4 percent of that in local taxes. While this is a benefit to other local taxpayers, it does not increase revenues for the district, the town, or the county.
The expansion in gas drilling, particularly the hydro-fracturing technique proposed for extraction of natural gas from the Marcellus Shale formation (which is really what that show was all about), is not without controversy. The financial benefits of drilling versus the cost in the environment will be the subject of debate for some time to come. The handing out of over-sized fake checks may be good theater, but participating in the show implies endorsement of drilling and contributes to the false perception of windfall revenue for schools, towns and counties. Our Board of Education has made no such endorsement, and I’m sure the issue will be extensively debated in that forum before consensus is reached.
Tom Strain
Assistant Superintendent
Sherburne-Earlville Central Schools
TribStar.com report:
Rockville, IndianaMay 6, 2010
Parke couple feeling burned by pipeline company
Year after gas explosion, Earls are still waiting for settlement
Howard Greninger The Tribune-Star
ROCKVILLE — It was a year ago this week that Gary J. and Sharon L. Earl saw a huge cloud of smoke near their Parke County home, as flames reached as high as 700 feet into the air and were visible for miles.
“It was a horrifying experience. I was just coming home with the grandkids in the back seat. You could see it from Bellmore and even [Indiana] 47,” Sharon Earl said, recalling May 5, 2009.
It was about 4:22 p.m. when a 24-inch natural gas pipeline exploded not far from the Earls’ house, about 3.6 miles northeast of Rockville, releasing about 7.4 million cubic feet of natural gas, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
It caused a section of pipe about 10 feet in length to be blasted out of the ground, leaving a crater. The ensuing fire torched hundreds of trees and 49 homes were temporarily evacuated within a 1-mile radius of the blast.The PHMSA indicated a possibility of external corrosion in its corrective action order to Panhandle Eastern Pipeline Co., issued May 13, 2009.
The Sunday prior to the explosion, Gary Earl was on a hill in a vehicle with his grandchildren near where the explosion happened. “Just 48 hours prior to the explosion, I was on that hill. I wouldn’t be here today if I was there when it exploded,” he said.
Since that blast, the Earls have documented costs to their restore their property to pre-blast conditions and have been trying, unsuccessfully, to get Eastern Panhandle to cover those costs plus other damages.
Dark, burned trees can be seen along the back end of their property. While they own 200 acres, about 8 acres were engulfed in flames. Those trees now pose a potential danger of falling, especially along a road the couple uses to access a private lake on their property.
In addition, the Earls would often search for mushrooms or ginseng roots among those trees.
“We can’t go in these woods; it’s too dangerous,” said Sharon Earl.
The Earls are seeking to have Panhandle Eastern cut down the burned trees, with new saplings planted in their place.
Another concern comes from large chunks of concrete, used on the original natural gas line from the 1940s, which are strewn across their property. The Earls have spent $12,000 to $15,000 to re-side their house, as siding on the west side melted from the blast, as well as adding rock on a road to access their property.
In addition, the trees that burned had been placed in a state timber management plan. The trees were to be maintained for a future timber harvest.
“We will never see a dime of profit off the trees that were burnt,” Gary Earl said. “That was part of the program that makes the land work for you. That was part of our retirement program.”
Gary Earl said he was more than accommodating in allowing Panhandle Eastern access to repair the damaged line shortly after last year’s explosion.
“They led us to believe they would repair all of this, but once the gas was flowing again, they said it was too rainy and then three days later, they took everything out,” he said.
Panhandle Eastern, in a Nov. 18, 2009, letter, declined to accept an offer for settlement from the Earls and offered to go to a non-binding mediation. The Earls say they have an original right-of-way agreement from the 1930s, which calls for a binding mediation, with each side showing costs. If an agreement is not reached, a third party, selected by both the landowner and company, makes a final decision.
It was in such a meeting that Sharon Earl said the gas company’s attorney simply ended the session and walked out.
“Our attorney was outgunned,” Sharon said. “We are hiring a different attorney. We are pursuing it.” The Earls meet with the new attorney in early June.
“They are bullies, that is how I see it,” Sharon Earl said. “We don’t need their money to live. It is just making right what they have destroyed and abiding by an agreement they made” in the original right-of-way agreement.
In addition, the Earls said they have notified the gas company of another potential problem, a spot about 350 feet from their home where land has subsided next to what is called the “400 line.” The company has since put up an orange-colored fence around that spot.
John Barnett, spokesman for Panhandle Eastern Pipeline Co., said he could not specifically comment on any action involving the Earls as they “have their own legal counsel. We have tried to be a good neighbor since the pipeline was built in that area and work with all of the neighbors to resolve any conflict,” Barnett said.
Barnett said the pipeline was reopened on May 26, 2009, initially at a 20 percent reduction in pressure as required by the PHMSA.
“The line is now in service operating at a 10 percent reduction in pressure, at 90 percent of our operating pressure as we continue to work with the PHMSA, which oversees that,” Barnett said.
“We replaced a lot of pipeline in that area. We replaced 634 feet of pipe, which included the damaged section,” Barnett said.
On the 400 line, Barnett said, “There is nothing wrong with the 400 line. There is some subsidence in that area and that is why we put the safety fencing up, to try to block it off so that somebody didn’t accidentally drive some machinery, a tractor or a car over that and cause some problems.
“We did have a geophysics firm into look at that site and they are currently evaluating it. They took all sorts of measurements and they will propose whatever remediation measure they feel is appropriate,” Barnett said.
The Earls said they are accustomed to having pipelines cross through their land, which has been in Gary Earl’s family for three generations. The property now has five natural gas lines that cut through their property.
“We understand that it is part of living in the United States to have utilities and we understand the risk, but the obligation and legal responsibility is to make us whole again. We’re the injured party here. It’s sad. It makes you disillusioned about how you think things are done, which should be the right, moral, ethical way,” Sharon Earl said.
To see photos, please visit the original article at TribStar.com
Tags: pipelines
Blowout preventers are used on gas wells too.
CORPORATE CRIME REPORTER
May 6, 2010http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/nabors050610.htm
Former Oil Rig Worker Says Cheating on Blowout Preventer Tests Widespread
24 Corporate Crime Reporter 19, May 6, 2010BP will not be happy with Mike Mason.
Mason is a 27 year oil industry veteran who worked on oil rigs at BP facilities on the North Slope of Alaska.
He knows the ins and outs of blowout preventers.
And he says that cheating on tests for blowout preventers is widespread in the industry.
He says he’s witnessed BP cheating on such tests in the North Slope.
On January 21, 2005, Corporate Crime Reporter ran an article detailing Mason’s allegations of BP’s cheating on blowout preventer tests.
At the time, Mason was working for Nabors Alaska Drilling Inc. a BP contractor on the North Slope.
Mason witnessed two blowouts of BP wells on the North Slope in 2003 one on July 3 and one on December 6.
At the time, Mason was feeding information to oil industry critic Charles Hamel.
Hamel wrote to then Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), asking for an investigation.
“BP and Nabors Alaska Drilling are reported to be falsifying drilling records and critical AOGCC (Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission) required Blow Out Prevention tests as well as concealing from AOGCC and ADEC (Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation) at least two reportable blow-out/spills,” Hamel wrote.
The Wall Street Journal followed up with a story on February 5, 2005.
As a result of the Corporate Crime Reporter and Wall Street Journal articles, investigations were launched.
In June 2005, the Alaska Oil & Gas Conservation Commission (AOGCC) ruled that a Nabors’ employee had falsified blowout preventer tests.
How?
Chart spinning.
What is chart spinning?
Well, to test a blowout preventer, you build up the pressure for five minutes.
And you record the pressure test on a chart.
The Commission found that the Nabors employee cheated.
They built up the pressure for only one minute.
Or two minutes.
And then manually moved the chart to show that it had been pressurized for the required five minutes.
Nabors also investigated the situation and agreed with the Commission’s findings.
The Commission ordered Nabors to pay $10,000 in costs.
And according to Mason, Nabors fired the responsible manager.
But Mason says that that was just one instance.
He says that cheating on blow out prevention tests is a way of life in the oil industry.
“They cheat to save money and time,” Mason said.
Mason says he personally witnessed BP managers repeatedly cheating on blowout prevention tests.
But BP was never charged.
Why not?
Mason says that he spoke with the Nabors manager who was fired.
And the Nabors manager who was fired said that he wouldn’t tell investigators who at BP was complicit.
Why did the Nabors manager take the fall for the BP managers?
“That’s just the type of person he was,” Mason says. “He wasn’t the type of person who was going to turn other people in.”
Mason was fired from his job at Nabors on July 16, 2006, four days after he wrote a letter to the editor of the Anchorage Daily News.
Read complete story at Corporate Crime Reporter
Tags: BP, cheating, whistleblower
Slick Operator: The BP I’ve Known Too Well
Wednesday 05 May 2010
I’ve seen this movie before. In 1989, I was a fraud investigator hired to dig into the cause of the Exxon Valdez disaster. Despite Exxon’s name on that boat, I found the party most to blame for the destruction was … British Petroleum (BP).
That’s important to know, because the way BP caused devastation in Alaska is exactly the way BP is now sliming the entire Gulf Coast.
Tankers run aground, wells blow out, pipes burst. It shouldn’t happen, but it does. And when it does, the name of the game is containment. Both in Alaska, when the Exxon Valdez grounded, and in the Gulf last week, when the Deepwater Horizon platform blew, it was British Petroleum that was charged with carrying out the Oil Spill Response Plans (OSRP), which the company itself drafted and filed with the government.
What’s so insane, when I look over that sickening slick moving toward the Delta, is that containing spilled oil is really quite simple and easy. And from my investigation, BP has figured out a very low-cost way to prepare for this task: BP lies. BP prevaricates, BP fabricates and BP obfuscates.
That’s because responding to a spill may be easy and simple, but not at all cheap. And BP is cheap. Deadly cheap.
To contain a spill, the main thing you need is a lot of rubber, long skirts of it called a “boom.” Quickly surround a spill, leak or burst, then pump it out into skimmers, or disperse it, sink it or burn it. Simple.
But there’s one thing about the rubber skirts: you’ve got to have lots of them at the ready, with crews on standby in helicopters and on containment barges ready to roll. They have to be in place round the clock, all the time, just like a fire department, even when all is operating A-O.K. Because rapid response is the key. In Alaska, that was BP’s job, as principal owner of the pipeline consortium Alyeska. It is, as well, BP’s job in the Gulf, as principal lessee of the deepwater oil concession.
Before the Exxon Valdez grounding, BP’s Alyeska group claimed it had these full-time, oil spill response crews. Alyeska had hired Alaskan natives, trained them to drop from helicopters into the freezing water and set booms in case of emergency. Alyeska also certified in writing that a containment barge with equipment was within five hours sailing of any point in the Prince William Sound. Alyeska also told the state and federal government it had plenty of boom and equipment cached on Bligh Island.
But it was all a lie. On that March night in 1989 when the Exxon Valdez hit Bligh Reef in the Prince William Sound, the BP group had, in fact, not a lick of boom there. And Alyeska had fired the natives who had manned the full-time response teams, replacing them with phantom crews, lists of untrained employees with no idea how to control a spill. And that containment barge at the ready was, in fact, laid up in a drydock in Cordova, locked under ice, 12 hours away.
As a result, the oil from the Exxon Valdez, which could have and should have been contained around the ship, spread out in a sludge tide that wrecked 1,200 miles of shoreline.
And here we go again. Valdez goes Cajun.
BP’s CEO Tony Hayward reportedly asked, “What the hell did we do to deserve this?”
It’s what you didn’t do, Mr. Hayward. Where was BP’s containment barge and response crew? Why was the containment boom laid so damn late, too late and too little? Why is it that the US Navy is hauling in 12 miles of rubber boom and fielding seven skimmers, instead of BP?
Last year, CEO Hayward boasted that, despite increased oil production in exotic deep waters, he had cut BP’s costs by an extra one billion dollars a year. Now we know how he did it.
As chance would have it, I was meeting last week with Louisiana lawyer Daniel Becnel Jr. when word came in of the platform explosion. Daniel represents oil workers on those platforms; now, he’ll represent their bereaved families. The Coast Guard called him. They had found the emergency evacuation capsule floating in the sea and were afraid to open it and disturb the cooked bodies.
I wonder if BP painted the capsule green, like they paint their gas stations.
Becnel, yesterday by phone from his office from the town of Reserve, Louisiana, said the spill response crews were told they weren’t needed because the company had already sealed the well. Like everything else from BP mouthpieces, it was a lie.
In the end, this is bigger than BP and its policy of cheaping out and skiving the rules. This is about the anti-regulatory mania, which has infected the American body politic. While the tea baggers are simply its extreme expression, US politicians of all stripes love to attack “the little bureaucrat with the fat rule book.” It began with Ronald Reagan and was promoted, most vociferously, by Bill Clinton and the head of Clinton’s deregulation committee, one Al Gore.
Americans want government off our backs … that is, until a folding crib crushes the skull of our baby, Toyota accelerators speed us to our death, banks blow our savings on gambling sprees and crude oil smothers the Mississippi.
Then, suddenly, it’s, “Where was hell was the government? Why didn’t the government do something to stop it?”
The answer is because government took you at your word they should get out of the way of business, that business could be trusted to police itself. It was only last month that BP, lobbying for new deepwater drilling, testified to Congress that additional equipment and inspection wasn’t needed.
You should meet some of these little bureaucrats with the fat rule books. Like Dan Lawn, the inspector from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, who warned and warned and warned, before the Exxon Valdez grounding, that BP and Alyeska were courting disaster in their arrogant disregard of the rule book. In 2006, I printed his latest warnings about BP’s culture of negligence. When the choice is between Lawn’s rule book and a bag of tea, Lawn’s my man.
This just in: Becnel tells me that one of the platform workers has informed him that the BP well was apparently deeper than the 18,000 feet depth reported. BP failed to communicate that additional depth to Halliburton crews, who, therefore, poured in too small a cement cap for the additional pressure caused by the extra depth. So, it blew.
Why didn’t Halliburton check? “Gross negligence on everyone’s part,” said Becnel. Negligence driven by penny-pinching, bottom-line squeezing. BP says its worker is lying. Someone’s lying here, man on the platform or the company that has practiced prevarication from Alaska to Louisiana.
This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Tags: Alaska, Alyeska, BP, containment, contamination, Deepwater Horizon, ExxonValdez, Halliburton, Palast, spill
An excerpt from GreenMuze.com:
Ugly Reality of Fracking
4.19.2010
After her well water was contaminated by nearby fracking in 2006, Ernst decided to go public, showing visiting reporters how she could light her tap water on fire, and speaking out about Alberta land owners’ problems with the industry, especially Calgary-based EnCana. EnCana is Canada’s second biggest energy company (after Suncor) and is now also a major player in British Columbia, with hundreds of natural-gas wells in the province.
Ernst, a biologist and environmental consultant to the oil and gas industry, says EnCana “told us ‘we would never fracture near your water.’ But the company fracked into our aquifer in that same year [2004].” By 2005, she says, “My water began dramatically changing, going bad. I was getting horrible burns and rashes from taking a shower, and then my dogs refused to drink the water. That’s when I began to pay attention.” More than fifteen water-wells had gone bad in the little community.
Tests revealed high levels of ethane, methane, and benzene in Ernst’s water. “EnCana told us they use the same gelled [fracking] fluids as in the States.” Fracking has become a huge controversy in the US, with pending legislation that would impact its regulation.
Ernst says she heard from “at least fifty other landowners the first year” she went public, and she continues to get calls. Groundwater contamination from fracking “is pretty widespread” in Alberta, “but they’re trying to keep it hidden.” Canada has no national water standards and conducts little information gathering about groundwater.
Read the complete article at GreenMuze.com: Ugly Reality of Fracking
Tip of the hat to FrackMountain for bringing this article to our attention.
Tags: Canada, contamination, EnCana, fracking, water wells
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May 5, 2010
“Gas Companies Are Picking the Pockets of the Citizens of Pennsylvania”
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There have been a lot of my friends in the industry who have found it necessary to begin aggressive personal attacks on me. Several industry publications, such as the Powell Barnett Shale Newsletter have had articles and editorials stating that I am pretty much everything but a nice person. This activity is not new; however, the intensity has been elevated and it has gotten much more personal. This tells me that I must be making an impact, or they would not attack me personally. This also tells me that they have given up on attacking the message, now they are only attacking the man.
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Obviously, anyone who would bother to read the Powell Newsletter knows that it is industry funded. As everyone also knows by now, I do not accept compensation or travel expenses for my presentations, and unfortunately those at the Powell Newsletter can’t say the same. They are in all reality a paid cheerleader for the natural gas industry, join me Gene…rah rah rah…gooooo… Chesapeake.
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Frankly, if the industry wants to truly be successful they would embrace the ideas that I bring forward, which is doing business in a respectful and responsible manner. I find that in every presentation I give, there are always a few who show up that have read the propaganda and are looking for a fight. However, after listening to my message it is apparent that I am not some anti-drilling wacko and the picture that has been painted of me is inaccurate, and it is always nice to hear that they agree with my points before they leave.
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Everyone knows that the industry has an ugly baby, except for the industry themselves. I know it must be difficult to admit your baby is ugly, but like they say about alcoholics, you must first admit you have a problem before you can move on. Instead this industry continues to deny their baby is ugly.
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There is really no doubt for anyone who has accomplished even a small amount of research that there is certainly a downside to this industry. If this downside is not mitigated in some manner we will be looking at a mess that will need to be cleaned up down the road when all of these companies are long gone. As history has shown us, these companies are typically nowhere to be found when it comes time to clean up the mess. That cleanup project is left for the citizens and taxpayers, not the companies who made billions making the mess. The industry will outsource this cost to the hard working American people, just as they try to do for all of their costs.
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The industry wants us to believe that they are a fledgling industry who cannot afford to take simple measures needed to make the shale plays a win-win situation. I think that most of us know that this industry spends billions lobbying to prevent them from being mandated to do it right. Therefore, they could and should do this process more responsibly and respectfully.
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They are picking the pockets of the citizens of Pennsylvania, who will be paying for the mistakes made by their elected officials for many years to come. This state is one of two that have oil and gas activities, and do not have a severance tax for the minerals. They pay this tax in every other state, and will gladly pay it in Pennsylvania, but continue to lobby for the outsourcing of their costs to the taxpayers. This could be billions when it is all said and done, but as it stands, the billions will come from hard working Pennsylvania taxpayers.
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Every location that has natural gas exploration in Pennsylvania has something in common, and that is destroyed roads. Instead of being the good neighbor we keep hearing about, they outsource the cost of the road repair to the taxpayers. However, these small communities simply can’t afford to pay the hundreds of thousands of dollars in road repairs; therefore, the citizens in these areas drive on destroyed roads, worse than I have ever seen. If the natural gas industry wanted to improve their image, they should embrace a severance tax in Pennsylvania, instead of chasing me around the country.
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As the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico shows, we are one wrong move from a catastrophic event. As any good Texan does, I really enjoy my gulf shrimp. Unfortunately, thanks to the reckless actions of this industry, it will likely be several years before I can enjoy it again. That is not the bad part though; the bad part is that something similar will happen here before this is over. It is only a matter of time before we have that catastrophic event somewhere in one the shale plays. However, in the shale plays they have put this hazardous activity in school yards and neighborhoods. So guess what is going to happen when the catastrophe happens here? There will be a lot of dead people.
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The last editorial written by Gene the “propaganda machine” Powell himself, was entitled “All Hat and No Cattle” (http://www.barnettshalenews.com/documents/2010/TillmanEditorialAllHat4-27-2010.pdf). I must admit that I do not have any cattle. However, I would like to have cattle, but I am afraid they would die or abort their calves, like they do in the small town of Clearville, PA, home of Clearville Gas Storage. In this area the hard working Americans have to purchase their own filtration system to take the high levels of arsenic out of their well water. Most of the surface and ground water has been contaminated by this reckless industry in Clearville, PA.
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As one of my new friends in Pennsylvania said, I am the new villain for the industry extremists. They rally around the Powell Newsletter, which gives me an entire section of every issue. Whatever happens, they blame me for their problems. If a large landowner refuses to sign a one sided lease, it will be my fault. If a community demands that the industry be responsible, it is that Calvin Dewayne Tillman’s fault. When people rally around the idea of a fair and equitable severance tax…yep, you guessed it…Calvin’s fault. It has nothing to do with the industry that has contaminated dozens of private water wells in Pennsylvania, and is destroyed air quality and property values wherever they have been, leaving a path of destruction in their wake. It has nothing to do with the industry that outsources its cost to the taxpayers, while its executives make hundreds of millions dollars in bonuses. Nope, those things have no influence on public perception. It is only that mayor of DISH; Calvin Dewayne Tillman, that causes all of this grief for the natural gas industry.
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If the industry would be responsible and respectful, instead of searching out a new way to attack me, they would be much better off. However, it appears the more they attack me, the more people come to see what the big deal is. As bad as they hate it, every presentation that I give is to a packed house. Furthermore, I find dozens more who want me to speak in their town. People want to know the truth through eyes of someone that has lived it, not a paid cheerleader. I truly wish the industry would do the smart thing and let me help them become responsible and respectful. However, they are going to continue to be the irresponsible bully, blaming me for all of their problems.
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Mr. Powell is right on another matter; I have no shortage of arrogance against this industry. Maybe it was my Oklahoma raising, or the fact that my parents would not allow me to stand by while a bully ran over those too passive to defend themselves, but I am not afraid of this industry and certainly will not be deterred by their personal attacks. Frankly, seeing this fear that has been struck in these industry extremists keeps me going, when my energy has run out. You should see the looks on their faces, when I walk over and shake their hand. So I hope Mr. Powell and the extremists keep “Poking the Bear”, regurgitating the same propaganda, because in the end, that may be what forces them to be respectful and responsible, and hopefully those companies that choose not to will perish. God bless.
Calvin Tillman
Mayor, DISH, TX
(940) 453-3640“Those who say it can not be done, should get out of the way of those that are doing it”
Tags: Chesapeake, DISH, Pennsylvania, Tillman
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Q1. If a tanker-load of chemicals is spilled in the forest, and no officially accredited observers are there to document it, did the spill ever occur?
A1. Not if it happened on a gas well pad!
Q2. If a lateral crack forms in the side of an underground aquifer while a gas well is being drilled a mile away, did the drilling activity cause the ruin of that aquifer?
A2. No; the pathway will never be proven because no one has both the resources and the desire to carry out that kind of investigation.
Q3. If the carcinogen 4-nitroquinoline-1-oxide (4-NQO) suddenly turns up in a river near the discharge pipe of a municipal waste treatment plant which accepts gas well flowback fluids, did the carcinogen come from those flowback fluids?
A3. No. Energy companies don’t use 4-NQO as an additive, and they’ve never studied how it is formed underground from the chemicals they do use. And they won’t disclose what those chemicals are.
Q4. When people living downwind of a “holding pond” develop nosebleeds, rashes, labored breathing, nausea, unexplained weight loss and mental confusion, could their symptoms be due to the volatile organic compounds wafting from the pond’s surface?
A4. No. There’s nothing in those ponds but “water, cuttings, sand, soap and canola oil”.
Each of these four questions represents a group of real-life incidents, and they point to extreme avoidance of full-body contact with the truth by energy companies and the regulators who coddle them.
I and scientists like me are trying to strip away the fog, but we should all recognize that the fog is still there. I have yet to witness full disclosure — or anything even close — of chemicals used, incidents which should have been reported, or accurate handling of the statistics regarding those that were reported.
Until some of this clears up, no scientist, no matter how diligent, can claim to have “the objective science”. My $0.02 worth…
Ron Bishop
Tags: science
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For one thing, you probably need a good laugh. Just the source of the blog’s name will get you started.
Another Monkey: Front page news- Marcellus Shale vs Farmville
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Who’da thunk God had a thing for the occasional massive oil spill?
.Texas Governor Rick Perry:
“Gulf oil spill an act of God”
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or maybe it’s just that in Texas, Halliburton *is* God.
That would explain a lot, actually.
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Statoil to move Marcellus gas to Canada
A Norwegian corporation
is sending gas from Pennsylvania, USA,
to Canada.
Tags: Canada, Energy Independence?, Marcellus, Norway, Pennsylvania, pipelines, Statoil
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