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.

by: Greg Palast, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis

]]> http://un-naturalgas.org/weblog/2010/05/greg-palast-slick-operator-the-bp-ive-known-too-well/feed/ 0 http://un-naturalgas.org/weblog/2010/05/jessica-ernst-groundwater-contamination-from-fracking-is-pretty-widespread-in-alberta-but-theyre-trying-to-keep-it-hidden/ http://un-naturalgas.org/weblog/2010/05/jessica-ernst-groundwater-contamination-from-fracking-is-pretty-widespread-in-alberta-but-theyre-trying-to-keep-it-hidden/#comments Thu, 06 May 2010 05:56:49 +0000 clearwater http://un-naturalgas.org/weblog/?p=2409

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.

Toxics Targeting reports:

See un-naturalgas.org’s Resources & Documents page for
Pennsylvania DEP cease & desist order against US Energy

So, why is US Energy still allowed to do business in New York State?

And DEC thinks it can handle

more drilling?

Jerry Lobdill comments on a situation in Virginia:

While this well may be a vertical well, if their results are positive they will come back for horizontal well drilling permits. Secondly, you should consider that once an aquifer is polluted, remediation is not possible. So the idea of monitoring the work and the condition of the ground water will only deliver prompt information that the water is no longer clean if things don’t go well. The drinking water source will be lost forever, essentially. So how do you justify a proposed fine for that?

Regarding fracking the shale, thousands of feet below the surface, it may or may not directly cause pollution of drinking water sources close to the surface, but there is one aspect of the wells that most likely is responsible for some of the many, many reports from all over the US of tap water containing combustible gas.  It is the problem of failed cementing in the well bore.

In Texas drillers are required to cement gas wells from the surface to a depth somewhat exceeding the depth of the water table.  Here, drillers point to this fact and the fact that the Barnett Shale lies about 7000 feet below the surface to back up their claim that the contamination could not possibly come from their wells. Actually, these facts are essential to the explanation of the presence of gas in tap water.

Have you ever seen a flagstone sidewalk that didn’t have cracks in some places between the mortar and the stones? This common situation is caused by weather and small ground motion effects that put stress on the interface between the stones and the mortar. In a well bore if the walls of the bore are not completely clean when the cementing is done the bond will be poor. Additionally, the interface between the casing and the cement is a weak point as the well ages because of the difference in the mechanical properties of cement and steel. Over time both of these interfaces of the cement with the casing and well bore will deteriorate.

When the bond fails the gas pressure in the well will cause the raw gas with its entrained liquids to find its way up the bore to geologic formations that contain the water that is used for drinking in homes.

How often do drillers achieve a good cement job? Dale Henry says not often.  Dale Henry ran for TX RRC and lost in the last election. Dale (now retired) is the Red Adair of the well cementing problem world. He had a company that repaired wells with leaky cement jobs. He also cemented new wells. He says that drillers do not generally pay close attention to preparing the well bore. It is apparently a big problem.

In my opinion, the best policy is “Just say NO.”

Just my $0.02.

Jerry Lobdill
Ch. E. and physicist (ret.)
Fort Worth, TX.

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.

. . . . .

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.”

. . . . .

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

. . . . .

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-

.

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

…of the 17 families [whose water has been affected] I am aware of they are not all seniors-some are younger with children. They are not all within 1000 feet of the Gesford site which was the site where the gas company contaminated the aquifer with methane gas which did not come from the Marcellus but from gas above it- isotopic testing was done. The activities of the gas company have altered the water quality in our valley and above. Today I have bubbles. Others have a film on their dishes and their animals are extremely thirsty all the time. Some families get water from the gas company most buy and haul water in. The gas company has stated that unless DEP orders them to provide water they do not have to. Also DEP does not have an accurate record of who is not drinking their water and why. Water wells are private and not regulated by DEP. So unless the water well owner calls them with a complaint they are unaware of any problems. My question is how can the “on going investigation” be accurate if all the information is not compiled. The missing info could be the key.

The gas migration issue is still being investigated-the headlines were misleading stating no fracking fluids found in Dimock water supply….the violation was that the company contaminated the aquifer-fact-they did.

As far as the “promises” we were all promised great compensation- “you’ll see $90,000 a year on as little as 5 acres! or “you won’t be living in this trailer next year. You’ll have a nice new house.” Nothing was ever disclosed to most of us concerning the nature and scope of the industrialization of our community – ONE well was mentioned with the infamous little Christmas tree pipe to mark its location. Drive around our neighborhood- you will see tall vents on water wells, jugs of water behind homes, and disillusioned folks inside the same homes they had 3 years ago. The dwindling royalty checks will soon equal the amount of money some of us spend on buying water…

.
“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.
.
“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’.
.
“Thanks again for the support.”
.
Louanne Fatora

.

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.wayneindependent.com/news/x576510049/Fracturing-fluids-spill-into-Susquehanna-County-stream?popular=true

http://www.pressconnects.com/article/20090917/NEWS01/909170411/State%20probes%20spill%20at%20gas-drilling%20site

http://www.propublica.org/feature/frack-fluid-spill-in-dimock-contaminates-stream-killing-fish-921#photo_correx

http://www.timesleader.com/news/ap?articleID=2868477

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/09/18/business-energy-financial-impact-us-gas-drilling-spill-pennsylvania_6905460.html

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

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:

		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.
		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.
		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/

Gas-lease offer ‘excites’ area group

After ’08 deal dies, Wyoming County Landowners expect Chesapeake Energy deal

“We knew that we wanted a company that could afford to buy 37,000 acres … that could not only buy us, but drill us,” Lines-Burgess [landowners' coalition secretary] said. “In order to do that, we knew we had to go for the cream of the crop.”

Cattle dead next to hydraulic fracturing job on Chesapeake natural gas well:

__________________________________

From The Shreveport Times:

The ’stuff’ killed the cows, sheriff says
Prator questions whether drilling company has reported incident.

By Vickie Welborn •  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

.

FOR all its Old West mythology, Wyoming is and always will be a mining state, more roughneck than cowboy. Frankly, in a land of long winters and high winds, there aren’t a lot of other economic choices. And a powerful oil lobby reminds us with Orwellian regularity that we owe everything to oil and gas taxes, bullying those who disagree. (In February, a committee of the Wyoming Legislature rejected a spending increase for the University of Wyoming’s Ruckelshaus Institute of Environment and Natural Resources after institute scientists dared to raise concerns about water produced in coal-bed methane wells.) Even so, the oilier side of our nature has never threatened to unhorse the cowboy entirely, not even now, when the pressure to develop every last seam of energy is end-of-administration intense.

Since 1996, oil and gas companies have leased from the federal government the mineral rights to nearly 27 million acres of land in the Rocky Mountain West, and Wyoming has shouldered the greatest share of that development. In the last decade, oil companies have leased a fifth to a quarter of the state’s land — 15.5 million acres administered by the Bureau of Land Management, as well of hundreds of thousands of acres of national forest and private land. If Wyoming were a country, it would be one of the largest coal-producing nations in the world, and its output of natural gas is among the greatest in American history. The argument has never been that we shouldn’t provide energy. But is that all we’re good for? And what, if anything, should we leave for future generations? These are global questions posed on a local level.

Jonah Basin, WY, 40 acre spacing

During his second term, President Bill Clinton, under pressure from a Republican Congress, leased out just as much of Wyoming’s land as the current administration has to date. The difference was that the Clinton administration enforced laws encouraging the Bureau of Land Management to “manage, protect and improve” our public lands while allowing for other values like recreation, grazing and wildlife habitat. The Bush administration, on the other hand, has lifted every possible impediment to industry.

For example, oil and gas companies are exempt from provisions of the Clean Water Act that require construction activities to reduce polluted runoff as well as from provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act that regulate underground injection of chemicals. The industry is also generously permitted to drill on critical wildlife winter range (close to 90 percent of all their requests to drill on winter range have been granted). Oil rigs are drilling for natural gas on the banks of the New Fork River (the headwaters of the Colorado) and in the foothills of the Wyoming Range. Well sites in many parts of the southern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem are so closely spaced that, with roads, gas pipelines and compressor stations, the development is continuous.

Meantime, drug treatment centers and domestic abuse shelters across the state have declared themselves overwhelmed and, in spite of what the oil companies keep telling us, we’re far from happy. Wyoming has the uneasy distinction of having one of the country’s highest suicide rates. We top the national death toll on the job with 16.8 deaths per 100,000 workers. Wyoming is responsible for by far the highest percentage of deaths on the job in the interior West’s oil and gas industry. At public meetings organized by the Bureau of Land Management to announce the development of Wyoming’s public lands, oil company executives initially argued to a largely receptive audience that a new boom would be good for the state’s economy. Lately, executives have been telling increasingly unhappy communities that domestic drilling is our moral duty, an alternative to sending more soldiers to war. They imply that anything less than full support for the oil companies is un-American. But a bumper sticker on a pick-up truck hints at the truth: “The war is over. Halliburton won.”

Meanwhile, cattle and sheep ranchers and hunting and tourist guides have found themselves wondering what has happened to their Wyoming. Wildlife suffers as oil leases overlap with habitat: 14.1 million acres of sage grouse habitat, 3.2 million acres of pronghorn winter habitat, 2.9 million acres of mule deer winter habitat and 1.1 million acres of elk winter habitat. Even most of the state’s wild horse herd management areas (the only Wyoming lands on which wild horses may legally roam) are destined for oil development.

Eighty-five water wells in the southern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem have recently tested positive for hydrocarbons, indicating that toxic chemicals from drilling have leaked into the water table. Air pollution in the same area was so great this winter that vulnerable residents were warned not to venture outside. Oil companies argued that strong winds would rectify the problem.

They were right to predict a wind of change, but it came in the form of an unprecedented experiment in the art of listening. In the last few months, Terry Tempest Williams, a writer in residence at the University of Wyoming, has taken her students on the road to conduct what she calls “weather reports” in small communities. Addressing packed rooms, Ms. Williams turns the microphone over to the people of Wyoming — a stoical populace whose habitual stance against something they don’t like is a tight lip. Astonishingly, they have opened up, voicing their concerns over the rapidity and scale of the oil and gas development.

“One day, I fear I will wake up and all that will be left of Wyoming is a hole in the ground,” one resident of the southern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem said.

Oil executives have pushed back. One oilman, State Senator Kit Jennings, took the microphone in Casper and declared that Ms. Williams had demonized the oil companies. He rejected her contention in a local newspaper article that the energy boom had helped drive up the use of crystal methamphetamine in the region and announced that he had demanded that she be fired from the university for her criticism of the industry.

Oil and gas are accustomed to dominating the debate. But Ms. Williams’s forums have created an opportunity for grass-roots rebuttal. Residents, who have so far been cowed by the enormous tax contributions that energy companies make to the state’s coffers, are upholding values not counted in dollars. “My hope is that with our backs against the wall we will finally speak up,” another weather reports participant said.

Maybe Wyomingites, justifiably proud of their roughneck heritage and anxious to keep the oil field work, have realized that this boom isn’t going away soon, and they’d like a little of Wyoming left when the oil companies move back to Texas. “We’re Mother Nature’s bodyguards,” a billboard sponsored by Sportsmen for the Wyoming Range warns. “And yes, we are heavily armed.”

Alexandra Fuller is the author of the forthcoming “The Legend of Colton H. Bryant.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/opinion/20fuller.html

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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

U.S. finds water polluted near gas-drilling sites

PHILADELPHIA, Aug 27 (Reuters) – U.S. government scientists have for the first time found chemical contaminants in drinking water wells near natural gas drilling operations, fueling concern that a gas-extraction technique is endangering the health of people who live close to drilling rigs.

The Environmental Protection Agency found chemicals that researchers say may cause illnesses including cancer, kidney failure, anemia and fertility problems in water from 11 of 39 wells tested around the Wyoming town of Pavillion in March and May this year.

. . . . .

Evidence of a link between gas drilling and water contamination would set back development of a clean-burning fuel promoted by the Obama administration as crucial to the future of U.S. energy production.

. . . . .

“There may be an indication of groundwater contamination by oil and gas activities,” said the 44-page report, which received little public attention when released on Aug. 11. “Many activities in gas well drilling (and) hydraulic fracturing … involve injecting water and other fluids into the well and have the potential to create cross-contamination of aquifers.”

Among the contaminants found in some of the wells was 2-butoyethanol, or 2-BE, a solvent used in natural gas extraction, which researchers say causes the breakdown of red blood cells, leading to blood in the urine and feces, and can damage the kidneys, liver, spleen and bone marrow.

Greg Oberley, an EPA scientist who has been testing the water samples, said the agency did not set out to prove that hydraulic fracturing caused groundwater contamination, but was responding to complaints from local residents that their well water had become discolored or foul-smelling or tasted bad.

The investigation was the EPA’s first in response to claims that gas drilling is polluting water supplies, he said. Testing will continue.

LINK TO GAS INDUSTRY?

While the EPA team has not determined how the chemicals got into the water, many are associated with gas drilling, Oberley said in a telephone interview.

“The preponderance of those compounds in the area would be attributable to the oil and gas industry,” he said.

. . . . .

John Fenton, a farmer in Pavillion, a rural community of about 150 people, said residents blame gas drilling for a range of illnesses including rare cancers, miscarriages and nervous system disorders.

Families with contaminated water wells have been advised by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention not to drink the water, which in some cases was black and oily, with a petroleum-like sheen, and a smell of gas, Fenton said.

“The stress is incredible,” Fenton told Reuters. “People have built their lives and businesses here. What’s it all worth now?”

Complete story at:

http://in.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idINN2731170120090827?sp=true

For more on this story:
http://www.propublica.org/feature/epa-chemicals-found-in-wyo.-drinking-water-might-be-from-fracking-825

PA DEP Investigating Natural Gas Well Leak In Lycoming County

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa., July 28 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is investigating a natural gas well leak at an East Resources well in McNett Township, Lycoming County.

“East Resources is cooperating fully with our investigation, and has already implemented measures to stop the leak,” said DEP Northcentral Regional Director Robert Yowell. “DEP staff will continue to work closely with East Resources and local emergency responders to ensure the safety of nearby residents.”

DEP was alerted to the problem last week by a citizen who reported discoloration of water in a tributary to Lycoming Creek and in a nearby spring. DEP staff investigated on July 24 what was then a suspected sediment problem in the creek.

On Monday, DEP received a report of possible natural gas bubbling from the tributary. DEP staff collected water samples from the spring and the tributary. Those samples are being analyzed for methane and other parameters in the department’s laboratory in Harrisburg. DEP staff confirmed the bubbling in two Lycoming Creek tributaries earlier today.

East Resources personnel monitored 18 private water wells in the nearby area that same day, and are providing water to four homes. They also monitored methane levels in the homes.

East Resources has three wells in the area, which are in the Oriskaney [sic] geologic formation, and not in the Marcellus Shale area. Two of the wells are drilled and completed, but not yet in service due to the lack of gathering lines in the area. The third well was previously plugged and abandoned.

East Resources began flaring the Delciotto #2 well on Monday to reduce pressure from the natural gas, and is currently working to flare the other two wells. The company is investigating the possibility that a casing failure in part of the Delciotto #2 well caused the natural gas leak. The company is attempting to seal off the leak with drilling mud to stop the natural gas from escaping.

CONTACT: Daniel T. Spadoni (570) 327-3659

SOURCE Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection

- http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayReleaseContent.aspx?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/07-28-2009/0005067720&EDATE=

Colorado regulators are asleep at the switch.

New York’s DEC inspectors are required to visit well sites just 3 times: before work begins, when the surface casing is cemented, and after the site is “reclaimed.”

You thinking what I’m thinking?