EDITOR: At 7 p.m. on Nov. 14, 2011, in spite of 22,094 comments objecting to this project, 35 bi-partisan Pa. state representatives, 2 state senators, the EPA, the Sierra Club, Damascus Citizens for Sustainability, and many other organizations across Pa., the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved and granted a certificate to Inergy/CNYOG to begin construction on the MARC-1 Pipeline Project. With this certificate, FERC has granted them the power to exercise eminent domain on private property owners who can not agree to their terms, or simply chose to say No to having a 30″ pipeline run across their property, even if it means the loss of use of that property by the property owner for agriculture, farming, recreation, or simply to have a safe, quiet property where we can raise our families, or pass on to future generations.
To add insult to injury, the environmental protections, setbacks from residential areas, upgraded materials and safety standards have apparently been removed from their application. They will primarily be using “class one” safety standards, which means minimum safety precautions and materials, minimum noise control [if any], and emission/pollution controls.
It will also be the enabler for virtually hundreds of unregulated gathering lines, an unknown number of compressor stations, and turn New Albany, Monroeton, Dushore, Laporte, Lake Mokoma, Sonestown, Muncy Valley, Beech Glen, Glenn Mawr, Picture Rocks, and Hughesville into a drilling corridor for the gas industry. This signals the end of agriculture, tourism, fishing, hunting, new home building, small businesses, as well as our way of life in the Endless Mountains. It will also have a devastating effect on property values, quality of life, public health and safety, while ultimately increasing property taxes to offset the damage to our already fragile infrastructure. Corporate profits will socialize the cost to those who live in the most heavily impacted areas.
This permit, along with HB 1950 and SB 1100 that will remove, and prompt the right of municipalities to enact their own regulations, ordinances, laws, protections, and safety standards regarding oil and gas development in and around our communities.
In short, life as we’ve known it is now over for Bradford, Sullivan and Lycoming counties, and life across rural Pa. This change will not be for the better. A 7- to 10-year “boom/bust” cycle, which we are already 3.5 years into, will leave rural Pa. a toxic and unlivable industrial and economic wasteland when all those “industry jobs” move on.
We owe our children, and our children’s children yet to be born, an apology for leaving this world in far worse shape than we received it, and for the burdensome financial responsibility for it they will inherit.
I’d like to remind everyone to take the opportunity to appropriately thank our obtuse local (Sullivan County Commissioners; Darla Bortz, Betty Reibson, and Bob Getz,) (Bradford County Commissioners John Sullivan and Doug McLinko) and state/federal lawmakers (Senator Pat Toomey and Congressman Tom Marino), who went out of their way to “urge FERC to overlook the concerns and interests of local citizens and approve the MARC-1.”
At this point, considering the FERC approval, and the horrific legislation poised to be passed, I no longer see a political solution, legislative remedies, or effective legal recourse to what is being forced upon us by the gas and oil industry with the consent of our elected leaders. Beyond an environmental problem, and a health and public safety problem, the bigger issue is that we have a democracy problem and a leadership problem in Pennsylvania that is bi-partisan.
Our system of government has morphed into a corrupt “corpocracy” whose goal is to control us by taking control of the essential ingredients of our existence: affordable and sustainable energy, pure water, clean air, and our sense of place.
This morning, I awoke in the security of my “home.” Tonight, I will lay down in just a “house” that I happen to own that has not had safe potable water for two months, and may never have again. I no longer have a “sense of place,” or a feeling of “home” here, knowing that I have no voice, no rights as a PA citizen/property owner, and am of no concern to political/corporate the powers that be. I am, as we all are now in Pennsylvania, politically insignificant, and simply “in the way” of the gas industry’s corporate special interests.
John Trallo
Sonestown
Response to a WHYY report, New Numbers Show PA Gas Production Will Lead Nation.Ms. Phillips -.This series of Penn State Reports has used a false premise, that capital spending directly equates to jobs and taxes, to make highly exaggerated claims. The gas industry has a great need for capital but an extraordinarily low requirement for staffing, about 10% of that of a normal industry..This from the May 2010 version describes their methodology: “During 2009, Marcellus gas producers spent a total of $4.5 billion to develop Marcellus shale gas resources. Using the IMPLAN modeling system, we estimate that this spending generated $3.9 billion in value added, $389 million in state and local tax revenues, and more than 44,000 jobs” (emphasis added).Judged against results these estimates were far off. According to Labor and Industry figures there are presently only 18,000 employees in the six core gas extraction industries in Pennsylvania..Because of the structure of Pennsylvania tax code, the gas industry pays almost no local taxes and very little state taxes. The Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center found only 44.4 million in state taxes paid in 2009..Since then, the industry has claimed 1.1 billion in taxes paid but reading the fine print shows this to be the total for five years, 2006 to 2010. Even then, the Budget and Policy Center complained that the Revenue Department had erected a smoke screen for the industry by counting taxes their employees and others paid..Not to be deterred or embarrassed by past failure, Considine and company press on to new ridiculous highs in this current version..“Our estimates suggest that in 2020 the Marcellus industry in Pennsylvania could be creating more than $20 billion in value added, generating $2 billion in state and local tax revenues, and supporting more than 250,000 jobs,” said the authors associated with Penn State’s department of energy and mineral engineering.”.To put the above “estimate” of jobs into perspective, consider this item. A 2008 US Labor Department analysis of the oil and gas extraction industryfound only 162,000 employees nationwide. A look at the three pages listing of industry job titles shows that the majority of these aren’t working on rigs but are sitting at desks at corporate headquarters in the Southwest..The Penn State Reports have the same relationship to the Marcellus industry as fantasy football has to the NFL..Jon BogleWilliamsport, PA 17701
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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Tags: ai, compressor station, contamination, lies, PA, roads
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COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
Dept. of Environmental Protection
Commonwealth News Bureau
Room 308, Main Capitol Building
Harrisburg PA., 17120FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
07/1/2010CONTACT:Justin Fleming, Department of Agriculture717-787-5085Cattle from Tioga County Farm Quarantined after Coming in Contact with Natural Gas Drilling WastewaterHARRISBURG — The Department of Agriculture announced today that it has quarantined cattle from a Tioga County farm after a number of cows came into contact with drilling wastewater from a nearby natural gas operation.
Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding said uncertainty over the quantity of wastewater the cattle may have consumed warranted the quarantine in order to protect the public from eating potentially contaminated beef.
“Cattle are drawn to the taste of salty water,” said Redding. “Drilling wastewater has high salinity levels, but it also contains dangerous chemicals and metals. We took this precaution in order to protect the public from consuming any of this potentially contaminated product should it be marketed for human consumption.”
Redding said 28 head of cattle were included in the quarantine, including 16 cows, four heifers and eight calves. Those cattle were out to pasture in late April and early May when a drilling wastewater holding pond on the farm of Don and Carol Johnson leaked, sending the contaminated water into an adjacent field where it created a pool. The Johnsons had noticed some seepage from the pond for as long as two months prior to the leak.
The holding pond was collecting flowback water from the hydraulic fracturing process on a well being drilled by East Resources Inc.
Grass was killed in a roughly 30- x 40-foot area where the wastewater had pooled. Although no cows were seen drinking the wastewater, tracks were found throughout the pool. The wet area extended about 200-300 feet into the pasture.
The cattle had potential access to the pool for a minimum of three days until the gas company placed a snow fence around the pool to restrict access.
Subsequent tests of the wastewater found that it contained chloride, iron, sulfate, barium, magnesium, manganese, potassium, sodium, strontium and calcium.
Redding said the main element of concern is the heavy metal strontium, which can be toxic to humans, especially in growing children. The metal takes a long time to pass through an animal’s system because it is preferentially deposited in bone and released in the body at varying rates, dependent on age, growth status and other factors. Live animal testing was not possible because tissue sampling is required.
The secretary also added that the quarantine will follow the recommended guidelines from the Food Animal Residue Avoidance and Depletion Program, as follows:
• Adult animals: hold from food chain for 6 months.
• Calves exposed in utero: hold from food chain for 8 months.
• Growing calves: hold from food chain for 2 years.In response to the leak, the Department of Environmental Protection issued a notice of violation to East Resources Inc. and required further sampling and site remediation. DEP is evaluating the final cleanup report and is continuing its investigation of operations at the drilling site, as well as the circumstances surrounding the leaking holding pond.
_________________End of press release___________________
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See also http://un-naturalgas.org/weblog/?s=farming which contains:
Is hydrofracture compatible with farming? in which photos document tumors and ulcers on animals living near gas operations
Is hydrofracture compatible with farming? Part 2 in which details about the photos are provided
Is hydrofracture compatible with farming? Part 3 Video, in which Tweeti Blancett explains how gas operations have made her ranching operation nearly impossible
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Tags: cattle, DEP, PA, water contamination
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
Tags: Dimock, industrialization, PA
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Remember this?
New York State town supervisors & boards – do you want to be had by the short hairs?Mt Pleasant supervisors had voted against MarkWest’s plans to expand their compressor stations. Hickory’s been taking it on the chin from gas extraction, and the supervisors knew that more compressor stations were not in the community’s interests.
So Range Resources threatened lessors with the possibility that their royalties might be affected if the compressor stations couldn’t be built. And the lessors fell for it and pressured the supervisors. And the supervisors caved.
Mt. Pleasant officials OK compressing station expansions
HICKORY _ Two gas compressing stations in Mt. Pleasant Township got the OK to expand after supervisors voted 3-0 tonight on an agreement with MarkWest Liberty Midstream.
Supervisors approved an agreement that will allow the company to expand its Stewart and Fulton stations up to five compressors each.
MarkWest had been turned down by the zoning hearing board in May when it applied to expand the stations. The company processes natural gas for Range Resources.
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Suggestions from residents that the township monitor the air for toxic emissions at the stations were not acted upon because officials said air monitoring is a matter handled by the state Department of Environmental Protection, not the township.
- Full story at Mt Pleasant Okays Compressors
credit: http://pafaces.wordpress.com/2010/04/23/an-a1-industrial-zone/
Another report:
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Mt. Pleasant OKs expansion plan for gas processor
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HICKORY – A gas-processing company got approval Wednesday to expand two of its compressing stations after an agreement was worked out with the Mt. Pleasant Township supervisors..
Supervisors voted 3-0 to allow MarkWest Liberty Midstream to expand its Stewart and Fulton stations. The agreement sets a number of conditions on the company, including requiring it to control dust, place placards on company trucks and make sure the 911 center has current addresses for emergency response..In response to residents’ suggestions that the township also undertake air monitoring at the stations, officials said that is a matter handled by the state Department of Environmental Protection. In May, the township zoning hearing board turned down a request from the company to expand the stations. Betsy McKnight, solicitor for the zoning board, said the township was able to intervene in the matter as an interested party..Following Wednesday’s supervisors meeting, the zoning hearing board met to approve the agreement. Its chairman, Barry Johnston, called it “the only reasonable path” the township could take under the circumstances..
Supervisor Larry Grimm said the agreement was best for the township because it enabled it to place conditions on the company’s operations. Had the matter gone to court, the township could have lost that ability, he said..MarkWest plans to expand the stations on Washington and Caldwell avenues to five compressing engines each. The company processes natural gas for Range Resources..Resident Joanne Wagner said the DEP is monitoring air at four points around the county, including at the Stewart station. She said a report on the air quality will be available in August and asked that any decision wait until then..Brian Simmons, an attorney for MarkWest, said if the DEP should find something wrong at the station, it would require the company to fix it. Christopher Rimkus, associate counsel with MarkWest Energy Partners, agreed and noted the DEP makes random, unannounced visits to the stations..But Stephanie Hallowich, who lives near the MarkWest Stewart station as well as one operated by Laurel Mountain Midstream, said with the expansion she soon will live near eight compressors. She said while DEP does not allow an eight-compressor station, she may soon have that with two separate companies operating nearby. Hallowich also wants to have some type of alarm sound at the stations to notify neighbors in the event of an accident or emission at night. “It’s a huge concern to me,” she said..Solicitor William Johnson said supervisors would not attempt to change the agreement at the last minute. “There have been weeks and weeks of negotiations leading up to this proposed agreement,” he said..
After the meeting, Grimm said he believed the agreement was the best way to protect residents, even though some would argue it wasn’t stringent enough and others would say it was too strict.
-Story published by the Observer-Reporter
The new 30 pieces of silver: MarkWest will pay the township $50,000 within 20 days and another $25,000 within a year to put its compressors in what is still zoned as an agricultural industrial zone.
Yes, $75,000 to the town buys the residents’ loss of property values, health and quality of life. And we all thought some things were priceless.
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Tags: compressor stations, Hickory, MarkWest, PA, Range Resources
Contributed:
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Yesterday I went to the gas fields in Bradford County PA to see first hand what was going on. What you see first is an unbelievable amount of trucks. Gas company trucks literally by the thousands. People seemed willing to talk about the gas biz. It sounds like there are a very few winners in this deal and the rest are all scrambling to get the leftover crumbs. The wellpads are not everywhere you look, many are not in sight of the roads but the ones I did see were huge. Really, like walmart parkinglot size. The story you get is that if you get one of these monsters on your property you get rich, like multi-millionaire rich, of course everyone else just has to deal with an industrial operation on a level never seen in this area. There is no containing this beast once it gets in the door. It totally consumed the area. Anyone not involved in the gas business seemed oddly out of place.
So then I headed north and crossed the New York border and it all just stopped. All of it, the good, the bad, the ugly. No army of gas company support services, no shellshocked locals, just good old here.
Note: see comment on this post – click on sun icon at lower left
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Tags: Bradford County, industrialization, PA
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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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Tags: clearville, DEP, eminent domain, Marcellus, natural gas, PA, Steckman Ridge compressor station
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