Posts Tagged ‘gas well’

Senator drafting legislation to improve the emergency response at oil and gas wells.

By Steve Mocarskysmocarsky@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

At a hearing he chaired on Monday in Pittsburgh, U.S. Sen. Robert Casey sought input on legislation he plans to introduce to improve emergency response at oil and gas wells.

The Faster Action Safety Team Emergency Response Act of 2010 would empower the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration to draft regulations that would enhance emergency response procedures at oil and gas wells.

Specifically, the act would let OSHA draft regulations requiring well operators to:

• Have an employee, knowledgeable in responding to emergency situations, present at the well at all times during the exploration or drilling phase.

• Make available a certified response team, within one hour of ground travel time, if an emergency situation arises.

• Contact local first responders within 15 minutes of an emergency situation beginning.

• Contact OSHA and the National Response Center within one hour of an emergency situation beginning.

• Provide communication technology at the well site (for example, mobile communication or satellite phone).

• Provide annual training to local first responders on the hazards of a well site and proper emergency response techniques.

• File an annual report with OSHA that names the certified response team assigned to each well of the operator.

OSHA would define the term “emergency situation” and would have 18 months to finalize the regulations under the act.

Casey, D-Scranton, sought input on the legislation from panelists at a field hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee titled “Emergency Response in the Marcellus Shale Region.”

“Because of the recent incidents at several gas well sites, I have called this hearing to investigate the current emergency response procedures and determine where we need improvement,” Casey said.

Panelists testified on current emergency response procedures and whether increased regulation is needed.

Among those testifying was Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency Director Robert French, who said Marcellus Shale drilling has inherent risks, as demonstrated by the recent blowout at a well in Clearfield County and a fire at a separator tank in Susquehanna County. In the past year alone, there have been at least 47 incidents at natural gas operations that required an emergency response by the state Department of Environmental Protection.

French said PEMA has had to elevate efforts in response to industry growth, conducting tabletop exercises and meetings with industry and local officials and assisting county 9-1-1 centers with concerns about identifying drilling sites – often in very remote locations – so first responders can more quickly react.

French said state budgetary constraints can impact training and emergency response capabilities, and noted that part of a natural gas severance tax proposed by Gov. Ed Rendell would go to local governments and emergency responders for planning, training and equipment.

Barney Dobinick, emergency management coordinator for Lake Township, where Encana Oil & Gas USA plans to begin drilling a gas well later this summer, said Encana and the township already have everything in place that the senator’s been discussing.

“In fact, we exceed those (requirements) 10 times over in our plans,” Dobinick said.

Copyright: Times Leader

By Steve Mocarskysmocarsky@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

Doug Ayers has never been one to take the easy way out, and his fellow directors on the board of the Lands at Hillside Farms are following his lead.

While much of the land surrounding the Lands at Hillside Farms has been leased for natural gas drilling into the Marcellus Shale a mile below, the board is refusing to lease any part of the nonprofit organization’s 412 acres in Kingston and Jackson townships.

“The easy route would have been to take millions of dollars to fix those greenhouses and the barn roofs and pay off our debt,” Ayers said last week while sitting under some shade trees outside the farm’s dairy store.

“The more honorable route is to work hard and go to the public because the public owns this place, and we expect them to step up to the plate,” he said.

A veterinarian and chairman of the board of the Lands at Hillside Farms, Ayers said the board agreed “to not engage the gas companies for drilling in the foreseeable future because we don’t consider it safe for the land that we’ve been entrusted with, or safe for our neighbors.”

Chet Mozloom, executive director of the farm, said he “got blitzed over a two- or three-week period with calls from people who must have thought we signed (a lease) for some reason – I don’t know why – and they expressed their disappointment.”

“They were terrified of the impact, and this was before the Clearfield well explosion. They were afraid of Huntsville or Ceasetown (reservoirs) getting destroyed because that’s where their water is coming from,” Mozloom said.

Ayers said the potential for catastrophe is too great to agree to sign a lease.

“The proof is in your newspaper – the reporting that you’re doing on the (oil leak in the) Gulf, on the (gas well) explosion in Clearfield County, the spills in Dimock, the contamination of the well water in Dimock (caused by methane gas migration), the woman in Dimock who flushed her toilet and it blew the back of her house off,” Ayers said.

“And we’re trying to give people food here,” Mozloom added, “so it’s a whole different game if this soil gets ruined. I mean, just imagine Clearfield happening right next to the Huntsville Reservoir. If that happens, it’s over.”

Hillside keeps to mission

It was January 2005 when Ayers met with the Conyngham family, who owned the farm since 1891, to pitch the idea of selling it to the public with a mission to promote organic, sustainable agriculture, resource conservation and historical preservation.

An agreement was struck and the new organization raised about $2 million in private donations and public grants, secured a roughly $2 million loan from Luzerne Bank and bought the farm for $4.058 million last fall.

The plan is to use revenue from self-sustaining micro-enterprises, such as the dairy store, a restaurant serving locally grown fare, a bed and breakfast that would double as a rentable site for private functions, a colonial living-history museum and educational facilities pay off the loan and produce enough revenue to keep the farm operating.

Ayers said the property is one contiguous block of 412 acres including farmland, pasture, more than 36 buildings and 200 acres of forest. “We’re desirable (to the gas companies) because we’re (one) large chunk,” he said.

And while the board of the Lands at Hillside Farms wouldn’t even listen to a proposal from a gas company, the board of another local nonprofit that Ayers helped found 17 years ago did.

Ayers said the board of the North Branch Land Trust, of which he is still a member, was most recently offered a $4,000-per-acre bonus payment and a 20-percent royalty for a non-surface disturbance lease.

“That means no well drilling on the property. The Land Trust will not allow well drilling on the property for sure, and we’re not entertaining any leases now because we’re not comfortable,” Ayers said.

More information needed

Ayers believes the boards of both nonprofits would support more stringent legislation for the gas and oil industry, but he doesn’t believe a proposed 2,500-foot buffer zone between well sites and water sources is adequate because “we’re in an experimental phase. &hellip We don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s all new to the geology of this area.”

In fact, Ayers said, he’d like to see a moratorium on drilling in the Marcellus Shale “until it’s proven to be much, much safer than it is right now.”

Some Land Trust board members are more comfortable with the gas industry than others, Ayers said. So it’s possible that in the future, “if the industry proved itself to be very, very safe and didn’t harm the people downstream and the environment, I think the board may go for that,” he said of allowing horizontal drilling far below the land’s surface. “But not now.”

The Land Trust owns about 700 acres, the majority of which is an approximately 667-acre tract north of Tunkhannock in Wyoming County. The remainder lies in seven other counties, including Luzerne, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Bradford, Wayne, Lackawanna and Columbia.

Ayers said the trust has been offered large amounts of money to lease the large tract because it’s near the Trans-Continental pipeline, “which makes it very desirable to the (gas) companies. They call us regularly,” he said.

Ayers said it would be “tempting” for the board to sign a lease because “all nonprofits need to survive, and &hellip it would allow us to perform our mission better.” He said the board recommends that people considering a gas lease should call the trust “because they’re very educated about it, they know all about this and they would guide them.

“They would prefer that people not drill on their property and do only subsurface drilling if anything. And frankly, they would prefer that the people wait to learn more and allow the industry to mature and prove itself. And they’re exemplifying that by their own decisions regarding the land they own themselves. It’s pretty hard to turn down the amount of money they’re talking about – it’s millions and millions of dollars,” Ayers said.

Ayers – man on mission

Ayers stressed that the trust and the Lands at Hillside Farms are two separate and unrelated entities. “The mission of the Land Trust is to conserve open space. It’s more of a land-related, conservation-related mission. The purpose of this facility – the Lands at Hillside farms – is to teach sustainable ways of life, or, in other words, to help people make decisions that are healthy for them, their community and the world.”

If Ayers could say one thing to area land owners, “love thy neighbor I think is what I would say, and consider them in your decisions, because they won’t be able to leave as easily if a catastrophe were to happen.

“The principles upon which this country was created rely upon giving more than taking. I mean, Aristotle, when he and his gang created democracy 2,500 years ago, said democracy is the best form of government, but it can only exist in the face of virtue. I’m not sure how long democracy can last when people are willing to risk their neighbors’ safety and welfare for money,” Ayers said.

Ayers said he thinks many people in the area are disappointed, and not just because of the ongoing corruption scandal in Luzerne County in which 30 people – including three county judges – have been charged by federal agents over the past 18 months.

Seeing neighbors signing gas leases, Ayers said, “is just another example of how people might get discouraged because they see people being selfish, they see people not caring for one another. How could the government possibly have allowed this to have occurred here without better regulation? It makes no sense,” Ayers said.

“But again, everything that goes wrong is the people’s issue. I mean it’s the people who run this place. It’s easy to say it’s the politicians and the oil companies and everybody else, but the reality is that it’s us. We are the ones responsible for all of this going on. And if we stand around and watch it, then maybe we deserve what we get.”

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

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.

View the original article here

Recent reports indicate that the gas industry estimates drilling approximately 1750 new gas wells in Pennsylvania in 2010. The cost of investment is expected to be seven (7) billion dollars according to industry sources. Many new jobs will be created along with ongoing environmental concerns.

Dougherty Leventhal and Price LLP represents workers and citizens injured or killed as a result of gas drilling related activities. DLP is a 12 member law firm serving Northeast and Central Pennsylvania for the past thirty years.