Posts Tagged ‘Wayne’

BY JEREMY G. BURTON (STAFF WRITER)
Published: June 24, 2010

Pennsylvania authorities found environmental and safety violations on more than 130 trucks hauling wastewater from natural gas wells during a three-day enforcement blitz last week, the state Department of Transportation said Wednesday.

Overall, officials inspected 1,137 trucks between June 14 and 16 during the multi-agency operation, which was focused on Marcellus Shale drilling sites. Of the 210 commercial vehicles ordered out of service for violations, 131 were transporting wastewater used in the process called hydraulic fracturing.

The added enforcement has been made necessary by the growing gas industry’s heavy truck traffic, especially in rural counties, state police Commissioner Frank E. Pawlowski said in a statement.

Also participating was the state Department of Environmental Protection, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission and the federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

In Troop R – which covers Lackawanna, Pike, Susquehanna and Wayne counties – officials shut down 25 vehicles and issued 141 citations during 142 inspections.

Sixty-six vehicles were shut down and 358 citations issued in 166 inspections within Troop P, which covers Bradford, Sullivan, Wyoming and part of Luzerne counties.

One hundred nineteen vehicles were shut down in western and central Pennsylvania.

Inspectors especially looked for safety deficiencies that could lead to crashes, authorities said.

Contact the writer: jburton@timesshamrock.com

View article here.

Copyright: The Scranton Times

Intent is to have inspectors based closer to local gas drilling activity.

By Rory Sweeneyrsweeney@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

For some time, local legislators and environmentalists have complained that local oversight of natural-gas drilling is too difficult because the closest inspectors are in Williamsport.

With the industry preparing to ramp up activities in Susquehanna and Wayne counties, the state Department of Environmental Protection addressed that complaint on Wednesday by announcing the opening of an Oil and Gas Management office in Scranton.

“Our communities need the economic boost that gas drilling will provide, but we simply cannot afford to have state government shortchange oversight,” said state Sen. Lisa Baker, R-Lehman Township, in a news release.

She had asked Gov. Ed Rendell to open an office closer to local drilling activity, the release noted, because “given the increase in drilling activity expected to take place in the region, and the potential environmental consequences of mistakes, long-distance oversight was not an acceptable answer.”

The site hasn’t been finalized, but it will be within the city, according to DEP spokesman Tom Rathbun, and will house 10 employees who have yet to be hired. Most of those will be “field personnel,” Rathbun said, meaning “they’ll be handling inspection and compliance.”

No date has been set for the office’s opening, but Rathbun assured it would be “as soon as possible.”

“We’re anticipating continued growth in Wayne and Susquehanna counties, according to what the industry is reporting, so we’re responding to that,” he said. “That’s based on the industry forecasts where they’re doing next year, what they expect to do.”

Funding for the employees and regional office will be paid for through increased permitting fees the industry is paying to drill in the Marcellus shale, “which was the original intent behind increasing the fees: to make the program pay for itself,” Rathbun said.

The shale is a rock formation a mile underground stretching from New York to Kentucky and is estimated to store enough gas to supply the nation’s current consumption for two decades.

The employees will be part of 68 new DEP hires that Rendell announced last week to handle increased gas drilling, Rathbun said.

Copyright: Times Leader

Firm with substantial holdings in Luzerne County taking next step toward exploration.

By Rory Sweeneyrsweeney@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

WhitMar Exploration Co., the only gas-drilling company so far to have leased substantially in Luzerne County, plans to begin drilling by the middle or latter part of next year, according to the company’s president.

“Right now, we’re just filing for some permits for two, possibly three wells we want to drill,” said Whit Marvin, who heads the Denver-based company. “We do plan on drilling it and testing it for the Marcellus Shale.”

Throughout 2009, WhitMar has leased more than 22,000 acres in, among other places, Fairmount, Ross, Lake, Lehman, Union, Hunlock, Huntington and Dallas townships with little money upfront by offering landowners a contractual guarantee to begin drilling within two years.

The contract also guaranteed permitting within the first year, and Marvin said that process is on track. The company is filing for drilling and water-consumption permits from the state Department of Environmental Protection and the Susquehanna River Basin Commission, and is looking into any other permits it might need, he said.

From there, the company will negotiate with the individual landowners about siting for the well pads and gaining access to them, he said.

Much of that will be based seismic testing that’s being done, the results of which Marvin expects before the end of the year. “In essence, you’re using ultrasound. You’re looking for anomalies under the surface … that would be attractive to drill into,” he said. “We can make some geologic interpretation, (but) it’s definitely not an exact science.”

A drilling contractor hasn’t been hired yet, he said, but the company has begun work elsewhere in the shale. It has leased “large blocks” in Lycoming, Wayne and Susquehanna counties, as well as in some counties in New York’s southern tier, he said. Of that, wells are being drilled in Chemung County, N.Y., and preparations for drilling are being made in Susquehanna and Lycoming counties, he said.

In Lycoming County, the industry is moving so fast that companies needing and offering services aren’t able to connect, according to Jeffrey Lorson, an industrial technology specialist at the Pennsylvania College of Technology.

For that reason, the college and a group of organizations interested in the industry are sponsoring a business-networking expo today. Lorson, who heads the college’s Marcellus Shale Education & Training Center, said about 130 vendors are scheduled to be at the free-admission event at the Hughesville Fairgrounds.

If you go

What: Business-networking expo for the gas-drilling industry

Where: Hughesville Fairgrounds, Lycoming County

When: Today, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Description: About 130 vendors are meeting to display their goods and services, and to see the goods and services other companies are offering.

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

Copyright: Times Leader

By Tom Veneskytvenesky@timesleader.com
Sports Reporter

Private landowners aren’t the only group being eyed by natural gas companies as potential lease partners.

Companies are also targeting two of the largest landowners in the region – the Pennsylvania Game Commission and state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, hoping to develop the vast gas deposits they suspect sit below the surface.

Officials with both agencies say interest in their property – which totals thousands of acres in the region — is extremely high. Royalties and payments that companies are willing to offer to lease the land are also high, but that doesn’t mean the agencies are ready to sign on the dotted line.

Both agencies control their own destinies on those properties where they own the surface and subsurface mineral rights. When some of the properties were purchased years ago, the seller held onto the mineral rights. But on those state game lands where the Pennsylvania Game Commission owns the gas rights, numerous drilling companies have contacted the agency about its property in the northeast. The attempts have been aggressive, according to Mike DiMatteo, a geologist with the Game Commission’s oil, gas and mineral recovery program.

“Some of them came in and drew a circle from Tioga County down to Centre and over to Wayne and Pike,” DiMatteo said. “They are interested in leasing large areas.”

And the Game Commission is interested in what they have to offer … with conditions.

DiMatteo said the presence of the Marcellus shale layer under the surface of Northeastern Pennsylvania is believed to hold significant deposits of natural gas. The companies want the gas, which is at a record high price, but they need the land to access the layer of shale thousands of feet below the surface.

State Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Mark Carmon said his office has issued less than a half dozen permits for gas drilling in the Northeast and most of the interest is in Susquehanna, Wayne and Wyoming counties.

Despite the high interest, the Game Commission has so far entered into one lease agreement in the Northeast (State Game Lands 123 in Bradford County). DiMatteo said two more agreements are in the works and they are looking at more.

He added it’s too early to tell how much revenue natural gas wells would generate for the agency because the process is in the exploratory stage.

Game Commission spokesman Jerry Feaser said the agency receives an average of $2 million to $3 million a year, up significantly from an annual average of $300,000 a couple years ago. Most of that revenue is generated from active wells in the southwest and north central parts of the state.

“There hasn’t been enough development in the Marcellus formation yet to know what a typical well will produce. The companies are pretty tight-lipped about what’s there, so it’s hard to put a dollar value on the potential reserve,” DiMatteo said.

Based on the agency’s experience with wells drilled on game lands in other areas, they know what to include in a lease to protect wildlife and habitat. The agency prefers companies utilize existing timber and maintenance roads to access their wells, and areas such as wetlands, unique habitats and places holding threatened or endangered species are avoided.

Before a lease is signed, the agency conducts a resource recovery questionnaire of the game lands to assess the pros and cons. Leases typically last for five years or as long as the well is producing.

“In some areas we find we can’t take a risk with the habitat, so we won’t have any activity there,” DiMatteo said.

When the well is taken out of production, it must be capped and the area and access road must be seeded as a wildlife food plot or used as forest cover.

Like the Game Commission, the DCNR is open to the prospect of natural gas drilling on its property – just not right now. According to Teddy Borawski, minerals section chief with the Bureau of Forestry, the agency isn’t entering into any lease agreements until it completes an internal study on the matter.

The agency has wells operating from past lease agreements, and when it determines which properties it wants to make available for additional leases they will be put out for bids.

“There’s a very large amount of interest in state forest and state park land in the northeast,” Borawski said.

State park lands are off limits to gas drilling because the practice would conflict with the recreational use of the property, he added.

Borawski said leases entered into with his agency carry the strongest environmental stipulations in the state. They include a stringent environmental review, an exceedance of DEP regulations, safeguards against surface and groundwater contamination and significant setbacks from streams.

State forest and state game lands are attractive to gas companies because it is more efficient to lease large, contiguous blocks of land. Stephen Rhoads, president of the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Association, said drilling goes as deep as 8,000 feet and extends horizontally several thousand feet, which can cover a few acres. Companies also conduct seismic exploration before they drill, and a large area is needed for the research.

Rhoads criticized DCNR’s move to wait to enter into lease agreements, because it benefited financially from the practice in the past.

“The impact of oil and gas development on the surface is trivial. There is no chronic environmental impact,” he said. “There is a more significant impact to DCNR putting wind turbines on their ridge tops.”

While DCNCR continues to study the matter, DiMatteo said the Game Commission may be ready to seek more bids in the next few months. To wait for the price of gas to increase, he said, is too much of a risk because the Marcellus formation may prove not to be profitable once drilling commences.

“These wells could be a boom or a bust. We’re willing to listen and explore, but we’ll approach it with caution,” Feaser said.

Properties breakdown

Mike DiMatteo said most of the interest in gas drilling has been for Game Lands located in Bradford, Pike, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Wayne and Wyoming counties. Here is a breakdown of how much property the Game Commission owns in those counties:

Bradford County: 53,429 acres

Columbia County: 21,532 acres

Pike County: 24,467 acres

Sullivan County: 57,752 acres

Susquehanna County: 14,358 acres

Wayne County: 20,637 acres

Tom Venesky, a Times Leader outdoors writer, can be reached at 829-7230

Copyright: Times Leader