Posts Tagged ‘Rory Sweeney’

By Rory Sweeneyrsweeney@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

The Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority is looking to join the ranks of regional sewer authorities profiting from natural gas drilling.

Following Williamsport and Sunbury, where authorities are already treating drilling wastewater, the WVSA is requesting proposals to build a closed-loop pretreatment plant on its land in Hanover Township.

The plant would accept wastewater only within certain pollution parameters, and the treated water would need to be reused for other gas drilling.

Proposals are due by March 29, and the authority hopes to have the plant built within a year, pending necessary permitting.

“I think this thing can get built in seven, eight, nine months or quicker, so again, when will it be permitted?” said John Minora, president of PA NE Aqua Resources, which is consulting on the project.

The plant would be able to treat 800 gallons a minute with a daily flow of 1 million gallons, plus storage and a filling station. The system could utilize any of several techniques that could include separation and disposal of waste in a landfill, evaporation and land application of the minerals or treatment and dilution, Minora said.

Dilution would require the same amount of water, plus about 10 percent more, he said, which would come from the plant’s treated sewage water.

Removing the solids and chemicals is easy, he said, but extracting the dissolved salts is not, which is why dilution might be the most economical option.

“Honestly, we’re open,” he said. “We’ll consider any system that does that job.”

Unlike at Williamsport or Sunbury, however, the resulting Hanover Township water won’t be sent to the existing treatment facility and would need to be purchased by gas companies for use in drilling.

“We want a system that isn’t going to discharge (into a waterway, such as the Susquehanna River), whether or not there’s a byproduct we have to dispose of in another fashion,” he said.

There is an old rail spur at the site that could be reconditioned. Rail is the preferred transportation method, he said, because it’s faster and less disturbing to the community. However, a trucking route is being considered utilizing a second entrance that passes only a few homes, he said.

That route requires the rebuilding of a washed-out bridge.

“We’ve looked at some alternatives, where really the impact on the neighborhood is minimal,” he said.

All proposals require a bid bond of 10 percent of the total bid. Minora declined to offer an estimated cost.

Copyright: Times Leader

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

By Rory Sweeneyrsweeney@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.

Copyright: Times Leader

Feedback sought on impact on communities and environment as industry explores Marcellus Shale.

By Rory Sweeneyrsweeney@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

With questions, concerns and accusations increasing with the rise of drilling for natural gas in Pennsylvania, state legislators and officials have been on the road to hear from voters and explain what they’re doing in Harrisburg.

A Senate Urban Affairs and Housing Committee public hearing last week in Bradford County heard about renters being priced out of their apartments by rig workers.

Later that day at a League of Women Voters forum in Scranton, a state Department of Environmental Protection official addressed concerns about a lack of oversight.

State Sen. Lisa Baker, R-Lehman Township, was involved in a Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee hearing on drilling wastewater treatment issues on Wednesday in Harrisburg.

State Rep. Karen Boback, R-Harveys Lake, joins the road warriors tonight in Benton, where the Columbia County Land Owners Coalition is hosting informational meetings. Along with Boback will be state Reps. Garth Everett, R-Lycoming and David Millard, R-Columbia, for the three meetings, which are organized geographically.

Boback is “just going to be there to let homeowners know what’s being done in Harrisburg to address their concerns,” spokeswoman Nicole Wamsley said.

Depending on the crowd, the legislators could face either support or hostility about the issue. Anti-drilling groups have coalesced in the region and have organized attempts to voice their concerns at everything from rallies to zoning board hearings.

While drilling for gas in the Marcellus Shale holds the tantalizing promise of economic benefits and jobs for decades, it also raises a variety of environmental issues, most notably the quality and availability of water.

Add to that concerns such as the practice of “forced pooling.” In theory, it’s designed to minimize surface disturbances by evenly spacing well pads over an entire drilling area and protect landowners from having their gas siphoned off without compensation.

In practice, it forces landowners into leases whether they want one or not.

Legal in New York, it’s being addressed in Harrisburg. Boback had supported a bill based on the land-conservation premise, but recently retracted it “when the questions arose … based on discussions with research staff” regarding its practical application, Wamsley said.

Copyright: Times Leader

By Rory Sweeneyrsweeney@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

Several local legislators have removed their support from a bill purported to protect landowners from unwanted gas drilling near their property, after learning about potential unintended implications in the legislation.

State House Bill 977, introduced by state Rep. Sandra Major, was announced in February to “extend the Oil and Gas Conservation Law to development within the Marcellus Shale deposit,” along with other protections for landowners, according to the co-sponsorship memorandum distributed throughout the House.

Those protections, however, would allow in the Marcellus area so-called “forced pooling.” Defended as a way to reduce land disturbance by maximizing the area each gas well drains, the practice essentially forces landowners into leasing if surrounding land has been leased for drilling.

State Reps. Karen Boback, R-Harveys Lake, Phyllis Mundy, D-Kingston and Jim Wansacz, D-Old Forge, have removed their support of the bill in response to that potential threat.

Mundy asked legal counsel for the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee – where the bill has been sitting since March – to investigate the implication.

“The issue of forced pooling is a double-edged sword,” the analysis concluded. Without it, gas companies are free to drill as close to property lines as possible and siphon off gas from neighboring unleased property that naturally drains out – known as the “Law of Capture” – without compensation. “Yet the remedy of forcing the unwilling landowner to open up the land for drilling is unsatisfactory as it infringes upon individual property rights,” according to the analysis.

Major, R-Montrose, acknowledged that potential interpretation of her bill, but maintains that wasn’t the intent. She said she is open to amending the bill’s language to unambiguously protect landowners’ rights. Mundy, Boback and Wansacz noted that they would consider supporting the bill with changes and acknowledged that their support was based on the claims in the original memo rather than the bill’s wording.

“What we did is we assumed it. Up here, you take people for their word. Bills can be interpreted many different ways,” Wansacz said.

He said he felt confident that, had the bill ever been subjected to hearings, the issues would have arisen and been addressed. “Before a bill becomes law, it never ever looks like what it started out,” he said.

Mundy said she will support existing bills that individually address the other proposals in Major’s bill, such as prohibiting drillers from drilling through unleased land and ensuring that extraction costs aren’t deducted from landowners’ royalties.

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

Copyright: Times Leader

Holdouts wonder if someday they’ll be forced to enter into natural-gas leases.

By Rory Sweeneyrsweeney@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

With more than 150 acres between her and her parents, Maria Rinehimer’s family could stand to make a tidy profit off natural-gas leasing. But their banker won’t need to worry about clearing out room in the vault any time soon – the family’s not interested.

“I think it’s a really bad thing for the area. If something happens, like a spill or something, I don’t think they’re going to clean it up for us. I think we’re going to be stuck with it,” Rinehimer said.

In Union Township near Shickshinny Lake, Rinehimer, her husband, Kevin, and her side of the family, the Scalzos, sit squarely within the current area of focus for the two gas companies partnering on drilling activities in the county.

The family’s aversion to leasing highlights several growing issues with increased drilling in the Marcellus Shale.

First, residents of northern Pennsylvania, who’ve long harbored suspicion of wealthy interests exploiting local resources such as coal and trees, question whether gas companies can be trusted on the face value of their assurances or if they’re just another chapter in the sad litany of robber barons.

And second, will people who don’t want to lease be forced to if everyone around them is? It’s a practice called “forced pooling,” and while it’s not yet legal in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale, there is a bill in the state House, according to Tom Murphy, an educator with the Lycoming County Penn State Cooperative Extension.

“That would make everything in the Marcellus and below fall in the forced pooling scenario, but at this moment it has not been passed,” he said.

The practice, which is legal in New York, is defended as a way to reduce land disturbance by maximizing the area each well drains.

House Bill 977 – which is cosponsored by, among others, Reps. Karen Boback, R-Harveys Lake, Phyllis Mundy, D-Kingston and Jim Wansacz, D-Old Forge – has been sitting in committee since March.

Rinehimer attended a September meeting held by WhitMar Exploration Co., which later teamed with EnCana Oil and Gas (USA) Inc. to propose three wells in northern Luzerne County.

“He (a company representative) kind of went around the answer, and didn’t really go right ahead and say if something does happen to your water system and you can’t drink it … they’re going to clean it up for you,” she said. “Nothing was really clear.”

EnCana’s is sensitive to the issue, company spokesman Doug Hock said.

Its policy in this area is to monitor all water supplies within a mile of wells before and after the drilling occurs. The company cases wells with several layers and pressure tests, he said, ensuring the integrity of each well.

“If there were a loss of fluid or a loss of gas, we would know through that pressuring testing process,” he said.

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

Copyright: Times Leader

At issue is tapping into Marcellus Shale in Fairmount and Lake townships.

By Rory Sweeneyrsweeney@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

WILKES-BARRE – After more than two hours of testimony on Tuesday night that mostly didn’t address the issues before the board, the Luzerne County Zoning Hearing Board unanimously approved temporary permits and special exception uses to develop natural-gas drilling sites in Fairmount and Lake townships, among the first in the county.

The board, however, placed several caveats on the approvals, including bonding for all roads used, sound and light control measures, and a prohibition on controlling dust on roads with water contaminated from the drilling process.

The two sites are located in municipalities that don’t have zoning boards, which is why the county board was involved.

In Lake, the site is on two properties on Zosh Road owned by Edward Farrell and Daniel Chorba. In Fairmount, the property just off state Route 118 east of Mossville Road and behind the Ricketts Glen Hotel is owned by Edward Buda.

The 12-month temporary permits will allow the well drilling and the storage of water used therein. The special exceptions allow the permanent existence of the well pad at the sites.

At least 50 people attended the hearing, speaking fervently both for and against the expansion of Marcellus Shale gas drilling into Luzerne County. However, board solicitor Stephen Menn warned throughout that most of those issues weren’t before the board.

“This board has very limited rights about what it can do with regards to gas and oil drilling,” he prefaced. “Your concerns are misdirected to us. They should be directed to your legislators.”

Board member Tony Palischak, who is involved with conservation groups, voiced concerns about drilling. “We’re a little skeptical because of all the hair-raising things,” he said, that have been reported in other drilling areas, including Dimock Township in Susquehanna County. A driller there has been fined and cited repeatedly for environmental abuses.

However, he approved the uses. “We have no alternative,” he said afterward. “It’s up to (the state Department of Environmental Protection) and (the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources) to take it from here.”

Still, objectors from as far as Bethlehem noted water and air pollution concerns, along with damage to roads and congestion.

Others welcomed the economic opportunities, and at least one, Charles Kohl, was swayed when the Denver-based companies, WhitMar Exploration Co. and EnCana Oil and Gas (USA) Inc., announced their interest in leasing all properties in those townships.

The companies are also proposing a site in Lehman Township, which has its own zoning board.

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

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

PennEnvironment group wants to ensure water, land isn’t damaged by natural gas exploration.

CBy Rory Sweeneyrsweeney@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

According to a state environmental advocacy group, Pennsylvania needs to do more to ensure that gas drilling creating profits today won’t end up like the coal mining of yesterday that left a costly environmental legacy for the next generation.

In a recent report, PennEnvironment outlined various changes it recommends to the state’s approach to the drilling industry.

They include: strengthening clean-water laws and regulatory tools; making sensitive public lands off limits to drilling and instituting a severance tax on the extracted gas.

“I think we’ve leased out too much state forest land,” said state Rep. Greg Vitali, D-Delaware County, who attended a teleconference last week.

He added that it’s “irresponsible” to lease more until the production is taxed.

“It’s only political influence … that’s kept the Marcellus Shale from being taxed,” he said.

He hoped to get such a tax in the next state budget cycle.

At issue is how to best oversee the increased drilling in the gas-laden shale, which is about a mile underground throughout much of northern and western Pennsylvania. While the state Department of Environmental Protection has promised increased oversight, a rash of issues at various drilling sites has residents concerned that companies will strip out the gas and leave pollution in their wake.

The report lists various regulatory changes PennEnvironment believes would minimize the potential realization of those fears.

“We disagree with the idea that dilution is the solution,” said Brady Russell of the Clean Water Action organization.

He suggested that drilling companies should foot the estimated $300 bill for landowners to get baseline water testing before drilling begins because it can be difficult for landowners to find that money.

The report also calls for better right-to-know laws to force drillers to release the kinds and amounts of chemicals they use and account for the water they consume, while providing for public input that includes allowing health officials opportunities to review proposed permits.

The report also suggests rewriting the municipal code to give local officials primacy over state law for siting wells, which would overrule a recent state Supreme Court decision.

Regarding regulations, the report suggests expanding buffer zones around streams where drilling is prohibited and account for cumulative impacts of drilling when considering additional well permits.

The report calls for banning wastewater discharge to publicly owned treatment works and requiring recycling and reuse of all flow-back wastewater, while setting zero-discharge limits at treatment facilities.

While the report doesn’t address the threat of concentrating naturally radioactive refuse from the drilling process – an issue of concern in New York as the state considers regulations for drilling – Erika Staaf of PennEnvironment said the issue hasn’t come up in Pennsylvania because it doesn’t seem that anyone has tested for it yet.

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

Copyright: Times Leader

State wastewater regulations for natural gas drilling may change to reduce pollution threat.

By Rory Sweeneyrsweeney@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

Anyone concerned with pollution threats from increased natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania has likely encountered the phrase, “total dissolved solids” and recognizes its potential to be a problem.

However, fewer no doubt know how it can become a problem or that – because of issues emerging from the increased drilling – the state Department of Environmental Protection is considering changes to wastewater discharge standards for TDS that would become effective Jan. 1, 2011.

DEP is seeking public comment on the proposals, and citizens have until Feb. 5 to make them. Earlier this month, Penn State University released a document to help people understand the issues and participate in the process.

Rather than a specific chemical, TDS is a measurement of all dissolved matter – such as minerals, salts and metals – in a given water sample and can be naturally occurring. The federal safe drinking-water standard has a recommended level of 500 milligrams per liter for TDS, but no specific regulation. However, concentrations above that can damage treatment equipment and be toxic to aquatic life and people who drink it.

DEP is proposing the changes, which would limit the TDS levels in wastewater discharges, because it determined that some state waterways, including the West Branch of the Susquehanna River, don’t have the ability to absorb increased levels of TDS.

According to the Penn State report, most of the water used to prepare gas wells – often called “frack water” – is between 800 milligrams per liter and 300,000 milligrams per liter.

The industry estimates the amount of such high-TDS wastewater needing disposal in Pennsylvania will increase from about 9 million gallons per day in 2009 to nearly 20 million gallons per day by 2011, the report said.

DEP’s proposal would change two parts of state code.

First, it would require high-TDS discharges to be diluted to at least 500 milligrams per liter, plus lower thresholds for sulfates and chlorides and, for the oil and gas industry, limits of 10 milligrams per liter for strontium and barium.

Second, it would change water-quality standards for the actual waterway, which would, in turn, affect what could be discharged into it. That regulation change hasn’t yet been officially proposed.

To comment on the proposed rules, the Penn State report recommends several approaches: be specific in citing documents or the target of the comment, stick to comments on the proposed rule rather than water-quality in general, include personal experiences and note where the proposed rules are written unclearly.

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

Copyright: Times Leader

EnCana Corp. will work with WhitMar Exploration Co. in seeking gas in the Marcellus Shale in the region.

By Rory Sweeneyrsweeney@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

EnCana Corp., perhaps the largest natural-gas producer in North America, has chosen Luzerne County as its entry point into the Marcellus Shale, thanks to an exploratory agreement with WhitMar Exploration Co.

WhitMar, a Denver-based exploratory company, has already leased about 25,000 acres in Columbia and Luzerne counties, including in Fairmount, Ross, Lake, Dallas, Lehman, Jackson, Huntington, Union, Hunlock and the northwest corner of Plymouth townships.

However, it doesn’t have the resources to develop the entire leasehold, so it went looking for a partner. It found EnCana, a Calgary-based company with U.S. headquarters in Denver that produced 1.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in 2008, according to its Web site. For comparison, Chesapeake Energy, another industry leader with a local presence, produced 839.5 billion cubic feet that year, according to its 2008 annual report.

Spokesman Doug Hock said EnCana has no other interest in the Marcellus Shale, a ribbon of gas-laden rock about a mile underground that stretches from upstate New York into Virginia but centers on Pennsylvania.

The agreement, however, only commits EnCana to the two exploratory wells WhitMar has agreed in its leases to create, Hock said. “Further activity will really depend on the results of the first two wells,” he said. “The first couple wells that we’re drilling are really to prove it up and ensure that we have viable program there.”

Both wells, while exploratory, will also be put into production, he said, though it’s unclear where pipelines will be installed to connect the wells to regional gas lines.

The deal gives EnCana 75 percent interest in the leasehold and control as the operator, according to WhitMar spokesman Brad Shepard. “Being an exploration company, we’re a small company,” he said. “At least in the Marcellus, we get a partner to develop it with.”

He said there were several companies interested, but that EnCana was “the best fit” thanks to similar interests in testing, drilling and size of the project.

Both companies are also interested in increasing the acreage in the leasehold, he said. Within the area the current lease encompasses, there are perhaps 25,000 to 30,000 acres that aren’t leased, Shepard said. “What we’re trying to do now is basically trying to infill all the land that we have now,” he said.

According to Hock, EnCana, whose business is currently 80 percent gas production, is in the process of splitting the company into two “pure plays” to “enhance the value” of each: EnCana, which would focus entirely on gas, and Cenovus Energy Inc. to oversee its oil-sands operations in Canada.

“We’re in that process right now,” Hock said. “The deal is expected to close at the end of the month.”

EnCana slid on the New York Stock Exchange this week, from $59.40 per share on Monday to $56.11 on Friday.

Both companies are also interested in increasing the acreage in the leasehold.

Copyright: Times Leader