Federal legislation now under discussion in Washington would impose rigorous environmental regulations on natural gas drilling while seeking to protect drinking water from contamination which has reportedly occurred because of the industry’s activities.
If passed by Congress, it’s effects - for better or worse, depending on point of view - would reach throughout the U.S., rippling here to Northeastern Pennsylvania and Wayne County, which lays above what is expected to be the country’s most prolific natural gas source by 2020, the Marcellus Shale.
“It’s incredibly stupid, unnecessary and burdensome,” said Steve Rhoads, president of the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Association, an industry group. “We’ve been fracking (drilling) wells since the 1940’s. There have been very few incidents or problems.”
The crux of the argument is a unique exemption oil and natural gas drilling companies received in 2005 by a vote of Congress from the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, a lengthy and costly list of standards all other industries must follow to ensure that groundwater does not become tainted with harmful substances.
“If fracking is regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act then drillers would have to show that there is no impact from drilling on the ... aquifer” where drinking water is pulled for private wells and public water supplies, said Anne Misak, of Clean Water Action, a national environmental group.
Three U.S. Representatives are leading the legislative charge to overturn the exemption that was a part of the controversial 2005 Energy Policy Act, including Maurice Hinchey, a New York Democrat whose congressional district overlays New York City’s drinking water supply in the Delaware River Basin.
“With an increased push for gas drilling in Pennsylvania and New York, he wanted to make sure that there was a national standard that protected drinking water,” said Jeff Lieberson, a spokesperson for the congressman whose district borders Wayne County.
U.S. Sens. Bob Casey, D-PA, and Chuck Schumer, D-NY, joined U.S. Reps. Diana DeGette, D-CO, Jared Polis, D-CO, and Hinchey with a companion Senate bill on Tuesday, called the FRAC Act - “Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act,” amending the Safe Drinking Water Act.
“It's time to fix an unfortunate chapter in the Bush administration's energy policy and close the 'Halliburton loophole' that has enabled energy companies to pump enormous amounts of toxins, such as benzene and toluene, into the ground that then jeopardize the quality of our drinking water,” said Hinchey in a statement.
The exemption essentially removed the possibility of federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) oversight of hydraulic fracturing, a drilling technique that busts open rock formations thousands of feet below the surface to release natural gas. The regulatory responsibility is now in the hands of the states, with each containing a hodgepodge of environmental protection standards.
The controversy behind hydraulic fracturing is that it requires millions of gallons of water and tens of thousands of gallons of chemical additives, some very harmful to human health, to crack - or “frac” in industry speak - a shale formation through pressure, raising fears that water could become polluted without stringent and uniform federal oversight.
Without the exemption, the industry would be required to seek federal permits from the EPA for every well it drills, on top of the permits it already attains from state environmental agencies and river basin commissions in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
“We have very strong laws in place in Pennsylvania,” said Rhoads. “(EPA permits) would be one more hurdle that could be debilitating.”
The state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued 7,883 well permits in 2008 which regulate how wells are drilled - without EPA involvement.
The state environmental agency is also reviewing two drill permit applications in northern Wayne County. Chesapeake Appalachia, of West Virginia, has begun drilling operations in Oregon Township, the only active drill site in the county thus far. At least 1,800 properties in the county have been leased to natural gas drilling and extraction companies with Chesapeake Appalachia holding the lion’s share, opening the plausibility of more drilling down the road.
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Federal legislation now under discussion in Washington would impose rigorous environmental regulations on natural gas drilling while seeking to protect drinking water from contamination which has reportedly occurred because of the industry’s activities.
If passed by Congress, it’s effects - for better or worse, depending on point of view - would reach throughout the U.S., rippling here to Northeastern Pennsylvania and Wayne County, which lays above what is expected to be the country’s most prolific natural gas source by 2020, the Marcellus Shale.
“It’s incredibly stupid, unnecessary and burdensome,” said Steve Rhoads, president of the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Association, an industry group. “We’ve been fracking (drilling) wells since the 1940’s. There have been very few incidents or problems.”
The crux of the argument is a unique exemption oil and natural gas drilling companies received in 2005 by a vote of Congress from the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, a lengthy and costly list of standards all other industries must follow to ensure that groundwater does not become tainted with harmful substances.
“If fracking is regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act then drillers would have to show that there is no impact from drilling on the ... aquifer” where drinking water is pulled for private wells and public water supplies, said Anne Misak, of Clean Water Action, a national environmental group.
Three U.S. Representatives are leading the legislative charge to overturn the exemption that was a part of the controversial 2005 Energy Policy Act, including Maurice Hinchey, a New York Democrat whose congressional district overlays New York City’s drinking water supply in the Delaware River Basin.
“With an increased push for gas drilling in Pennsylvania and New York, he wanted to make sure that there was a national standard that protected drinking water,” said Jeff Lieberson, a spokesperson for the congressman whose district borders Wayne County.
U.S. Sens. Bob Casey, D-PA, and Chuck Schumer, D-NY, joined U.S. Reps. Diana DeGette, D-CO, Jared Polis, D-CO, and Hinchey with a companion Senate bill on Tuesday, called the FRAC Act - “Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act,” amending the Safe Drinking Water Act.
“It's time to fix an unfortunate chapter in the Bush administration's energy policy and close the 'Halliburton loophole' that has enabled energy companies to pump enormous amounts of toxins, such as benzene and toluene, into the ground that then jeopardize the quality of our drinking water,” said Hinchey in a statement.
The exemption essentially removed the possibility of federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) oversight of hydraulic fracturing, a drilling technique that busts open rock formations thousands of feet below the surface to release natural gas. The regulatory responsibility is now in the hands of the states, with each containing a hodgepodge of environmental protection standards.
The controversy behind hydraulic fracturing is that it requires millions of gallons of water and tens of thousands of gallons of chemical additives, some very harmful to human health, to crack - or “frac” in industry speak - a shale formation through pressure, raising fears that water could become polluted without stringent and uniform federal oversight.
Without the exemption, the industry would be required to seek federal permits from the EPA for every well it drills, on top of the permits it already attains from state environmental agencies and river basin commissions in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
“We have very strong laws in place in Pennsylvania,” said Rhoads. “(EPA permits) would be one more hurdle that could be debilitating.”
The state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued 7,883 well permits in 2008 which regulate how wells are drilled - without EPA involvement.
The state environmental agency is also reviewing two drill permit applications in northern Wayne County. Chesapeake Appalachia, of West Virginia, has begun drilling operations in Oregon Township, the only active drill site in the county thus far. At least 1,800 properties in the county have been leased to natural gas drilling and extraction companies with Chesapeake Appalachia holding the lion’s share, opening the plausibility of more drilling down the road.
Water Monitoring
Others, however, consider Safe Drinking Water Act rules to be stronger than some state regulations including one critical yet overlooked aspect in Pennsylvania, the lack of a requirement to monitor groundwater quality in a drilling zone.
This could be a facet of the legislation; and it is detailed within the provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act.
“(Pennsylvania) state regulations don’t require an analysis of groundwater quality” in an area where drilling occurs, said Tracy Carluccio, deputy director of Delaware Riverkeeper, a non-profit environmental group. “It’s black hole” in state law.
What heightens the groundwater issue is the use of chemical additives during the drilling process: kerosene, formaldehyde, methanol, tetramethylammonium chloride, dazomet, and dozens of other of toxic chemicals, according to detailed lists obtained by The Wayne Independent from the DEP and the Delaware River Basin Commission.
The industry contends: the additives are heavily diluted by the amount of water used; most of its liquid volume is returned to the surface for safe disposal; and some volume remains forever imbedded in rock formations well below drinking water sources.
On the last point, critics of the industry refer to a study in Colorado which alleged that chemical additives could “migrate upward” from deep drilling areas to the aquifer along vertical fractures in the bedrock.
“If you don’t test for it, you don’t know the pollution is there,” argues Carluccio. “You won’t know until people get sick.”
State law does protect groundwater and open bodies of water through the Clean Streams Law and punishments are handed down on polluters, said Mark Carmon, a DEP spokesperson.
“The Clean Streams Law would kick in if there was a pollution problem” detected, said Carmon.
Added Rhoads: “There is no need for more (water) sampling unless a problem arises.”
But this state law, which was enacted long before more sophisticated drilling techniques were used in the Commonwealth, does not require proactive water quality testing, including aquifers, making pollution detection difficult.
Dimock Township, Susquehanna County serves as a case-in-point. The DEP cited Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., of Texas, for inadvertently allowing methane, the main component of natural gas, to stray into nine private wells through the local aquifer, violating the Clean Streams Law.
But the tip off for DEP occurred when a concrete-slab above a resident’s well exploded in January, jump-starting the agency to test the area’s drinking water for methane - an odorless, non-toxic gas that can explode in high concentrations. The Clean Streams Law violation was issued after the explosion since methane polluted the local aquifer. But prior to this incident, there were no consistent water quality tests performed by the state environmental agency or required by the company in that area.
(An additional follow-up investigation by DEP at Dimock did not find the presence of chemical additives in the private wells that tested hot for methane.)
“There are no state regulations that require any water testing” before, during and after drilling, said Bryan Swistock, a water resources specialist with Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences. “ ... A driller may choose to test homes near the gas well to document water quality prior to drilling but this is voluntary. Likewise, a homeowner may choose to do the same testing.”
A homeowner may spend more than $100 per laboratory sample, however.
“The problem here ... is that no one is testing for these chemicals,” said Dr. Mary Bachran, of The Endocrine Disruption Exchange, a Colorado-based organization focusing on the intersection of human health and industrial contaminate exposure. Another issue is the chemicals the industry doesn’t disclose and whether these can be identified with some certainty in lab tests.
The industry will not provide a complete chemical list used to “frac” a well in Pennsylvania, as that would reveal trade secrets to competitors, they say. A Chesapeake Energy chemical list provided to The Wayne Independent by the Delaware River Basin Commission contains 21 separate chemical entries listed as “proprietary data / trade secret” - rather than stating the chemical. This is a common practice.
Each company also uses different formulas and volumes.
“A well gets contaminated and they test for a suite of contaminates that don’t include” some chemicals because it is unknown, said Bachran. “At this point, the best link to contamination by drilling ... is finding methane from the strata they are working on.”
The Safe Drinking Water Act could require the industry to fully disclose all the chemicals it uses.
“Environmental groups and concerned residents have been trying to get the list of what chemicals ... are being used in the fracturing process,” said Misak, of Clean Water Action. “This is a concern because people are experiencing contamination of their groundwater ... and they have no idea what might be polluting their wells.”
The EPA has yet to honor a freedom of information request from The Wayne Independent to release more information regarding the chemical additives utilized by the industry for drilling.
Overblown
Industry representatives contend that the contamination issue is completely overblown.
As counter-evidence to the contamination claims, a revealing letter was written on June 1 by Joseph J. Lee, chief of DEP’s division of water use planning.
“I have been concerned about press reports stating extensive groundwater pollution and contamination of underground sources of drinking water in Pennsylvania, as a result of hydraulic fracturing to stimulate gas production from ... gas bearing rock formations.
“DEP has not concluded that the activity of hydraulic fracturing of these formations has caused wide-spread groundwater contamination,” wrote Lee. “All investigated cases that have found pollution, which are less then 80 in over 15 years of records, have been primarily related to physical drilling through aquifers, improper design or setting of upper and middle well casings, or operator negligence.”
(A well casing is a steel and concrete structure on the drill point that extends below groundwater sources, designed to prevent contaminates from entering aquifers and currently regulated by the state Oil and Gas Act. The EPA could regulate the construction of well casings nationally, as part of the Safe Drinking Water Act. Of note, Cabot Oil and Gas implemented a “new protocol for casing and cementing new gas wells ... to prevent gas (methane) from migrating,” the DEP announced in a press release after the Dimock incident.)
Thousands of wells have been drilled in Pennsylvania for decades, making the contamination rate compared to the finding in the letter marginal. Numerous reports in other states have linked natural gas drilling to groundwater contamination, although the contamination rate appears to be once again marginal - but present - compared to the number of wells drilled, according to studies and published reports. Of late, methane seems to be the prevailing contaminate - not the chemical additives.
State regulators from North Dakota and Ohio also told the U.S. House Natural Resources committee reviewing the EPA oversight issue that their respective state laws are effective in protecting drinking water from hydraulic fracturing activities, according to reports.
But a former water supply director for New York City, Albert F. Appleton, told the committee: “All that has to happen is to have 2% of the wells that are planned go south and we'll have thousands of incidents,” as quoted in the Oil & Gas Journal, a publication that tracks the industries.
Overall, the industry says the provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act, among others not detailed in this report, will stymie the harvesting of a major domestic energy source and that state laws will protect public health and the environment.
Beyond the costly state regulations, more federal regulations would “force the closure of ... a third of our gas wells,” said an industry coalition, along with significantly shrinking domestic natural gas production and the revenue it provides to state treasuries.
An estimated $100,000 cost would be added to each new well, if the law is passed, they report.
