Jun 9
2010

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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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Trackback  •  Posted in Bad Neighbors, Community Effects, Cost Externalization, General, Legislation, Mean Energy, On the Bleeding Edge, Property Rights, The Fox is Guarding the Henhouse  


May 4
2010

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Statoil to move Marcellus gas to Canada

A Norwegian corporation
is sending gas from Pennsylvania, USA,
to Canada.

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Trackback  •  Posted in Energy Independence?, Natural Gas Industry Lies  


Apr 30
2010

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Firsthand experiences with Marcellus drilling

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Trackback  •  Posted in Bad Neighbors, Mean Energy, Property Rights  


Apr 30
2010

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From the Desk of Senator Tom Libous
April 27, 2010

Dear ———-,

DEC announced last week that permit applications in the Syracuse and New York City watersheds will be excluded from their environmental review process. All applications for horizontal drilling in these watersheds would need to be reviewed on a case by case basis.

You can read DEC’s full announcement by clicking here.

What does that mean to us? With Syracuse and NYC watersheds having extra protection, this could do two things:

1) Help stop some of the New York City opposition to drilling.

2) Free up DEC’s review efforts to focus on permit applications outside of those areas.

We might see safe gas drilling begin sooner than we thought.

But, we still face opposition from New York City Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. You can read his statement on www.SafeDrillingNow.com. We have to keep fighting.

Best wishes,

Tom

________________

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? : Two maps, two standards, part 2

Then again, maybe he reads our blog…

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Trackback  •  Posted in SGEIS, The Fox is Guarding the Henhouse  


Apr 26
2010

MB writes:

I just attempted to call Grannis about this decision to do separate
reviews for NYC and Syracuse. I told the operator what my call was
about and I was transferred to the Division of Mineral Resources. I
asked them to please transfer me back to Grannis’s office. After I was
on hold for several minutes, someone answered my call and when I
explained that I was calling to register my displeasure at the plan to
give unequal treatment to different parts of the state, I was told
that they are not taking calls on this matter except through the
Division of Mineral Resources. She said that I could email my concerns
to Grannis, and then they would be documented. I told her I knew the
decision was not hers and I was not angry with her, but that I was
furious that the commissioner’s office is not taking calls on this
matter. I went ahead and told her that I was opposed to the unequal
treatment–she said she was keeping no record of the call. I told her
that I understood that, but I was telling her my position so that if
she got many, many similar calls, she could go and tell her superiors
that she had gotten a lot of calls in opposition to the unequal
treatment, even if the individual calls were not recorded. I also told
her that I have lived in and paid taxes in NY for over 25 years, and
that I bet if Chesapeake were to call about something they would get
through.

People calling about Walter Hang’s effort to get the dSGEIS withdrawn
have been getting similar treatment.

We live in this state and they are not taking our calls! Are they
deliberately trying to piss us off or what? Do they think this will
make us LESS determined to stop this nightmare? If I sound furious,
that’s because I am.

If you have not already done so, please consider calling and sending
emails to the appropriate officials to express your displeasure at the
DEC’s recent decision to create separate regulations for the NYC and
Syracuse watersheds. Phone numbers and email addresses are:

DEC Commissioner Alexander “Pete” Grannis:
518-402-8545
pgrannis@gw.dec.state.ny.us

EPA Region 2 Administrator Judith Enck:
212-637-5000
enck.judith@epa.gov

Governor David Paterson
518-474-8390
governor@chamber.state.ny.us

When contacting Grannis and Paterson, you may also wish to complain
about the fact that, as of last Friday, Grannis’s office was NOT
accepting phone calls on this issue: they were instead transferring
the calls to our “friends” over in the Division of Mineral Resources.

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Trackback  •  Posted in Fighting Back, SGEIS, The Fox is Guarding the Henhouse  


Apr 26
2010

Last week, high-profile news stories indicated that “DEC won’t allow gas drilling in ‘the watershed.’”  Is that true?

You may have heard or read that the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has decided not to allow gas drilling within the Catskill and Delaware watersheds, which supply water to NYC.

Don’t believe it.

On April 23rd the DEC announced that it will exclude unfiltered water supplies from its generic environmental impact statement. Instead gas drilling applicants will have to go through their own environmental review process to obtain permits. [1] In the 1992 GEIS there are other situations which trigger an additional environmental review.

The main question is why did the DEC decide to release this statement now, instead of including it in the final Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS)?

Here are three good reasons for this public relations stunt:

1. To diminish public opposition

Late last October, just before the start of the public review of the draft SGEIS, Aubrey K. McClendon, the head of Chesapeake Energy, announced that his company would not drill in the Catskill and Delaware watersheds. However, he was not willing to tear up their current leases, or sign a binding agreement never to drill there. Nor could he speak for the dozens of other gas drilling companies. The public saw through his maneuver and submitted over 14,000 comments to the draft.

It seems that Pete Grannis has been taking lessons from the CEO of Chesapeake Energy.

2. To try an end run around current proposed legislation

Over two dozen bills have been introduced in the NYS legislature about gas drilling. One that is gaining momentum calls for a state-wide moratorium until 120 days after the EPA finishes its report on hydrofracking. [2] Another proposed bill calls for a state-wide ban.

The last thing the DEC and the gas industry want is a multi-year moratorium. This press release is merely an attempt to stop these bills.

3. To try to avoid some legal requirements of their environmental review

NYS is in a very difficult position because no matter what they do they are going to get sued once the SGEIS is finalized. This move is an attempt to avoid some of those legal issues. However, it’s not likely to succeed since it simply creates a new legal challenge.

The point is this: gas drilling would still be allowed in unfiltered water supplies. The DEC’s decision does not block gas drilling anyplace, and it may not be legal.

[1]. DEC Press Release: DEC Announces Separate Review for Communities With “Filtration Avoidance Determinations”

[2]. Englebright bill, A10490

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Trackback  •  Posted in SGEIS, The Fox is Guarding the Henhouse  


Apr 24
2010

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Today, two maps to ponder.   Tomorrow, why.

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Trackback  •  Posted in SGEIS, The Fox is Guarding the Henhouse  


Apr 10
2010

Well pads, new pits to supply gravel for pads, pipeline easements


.Thanks for visiting. Please also visit our main site:

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Trackback  •  Posted in General  


Sep 11
2009

Report from Seneca Daily Journal, Seneca, South Carolina:
—————————————————————————–

By Andrew Moore (Contact / Staff Bio)
July 8, 2009

ANDERSON — “United States District Judge G. Ross Anderson Jr. has instructed Schlumberger Technology Corporation attorney John Hanson to formally submit a design plan for removing two dams on Twelve Mile River by the end of August, putting a serious alteration on the company’s own timelines of providing the final design by November.

“A public hearing on Tuesday at the federal courthouse in Anderson highlighted Judge Anderson’s disdain for Schlumberger’s failure to remove the dams along with polychlorinated biphenyl-contaminated sediment more than three years after he instructed the company to do so in a 2006 consent decree.

“For more than two decades, a manufacturing facility on the river pumped hundreds of thousands of pounds of PCBs into the river’s tributaries. The river feeds into Lake Hartwell, the bottom of which is covered by PCB-contaminated sediment from the river’s toxic flow. Removing hundreds of yards of sediment from the river, coupled with eliminating two of the three old dams there, would allow fresh sediment to naturally flow and settle on top of the toxic sediments at the bottom of Hartwell, which has a ban on eating fish caught there.

“Anderson has given Schlumberger until July 2010 to remove the dams, and is also demanding the company turn over all quarterly progress reports on the project to him so that he may in turn immediately release them to the media and general public.

“Anderson said he would assume full control of the project after Schlumberger’s apparent circumventing of his 2006 order.

“’I’m not an engineer,’ he said. ‘But this is what you get into when you stoop to fooling a federal court.’

“Brad Wyche, executive director of conservation group Upstate Forever, told Anderson he also believed the delays in the project were intentional.

“’I think it’s clear what’s been going on,’ Wyche said.

“At the heart of the delays were a series of changes in project managers as well as contractors for the job. Joe Carroll of Restoration Systems, the contractor initially tapped for the project, told Anderson the contract was terminated when he was reluctant to sign an 85-page amendment to an originally 15-page agreement.

“’They may live to regret that,’ Anderson said of Schlumberger’s departure from the plan consistent with his consent decree.

“Lawrence Dyck, a retired Clemson University science professor and Twelve Mile River resident, said he was skeptical about the supposed progress Schlumberger had made.

“’We’re no closer to removing those dams than when you signed those decrees in 2006,’ Dyck said.  ‘We’re maybe farther away.’

“Anderson emphasized at the end of the hearing that there was no more time to “fool around” with his order, and that he was taking the reins of the project himself.

“’Frankly, I don’t trust you,’ he said, as he looked toward Schlumberger’s legal team.”

Source:
http://www.upstateforever.org/newsviews_ufnews.html
http://www.upstateforever.org/newsviews_ufnews/UFN_2009/ufn090708SDJ_JudgeTakesReinsInRiverPollutionSaga.pdf
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Trackback  •  Posted in Bad Neighbors, Community Effects, Cost Externalization, General  


Sep 9
2009

Horseheads High School, 7pm
401 Fletcher St.
Horseheads, NY 14845

Contributed:

“The time to make a difference is tonight,  7PM at Horseheads High School.

“For the village of Horseheads, as lead agency, to have the ability to allow a huge corporation like Schlumberger to build a giant facility serving a 300-mile gas drilling radius with EXPLOSIVES, RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL AND CONCENTRATED TOXIC CHEMICALS across the street from a school , without requiring a full EIS is appalling. The truck traffic has been estimated in THE HUNDREDS of trucks from the site to and from the facility PER DAY. This three hundred mile radius includes most, if not all of us, but we have absolutely no voice.

“THE VILLAGE OF HORSEHEADS IS NOT REQUIRING AN ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT.

“All for a few hundred “jobs”, most of them dangerous and unpleasant. Is NYS’s economy so bad we are reduced to allowing rapacious businesses to flagrantly abuse the most vulnerable of us all? If natural gas extraction by unconventional means must occur as part of a well-thought out and soberly constructed NYS energy plan, then LET US DO IT METHODICALLY AND CAREFULLY.

“Instead, these companies have used highly financed, stealthy, and forceful techniques to get their way, from their cronies at the top to the landmen sharks who coerced landowner-victims into signing leases they had no context of understanding.

“The world is upside down. We don’t cherish our agricultural areas, our forests, our fresh water supplies in this country or this state anymore. And now, we see that many people are OKAY WITH NOT CHERISHING THE HEALTH AND SAFETY OF OUR CHILDREN, EITHER.

“From a Horseheads area resident and friend: “Even if people don’t want to speak, they need to attend in order to help fill the room and to hear what others say. But those who are willing to just make one simple point of their choice (especially about immediate air pollution and health hazards from Diesel exhaust and later water contamination) should be strongly encouraged to do so. Call some friends. Arrange car pools. The press will be there because it’s been announced repeatedly in both papers, and TV should be there, too. This is the only chance to speak publicly on this topic before the joint board workshop on Sept. 15. Then they will probably sometime afterwards in private make their decision of a positive or negative declaration of environmental impact (with subsequent automatic requirement of EIS or not) and the Village Board of Trustees hold its official vote on it at its next regular meeting (Sept 24).”

“So please show up, and show that you care about the runaway railroad train that is the oil and gas drilling industry moving into NYS without appropriate impact studies, oversight and transparency..”

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Trackback  •  Posted in Community Effects, Mean Energy, On the Bleeding Edge, The Fox is Guarding the Henhouse  


Sep 9
2009

Published: September 9, 2009

BY JAMES LOEWENSTEIN

TOWANDA – Gas drilling activity is resulting in an increase in crime
in the borough, the borough police chief said on Monday.

The issue came up at Monday’s Towanda Borough Council meeting, when
borough council member Bob McLinko asked Police Chief Mitch Osman
whether the “extracurricular activity in the borough, along with
population increase, has resulted in problems.”

By extracurricular activity, McLinko was apparently referring to
drinking at the bars in Towanda.

Osman replied that police calls have gone up as workers in the gas
drilling industry have moved into the county, “especially the severity
of the calls.”

In the past, you could probably predict which nights would be quiet in
town, the police chief said.

“We can’t do that any more,” he said. “It’s definitely busy.”

. . . . .

Osman said…that he could use two additional police officers.

Complete story:
http://www.thedailyreview.com/news/police_chief_gas_drilling_causing_increase_in_crime_locally

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Trackback  •  Posted in Community Effects, Cost Externalization, Mean Energy  


Sep 6
2009

This isn’t “misinformation. ”
It’s not “misrepresenting the facts”
about “responsible gas exploration.”
It’s just what’s already actually happening in and to Wetzel County, WestVirginia.

The following post is copied with permission from

http://sootypaws.livejournal.com/15049.html

_______________________________________________________________

Wetzel County

We’ve seen and heard a presentation by Ray Renaud of the Wetzel County Action Group about what’s happening in north Wetzel County in northern West Virginia (just below the panhandle) where there’s a tremendous amount of drilling activity taking place. Right now the wells being drilled are for Marcellus shale but other companies are getting ready to move in including CNX which is an operator specializing in coalbed methane.

This is a very rural area with only a few roads and those are narrow, about 10 feet wide. Because of all the drilling there is a lot of traffic as equipment and materials are hauled to and from sites. Twenty-four hours a day, as many as 47 trucks an hour.

The well sites are huge with pads covering acres and pits just about as large. Multiple horizontal wells are being drilled and fractured on each pad before the operator moves to a new site. Fracturing requires large amounts of water and sand.

The scale of everything and its effect on the community and environment is hard to imagine. A copy of the presentation as a PowerPoint document is available online but it is a large download, almost 50 MB.  http://www.sendspace.com/file/hlpich

Ray said we could use some of the photos from the presentation.

sootypaws-wetzel-1-slide10 The roads are narrow and wind up and down steep hills. Most of the equipment is much heavier than the roads were designed and built
for — cars and light trucks. This is a holding structure for sand used in
fracturing a well. There will be a large number of these tanks on the pad.

sootypaws-wetzel-2-slide25		 .

Because of all the traffic there’s a lot of accidents. This truck has rolled over, its cab partially crushed on the guard rail.

We wrote a post a while back about
injuries and accidents in the oil and gas industry. About 25% of deaths are caused by road accidents.

sootypaws-wetzel-3-slide66		 .

Traffic jams can last for hours and hours. These trucks are parked in front of the volunteer fire department, blocking fire trucks if there were to be an emergency.

sootypaws-wetzel-4-slide50		 The scale of everything is either huge, large or enormous. In the foreground on the right is a three-story barn. In the middle ground is a large volume pit holding fracture fluid.

Operators “dewater” rivers and streams for all the water used in drilling and fracturing, turning good water into waste.

sootypaws-wetzel-5-slide51		 .

This is a photo taken at night showing just a portion of a pad during drilling a horizontal well. Drilling goes on day and night. Once two wells are drilled on this pad the equipment will be moved to another pad to drill two more wells. Eventually there will be 6 wells on this pad.

sootypaws-wetzel-6-slide43		 .

The EPA waived sedimentation control requirements for the oil and gas industry. This means that oil and gas sites don’t need to use silt fencing or other control to protect streams, rivers and lakes. The rivers in Wetzel County are now running thick slurry instead of clear water.

Our own gas well study has focused on problems at well sites and older ones at that. What’s happening in Wetzel County, West Virginia, and in parts of Pennsylvania, Texas and Arkansas and a host of other places is the future writ large as the oil and gas industry converts rural America into an industrial wasteland.

___________________________________________________________________

Visit original post at:

http://sootypaws.livejournal.com/15049.html

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Trackback  •  Posted in Bad Neighbors, Community Effects, Cost Externalization, Mean Energy, On the Bleeding Edge  


Sep 5
2009

…You wonder if they wondered why.

img_0066-passgas-498-72dpi
Smells like… astroturf, don’t you think?

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___________________Credit all photos Cecile A Lawrence (c)____________________

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Trackback  •  Posted in Easy Picken's, or, How Gullible IS That Politician or Celebrity, Anyway?, Legislation, Mean Energy, Natural Gas Industry Lies, On the Bleeding Edge, The Fox is Guarding the Henhouse  


Sep 5
2009

It’s a media miracle.

Like water into wine, like the loaves and fishes, somehow there were more people at the rally than arrived or left – even resorting to adding those 2 figures together.  This handful of people who attended a coalition rally in Bainbridge on August 23 were, through the magic of reporting, turned into “two thousand.”

These pictures were taken at the height of the attendance, not early in the day.

On the evidence, it could easily be concluded that most of the people there were family members of organizers  – or selling something.  Look at all the company and bank reps standing around with no one to peddle their wares to.

It’s hard to conclude that in real terms, this thing was anything other than a bust.  But when you can get the media to report that 2000 people showed up, and then you can take the newspaper article with the bloated figures to your politicians to pressure them to betray the majority population of their constituencies, suddenly, the sow’s ear becomes a silk purse.

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Kudos to the voice of caution – who evidently wasn’t standing alone on the fringe of the field, as reported by the media.

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___________________Credit all photos Cecile A Lawrence (c)____________________

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Trackback  •  Posted in Easy Picken's, or, How Gullible IS That Politician or Celebrity, Anyway?, General, Legislation, Natural Gas Industry Lies, On the Bleeding Edge, The Fox is Guarding the Henhouse  


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