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From a follow-up interview conducted by e-mail and used with permission:

Hi David,

Thanks for coming up to Ithaca on Friday.

On a separate note, would you mind if I share your experience with fracking with people in Ithaca?  If it’s okay with you for me to do so, I’d also like to confirm what you told me:

1.       Pollution of your well (two wells?). How did this show up?

Bohlander:  We have two wells on the farm (190 acres).  We had a detailed baseline water testing done on both before any of the gas activity happened in our area.  We subsequently have had another 6 or so tests done on these wells.  It is crucial to have certified baseline testing done prior to any activity by gas companies or they will claim there is no proof they are the cause and argue it was a pre-existing condition.  We also retained a very competent hydrologist (who has the gas company clients) who was the plaintiffs hydrologist in the Dimock, PA contamination (highlighted in the movie Gasland).  The well for the barn/and original farmhouse was so contaminated with methane they thought it would explode so the well pump was disconnected for six months and water was trucked in by the gas companies for the animals, and spring water for the humans!

2.       The operations end up being more extensive than anticipated.  The “pads” are large, and end up being used for other operations.

Bohlander:  Gas companies are major deceivers.  They do this many ways. One is using land agents that are not their employees so that they can claim “we never said that ..they did”

Most all the neighbors were told that the gas wells would be drilled, it would take 3 months or so, and then land would be restored to earlier state. In reality this is what happens. They excavate a pad obliterating the natural terrain, hauling in 100’s of trucks of stone, gravel, etc.  Once the pad is completed, they only drill 2-4 actual gas wells of what ultimately are likely going to be 12 or so on that pad.  They may not frack the drilled wells immediately, but wait sometimes a year.  The intention is to refrack over and over the same drilled wells.  They are now claiming there is 60 years of gas here.  Simultaneously, although not on all pads, they use the pads for other things such as equipment storage, frack water storage, and the worst:  frack water recycling which we have three in our neighborhood and 2 are 10 year permits (one is in the review process, 9 days to go).  These are REGIONAL frack water recycling operations bringing in dirty radioactive brine from 15 miles away or more, operating 24/7 with extensive noise, lights and traffic.  DEP is way behind on enforcement.  The neighbors are the enforcers, but it is David vs. Goliath (the gas companies).  After four years now, I have not seen one well pad restored back to the original state.  The stated plan by the gas companies is that there will be one well pad every 50 acres.  If the well pad is 10 acres, 20% of our surface land area will be a perpetual well pad.

3.       Extensive light pollution due to 24/7 operation.

Bohlander:  Re frack water recycling:  They power huge lights that light of the pads for the whole night.  They don’t use street electric but generators which contribute to the noise.  The trucks have large pumps that due to the volume of 5200 gallons per truck are large motors,  the trucks endlessly are using their backup safety beepers, horns for instructions to the ground crew, etc.  The three sites in our neighborhood will generate 800 trucks a day, 1600 with return trip passes.

The gas drilling when it goes on makes it almost impossible to sleep.  24/7, 7 days a week.

4.       Extensive trucking.

Bohlander: The gas companies make new roads over smaller older roads to accommodate their extensive traffic.  The state allows them to exceed the weight limit of the road by paying some fee or posting a bond.  The small country road in front of our farm is now elevated 3 feet in the air from normal ground level.  Certain roads are used as main arterial roads after they have been rebuilt –this happened to ours.  The trucks are hauling huge amounts of gravel, fill, fresh water for fracking and the dirty brine water out, as well as all the equipment for the drilling process.  Each well on the pad uses 5 million gallons of water.  60% flows back and is recycled, but removed from the site.  Our road was destroyed initially and impassible.  The gas companies then closed 10 mile stretches of the road for months at a time as they began rebuilding it.  One landowner could only get to and from his property with a four wheeler.

5.       Feel free to add any other relevant details.

Bohlander:  The gas companies have a very systematic playbook from the years of operating and polluting Colorado, Wyoming, Texas, etc.  They have two sides:  a friendly neighborly “give $35K to the fire company” and then a ruthless no-holds-barred side.   Three times they threatened that in 24 hours they were going to stop trucking in water for the cows in our barn unless we agreed to things.  These things include non-disclosure agreements, consent not to sue, etc.  Read the book Collateral Damage.  A lot of good environmental activist groups with websites and a lot of info.  Many have been to our house.  We were one of the first contaminated sites in this region from the drilling.

The public does not have any idea how bad the permanent environmental contamination is going to be.  There has been major barium and radiation poisoning with some already.  One not far from us is a 13-year- old girl with barium poisoning.  One of our immediate neighbors’ daughters is having clumps of hair fall out and his dog got sick and parakeet died from drinking his well water.  He abuts one of the frack water recycling sites.

Air pollution is the sleeping giant.   Each well pad on an ongoing basis emits things into the air (like toluene) as the gas goes through a preliminary filtering process at the well pad.  The absolutely worst are the gas compression stations for both noise and air pollution.

As you may know, the gas drilling is exempt from the Clean Water Act  — we actually are more apt to be fined if manure is spread on the road, than these major infractions the gas company are doing.  The environmental enforcement agencies only slap their wrists with fines.  Cost of doing business to gas companies –easier to just pay the fine.

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In its Executive Summary of the revised SGEIS released yesterday, the DEC states clearly that groundwater is at sufficient risk from gas drilling to restrict gas drilling to protect  those drinking groundwater. But they only afford that protection to those drinking from primary aquifers. The DEC leaves the great majority of drinkers of groundwater in the Marcellus unprotected. They have some explaining to do.

I’m looking forward to hearing the DEC’s logic and science—their risk assessment strategy— used to assess that only some drinkers of contaminated groundwater need protection.

Primary aquifers are used as drinking water for some municipalities.

The list is on  on page 5: http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/water_pdf/togs213.pdf

The list includes about 300,000 people in those municipalities drinking water from these primary aquifers in counties in the Marcellus shale. (see attached spreadsheet and chart at bottom.)

Page 18 of the new DEC doc describes the exclusion of primary aquifers. It’s pasted below, bold face added.

No HVHF Operations on Primary Aquifers

Although not subject to Filtration Avoidance Determinations, 18 other aquifers in the State of New York have been identified by the New York State Department of Health as highly productive aquifers presently utilized as sources of water supply by major municipal water supply systems and are designated as “primary aquifers.” Because these aquifers are the primary source of drinking water for many public drinking water supplies, the Department recommends in this dSGEIS that site disturbance relating to HVHF operations should not be permitted there either or in a protective 500-foot buffer area around them. Horizontal extraction of gas resources underneath Primary Aquifers from well pads located outside this area would not significantly impact this valuable water resource.
- http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/administration_pdf/execsumsgeis072011.pdf

As the DEC says, this is in addition to the exclusion of drilling in the watersheds of NYC and Syracuse.

Now, one can make an argument, as the DEC has, that the exclusion of drilling in the NYC and Syracuse water supplies is based on their being unfiltered surface water (as opposed to ground  water), with a risk of “turbidity” from surface drilling activity.  And because there have been rules in place for years restricting industry and development  in unfiltered surface watersheds to avoid having to build  super-expensive filtration plants, as  for NYC.  A more clear eyed assessment of carving out the NYC watershed is that the DEC wants to excise the political opposition of NYC, which could easily create a critical mass of opposition in the state.  But they do have the surface water “turbidity” argument  to fall back on to explain this preferential exclusion, even if politics is the underlying reason.

But when you are dealing with groundwater sources, how can you rationally and scientifically exclude some aquifers and not others? Again, the actual rationale appears overtly political, rather than based on the science or risk.  The DEC is trying to carve out the opposition of the  municipalities drinking from primary aquifers—including Jamestown, Elmira, Cortland, Binghamton, Corning, Salamanca.  After all, these municipalities  are really organized entities of people…….. who would otherwise likely oppose drilling.

Problem is, there are at least 1,140,000 people drinking groundwater in the Marcellus shale.   What’s up, DEC? You’ve determined that groundwater is at risk. You’re going to protect 300,000 people from ground water pollution, but not the other 840,000.

Who are those people? Hello, it’s us, the people of rural NY State who will be drinking from polluted wells. It’s us,  people who will not be receiving equal protection against the very threats that the DEC assesses are too risky for the people of upstate municipalities.

I think I’m going to call my lawyer.

Ken Jaffe, MD
Slope Farms
Meredith, NY
www.slopefarms.com

Source material
http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/36164.html
http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/water_pdf/305bgrndw10.pdf
http://www.dec.ny.gov/energy/46381.html
http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/water_pdf/togs213.pdf

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…b u t. . r e m e m b e r. . w h o. . w i n s. . i n. .t h e. . e n d .

Gas Drilling in Beautiful Susquehanna County, PA from VeccVideography on Vimeo.

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From “The Spill Seekers,” Outside Magazine, November 2010

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While I was in Louisiana, there was an event at the Cajundome, in Lafayette, called the Rally for Economic Survival:  11,000 people packed the place to hear the governor, the lieutenant governor, and, of all people, the executive director of the Louisiana Seafood Marketing and Promotion Board rail against the Obama administration for stealing their jobs by imposing a six-month moratorium on deep-water drilling.

“Enough is enough!” raged the lieutenant governor, Scott Angelle, in his thick Cajun accent.  “Louisiana has a long and strong, distinguished history of fueling America, and we proudly do what few other states are willing to do. …America is not yet ready to get all of its fuel from the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees!”

True, but of the six billion to seven billion barrels of oil consumed by the U.S. each year, only about 10 percent comes from federal Gulf of Mexico waters; we get the same amount from both the Persian Gulf and Canada.  Louisiana is no longer a significant source of crude, on- or off-shore.  What it does supply is cheap labor and a pliant local government.  In this, it’s eerily reminiscent of Third World places ruined by oil.  The BPs of the world would have you believe oil brings prosperity to the countries where it’s discovered, but it brings misery so dependably that economists have a name for the phenomenon:  the resource curse.

Ecuador, Venezuela, Iraq:  Bad things happen to countries “blessed” with oil.  The Niger Delta is the Mississippi River Delta’s separated-at-birth twin, offering the scariest cautionary tale of all.  This tropical river delta held some of the greatest wetlands on earth, with abundant shellfish, crabs, and shrimp, the foundation of the economy and culture, but it also harbored vast oil reserves.  In the past 50 years, Shell has grown preposterously wealthy off that oil, while Nigeria, with the tenth-largest oil reserves in the world, has become a post-apocalyptic wasteland.  Almost three times as much oil has spilled into the Niger River Delta as was spilled by the Deepwater Horizon:  546 million gallons and counting.  The creeks are black, and the crabs and shrimp are dead.  There are always leaking, corroded wellheads and pipelines.  Gangs of rebels and oil thieves roam the jungle.  Flaring rigs fill the air with mercury, arsenic, and carcinogens.  Disease is rampant.  The government is cardboard.

Southern Louisiana is no Nigeria, but it’s also no longer quite recognizable as the United States.  The trailer homes on pilings, the dearth of education, the chronic disease, the fat parish chiefs – I know the Third World when I see it.  Cajuns haven’t grown rich on crude; Houston has.  And when the oil runs out, there’s nothing left to fall back on.

I bet Angelle would simply argue that oil is worth billions more than seafood.  But that’s only because we aren’t sophisticated enough to put a value on all the multifarious “ecosystem services” the gulf provides:  benefits of the natural world, resources and processes we all too often take for granted.  If we were to add these things to the ledger – all that gulf seafood and the health savings from it, the hurricane protection and wildlife habitat in all those marshes, to name only a few – and apply the calculus of their self-perpetuating sustainability, the astronomical value would blow your mind.  It leaves petroleum in the pit.  … How much are all those acres of disappearing land worth?  What price the mental anxiety of a culture watching its homeland disintegrate?  How much added value do you assign oyster reefs because they’ve never, ever blown up and killed anyone?  It’s only ignorance – an inability to tally all the gains and losses – that makes oil look good.

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Do yourself a favor: pick up a copy at your favorite newstand and read the whole piece.  And say thanks to Outside Magazine.

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We knew it happens; here’s proof:

Wetzel County Action Group photo used with permission

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Tanker dumping fluid onto public road

see also   Sootypaws Journal – Fracture Waste

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Dispatch from Dimock:

The activity has really picked up here and over toward Elk Lake. Truck and tanker activity is steadily increasing. Water / whatever trucks running all night long.  A dump truck roared by while I was along the road and it reeked of an oily smell – what was he hauling? Dirt roads are being widened and built up. Watched Brown Tree employees cut giant trees along a road that I considered one of the most beautiful walks in Dimock.  The well site at Rayias has a pit.  Thought pits were out?  The Lathrop Compressor is just the beginning – it will be expanded as more wells come on line.  Pipeline paths everywhere.  After some optimism last few weeks I am sad to inform you – the destruction is in full swing, it does not look like we will get any help here in Susquehanna County. Heard a Cabot worker bought the bar a round at a local bar, dropped $600.00 on the crowd. Business is good…

- Victoria Switzer

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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“My name is Phyllis. I live in Lake Lynn, Fayette County, SW PA. I have 4 gas wells behind me and a compression station 300 ft in front of me. My grandchildren are suffering headaches and burning throats. The trees are dying behind me. We called the DEP and EPA.  Health dep’t doctors can’t give us answers. We don’t know where else to go. They dumped the fracking water in our lakes and creeks here. Someone please help us before it’s too late.”

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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.

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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.

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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

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From Clearville Times, who blogs at http://clearville.wordpress.com/

Clearville, PA  like DISH, Texas: “pretty much in the middle of nowhere, which from the gas storage owner’s point of view, made it the perfect place”

Clearville had five production wells drilled by PGE gas drilling company,  which produced about two years in  the Oriskany formation.    Wells suddenly stopped production on the same day and were sold to a gas storage company from somewhere in Texas, known as  Spectra Energy or maybe known as a “Spin off of Duke Energy?” from a gas storage operator’s  point of view,  Clearville, PA made it the perfect place”  known as the  ” Steckman Ridge Gas  Storage Project.”

In Pennsylvania, gas is stored in the Oriskany formation, the source rock for the Oriskany is the Marcellus Shale.

In the middle of nowhere, there seems to be a trend for gas storage fields in the Oriskany formation located  near the Marcellus Shale.   There is a  gas storage field located a few miles down the road from the Steckman Ridge’s  underground gas storage field known as the Columbia Gas Storage field, in Artemas, PA.    Columbia gas storage field is also located in the middle of nowhere but has been the perfect place since the early 1940′s .  Columbia gas has been storing gas in the  Oriskany formation where the Marcellus Shale is the source rock.

There is a big difference,   between then and now’s,  when it comes to gas storage project acquisitions, at least up until 2005.    Columbia Gas Storage got off to an easier start  in the 1940′s.   At that period in time, most all gas production leases gave away gas storage rights  in gas production leases.

Landowners over the years with the advent of the internet, became more savvy and placed no gas storage clauses in their gas production leases.   Soon these gas leases became known as obstacles in the market place which needed a  removal tool.     Someone,  somewhere,  came up  with the perfect legal tool to remove these obstacles in the market place for gas storage projects.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney used legal legislative laws as the best use obstacle removal tool  in EPACT of 2005. At that time,    Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney likely knew  a little about the gas market,  heard about obstacles in the market place, and knew a solution was needed for the problem.     Minds of genius noted for acquisitions developed and signed a law which classified depleted gas wells which can be taken legally for underground gas storage projects because they are now considered public utilities.    This  law is broad and can take land which has no gas leases.  This law will take any land and  give it to a private company for profit once they eye your land as the perfect place for a federally backed underground gas storage field.

Clearville, PA was eyed as the perfect place.   Landowners watched Halliburton and Schlumberger legally use exempted fracking chemicals from the SDWA.  They watched as horizontal gas storage wells were drilled into the Oriskany sandstone formation. This was a federally backed gas storage project with all the amenities.

Remember:  “There is no way to save your land from the laws of a federally backed gas storage project.  If someone, somewhere, spots your land  as the perfect place,  you can kiss it goodbye.”

Clearville, PA;  the Oriskany formation;  the Marcellus Shale is  the Oriskany source rock;   in the middle of nowhere;   all goes somewhere; from a gas storage operator’s  point of view;  Clearville was another perfect place.

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From The Sun Gazette, 3/17:

Spill from drill site likely contains 2-butoxyethanol

WATERVILLE – A substance used in the natural gas drilling process is discoloring and distorting the texture of spring water running off a Cummings Township sidehill.

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The mysterious substance was seen flowing down the slope, under the road and into Pine Creek, said Daniel T. Spadoni, spokesman for DEP’s northcentral region office. Officials from another state agency alerted DEP.

“We were notified (Monday) morning by the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources,” Spadoni said. “There was a white foamy material discharging from a spring down the hill.”

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Terming it a surfactant, Spadoni said a substance known as Airfoam HD was causing the water run-off to be unnatural in appearance.

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Surfactant used to treat Pennsylvania General Energy wells affected the water run-off, which Spadoni said had nothing to do with hydrofracturing.

Workers for the Warren-based energy company are drilling five wells in the area, high above the road, but he said they have yet to reach the point of using highly pressurized water to break the rock underneath the ground.

They were using the whitening substance as a lubricant that lowers the surface tension between air and water, according to Spadoni.

A receptionist answering a Pennsylvania General Energy phone Tuesday afternoon said company officials were not available to comment.

“They’re attempting to determine what caused this problem and what actions they can take to stop it,” Spadoni said of energy company representatives, with whom DEP members have been communicating.

The only precaution Spadoni recommended to residents is to avoid the suspicious spring water run-off in the area.

“I don’t think you would want to drink this discharge,” he said.

The substance leaking down the hill isn’t listed as dangerous on a Material Safety Data Sheet, according to Spadoni.

“I don’t believe there are concerns about drinking water in Waterville at this time,” Spadoni said, adding that area residents can continue regularly using tap water in their homes.

The investigation will continue.

“We don’t know for sure what its chemical composition is,” Spadoni said.

-end of excerpt of Sun Gazette article-

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Now, you have to wonder what Material Safety Data Sheet Spadoni is talking about.  The one copied below says the component of Airfoam HD is 2-butoxyethanol, also known as 2BE, which is linked to a particular kind of adrenal tumor that’s rare… unless you happen to be Laura Amos, who was exposed to 2BE, got that adrenal tumor, and wrote the following (click above on her name for complete text):

In August 2004 I came across a memo written to the US Forest Service and BLM Regional offices in Delta County, describing the health hazard posed by a chemical used in fluids that are injected underground to enhance the release of methane. Dr. Theo Colborn of Paonia, Colorado submitted the memo in response to decisions that were being made in Delta County by the government officials to allow gas exploration and development on the Grand Mesa. Colborn is the President of the Endocrine Disruption Exchange, Inc (TEDX) and for over 10 years directed the World Wildlife Fund’s Wildlife and Contaminants Program. She has been honored worldwide for her focus on the effects of synthetic chemicals on human and wildlife health. The focus of Colborn’s memo was on a chemical called 2BE, used in fracturing fluids.

The following information was taken from Colborn’s report: “2BE is a highly soluble, colorless liquid with a very faint, ether like odor.” She wrote that at the concentration to be used in Delta county 2BE might not be detectable through odor or taste. “2-BE has a low volatility, vaporizes slowly when mixed with water and remains well dissolved throughout the water column.” “It mobilizes in soil and can easily leach into groundwater.” “It could remain entrapped underground for years.”

She noted it is readily absorbed by the skin and can easily be inhaled as it off-gasses in the home. Colborn cited the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry Profile that listed the following effects of 2-BE: kidney damage, kidney failure, toxicity to the spleen, the bones in the spinal column and bone marrow, liver cancer, anemia, female fertility reduction, embryo mortality, and the biggie that got my attention – elevated numbers of combined malignant and non-malignant tumors of the adrenal gland.

-end of excerpt-

Here’s the MSDS that Spadoni mentions, but, hmmm, maybe just hadn’t read?

"Component: 2-butoxyethanol"

A deep bow and sweeping tip of the hat to Nastassja Noell for the Material Safety Data Sheet.

For more on this story, and more photos, see
Citizens Alarmed By Foam Discharge

Letter to Edmonton Journal: “Letting gas companies have their way has devastating results”

Edmonton Journal

March 15, 2010

Re: “Natural gas and its ‘Drill, baby, drill’ conundrum,” The Journal, March 8.

I am a central Pennsylvania native who lives in the midst of the Marcellus shale region. I cannot begin to describe how devastating it is to witness the wholesale destruction of this once strikingly beautiful state by natural gas firms from both the United States and Canada. If you are a gas company executive living in Edmonton or Calgary for example, you do not have any ancestral bonds or other firsthand knowledge of this predominantly rural and less wealthy corner of the United States. Instead, your singular goal is to extract the natural gas and, accordingly, reap substantial profits. Meanwhile, massive and permanent environmental damage will be the only legacy of the Marcellus shale drilling left for Pennsylvanians. Although drilling only started less than two years ago, the state’s freshwater supplies (including the Susquehanna River, which flows into Chesapeake Bay) are already being depleted at an alarming rate and the forests and farmlands systematically destroyed. So, whenever energy experts like Peter Tertzakian or anyone else raises the “drill, baby, drill” credo, please remember that whatever economic gains are being derived from retrieving natural gas in the Marcellus shale region via hydraulic fracturing, they are coming at a terrible environmental cost comparable to that of the oil-sands, or perhaps even worse.

Marsha Ann Tate, Pleasant Gap, Penn.