Posts Tagged ‘Department of Environmental Protection’

Before Marcellus Shale work, queries made over well water tests, roads and procedures.

EILEEN GODIN Times Leader Correspondent

LAKE TWP. — A gas company coming into the township in July caused residents to question procedures, well-water testing and road maintenance during Wednesday night’s supervisors meeting.

In July, Lake Township will begin a Marcellus Shale gas drilling operation by EnCana Oil and Gas USA of Denver, Colo. The site is owned by Supervisor Amy Salansky.

Salansky said the farm was previously owned by an older neighbor, who willed the gas and mineral rights to a nephew and gave Salansky and her husband the “first right to buy” the land.

“The agreement was already made when we purchased the farm,” Salansky said.

Residents within a mile radius of the site have recently received letters from EnCana stating a voluntary assessment of well water will be scheduled immediately. Salansky said the letter states a third-party environmental firm, Rettew, of Lancaster, will collect water samples.

Samples will then be sent to a state certified lab, at no cost to residents.

The letter stated that if residents wanted to use a lab of their choosing to test water, the sample will be split by Rettew and sent to a second lab. This would be at the residents’ cost.

With 75 percent of the township’s roads dirt, residents questioned supervisors on routes EnCana may use and who would be responsible for maintenance and repairing damages.

Chairman Lonnie Piatt said the township roads are not bonded yet, but the township does have an agreement with EnCana. He said it is a possibility that EnCana will hire a contractor for road maintenance. What routes will be used is still undecided.

Salansky said that officials have not sat down with EnCana to determine which routes will be used.

Barney Dobinick, the township’s emergency management coordinator, said it is possible that the gas driller’s trucks will run on a different schedule than school buses, so the two are not navigating roads at the same time.

Dobinick said EnCana has provided him with a list of chemicals to be used on site and a list of the firm’s safety guidelines. He also has the state Department of Environmental Protection’s regulations for gas drilling.

In other business, the annual spring cleanup will be 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. May 8, at the municipal building.

Residents must have proof of residency and pay $15 per pickup-truck load, $20 for large pickups and $6 per car load. An additional $6 fee will be applied for the following items: washers, dryers, carpets, overstuffed chairs, couches, dressers, TV sets, hot water heaters, boilers, furnaces, stoves and large appliances.

The following items will not be accepted: tires, hazardous wastes, chemicals, brush, tree stumps, cinder blocks, animal waste, shingles, sheet rock or other building materials, garbage, freezers, refrigerators containing Freon, and air conditioners.

For questions, call 629-2828.

Copyright: Times Leader

Industry may pay to upgrade plants that handle waste water from process.

By Rory Sweeneyrsweeney@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

The state is contending with a multibillion-dollar water-treatment problem, and the growing gas-drilling industry might be part of the solution.

A roughly $7.2 billion deficit exists for repairing or upgrading waste-water treatment facilities in the state, according to a task force created by Gov. Ed Rendell to solve water-infrastructure issues. Gas companies might help defray that cost as more wells are drilled because the companies will need treatment facilities for waste water.

The process to drill gas and oil wells, called hydraulic fracturing or simply “fracing,” involves shooting sand and water down a well to fracture the rock containing the oil or gas.

The contaminated water is separated out and can be stored and reused, but must eventually be treated. The state Department of Environmental Protection categorizes it as industrial waste, agency spokesman Mark Carmon said.

In western Pennsylvania, where many shallow wells exist, privately operated treatment facilities handle such waste, but none has so far in the northeast area, said Stephen Rhoads, president of the Pennsylvania Oil & Gas Association.

Exploring the Marcellus Shale, which runs from upstate New York into Virginia, including the northern edge of Luzerne County, generally requires far more water than shallow wells because the wells can be 8,000 feet deep

Companies working in this region have reused the water in multiple wells and then shipped it to the facilities out west, Rhoads said, but “obviously, moving it across the state with the fuel prices the way they are, is not economically” viable. The water can also be injected deep into the ground, but no one has sought such a permit in this region, Carmon said.

That leaves sending the water to public facilities, but since many of them are already near or at capacity, the industry is considering paying to upgrade plants. About 30 of the largest regional treatment facilities have been notified by DEP that they might be approached with the idea and that they’d first need to modify their liquid discharge permits and receive approval from the agency, Carmon said.

The idea hasn’t escaped the gas companies.

“We’ve talked about that in various areas throughout the state,” said Rodney Waller, of Range Resources Corp. “We’re investigating that, but … there’s nothing on the horizon.”

Upcoming events

• 10:30 a.m. today the state Department of Environmental Protection, Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, Susquehanna and Delaware river basin commissions, and county conservation districts are meeting in Harrisburg with industry members to discuss environmental regulations.

• 7 p.m. June 23 the Penn State Cooperative Extension is holding a gas-lease workshop for landowners at the Lake-Lehman High School.

Rory Sweeney, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 970-7418.

Copyright: Times Leader

The board is still considering building a second plant.

By Steve Mocarskysmocarsky@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

HANOVER TWP. – The Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority board has decided not to treat wastewater from the Marcellus Shale gas-drilling process at its current plant, but is still considering building a second plant for that purpose.

Fred DeSanto, executive director of the authority, informed the state Department of Environmental Protection last week that the board wanted to withdraw an application to revise its current permit to allow treatment of wastewater high in total dissolved solids from gas and oil drilling operations.

After meeting with DEP officials, who explained the requirements the authority would have to meet for a revision, authority officials decided it would be too risky to contract with an energy company to accept 150,000 gallons of wastewater per day and possibly exceed the limits of dissolved solids imposed by DEP, said Robert J. Krehley, the authority’s director of administration and planning.

“We just knew that a good majority of the time, we’d be over the limits,” Krehley said.

DeSanto said the board is waiting to hear from a consultant it hired to look into the feasibility of constructing a stand-alone plant.

John Minora, president of Pennsylvania Northeast Aqua Resources, said his staff is still researching some technical issues, but he expects to make a recommendation to the board at the next meeting on April 20.

Minora said he’ll likely recommend constructing a second plant because it would benefit the authority and ratepayers as well as energy companies; it’s just a matter of working out details based on data he is still waiting to receive.

Disposing of wastewater in Hanover Township would save energy companies in transportation costs, given that the closest treatment plant that can process drilling wastewater is in Williamsport, and the next closest is in Somerset County. The Williamsport plant doesn’t have the capacity for wastewater from all nearby drilling sites, he said.

Minora said a “closed-loop” treatment plant would remove solids from the water; the solids would be disposed of in landfills. The treated drilling water would be high in chloride and diluted with treated water from the authority’s current treatment plant; that blended water could be sold back to drilling companies to re-use in drilling operations.

Given that the current plant would be discharging less treated water into the Susquehanna River because it would be added to the treated drilling water, the authority would in turn discharge less nitrates and phosphates into the river. The authority could then sell credits to other treatment plants that discharge nitrates and phosphates in excess of state limits, Minora said.

The additional revenue could be used to stave off rate increases to customers.

Steve Mocarsky, a Times leader staff writer, may be reached at 970-7311.

Copyright: Times Leader

Elected official who held hearing in area last week on natural gas drilling says he was responding to pro-energy group attack.

By Steve Mocarskysmocarsky@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

A state representative says he was unfairly attacked in a press release by a pro-energy group after holding a public hearing in the Back Mountain last week.

State Rep. Camille “Bud” George, majority chair of the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, issued a rebuttal Friday, saying that “money and misinformation are the hallmarks of a gas industry attack titled, ‘Rep. George’s Fact-Free Fact-Finding Mission.’”

Energy In Depth sent the press release to media outlets on Thursday, a day after George convened a committee hearing at 1 p.m. in the Lehman Township Municipal Building to hear testimony on the impact of Marcellus Shale drilling and proposed legislation that would put more environmental safeguards in place.

State Rep. Phyllis Mundy, D-Kingston, invited George to have a hearing in her district, where EnCana Gas & Oil USA plans to drill the first natural gas exploratory well in Luzerne County in May or June. The well will be drilled in Lehman Township.

Area residents and lawmakers are concerned for many reasons, including the fact that the drill site would be less than two miles from the Huntsville and Ceaseville reservoirs, which supply drinking water to nearly 100,000 area residents.

Energy In Depth’s press release classified the hearing as a “pep rally staged by anti-energy activists and like-minded public officials in Northeast Pennsylvania.”

“Characterized as a ‘field hearing’ by … George, who held the event as far away as he could from his home in Clearfield County, the forum included representatives from the Sierra Club and Clean Water Action league, as well as testimony from a local podiatrist and someone describing himself as a ‘naturalopathic’ physician. The only thing missing? Anyone in possession of real, genuine facts related to responsible gas exploration in the Commonwealth,” the release stated.

In response, George said the most troubling aspect of “the attack by Energy In Depth, whose members include the Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association, is its slur of concerned lawmakers and citizens of Northeastern Pennsylvania as anti-energy activists.”

George noted that the committee had a hearing on Feb. 18 in Clearfield County, where the president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition and executives from some of the leading gas companies in Pennsylvania, including Range Resources and Chesapeake Energy, testified. He also participated two weeks ago in a House Democratic Policy Committee hearing in Ebensburg that included testimony from Chief Oil & Gas and Chesapeake. Ebensburg is in the Altoona area.

“The industry has not been an unwanted stranger at hearings,” George said.

Energy In Depth’s press release then listed quotes – pulled from a story in The Times Leader – of people who testified and rebutted them with quotes from gas industry representatives, a state Department of Environmental Protection fact sheet and Gov. Ed Rendell.

Energy In Depth pointed to testimony from Mundy in which she said she supports House Bill 2213 “which would among other things … require full disclosure of the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing.”

The organization then pointed to a DEP fact sheet which states that drilling companies “must disclose the names of all chemicals to be used and stored at a drilling site … that must be submitted to DEP as part of the permit application process. These plans contain copies of material safety data sheets for all chemicals … This information is on file with DEP and available to landowners, local governments and emergency responders.”

But George said that “full disclosure of the chemicals – not just the trade names – and how they are used is not (now) required.”

“The precise chemical identities and concentrations and how and when they are employed can be crucial to emergency responders and remediation efforts after spills, and is at the crux of efforts to remove the infamous ‘Halliburton Loophole’ that exempts the industry from oversight by the Environmental Protection Agency,” George said.

“The gas industry can bloat campaign coffers with money, buy discredited and ridiculed studies and poison the debate by taking statements out of context. However, its ‘best management practices’ should never be taken at face value to be the best for Pennsylvania,” George said.

Steve Mocarsky, a Times leader staff writer, may be reached at 970-7311.

Copyright: Times Leader

Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. denies the allegation and said it has evidence to back its position.

By Steve Mocarskysmocarsky@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

DIMOCK TWP. – The state is alleging an energy company is responsible for contamination of a water well, a spring and wetlands after a black fluid was discovered recently near a Marcellus Shale drilling site in Susquehanna County.

The company denies responsibility.

The state Department of Environmental Protection on Thursday sent a notice informing Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. that violations of the state Clean Streams Law, the Oil & Gas Act and the Solid Waste Management Act were documented on site visits near the A&M Hibbard well pad on March 22-24.

The visits were the result of a phone report from Cabot of the presence of a black fluid in a ditch near the site on March 21.

“The investigation revealed that black fluid originating on the … drill pad was not properly contained in a pit or tank (and that the fluid) entered a hand dug well and a spring near the location, as well as a wetland downgradient of the spring,” the notice states.

“We believe it was waste from their drill pit,” DEP spokesman Dan Spadoni said Thursday.

He said he doesn’t think anyone was using the spring for drinking water, and the well was used only as “a back-up” water supply by the property owner.

Cabot has 10 days to provide the cause(s) of the incident, when the violations were or will be corrected, the steps taken to prevent their recurrence and documentation of clean-up activities.

DEP also asked Cabot to investigate the condition of the drill pit and liner and “strongly recommends that the liner and (drill) cuttings be removed from the pit and properly disposed of prior to restoration of the site.” The department also requested notification after all cuttings and fluid are removed from the pit so DEP can inspect the liner.

Cabot spokesman Ken Komoroski said the company has not confirmed the source of the fluid, but has confirmed that “Cabot activities are not the source.”

Komoroski said Cabot checked with its “independent third-party consultant,” which concluded that “the observance of black water in the well did not and could not have occurred as a result of Cabot activities” based on “observation and extensive analytical testing.” He said the well and spring contained “total and fecal coliform, which is indicative of human or animal waste” and that “the materials that exist in the well in high concentrations don’t exist on Cabot locations.”

Asked if any of the materials Cabot uses were found in the well, Komoroski said the company does not yet have all analytical results from lab tests and a final report is still in draft form. DEP continues to investigate the incident and Cabot will continue to cooperate and support the department’s efforts, he said.

The Clean Streams Law and Solid Waste Management Act provide for civil penalties and criminal fines ranging from a maximum of $10,000 per day to a maximum of $25,000 per day for each violation. Each day of continued violation constitutes a separate offense.

Copyright: Times Leader

House committee members hear testimony on impact of gas drilling, proposed environmental safeguards.

By Steve Mocarskysmocarsky@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

KINGSTON TWP. – Members of the state House of Representatives Environmental Resources and Energy Committee came to the Back Mountain on Wednesday to hear testimony on the impact of Marcellus Shale drilling and proposed legislation that would put additional environmental safeguards in place.

Testifying were representatives of two environmental groups, a local physician active in environmental issues and a resident of Dimock Township, Susquehanna County, where the state Department of Environmental Protection ordered a gas company to provide drinking water to residents after their wells were contaminated by methane.

State Rep. Camille “Bud” George, committee majority chairman, said the committee convened at the township municipal building at the invitation of state Rep. Phyllis Mundy, D-Kingston.

Mundy said she requested the hearing because she and many of her constituents “have serious concerns about the potential impact of Marcellus Shale drilling on our streams, our land and especially our drinking water,” noting that a proposed well site is less than two miles from the Huntsville and Ceasetown reservoirs.

Noting the contamination of drinking water in Dimock Township and a recent drilling-related mud spill in Clinton County, Mundy said there was “still time to put safeguards in place to protect the environment and the public health from the negative impacts” of gas drilling.

“That is why I strongly support Chairman George’s House Bill 2213, the Land and Water Protection Act, which would, among other things, require state inspections of well sites during each drilling phase and require full disclosure of the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing,” she said.

The act would also:

• Extend from 1,000 feet to 2,500 feet the presumed liability of a gas well polluting a water supply.

• Update bonding requirements to cover the costs of decommissioning a well from a $2,500 bond to a $150,000 bond for a Marcellus Shale well and to a $12,000 bond for all other wells.

• Reaffirm that local government may regulate aspects of drilling within traditional powers, such as hours of operation.

Jeff Schmidt, Sierra Club state chapter director, said the club supports the bill and suggested adding some provisions:

• Require a drilling permit applicant to publish in a local newspaper and in the Pennsylvania Bulletin that a permit application was submitted to DEP.

• Require that erosion and sediment control and storm water discharge plans for drill sites be as stringent as requirements for all other earth disturbance activities, and require DEP to offer county conservation districts the opportunity to review those plans and fund the work.

Brady Russell, Eastern Pennsylvania director for Clean Water Action, said the gas industry will “cut corners” if not properly supervised. He made several recommendations, including requiring an inspector – or eco-cop – on each drill site to make sure drillers follow approved plans.

He also suggested requiring drillers to pay for pre- and post-drilling testing of nearby water sources.

Dr. Thomas Jiunta, a podiatrist from Lehman Township, where issuance of a drilling permit is expected to be approved next week, said that since he has been researching Marcellus Shale exploration, he has “gotten a lot of lip service from senators and representatives about how we need to do it right. Before I start, I just want to say that maybe, maybe – and this is the first time I’ve said this word – we need a moratorium to stop it until we get it right.”

Audience members burst into applause and cheers at Jiunta’s suggestion.

After sharing his concerns about an inadequate number of treatment plants capable of removing hazardous chemicals from water used in hydraulic fracturing and risks associated with storing those chemicals underground, Jiunta made several suggestions for the bill.

One is adding a requirement that recovered waste water from the fracturing process be stored in sealed tanks rather than in surface pits that have liners that he said could tear and overflow with heavy rain.

Dimock Township resident Victoria Switzer testified first that a gas company “landman” talked her and her “misinformed, uninformed and na�ve” family into leasing their land for $25 an acre and a 12.5-percent royalty minus transportation cost.

“We now sit in the middle of 63 natural gas wells. In spite of what has gone terribly wrong here, the 2010 plan calls for a doubling of their efforts,” Switzer said.

She said gas drilling has resulted in diminished or contaminated drinking water supplies, destruction of roads and bridges, increased traffic beyond road capacity; decreased air quality, loss of aesthetics and more.

Mundy said she can’t imagine what Switzer is going through.

“How do you like less government – fewer DEP employees, lower taxes, no severance tax? This is what we’ve got; let’s fix it,” Mundy said.

State Rep. Tim Seip, D-Pottsville, said a severance tax on gas extraction is necessary to fund more inspectors and conservation district work. He said the public should lobby their state senators to adopt the bill when it comes before them.

Asked if he thought a moratorium was possible in Pennsylvania, George said he thought, “It’s really going to help Pennsylvania if every place where there’s drilling we get this type of attention.”

Copyright: Times Leader

Environmental Resources and Energy hearing Wednesday at Kingston Township building.

By Steve Mocarskysmocarsky@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

KINGSTON TWP. – Several people with concerns about natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania – and especially in the Back Mountain – are scheduled to testify Wednesday at a public hearing before a state House of Representatives committee.

State Rep. Phyllis Mundy requested and is hosting a hearing of the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee at the Kingston Township Municipal Building from 1 to 3 p.m.

Mundy, D-Kingston, said she has “grave concerns” that there are inadequate protections in place to protect the environment from drilling associated with the Marcellus Shale formation.

“I don’t think we’re going to be able to stop Marcellus Shale drilling, but we need to make sure it doesn’t leave a legacy like that of coal. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” Mundy said on Monday.

She said she believes a proposed drilling site in Lehman Township is “much too close” to the Huntsville and Ceasetown reservoirs, which provide drinking water to many of her constituents.

Committee Majority Chairman Camille “Bud” George notes in a press release that the state Department of Environmental Protection issued more than 1,300 drilling permits in 2009 and more are expected in coming years, yet no study exists on the environmental or human health impacts of gas development in Pennsylvania.

Testimony will be presented about mitigating environmental risks and House Bill 2213 – the Land and Water protection Act introduced by George, D-Clearfield County.

The bill would:

• Require state inspections of wells during each drilling phase.

• Extend to 2,500 feet the presumed liability of a well polluting a water supply; the current radius is 1,000 feet.

• Require full disclosure of chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing of the gas.

• Update bonding requirements to cover the costs of decommissioning a well. Current regulations call for a $2,500 bond, but the cost to cap a well could range from $12,000 to $150,000 for a deep well, according to George.

Scheduled to testify are Dr. Thomas Jiunta, a local podiatric physician active in environmental causes; Dr. Gere Reisinger, a physician whose 200-acre farm in Wyoming County has been affected by drilling; Victoria Switzer, whose water at her home in Dimock, Susquehanna County, was contaminated after nearby drilling; Brady Russell, eastern Pennsylvania director, Clean Water Action; and Jeff Schmidt, senior director, Sierra Club, Pennsylvania Chapter.

Copyright: Times Leader

DEP probes Cabot Oil & Gas query about “discharge of black water” in Dimock Twp.

By Steve Mocarskysmocarsky@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

DIMOCK TWP. – The state Department of Environmental Protection is investigating a possible leak or spill at a natural gas drilling site in Susquehanna County.

Mark Carmon, DEP spokesman at the Wilkes-Barre office, said the department received a call to its emergency response line from Cabot Oil & Gas Co. on Sunday afternoon informing the department that employees found “a discharge of black water” at the site.

The call was referred to the department’s Gas & Oil Program team, which operates from DEP’s Williamsport office.

Dan Spadoni, DEP spokesman at that office, said the team is investigating “the possibility of a spill or leak at Cabot’s Hibbard drill pad” since Monday, but has not yet determined if there was a spill or leak at the site.

Spadoni said there are two wells on one pad at the site, and no drilling activity is currently taking place. He said the team took samples from a private drinking water well that is currently not being used, from two nearby springs and from the site pit.

The samples are being analyzed at DEP’s lab in Harrisburg.

“We need to see those results to see what our future course of action will be,” Spadoni said.

He expected lab results back in a week or two.

Spadoni said Cabot’s consultant also collected samples and the drill cuttings in the pit for analysis. Site pits, which are lined, are where the residue from the drilling and hydraulic fracturing processes ends up, he said.

There was discussion on an online Susquehanna County gas forum about the possibility of a nearby pond being drained, but Spadoni said he had no information about the pond and no samples were collected from it.

He confirmed Cabot had a vacuum truck on-site “in response to where this dark fluid was observed. It was a voluntary measure on their part,” he said.

Spadoni said he believes there was no recent drilling activity at the site. The site had not been shut down because of the discovery of the liquid, he said.

Ken Komoroski, spokesman for Cabot Oil & Gas, said there was no indication of any environmental contamination or pollution.

“Discolored water was observed over the weekend and Cabot immediately responded to observing water in a ditch. We notified DEP and took the additional measure to have a vacuum truck remove water from ditch,” Komoroski said, adding that employees noticed the water while driving by the site on Route 29.

Cabot also drained the pit to check if it was possible the water was leaking from the drill pit, but the pit liner was “completely intact. All indications are that it was not a result of Cabot activities,” Komoroski said.

Komoroski said the drill site has been in existence “for quite some time, and there doesn’t seem to be any reason” for the discolored water to appear “since it hasn’t been active site. We were not able to identify any potential cause or relationship.”

He said the water was found “in the vicinity of the site, but close enough that we wanted to consider the possibility that it was related to our activities.”

Steve Mocarsky, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 970-7311.

Copyright: Times Leader

Potential for economic plus to area. Williamsport benefits despite no well within 12 miles.

By Steve Mocarskysmocarsky@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

With most of the nearby Marcellus Shale natural gas production occurring north and west of Luzerne County, the question of whether Greater Wilkes-Barre will benefit with an economic boom or be bypassed remains unanswered.

It depends on a number of factors, including the volume and quality of natural gas that can be harvested in the county.

If prospects are not good here, the proximity of natural gas development in nearby counties could have some impact locally if the infrastructure close to Wilkes-Barre has the most to offer nearby energy companies, drillers and their employees, according to an economic development official in a county that has been reaping the benefits of Marcellus Shale production.

Jason Fink, executive vice president of the Williamsport/Lycoming Chamber of Commerce, said chamber officials began seeing signs of interest in gas production in Lycoming County about two years ago when the appearance of landmen first became noticeable.

Work had begun on five to seven natural gas wells in northern Lycoming County by the end of 2007, according to records from the state Department of Environmental Protection.

By the end of 2008, 13 more wells had been drilled; another 24 followed last year, and four more have been drilled this year.

And although the closest well is about 12 to 15 miles from Williamsport, the city of about 30,000 is seeing “a number of significant areas of development,” Fink said.

A boom hits Williamsport

The first evidence of business development related to the shale came about a year and a half ago with growth in oil field services. Chief Oil & Gas has been operating for well over a year in the county and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. also has had a presence, Fink said.

Precision Drilling set up shop and Weatherford – a mechanical/technological support company for the oil and gas industry – is in the process of developing a 20-acre site in the county, he said.

Industrial Properties Corp., which is operated by the chamber, sold a 24-acre parcel to Halliburton, which is in the process of developing the property and projects the hiring of 250 employees at the site.

Sooner Pipe, which provides casing pipe for Chesapeake Energy and is one of the largest customers of U.S. Steel, just signed a 10-year lease with the Williamsport Regional Airport for a pipe lay-down yard. That project is expected to employ 50 people when operational, Fink said.

The work force at Allison Crane & Rigging – a third-generation family-owned company in Williamsport – grew by more than 50 employees early on in the well construction phase. And Sooner Pipe intends to use local trucking company Woolever Brothers Transportation to haul all of its pipe when the facility is operational, Fink said.

It’s all about infrastructure

Fink said that Williamsport is benefiting from the gas extraction activity, the heart of which is at least 15 to 20 miles northwest and northeast of the city, because it has more to offer than more rural counties to the north.

“They need to have access to certain infrastructure to conduct their business. We have a highway system, housing, hotels, restaurants – everything they need for their employees. Bradford and Tioga are more rural and have very limited hotel space,” Fink said, adding that rail service through Norfolk Southern and a short line and a nearby interstate highway also helps matters.

Bradford County saw 113 wells drilled last year, while Tioga County had 114.

Because of the influx of workers, the city saw demands for home and apartment rentals grow. Developers responded by renovating space above downtown businesses, creating new rental units.

Fink said local unemployment had been hovering around 10 percent, but he’s seen it drop to 9.1 percent lately.

“We’ve been working with the Pennsylvania College of Technology and the local CareerLink office. Really, once more local people are able to gain the skills this industry requires, I think you’ll be able to see a greater economic impact,” he said.

Would it work in Wilkes-Barre area?

“I would think Wilkes-Barre would have the same opportunities if they find gas in volumes in areas proximate to Wilkes-Barre. And the Wilkes-Barre area understands the positive side as well as the pitfalls of the acquisition of natural resources for energy purposes,” Fink said.

Todd Vonderheid, president of the Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Business and Industry, agrees.

“There’s certainly an opportunity to be captured for the region. Several things have already happened,” Vonderheid said.

Vonderheid noted that several suppliers and vendors to the gas-and-oil industry already are locating in the region and hiring locally.

“We’re trying to facilitate that and make the process as easy as possible. We’re working with energy company officials to better learn what those supply opportunities might be,” Vonderheid said, adding that representatives of Chesapeake and EnCana energy companies sit on the chamber board of directors.

Vonderheid said a presentation for chamber members on Marcellus Shale opportunities, the gas extraction process, environmental issues and the possible economic impact is in the works.

Copyright: Times Leader

A panel offers an update on legislation, which turns out to center on money.

By Rory Sweeney rsweeney@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

BENTON – With interest increasing in drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale, there’s a whole swirl of legislation related to it being considered in Harrisburg, but much of it comes down to money.

“A lot of what goes on in Harrisburg is who’s gonna pay to make the pie and who’s going to get a piece,” said state Rep. Garth Everett, R-Lycoming. “The fight is how we’re going to divide up the pie. … We want to see the Commonwealth get its fair share, but we also don’t want to … go New York on them and drive them away.”

Everett was among two other representatives – Karen Boback, R-Harveys Lake, and David Millard, R-Columbia – who spoke on Thursday evening at a meeting of the Columbia County Landowners Coalition.

A state Department of Environmental Protection official and a Penn State University educator were also on the panel.

Everett described the intention and status of nearly 20 bills throughout the legislature, noting that they fit into four categories: taxation and where the money goes, water protection, access to information and surface-owner rights.

While some likely won’t ever see a vote, Everett said a few will probably pass this session, including a bill that would require companies to release well production information within six months instead of the current five years.

He said a tax on the gas extraction also seems likely “at some point.”

For the most part, the industry received a pass at the meeting, with most comments favorable. One woman suggested companies might underreport the amount of gas they take out and questioned what’s being done to help landowners keep them honest.

Dave Messersmith of Penn State suggested that an addendum to each lease should be the opportunity for an annual audit of the company’s logs.

Robert Yowell, the director of the DEP’s north-central regional office, said the rush to drill in the shale happened so quickly that DEP is still trying to catch up with regulations. Likewise, he said, companies are still becoming acquainted with differences here from where they’re used to drilling.

“When they first came to town, I don’t think they realized how widely our streams fluctuated,” he said.

He added some public perceptions need to be changed – such as the belief that people aren’t naturally exposed to radiation all the time – and that he felt confident that “this can be done safely.”

In response to contamination issues in Dimock Township in Susquehanna County, DEP is upgrading and standardizing its requirements for well casings, Everett said. He added that it’s being suggested the contamination in might have been caused by “odd geology.”

“Every time humans do anything, there’s an impact on the land,” he said. “We just need to balance this right so that we end up with something we’re happy with when we’re done.”

Rory Sweeney, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 970-7418.

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