From fracking-heavy region, women bring warnings

On Saturday, two dairy farmers from Pennsylvania shared some real-life horror stories from their experience with natural gas “fracking,” during a presentation in Athens.

Some of the roughly 50 people who came to hear Carol French and Carolyn Knapp, however, said they’re hopeful that a recent state geologist’s report, indicating that Athens County may lie outside the part of the Utica shale that’s expected to most oil and gas development, means this county won’t have to undergo a lot of fracking.

“It’s a tremendous relief; I think it’s a reprieve,” said Nancy Pierce of Guysville.

Natalie Kruse, an Ohio University environmental studies professor, said she was not surprised by the report’s findings.

“It’s nothing new,” Kruse suggested. “We’ve always known that we were less mature.” (The “maturity” of organic carbon intermixed with shale – basically its age, organic composition and how much pressure it’s undergone – largely determines its prospective value.)

Travis Milliken of Athens said he was “pleased” to read about the report, and added that he’s been leery from the beginning about the glowing claims of what a “fracking” boom will do for Athens County and the United States.

“I think this quest for ‘energy independence’ is driven by a lust for money, at the expense of many, many things,” he said. “

Knapp and French, who spoke at OU’s Morton Hall, both signed leases with energy companies to have their land in Bradford County, Pa., drilled for gas using the horizontal hydraulic fracturing method to extract the resource from underground shale beds. Both suggested that signing was a bad decision for them, and warned locals of things they need to think about before leasing.

French said she has gotten out of her lease; Knapp has not. The women are co-founders of the Pennsylvania Landowner Group for Awareness and Solutions in Bradford County.

Bradford County, located in northeast Pennsylvania near the New York State line, has seen substantial natural gas development from the Marcellus shale, and is a short distance from areas featured in the ground-breaking documentary “Gasland.”

Knapp advised people who are thinking about leasing to hold out for the very best terms they can get, and to make sure the lease gives ironclad protections to their interests.

“Don’t let a lawyer tell you, ‘I don’t think the gas company will give you that,’” she said. “Stick to your guns, because it’s of value to you.”

Features worth demanding in a lease, she suggested, include a “hold harmless” clause that says the landowner does not share liability if a drilling worker is injured or killed on the job; specific language saying which shale formation is to be drilled; linkage of royalty payments to the highest level of sales price for the oil or gas; limits on how many times a year production units can be moved; individual lease agreements for every platted parcel on the property; and exemption for the landowner from paying production costs, such as road construction, out of royalties.

French also advised landowners to not spend the money from drilling leases immediately, but to hold on to some to cover unforeseen expenses that may arise in connection with drilling.

“You want to make sure you have a reserve,” she recommended.

The women also strongly recommended that landowners collect extensive, detailed documentation on the state of their property and water supplies, using an independent testing service, before any drilling takes place. French displayed a testing report in a thick three-ring binder, which she said cost her $750 to have prepared.

She added that property owners should make sure that the testing company includes details about its quality-control specifications in the report, because if these are absent, a drilling company can later suggest the results are unreliable.

Knapp said that when she signed a lease in 2006, she bought into the claims that drilling would create an economic boom and foster U.S. energy independence. “I really believed that was going to be good for the country,” she recalled.

Since then, however, Knapp said, she’s experienced multiple negative impacts, including water contamination and damage to her herd of dairy cattle.

After the drilling started, she alleged, in March 2011 her tap water turned ivory-white and “jello-like.” Her adult daughter who had been drinking the water in the home, she said, ended up in the hospital with conditions including an enlarged spleen and liver, which she believes were caused by chemicals contaminating the water.

The women also recounted “traffic, traffic, and more traffic” stemming from oil-and-gas operations in their area, which they said has badly hurt some local small businesses; huge decreases in property values; and a plethora of billboards, advertising everything from lawyers to drill bits to leasing offers.

“It’s like, ‘Got milk?’” she joked. “Got land?”

As a farmer, Knapp warned farmers in the audience that they should be very concerned about potential impacts to their crops and animals.

Knapp noted that one of the touted benefits of fracking is that it will eliminate America’s dependence on imported oil. But, she asked – earning the biggest applause of the afternoon – “Are you willing to be dependent on foreign food? Think about it.”

Oil and gas industry experts, however, claim that in nearly every case of suspected water contamination from hydraulic fracturing, either other factors are at fault, or else the water problems resulted from poor waste-water transport and disposal, or poor drilling techniques at the top. They argue strongly that the shale beds where the fracking takes place are separated from drinking water aquifers by thousands of feet of rock.

http://www.athensnews.com/ohio/article-36481-from-fracking-heavy-region-women-bring-warnings.html