Posts Tagged ‘New York’

By Robert Swift (Harrisburg Bureau Chief)
Published: August 25, 2010

HARRISBURG – Opposing parties in a high-profile bid by a gas-pipeline company to gain public utility status are attempting to reach a settlement.

The state Public Utility Commission has suspended hearings into the application by Laser Northeast Gathering LLC to become a regulated utility because of the effort to reach a settlement by Sept. 10, agency spokeswoman Jennifer Kocher said Tuesday.

Laser Northeast plans to build a 30-mile natural gas pipeline from Marcellus Shale exploration areas in Susquehanna County into southern New York, where it will connect to a larger interstate pipeline. The company has a field office in New Milford.

The Silver Lake Association, several individuals and the company have agreed to seek a settlement, Kocher said. Not all parties who filed intervention requests in the case, including some energy firms, have indicated they support a settlement, however.

The pipeline case has drawn attention because of the prospect that Laser Northeast, as a public utility, could exercise the power of eminent domain to acquire private property for the pipeline. Tom Karam, a Laser Northeast principal and Scranton native, has said the company wants to avoid land condemnation.

Under state law, a utility can exercise eminent domain, but a Common Pleas Court judge in a respective county would have to grant that power, Kocher said.

PUC Administrative Law Judge Susan Colwell held a public hearing on the case in June at Great Bend.

If a settlement is reached, it would undergo a review process with a decision by PUC near year’s end.

rswift@timesshamrock.com

View article here.

Copyright:  Citizens Voice

Experts say area should prepare because drilling is not far off

SCRANTON — Drilling for natural gas in Marcellus Shale in Monroe and Pike counties? It’s not a question of if, but when.

That was the word from around the state Thursday at a forum at Marywood University, where experts said the region is rich in the valuable fossil fuel.

The bulk of the drilling now in northeast Pennsylvania is along the northern tier but could eventually extend into the Poconos.

Kathryn Zuberbuhler Klaber, president and executive director of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, said areas more conducive to the entire operation — including roads and pipeline — are the first areas that will be drilled. Once more companies get involved and more money is available, drilling could expand to other parts of the state that haven’t seen it yet.

“There’s only so much capital right now,” she said. “By its nature, you’re going to see that concentrated development.”

Currently, there are no Marcellus Shale drilling operations in Monroe or Pike counties. There is only one in Wayne County.

One roadblock from local drilling right now is the Delaware River Basin Commission, which stopped issuing drilling permits in 2009 until it can formulate a list of regulations gas companies must meet.

Clarke Rupert, spokesman for the DRBC, said the commission hopes to have those regulations finalized by the end of the summer and adopted by the end of the year, admitting that’s an “optimistic” schedule.

Marcellus Shale is found in most of Pennsylvania and parts of New York and West Virginia, about 5,000 to 8,000 feet below the surface. It had been considered too expensive to drill, but advances in technology and the rising cost of natural gas made it more attractive, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

The new method of drilling — hydraulic fracturing, known as “fracking” — uses large amounts of water mixed with sand and other items to fracture the shale and allow the gas to flow, according to the DEP. The water used is then treated before it is released back into the water system.

However, residents near some drilling operations have complained that local water supplies have been damaged. That’s led to some in the state to wonder if this is another coal industry, which ravaged the land of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area before it was gone.

U.S. Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski, D-11, called the shale movement “our second chance” to correct the mistakes of the coal industry.

“Don’t exploit us, and we’ll work with you,” he said our message should be to gas companies. “Exploit us, and you don’t know the (bother) we can be to you.”

John Quigley, secretary of the state’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, said about half of Pennsylvania’s state parks are in areas where Marcellus Shale is thought to be present, and about 700,000 of the 2.1 million acres of state forest land already is leased by gas companies.

He called for the state to stop issuing permits to gas companies until there is more known about the industry.

“Frankly, I think we need to take more than a timeout, we need to take a stop,” he said.

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., encouraged local government leaders who may not have many avenues of protecting themselves to write and even pressure their state and federal representatives to make sure the Marcellus Shale industry is regulated.

“There is almost no area that can look and say, ‘That’s someone else’s problem,’” he said. “We all have to do what we can to make sure this is done the right way.”

View article here.

Copyright:  Pocono Record

Published: August 6, 2010

By Laura Legere

Staff Writer

When the New York State Senate passed a nine-month moratorium on a crucial natural gas drilling technique late Tuesday, legislators there held up Pennsylvania, state regulators and a small Susquehanna County community as models for how not to drill for gas in the Marcellus Shale.

The senators’ criticism raised the ire of Pennsylvania Environmental Protection Secretary John Hanger, who defended the state’s environmental regulations on Thursday and criticized New York for riding the moral “high horse while consuming Pennsylvania gas.”

“If they are so ashamed of what’s gone on here perhaps they should stop buying Pennsylvania gas,” Hanger said.

The sponsor of the New York legislation barring hydraulic fracking, Senator Antoine Thompson, twice visited Dimock Township, in Susquehanna County, and Bradford County in the last eight months to learn from citizens and gas companies about the positive and negative effects of drilling – experiences he cited when he introduced the bill for a vote.

“I think because the state of Pennsylvania was so thirsty to get this development opportunity they did not have enough infrastructure in place, making sure they were inspecting the wells properly, making sure that landowners were protected,” Thompson, D-Buffalo, said Tuesday night.

Despite his opposition to the moratorium, New York State Senator Tom Libous, R-Binghamton, spoke even more critically of Pennsylvania.

“Shame on the state of Pennsylvania,” Libous said. “Shame on their Department of Environmental Protection … because they screwed up badly. They didn’t keep an eye on those who were drilling. They didn’t keep an eye on environmental factors on behalf of the citizens of that state.”

Hanger agreed the experience in Dimock was “unacceptable” – the department found that faulty Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. natural gas wells caused methane to contaminate residents’ drinking water there. But he described two years of work the department has dedicated to strengthening Pennsylvania’s drilling standards and enforcement, including doubling the size of its gas enforcement staff while “New York has added nobody.”

“If New York demands to have no impacts from drilling, then they better have a moratorium that extends not just through May 2011, but forever,” he said. “You cannot have drilling, even done well, and get zero impact.”

When companies have “screwed up, like Cabot screwed up in Dimock,” he said, “we’ve come down on them very, very hard.”

Marcellus Shale drilling has been on hold in New York since 2008 when the state’s environmental regulatory agency began reviewing the environmental impact of the deep well drilling and updating its permitting requirements. That review is expected to be completed later this year.

When asked if he wished he had the opportunity to watch a neighboring state learn through trial and error – as the New York State Senate’s vote positions the Empire State to continue to do – Hanger said, “There are pluses and minuses to each state’s approach.”

llegere@timesshamrock.com

View article here.

Copyright:  The Citizens Voice 

• Marcellus production providing “a bright spot for Pennsylvania’s construction companies”

• “The region has benefited from the jobs created by the natural gas industry”

• Marcellus production “could bring hundreds of jobs to the area”

Marcellus development “a boon to local businesses”: “Activities around the Marcellus Shale have provided a bright spot for Pennsylvania’s construction companies in the midst of a recession that flatlined commercial and residential construction. In rural Lycoming County, construction crews are working around the clock to develop the infrastructure — usually in the form of improved gravel roads and large, stone drilling pads — to access the gas deposits deep under the ground. The building activities in the rural northern tier have been a boon to local businesses, as well as the region’s larger industrial contractors. … Outside of Waterville, Hawbaker’s crews are working night and day to keep pace with the gas exploration activities. “We’ve been able to provide a good wage to our truck drivers … and these guys are getting 50, 60 hours a week,” he said. Even more dollars are filtering into other companies that provide the storage containers and water for drilling. (Centre Daily Times, 7/26/10)

Area jobs ‘picture getting better’ thanks to the Marcellus: “The Pittsburgh region continued to show signs of economic recovery in June, with employers adding jobs for the third consecutive month and the unemployment rate falling by 0.3 percentage point, the state said. Moderate gains in jobs over the past three months “tells us that the picture is getting better,” said Robert Dye, vice president and senior economist at PNC Financial Services Group Inc., Downtown. The region has benefited from the jobs created by the natural gas industry as it explores the Marcellus shale reserves, Dye said Monday. (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 7/27/10)

Annual meeting spotlights benefits of gas industry: “A Penn State study, released May 26, updated a study on the industry that was completed last year. Some of its conclusions included that for every dollar the gas community spends in the state, nearly $2 in economic output is generated. Also, the study shows that natural gas production in the state could generate more than $8 billion in economic benefits this year alone and another $10 billion in 2011. In addition, it could add more than 88,000 jobs in the state next year, doubling the number created in 2009. … The influx of the gas industry couldn’t have come at a better time, with the major job losses the county experienced because of the recession, along with cutbacks in state funding for many of the grants the corporation has depended upon to cover its operating expenses, said board President David E. Cummings. (Williamsport Sun-Gazette, 7/27/10)

New Study Shows Positive Effects From Marcellus Shale Drilling: “A new study says natural gas production in the Marcellus Shale region — if developed — could create 280,000 new jobs and add $6 billion in new tax revenues to local, state and federal governments. … Natural gas production in the Marcellus grew considerably during 2009, adding 57,000 new jobs mostly in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. (WOWK-TV, 7/24/10)

Marcellus development creating real jobs now: “The opportunity for jobs and money and all the collateral growth that goes along with a booming industry is real and is happening now. (Washington Observer-Reporter Editorial, 7/27/10)

“Marcellus Multiplier” creating new jobs across the Pennsylvania’s supply chain: “A new joint venture in Hanover Township may yield up to 50 new jobs, with some related to the gas drilling industry. In what could be the first local sign of the natural gas industry’s economic impact, Plains Township-based Medico Industries Inc. is teaming up with Venezuelan company Equipetrol to expand to a manufacturing site in the Hanover Industrial Estates business park. … The two companies plan to introduce a new product to the Marcellus Shale region, a multi-port valve and production system that allows up to seven wells to be connected to the same system. (Citizens Voice, 7/27/10)

“Hydrofracking has safe record and spurs economy”: “Hydrofracking is an environmentally responsible way to stimulate the flow of energy from new and existing oil and gas wells. It is well-regulated and has been employed over 1 million times without a single incident of drinking water contamination. … Having the gas industry present is bringing in jobs, money and has improved many aspects of the local economies. President Barack Obama and New York Gov. David Paterson both fully support natural gas development as a means of reaching energy independence, while reducing the population’s carbon footprint. Drilling the Marcellus shale is an important aspect in reaching this goal. (Syracuse Post-Standard, IOGA-NY’s Michelle Blackley, 7/24/10)

“There are plenty of jobs available on drilling rigs across the border in Pa.”:”Drilling in the Marcellus shale for natural gas could bring hundreds of jobs to the area. That’s why Corning Community College’s Office of Workforce Development and Community Education has created a training program designed to help people get jobs in the field. “For the actual person who is going for the curriculum, they have an awareness of the job they’re going for to be getting in to. They have some basic knowledge about blueprint reading, safety, those types of things that they’re able to demonstrate as they’re interviewing,” said Brenda English, director of the center. (YNN-TV, 7/26/10)

WILKES-BARRE – Democratic gubernatorial nominee Dan Onorato said Thursday he doesn’t support a moratorium on drilling in the Marcellus Shale region, but he does want to see the gas industry grow in “a responsible way.”

“I will grant permits,” Onorato said. “But I want these companies to hire Pennsylvanians. I don’t want to see a bunch of Oklahoma and Texas license plates here.”

Onorato visited the Scranton Chamber of Commerce to speak to members and young professionals of POWER Scranton to discuss the opportunities for economic growth in Scranton.

“Northeast Pennsylvania is in a unique situation to benefit from great economic growth,” he said. “The combination of location, resources and infrastructure could lead to an economic boon for the region’s economy.”

Onorato is opposed by Republican Tom Corbett, who has served two terms at the state’s attorney general.

Onorato knows Northeastern Pennsylvania – he is married to the former Shelly Ziegler of Mountain Top. Onorato said he has traveled to the region regularly for the past 20 years to visit his in-laws, Bill and Sue Ziegler.

“The northeast region is very important to me,” he said. “I will be campaigning here a lot over the next 17 weeks. I see a lot of similarities between here and my home area of Pittsburgh.”

Onorato, 49, has served as the Allegheny County executive for seven years. He boasts that when the next budget is passed in October, it will mark 10 straight years of no tax increase in the county.

“I’ve run the second largest county in the Commonwealth,” Onorato said. “We’ve downsized government – going from 10 row offices to four and we consolidated five 911 centers to one. Those two moves alone saved taxpayers $7 million per year.”

Onorato, the father of three teenagers, said he is optimistic about the governor’s race. He said he doesn’t believe a poll released last week that showed Corbett ahead by 10 percentage points.

“The same people that did that poll also had McCain ahead of Obama in 2008,” He said. “All the polls I’ve seen show this race to be neck-and-neck. I know it will be a battle, but I believe I can win.”

Onorato said the northeast region’s proximity to New York and New Jersey makes it the perfect location to become the warehouse distribution center for the eastern part of the country.

“I see a lot of potential here,” he said.

The Democrat said he would seek to enact a severance tax on the Marcellus Shale drillers and he would use the revenue to fully fund the state Department of Environmental Protection. Onorato said DEP took a 28 percent budget cut last year and he wants to return the department to full capacity.

“If we’re going to allow drilling, then we need a department to watch over it and protect the water and the environment,” Onorato said.

Bill O’Boyle, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 829-7218.

Copyright: Times Leader

The economic benefits associated with the responsible and environmentally sound development of the Marcellus Shale’s abundant, clean-burning natural gas reserves are overwhelming. Tens of thousands of good-paying jobs are being created across the Commonweal of Pennsylvania, where Marcellus development has been underway for several years. Hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues are being generated to local and state government. And Pennsylvania consumers, who continue to struggle with nearly double-digit unemployment rates, are seeing the benefits of shale gas development in the form of lower energy costs.

However, the story of the Marcellus Shale in New York State is a very different one. You see, in terms of geology, the Marcellus Shale formation is not considerably different in New York than it is in Pennsylvania. The technologies used to safely and effectively reach thesejob-creating resources are the same, too. But environmental regulators there have kept this production off-limits, denying the creation of thousands of jobs and countless other economic benefits to the region, despite the fact that the nation’s first natural gas well was completed in Fredonia, NY in 1821. At the same time, some elected state leaders are also working to implement an even more far-reaching moratorium on shale gas development.

Recognizing how critical this development is for Upstate New York’s struggling economy, and for our nation’s energy security, Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC) president Kathryn Klaber joined a broad group of organizations this week in a letter to the State Assembly urging their support to move forward with responsible shale gas development: Here are key highlights from that letter:

We need your support for this compelling economic development opportunity, one that could benefit the State and localities significantly for years to come. We should embrace our State’s ability to bring New York-produced gas to New York customers, and by so doing create new opportunity and prosperity in our own State.

Natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel known to man – is a solution to reducing our nation’s carbon footprint, and it will greatly improve New York’s and America’s energy independence. … And natural gas is abundant; the Marcellus Shale alone could supply natural gas to the entire United States for 20 years or more.

Based on economic projections in Pennsylvania, where the Marcellus is now being explored, Marcellus Shale development in New York will generate more than $1.4 billion in annual economic impact, based on 300 wells drilled – including more than $100 million in lease payments to landowners, $32 million in state tax revenue and tens of thousands of new jobs over time. In Broome County, a recent study that showed that 2,000 wells would annually generate more than $7.4 billion in economic activity, and nearly $400 million in wages, salaries and benefits. Also, more than $600 million in property tax income and $22 million and $20 million in state and local taxes would be generated. All of this – in just one county.

The folks in New York, especially those along the Southern Tier where Marcellus development would occur, are doing their part to educate, engage and inform the public, and key stakeholders, about the overwhelmingly positive benefits associated with shale gas production and how safe the process actually is. Last night, a group of elected officials, academics, landowners, and energy and labor representatives met in Binghamton to discuss these benefits, and to dispel the myths about the production of shale gas. The Ithaca Journal reports this today under the headline “Meeting touts benefits of tapping into Marcellus Shale”:

According to Syracuse University Earth Sciences professor Don Siegel, these concerns are more myth than reality. “This is the first environmental issue that I’ve thrown my hat into the ring on,” he said. “As a hydrogeologist, I really am almost offended by some of the opposition that’s trying to paint a picture of what groundwater resources are like that is completely wrong.”

“New investments will be made in a region where multimillion — and even multibillion — dollar investments have not been seen to this level in years,” said Broome County Executive Barbara Fiala,” and we can do all this while protecting the environment.”

“Our campus was one of the fastest-growing campuses in the United States, and virtually all of our graduates were going out into very good-paying energy industry jobs,” Drumm said. “The energy industry creates great jobs — lots of jobs — and we were heavily involved in our colleges in training for those jobs.”

Labor unions are also speaking out for responsible shale gas development in New York on behalf of their members. This from a WICZ-TV report:

Local union representatives were on hand as well, supporting the notion that jobs and money are on the coat tails of hydro-fracking.

Alex Barillo of Laborers Local 785 says he’s seen the benefits of drilling south of the border in Pennsylvania, and on the Millenium Pipeline where he says workers have seen a gross income of approximately 35 million dollars.

“That’s $35 million in gross wages that went to local workers right here so that they could have health insurance, they can have retirement, and they could pay their mortgages and so that they can do the things they do every day in their communities,” Barillo said.

We encourage you, your employees, colleagues, businesses associates, friends and family to visit Marcelluscoalition.org/get-involved, and join this fight for a more prosperous economy that leverages these resources into permanent, family-supporting jobs and stable supplies of domestic energy. Becoming a “Friend of Marcellus” will help ensure that you are informed and educated about the opportunities and critical issues surrounding this development, especially as it relates to moving forward with Marcellus development in New York.

Copyright: Marcelluscoalition.org

MATTHEW TODD VINE Times Leader Intern

HAZLETON – Local businesses eager to get in on the Marcellus Shale gas drilling bonanza will have a chance to hear about opportunities on Tuesday.

That’s when the Northeast Pennsylvania Manufacturers and Employers Association will hold a combined Schuylkill/Luzerne CEO roundtable at the Top of the 80’s restaurant on Route 93 to talk about Marcellus Shale development with a focus on manufacturing jobs.

Darlene Robbins, president of the association, said that about 25 member companies were registered for the event by Wednesday.

“Our purpose of the event is to provide the discussion to the companies,” Robbins said, “about the services that are available with this Marcellus Shale development.”

Robbins said the businesses already registered include service providers, universities, workforce development agencies and electrical contractors.

According to the Marcellus Shale Coalition, based in Canonsburg, an industry funded study by The Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences at The Pennsylvania State University found 44,000 jobs already created in the state and projected more than 200,000 direct and indirect jobs would be added by 2020.

The potential jobs include site construction, well production, pipe manufacturing and transportation.

The Marcellus Shale is a layer of sedimentary rock about a mile underground that contains natural gas. This layer underlies much of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and parts of New York, Ohio, Maryland, Virginia. Drilling is just getting started in Luzerne County, and companies have leased thousands of acres, mostly in the northern and western sections of the county.

Copyright: Times Leader

VICKI SMITH Associated Press Writer
Published: June 7, 2010

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — A crew drilling a natural gas well through an abandoned coal mine in West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle hit a pocket of methane gas that ignited, triggering an explosion that burned seven workers, state and company officials said Monday.

The blast created a column of flame that was initially at least 70 feet high, but the rig operator said the site was secure and the fire was about 40 feet high by late morning.

A team from Texas-based Wild Well Control, a company that specializes in rig fires, will decide whether to let the methane burn or try to extinguish the flames, said Kristi Gittins of Dallas,Texas-based Chief Oil and Natural Gas.

The explosion occurred about 1:30 a.m. in a rural area outside Moundsville, about 55 miles southwest of Pittsburgh, and presents no danger to any structures or people, said Bill Hendershot, an inspector with the state Department of Environmental Protection’s Office of Oil and Gas.

The operation was less than a week old: DEP records show a permit was issued June 2 to AB Resources PA LLC of Brecksville, Ohio.

Gittins said AB Resources is the operator of the well, while Chief has a “participation interest.” It is Chief’s responsibility to drill and complete the well, she said.

Chief’s site contractor, Union Drilling of Buckhannon, had drilled the first 1,000 feet of a second well on the property and was preparing to install surface casing when crews apparently hit and ignited the methane, she said.

Crews had drilled through the abandoned Consol Energy mine before without incident, she said.

Methane is a known risk when working near old mines, and the company typically takes a variety of precautions, including venting systems. Gittins could not immediately say what precautions were in place at this site.

“Luckily, our response team got there quickly, secured the area and evacuated the workers,” she said. “From all appearances, there weren’t any life-threatening injuries, so that’s a good thing.”

The seven workers were taken the West Penn Burn Center in Pittsburgh and were in fair condition, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Five were employed by Union and two worked for BJ Services Co. of Houston, Texas, said Jeff Funke, area director of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Charleston office.

A spokesman for Union in Fort Worth, Texas, did not immediately return a telephone message.

The BJ Services workers were among four that had just arrived on site to place the casing, said Gary Flaharty, a spokesman for the parent company, Baker Hughes Inc. of Houston. The crew runs a safety check at the start of each shift and was just preparing to do that when the blast occurred.

Flaharty could not provide any details about the injured employees but said they’re being treated for burns and are expected to survive.

Funke said OSHA learned of the accident shortly after 8 a.m., and two investigators were being dispatched. However, they cannot enter the site and begin work until the fire is out, he said.

OSHA created a program to deal with gas drilling in the vast Marcellus shale fields about five years ago and has been proactively inspecting sites to ensure compliance with safety regulations, he said. The gas reserve is about the size of Greece and lies more than a mile beneath New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio.

OSHA knew there would be a lot of drilling in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, “and we did our best to get out in front of that curve,” Funke said. “So we’re well-equipped to respond to this.”

About 98 percent of the region’s drilling now involves Marcellus shale, he said.

Gittins, the spokeswoman for Chief, confirmed the company was tapping into the Marcellus reserves. The company has drilled about 75 Marcellus wells in West Virginia and Pennsylvania so far, she said, with about 15 of them in West Virginia.

This was the company’s first major accident, she said.

However, it’s the latest in a string of accidents related to the rapidly growing pursuit of Marcellus gas.

In Pennsylvania, environmental regulators are investigating what caused another well to spew explosive gas and polluted water for about 16 hours last week until it was brought under control.

A crew of eight was evacuated from the Clearfield County site Thursday, but no one was injured. That accident involved EOG Resources Inc. of Houston.

Copyright:  The Scranton Times-Tribune

Sporting groups, conservationists and anti-drilling neighbors protest the large-scale gas exploration.

MICHAEL RUBINKAM Associated Press Writer

PLEASANT MOUNT, Pa. — A few hundred yards from Louis Matoushek’s farmhouse is a well that could soon produce not only natural gas, but a drilling boom in the wild and scenic Delaware River watershed.

Energy companies have leased thousands of acres of land in Pennsylvania’s unspoiled northeastern tip, hoping to tap vast stores of gas in a sprawling rock formation — the Marcellus Shale — that some experts believe could become the nation’s most productive gas field.

Plenty of folks like Matoushek are eager for the gas, and the royalty checks, to start flowing — including farmers who see Marcellus money as a way to keep their struggling operations afloat.

“It’s a depressed area,” Matoushek said. “This is going to mean new jobs, real jobs, not government jobs.”

Standing in the way is a loose coalition of sporting groups, conservationists and anti-drilling neighbors. They contend that large-scale gas exploration so close to crucial waterways will threaten drinking water, ruin a renowned wild trout fishery, wreck property values, and transform a rural area popular with tourists into an industrial zone with constant noise and truck traffic.

Both sides are furiously lobbying the Delaware River Basin Commission, the powerful federal-interstate compact agency that monitors water supplies for 15 million people, including half the population of New York City. The commission has jurisdiction because the drilling process will require withdrawing huge amounts of water from the watershed’s streams and rivers and because of the potential for groundwater pollution.

The well on Matoushek’s 200-acre spread in the northern Pocono Mountains in Wayne County is up first. The commission is reviewing an application by Stone Energy Corp. of Lafayette, La., to extract gas from the well — the first of what could be thousands of applications by energy companies to sink wells in an area roughly the size of Connecticut.

Stone Energy’s application has already generated more than 1,700 written comments to the DRBC. The company, which paid a $70,000 penalty for drilling the Matoushek well without DRBC approval in 2008, has already received a permit from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

Eager gas companies have leased more than 300 square miles of watershed land, conservation officials estimate.

“This is certainly just the start. There’s a lot of acreage out there, and a lot of people interested in leasing their land,” said Tracy Carluccio, deputy director of the anti-drilling Delaware Riverkeeper Network.

The Marcellus Shale is a rock formation 6,000 to 8,000 feet beneath Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia and Ohio, including about 36 percent of the Delaware River basin. New drilling techniques now allow affordable access to supplies in the Marcellus and other shales in the U.S. that once were too expensive to tap.

Energy companies combine horizontal drilling with hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” a technique that injects vast amounts of water, along with sand and chemicals, underground to break up the shale and release the gas.

While gas companies refuse to identify the chemicals they use — claiming that is proprietary information — critics cite contamination problems in other natural gas drilling fields. They worry that unregulated fracking can taint drinking water, deplete aquifers and produce briny wastewater that can kill fish. In Dimock, Pa., about 40 miles west of the Matoushek well but outside the Delaware basin, state environmental regulators say that cracked casings on fracked wells have tainted residential water supplies with methane gas.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced last month that it will study the impact of fracking on the environment and human health. The EPA said in 2004 there was no evidence that fracking threatens drinking water quality, but critics, including a veteran engineer in the Denver regional EPA office, argued that report’s methodology was flawed.

The industry contends environmental concerns are overblown. It says the drilling techniques are safe and that there has never been a proven case of groundwater contamination caused by fracking — in part because fracking occurs far below the water table. Congress exempted hydraulic fracturing from federal oversight in 2005.

Dozens of people told the DRBC at a recent public hearing why they oppose the watershed drilling. A few supporters called it an economic boon and a property-rights issue.

Richard Kreznar, who owns property in the Pennsylvania riverfront community of Damascus, said gas drilling primarily benefits large landowners and exploration companies.

“After the Delaware River and the stream next to my house are messed up, what compensation will I get? Who will put it back together again?” he asked DRBC staff.

Lee Hartman, the Delaware River chairman for Trout Unlimited, worries that large water withdrawals required for fracking will create low stream flows in the Delaware’s tributaries, damaging fish habitat. For the Matoushek well, Stone Energy wants to take 700,000 gallons a day from the Lackawaxen River’s narrow west branch.

Hartman and others say the DRBC should first study the cumulative environmental impacts of drilling in the Delaware watershed, and pass drilling regulations, before it allows any gas extraction to take place. The agency has asked for $250,000 in federal funds for a study, but commissioners have not said whether they will wait before voting on Matoushek’s well.

Opponents say they will sue if Stone Energy’s application is approved.

Downstream communities that rely on the Delaware for drinking water are worried about the coming gas boom. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg opposes any drilling in the watershed, while the Philadelphia City Council has asked the basin commission for an environmental study.

New York state regulators have put a moratorium on drilling in the Marcellus region, saying they won’t approve permits until they are finished drafting new regulations.

Back in northeastern Pennsylvania, Matoushek, 68, a semiretired farmer who signed a lease with Stone Energy three years ago, said he is counting on royalty checks from gas production to help fund his golden years and secure the land for future generations of his family. As far he’s concerned, the benefits far outweigh any theoretical harm.

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