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Study finds gas -- but no trace of fracking chemicals -- in drinking water near drilling
8:30 PM, May. 9, 2011
Written by
Dina Cappiello
Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- New research is providing some of the first scientific evidence that a controversial gas drilling technique can contaminate drinking water.

The study published Monday found potentially dangerous concentrations of methane gas in water from wells near drilling sites in northeastern Pennsylvania, although not in central New York, where gas drilling is less extensive.

In an unexpected finding, the team of Duke University scientists did not find any trace of the chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing process in 68 wells tested in Pennsylvania and Otsego County in central New York.

In hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, water, sand and chemicals are injected underground to crack the rock and get natural gas to flow into a well. Critics of the technique have worried more about the chemicals since companies have refused to make public the proprietary blends used, and some of the ingredients could be toxic.

On average, water from wells located less than a mile from drilling sites had 17 times more methane than water tested from wells farther away, according to the study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Methane is not known to be toxic, but in high concentrations it can be explosive and cause unconsciousness and even death, since it displaces oxygen needed to breathe.

Of the 60 wells tested for methane gas, 14 had levels of methane within or above a hazard range set by the Department of Interior for gas seeping from coal mines, all but one of them near a gas well. In nine wells, concentrations were so high that the government would recommend immediate action to reduce the methane level.

Methane is released naturally by bacteria as they break down organic matter. The researchers' analysis shows that the type of methane in the wells with the highest concentrations is coming from deep in the earth, the same place tapped by companies in search of natural gas.

In the most severe case, a homeowner in Bradford County, Pennsylvania, who leased her property to a gas company, has so much methane coming out of her tap she can light her water on fire. A natural gas well is 800 feet (245 meters) from her house.

"Not every homeowner within a kilometer (of a drilling site) will have high methane concentrations," said Stephen Osborn, a postdoctoral associate at Duke University's Center on Global Change. "If you are a homeowner within a kilometer, and our study shows this, I would be a little bit concerned."

What the study does not say is how the methane is getting into drinking water sources, and what part of the drilling is potentially involved. While wells closer to drilling sites had more methane, most of the wells in the study -- 85 percent -- had some.

Industry groups faulted the research on Monday on the ground that it did not show that fracking itself was behind the methane contamination, nor did the researchers conduct before-and-after tests to prove the contamination occurred after drilling. The authors themselves suspect that the methane is likely flowing up the sides of the gas well rather than down pathways created by hydraulic fracturing.

"The authors admit they have no baseline data at all, which makes it impossible to characterize the state of those water wells prior to recent development," said Chris Tucker, a spokesman for Energy in Depth, a national coalition of independent gas producers.

The industry also was critical of the paper's editor, William H. Schlesinger, who selected the study's outside reviewers. Schlesinger, a biogeochemist and president of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y., has supported moratoriums in New York on hydraulic fracturing permits until its effects are completely understood.

Gas drilling has expanded in Pennsylvania and other states where shale formations are thought to hold lots of natural gas, a clean-burning energy source. To get it, companies need to fracture the rock.

As the technique has proliferated, so too have worries among homeowners, and local, state and federal governments about its potential toll on underground drinking water sources which are unregulated and untested. Two federal agencies have launched studies, and the state of Pennsylvania -- where numerous homeowners are suing drilling companies over water contamination -- views methane as among the most serious risks of gas drilling.

In that state, an investigation into an explosion and fire at a house in December, and another at a home in February, is looking at natural gas drilling as the culprit. And a natural gas drilling company last year agreed to pay $4.1 million to 19 homeowners whose water was contaminated by methane gas, even though the company denies causing the pollution.

http://www.theithacajournal.com/article ... |FRONTPAGE
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It's important to remember that gas migrates much more quickly through an aquifer than a contaminant that's dissolved in groundwater. The fact that fracking amendments haven't reached homeowner wells yet may not be conclusive. It may just be a matter of time. Methane can migrate upwards, which is much less likely than for the dissolved contaminants. However, the fact that a relatively high percentage - almost a quarter - of homeowner wells studied have methane in them is very concerning.

I haven't made up my mind on this, largely because I don't know what information to trust.
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Gas-drilling advocates present their case in Albany
7:37 PM, May. 11, 2011
Written by
Jon Campbell

ALBANY -- After groups opposing hydraulic fracturing swarmed Albany three times in the past two months, the natural gas industry got its day at the Capitol on Wednesday.

About 50 members of industry and other pro-gas groups met with lawmakers on the Legislature's environmental conservation committees, urging them to stand back and let the state Department of Environmental Conservation complete its review of permitting guidelines for hydrofracking, the technique in which chemical-laced water is injected deep into tight shale formations to release gas.

Dozens of bills that deal with the gas industry have been introduced by the Legislature this year and last, from legislation concerning liability issues to a bill introduced by Sen. Anthony Avella, D-Queens, that would ban hydrofracking altogether.

"The DEC is staffed by the engineers and scientists who have the expertise to navigate this issue and put in place the protections that are needed," said John Conrad, president of Poughkeepsie-based Conrad Geoscience Corporation.

"So we would ask New Yorkers and the Legislature to allow the DEC to put in place procedures that are protective of the environment but also allows New York to realize the economic stimulus of Marcellus Shale development."

The Independent Oil & Gas Association of New York, a trade group representing oil and gas producers, organized Wednesday's lobbying effort. The day was free of any sort of public rally, instead focusing on private meetings with officials.

Drilling in the Marcellus Shale, which sits about a mile beneath the Southern Tier and parts of the Hudson Valley, has been held off since July 2008, when the DEC launched its review.

"This is the only industry that I can think of that is ready to put jobs and money into the economy of New York state, which is badly needed," said Dave Palmerton, owner of The Palmerton Group, a small environmental-consulting firm that contracts with companies involved in natural-gas development. "I could double or triple the size of my company if natural gas were being developed here."

The groups met with a number of lawmakers, including Sen. Mark Grisanti, R-Buffalo, who chairs the Senate's Environmental Conservation Committee. They also met with staff members from the office of Assemblyman Robert Sweeney, D-Suffolk County, who heads the Assembly's environmental panel.

Environmentalists have been critical of hydrofracking, saying that it could be harmful to land, air and groundwater. They point to a number of spills and accidents that have occurred in Pennsylvania, where drilling in the Marcellus is permitted.

Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton, D-Ithaca, who has been one of the industry's toughest critics in the Legislature, met with gas-company representatives and landowners Wednesday. She has asked the DEC to immediately pause its review, and re-open a 30-day public comment period on the scope of its Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement, an 800-page document that will guide the hydrofracking permit process.

The DEC has said a second draft of the permitting document will be released at some point this summer, with at least a 30-day comment period to follow.

"I told them that I want the DEC to do its work, but I want the DEC to do a more thorough job than I believe is being done right now," Lifton said. "It's been my position that we're going to keep letting the DEC do its work."

William Cooke, director of government relations for Citizens Campaign for the Environment, dismissed the industry's plea to legislators, saying now is the right time for lawmakers to intervene.

"Anybody who understands DEC's current staffing and funding levels has to admit that DEC is not in the position to adequately regulate or oversee this industry," Cooke said.

When asked Wednesday about the industry's frustration with the state's moratorium, Gov. Andrew Cuomo stressed patience.

"Don't be frustrated," Cuomo said. "Let's get the facts. Let's get the report, and then we'll make a decision."

Conrad said the state is missing out on a badly needed financial windfall.

"The industry has never objected to this kind of in-depth environmental review," Conrad said. "But I will tell you that industry is growing more frustrated and more impatient, because we feel that opportunity is lost each and every day that the DEC is unable to issue drilling permits."

http://www.theithacajournal.com/article ... |FRONTPAGE
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is Cuomo easy on the environment? I'm not familiar with his policies on it or even his father's
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I honestly don't know. I guess we'll see!
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Cuomo is tight with one of the Koch brothers - David Koch - who made their fortune in oil and mining and whose conservative, limited government philosophy is showing up in Cuomo's policies towards teacher and state worker unions, education funding and property tax caps. They are big funders of the property tax cap and eliminate tenure advertisements we've been seeing. I have real concerns with their continued influence in the gas drilling debate. If Cuomo allows regulated hydrofracking with no increase in DEC staff, this will amount to unregulated drilling, and the horror stories we've heard from Pennsylvania will come to New York.
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The Fight Over Fracking: Josh Fox vs. Big Gas
The Oscar-nominated filmmaker exposed the dirty secrets of gas drilling. Then the industry decided to play rough.


One afternoon in early April, Josh Fox sits in a café near his Brooklyn home and unfurls a peculiar map of the United States. Featuring a series of red overlapping blobs stretching from Colorado to New York, it resembles one of those Cold War maps depicting the blast radii of Soviet missiles. But it’s decades more current than that. With a sweeping hand gesture, Fox explains that the red blobs mark nearly two dozen vast stores of natural gas that energy firms seek to open for drilling in the near future.

As he’s done nearly every day in the 15 months since premiering his documentary Gasland at Sundance, the 39-year-old filmmaker describes his map as a visual recipe for environmental apocalypse.

“Drilling the red areas means the annihilation of the American Dream,” says Fox, who minus his thick-black frames is a dead ringer for a young Lenny Bruce. “We can stop them from turning the country into an archipelago of unlivable toxic industrial zones, but the Gulf Spill reminds us you never know how much time is on the clock.”

Indeed you don’t. Two weeks later, on the eve of the first anniversary of BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster, a well operated by Chesapeake Energy, the country’s second-biggest gas producer, malfunctioned in the rural northeastern Pennsylvania township of Leroy. Tens of thousands of gallons of toxic drilling waste flowed into the local environment, threatening fishing streams and forcing the evacuation of nearby residents. The spill dramatically illustrated the downside of the controversial technology described in Fox’s Oscar-nominated film: hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” the process by which raw natural gas is extracted from shale rock sediment and brought to surface.

In essence, fracking involves shooting large volumes of water and sand laced with dozens of exotic toxins at extremely high pressure into the shale thousands of feet beneath the surface. This releases the raw gas for retrieval and refining. But the toxic waste remains a problem both above and below ground. Much of it is recovered and stored in what are often unguarded, open-air chemical sludge pools near the drilling site. The rest of the wastewater, sometimes up to half, remains underground, where it can contaminate nearby water tables and seep into the environment in ways that are still not completely understood. “We know there are significant risks associated with ... the pollutants involved in fracking,” says Anthony Ingraffea, a rock-fracture mechanics expert at Cornell University. “These drilling techniques result in amounts of toxic matter so large – in solid, gas, and liquid states – that, in effect, everybody is ‘downstream.’ You can’t get far enough away.”

When speaking before audiences, Fox often employs his map to highlight the risks of secondary contamination. “When you include fracking’s effect on local water tables, you can color in much of the rest of the country red,” says Fox. “This includes some of our biggest cities.”

As research deepens our understanding of fracking’s environmental impacts, the incidents continue to pile up. Most of these fracking spills do not make headlines. An investigation conducted last year by Scripps Howard found that in Ohio alone, gas companies have in the last decade been charged with nearly 2,000 violations resulting in pollution and contamination of the local environment. Similar numbers could soon be reported across Fox’s gas map of the United States, where 34 states are now being targeted for drilling.

Until Gasland, few Americans had heard of fracking. Unless you lived in one of the hundreds of rural communities affected – places like Wetzel County, West Virginia and Leroy, Pennsylvania, all lightly populated and far from the eye of media scrutiny – your image of natural gas was likely painted by the industry’s aggressive, ubiquitous, and well-funded “Clean Gas” p.r. campaign, which uses sun-dappled images of pristine nature and laughing children to portray gas as the happy, lifesaving fuel of a brave new world – so domestically abundant and environmentally friendly you just want to throw it a ticker-tape parade, if not tickle its tummy. The campaign successfully created the perception, even among the otherwise environmentally savvy, that gas is a fossil fuel without the notorious downsides of other fossil fuels.

Fox himself knew nothing about fracking when an energy firm offered him $100,000 to drill on his family’s land in rural Milanville, Pennsylvania, a couple hours’ drive east of the recent Leroy spill. Before accepting, he looked into the experiences of others that had accepted industry offers to drill their land around the country. What he found made a dark mockery of the company’s claims. Soon he was on the cross-country investigative odyssey documented in Gasland, which did for fracking what Rachel Carlson’s Silent Spring did for pesticides. Upon its nomination for an Oscar, a broad coalition of environmental groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, issued a rare joint statement praising Fox for having “catapulted … hydraulic fracturing into the national conversation.”

“Josh created a people’s history of gas drilling,” says the actor Mark Ruffalo, who lives in western New York state across the Delaware River from a Pennsylvania drilling site and was already active on the issue when he met Fox at Gasland’s Sundance premiere. “He captured the human toll in a way that gives voice to people who didn’t have one.”

Rudimentary fracking technology has been around since the 1940s, but its use was rare until the last decade, when breakthroughs made its widespread application possible. Under the Bush administration, the quantity of gas procured by fracking rose from one percent to nearly a quarter of national production. Key to this growth was a seal of approval from Bush’s EPA – a seal now judged by scientists and federal regulators as premature. The growth of fracking was given further impetus by a provision in the 2005 Energy Act, known as the “Halliburton Loophole,” which exempted gas drilling from EPA enforcement of the Safe Drinking Water Act. As a result, gas companies are not required to report the chemicals they injected into underground gas veins across the country. (In November 2010, a Democratic Congress asked the EPA to review the Bush policy, and most firms have since agreed to voluntarily list the chemicals used. It’s worth noting that reporting them does not render them less toxic.)

Since releasing Gasland, Fox, a veteran theater company director, has spent a good deal of his time in Washington, D.C., where he often visits, sometimes with Ruffalo in tow, lobbying Congress and federal agencies. “The regulators at the EPA and Justice Departments are dying to do their jobs – it’s the lawmakers who are the problem,” says Fox. “Obama’s people are not listening. We led a letter campaign in which thousands of people wrote the president expressing concern over drilling in their communities. The White House sent back a form letter about the importance of national parks. We were like, ‘Did they send us the wrong letter?’”

In early May, energy secretary Steven Chu announced the creation of a panel tasked with studying the environmental impacts of fracking and coming up with recommend guidelines for state and federal regulators. The panel of seven, which has six months to issue its report, is led by former CIA chief John Deutch, currently director of Cheniere Energy, a Houston-based firm and a major player in the development of liquefied natural gas. (The company’s slogan is, “North America’s LNG Gateway.”)

Fox is trying to keep an open mind about the White House initiative, but does not find the line-up encouraging.

Read the rest here: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/ne ... 517?page=3
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