Posts Tagged ‘encana oil and gas’

A Back Mountain workshop addresses potential problems with Marcellus Shale drilling.

By Steve Mocarskysmocarsky@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

LEHMAN TWP. – Back Mountain residents who attended a workshop on “Natural Gas Drilling and Drinking Water” on Thursday received a mini education on how to protect their wells from potential contamination by migrating natural gas as well as what two regulator agencies are doing to protect state waterways from the same potential threat.

Bryan Swistock, a water resources extension associate from the Penn State Cooperative Extension, presented an hour-long talk about natural gas exploration in the Marcellus Shale formation, how problems with drilling operations could potentially affect drinking water supplies, and what residents can and should do to protect them.

The program was hosted by the Cooperative Extension, state Sen. Lisa Baker, state Rep. Karen Boback, Back Mountain Community Partnership, the Susquehanna River Basin Commission and the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Swistock said about 41 percent of all private drinking water wells fail at least one water quality test, so it’s smart to test one’s well water regularly even without the threat of natural gas from drilling wells migrating into them.

Swistock said energy companies are required to test all water supplies within 1,000 feet of a drilling site before drilling so they have a baseline to compare test results if there is suspected contamination of a water supply by drilling activity. Some companies, such as EnCana Oil and Gas, which is poised to begin drilling in the Back Mountain in July, test wells within 1 mile of a drill site.

Swistock said residents should make sure the person collecting water samples works for a state-accredited lab. He said he’s talked to several people who told them the person who took samples was the same person who negotiated a land lease with them.

For folks who live outside the area in which the energy company pays for testing but want to play it safe, he said a full round of tests can cost up to $1,000. However, testing for the most common elements associated with Marcellus Shale drilling – methane, chloride, barium and total dissolved solids (TDS) – costs only about $150.

Indicators of water problems include foaming or bubbling water or spurting faucets, salty or metallic tastes, changes in water color or odor and reductions in water quantity or flow.

Also making presentations on Thursday were Michael McDonnell, a water quality specialist with DEP, and Tom Beauduy, deputy director and counsel for the Susquehanna River Basin Commission.

Copyright: Times Leader

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

By Andrew M. Sederaseder@timesleader.com
Times Leader Staff Writer

The landscape of the state’s northern tier is changing as natural gas drillers set up shop from the Poconos west to Tioga County.

The burgeoning industry also is bringing change to the curricula at some local colleges hoping to capitalize on the need for a skilled and trained work force.

Lackawanna College in Scranton and Pennsylvania College of Technology in Williamsport have launched programs specifically catering to those interested in securing employment in the natural gas and ancillary fields. Other schools, including Johnson College and Keystone College, are investigating courses to prepare students for jobs in the industry.

When the industry made initial steps to move in to the region, Lackawanna College got in on the ground floor.

“Our goal was to try to find a niche where we could train people for jobs they could find here,” said Larry D. Milliken, director of energy programs at the college. The school, with input from the industry, created an applied science degree in Oil and Gas Production Technology program in December 2008.

The school asked Milliken, a former gas company employee with a background as an economic geologist who lives in Dunmore, to help with the program.

He sees great potential for the field and the creation of jobs, as companies look to tap into the gas supplies within the Marcellus Shale, a layer of gas-laden rock about a mile underground across most of Pennsylvania.

“I’m not sure most people realize the magnitude of what the Marcellus can mean and do for the state. … It’s going to be a huge game changer in Pennsylvania.”

Milliken said he sees hundreds of immediate jobs and the potential for thousands more as a result of gas drilling.

As an example, he said one well tender will be needed for every 20 wells that come on line. This year alone, he said, more than 1,000 wells are anticipated to be drilled and that number should double next year. This will mean 50 to 100 new well-tender jobs will be created every year for the next 20 years, he projects.

To prepare potential employees for those jobs, Lackawanna College offers an associate’s degree in natural gas technology and is developing an operating and maintenance degree program in compression technology that could debut next fall.

In addition, the college will soon start giving accounting students at its Towanda Center the option of customizing their degree to prepare them to work in the accounting side of the natural gas industry, Milliken said.

Milliken said Lackawanna relied heavily on curricula and course work offered by established programs at Western Wyoming Community College in Rock Springs, Wyo.; North Central Texas College in Gainesville, Texas, and Navarro College in Corsicana, Texas. Using that material, Lackawanna created an outline for its own potential programs and sent it to 10 gas companies “for feedback and modifications before settling in on our own curriculum.”

At the moment, the Pennsylvania College of Technology in Williamsport is the only other place to get industry-specific training. The school has partnered with the Penn State Cooperative Extension to create The Marcellus Shale Education & Training Center.

Opened in 2008, the center will identify the industry’s work force needs and respond with education tracks that train people for those jobs. Careers include welders, construction workers, drivers and machine operators and fabricators.Tracy Brundage, the school’s managing director of the Workforce Development and Continuing Education programs, said that as the landscape of the Northern Tier changes, so too do course offerings at the college.

She said input from energy companies has been influential in the design of 21 new courses, including those through the Fit 4 Natural Gas program developed by work force development boards in more than a dozen Northern Tier counties using Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry funds.

Officials from Lackawanna College also lauded the affiliations and assistance offered by gas companies.

“They’ve been very active,” Milliken said.

Last week, Chesapeake Energy donated $50,000 to help Lackawanna College expand its Natural Gas Technology Program at its New Milford Center campus in Susquehanna County. The college plans to use the money for capital-equipment costs in fitting out their new facilities for the program that began last fall.

“We’ve been an eager partner in these efforts,” said Brian Grove, director of corporate development for Chesapeake Energy.

Milliken said that in the short time the program’s been up and running at Lackawanna, the partnership has seen tremendous interest from potential students and positive feedback from the industry.

The companies reflected praise for the two-way-street relationship it has with the local schools.

Grove said “crafting an effective educational infrastructure will benefit the community far beyond its borders by equipping locals with skills they can market within the industry. A highly skilled work force is critical to our success as a company and the community’s long-term economic success as well.”

Brundage said that while the program at Penn Tech is still “in its infancy,” she, too, feels confident that the college’s programs have progressed nicely in a short period of time. “I think we’ve positioned ourselves pretty well with the industry. We’re not going to be able to meet all of their needs but we can help with a lot of them,” Brundage said.

So far 65 students have taken a course, including 14 who have completed welding courses. One course was created specifically at the request of the gas industry.

“They told us what they need as far as some of the welding components, so we aligned some things internally to meet those needs,” Brundage said.

Wendy J. Wiedenbeck, a spokeswoman for Denver-based EnCana Oil and Gas, said it’s too early to discuss her company’s needs because it is still in the exploratory stages. The company is looking at drilling specifically in Luzerne County.

“If we are successful and determine we would like to develop additional wells in the area, an important first step will be to understand what work-force development programs already exist in the area and how the curriculum aligns with business needs,” she said.

“New curriculum and training programs often come into existence after we’ve been operating in an area for some time,” Wiedenbeck added. “They evolve from the relationships we build along the way and are very much the result of a collaborative approach. In areas where we have established operations, we’ve collaborated with local colleges to create or build upon programs that help community members build the skills needed to compete for industry jobs.”

Andrew M. Seder, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 570-829-7269.

Copyright: Times Leader

Municipality’s planning board has recommended approving a plan to drill a test gas well.

By Rory Sweeneyrsweeney@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

LEHMAN TWP. – After more than a year of rising interest in the Marcellus Shale just outside the county, Lehman Township supervisors will in January set the tone for natural-gas drilling in Luzerne County.

On Monday evening, the township’s planning board recommended approving a plan to drill a test well at a Peaceful Valley Road site. The vote on the conditional use now goes before township supervisors at their Jan. 20 meeting, at which they will also consider local concerns about groundwater contamination and road damage.

“To the planning (board), it appeared that EnCana … answered those questions adequately,” said Raymond Iwanowski, the vice chairman of the board of supervisors, who was at Monday’s meeting. “As supervisors, we’re pretty united on this. We want to do it right.”

The plan was proposed jointly by Calgary, Canada-based EnCana Oil and Gas and Denver-based WhitMar Exploration Co., which are partnering on exploratory drilling in the county.

If indications from three test wells are positive, the companies plan to expand operations. If not, their leases put them under no further obligation.

Along with the Lehman site, they have identified single sites in Fairmount and Lake townships. Neither of those municipalities has planning boards, so consideration and recommendation of those plans transfer to the county’s planning commission, which is expected to address them on Jan. 5.

With environmental damages and health concerns in connection with gas drilling in Dimock Township, Susquehanna County, making news throughout the year, Iwanowski said groundwater protection is a “also an eye-opener than we have to be vigilant so that that doesn’t happen here,” though he noted that those issues involve a different gas company.

“There are other safeguards that EnCana and Chesapeake and other companies use to alleviate those problems,” he said. “I feel much better about the drilling process than I did a year ago. I was born in the coal mine era. What I don’t want is another coal-mine rape of the land and leave.”

EnCana isn’t without its environmental controversies. It’s currently the focus of an investigation into contaminated water supplies near gas drilling in Pavillion, Wyo.

To ease concerns locally, the drillers are going beyond state regulations. They’re performing baseline groundwater testing for properties within a mile of drilling sites and promise to remediate contamination caused by drilling.

Regarding roads, the company is willing to bond any road required by the township and make contributions for maintenance, said EnCana spokesman Doug Hock.

Copyright: Times Leader

Community partnership members worry about road deterioration, water supplies.

By Rebecca Briarbria@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

DALLAS TWP. – Lehman Township Supervisor Doug Ide informed members of the Back Mountain Community Partnership Thursday afternoon at Misericordia University about the latest natural gas drilling news in the area.

The BMCP is an inter-municipal group composed of Dallas, Franklin, Jackson, Kingston and Lehman townships and Dallas Borough.

Ide attended a public information session by EnCana Oil and Gas Tuesday at Lake-Lehman Junior/Senior High School. He and the other Lehman Township supervisors have also met with EnCana representatives.

Ide says he learned WhitMar Exploration Company has leased 24,000 acres of property in the northwestern part of Luzerne County, mainly on the north side of Route 118 in Fairmount, Ross, Lake and Lehman townships.

“The gas drilling is going to be here in the Back Mountain,” said Al Fox, BMCP president. “I thought it was quite alarming to hear the other day that 800 people signed up.”

According to Ide, EnCana, which will do the drilling, hopes to form two exploration wells in the county – one in Fairmount Township and one in Lehman Township – if they receive the required permits. The wells will prove whether there is natural gas in the area.

Ide says EnCana is willing to bond any road the township requests. Road deterioration and traffic from heavy trucks and machinery has been a common concern among the BMCP.

“We’re going to set some conditions on some roads we do not want traveled, specifically Old Route 115, Hillside Road,” Ide said.

BMCP officials decided to invite representatives from EnCana to speak at the group’s January meeting.

In February, the BMCP will invite back Brian Oram, a geologist and Wilkes University professor, to discuss what the municipalities should do to safeguard their drinking water and other issues related to drilling.

Oram spoke at the BMCP’s September meeting and briefly touched on water’s involvement in natural gas drilling.

In other news, the BMCP approved each member municipality to contribute $300 each to the group’s proposed 2010 operating budget. The budget is to cover general government administration costs.

Copyright: Times Leader