Wyoming pushed EPA to delay study on fracking: report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The governor of Wyoming pressed the top U.S. environmental regulator to delay its December, 2011 release of a draft study linking fracking for natural gas to contamination of drinking water, a news report said on Thursday.

Governor Matt Mead contacted Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson and persuaded her to delay for about a month releasing the study that found fluids used in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, had likely polluted an aquifer in the small town of Pavillion, the Associated Press report said.

The delay gave state officials time to raise dozens of questions about the draft study and coordinate an "all-out-press" against the EPA in the weeks before the agency released the study on December 8 last year, said the report, which relied on emails obtained from a state records request and an interview with Mead, a drilling supporter.

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NYPIRG joins bipartisan lawmakers asking Cuomo to scrap fracking regs

The New York Public Interest Research Group last week joined a bipartisan group of lawmakers in calling on Gov. Andrew Cuomo to withdraw the Department of Environmental Conservation's revised draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement on hydraulic fracturing, or "hydrofracking."

Hydrofracking, the blasting of a mixture of water, chemicals and sand into the ground to break up rock formations and release natural gas deposits, emerged a contentious issue last summer upon the governor's proposal to lift a state moratorium on the process. Proponents have argued the drilling process would be a job creator, with opponents pointing to the potential for negative environmental impacts from hydrofracking.

The DEC is in the midst of reviewing the more than 60,000 public comments received in regard to the revised draft, which was released last September. 

"Not only is this a dangerous and dirty industrial activity, but the state's review is completely inadequate and fatally flawed," said Brendan Woodruff, NYPIRG hydrofracking campaign organizer. "The state did not conduct an assessment of the potential impact that fracking could have on public health, they have no plan to dispose of the millions of gallons of toxic wastewater and they have failed to address the financial impact this will have on local governments, including damage to roads and increased costs for emergency services."

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We're fracking our way to a warmer and less stable world

It's worrisome but not surprising that the push for unconventional fossil fuels has overshadowed in media coverage and public debate the accelerating global warming that is taking place. It's not too hard to understand why. ExxonMobil and other transnational oil and gas corporations want it that way. They reject the best scientific evidence of global warming as "uncertain" or mount major efforts to discredit the very idea of global warming.

Wikipedia has a 13-page chapter on "Scientific opinion on climate change" in which the principal organizations of scientists from around the world (e.g., Academies of Science, Earth Science, Meteorology and Oceanography) concur with the view that "the Earth's climate system is unequivocally warming and it is more than 90 percent certain that humans are causing it through activities that increase concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels."

So what's the point? Sure, the odds are not good that the best science will prevail over big oil. There's not much time to build more ecologically compatible energy systems than we have. But you keep learning, talking, acting, and know that there are people just like you in communities across the country and the world. Time will tell whether it coalesces into something big enough to effectively challenge the powerful, institutionalized forces in the society and to build sustainable and just societies.

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Explosion rocks natural gas compressor station

SPRINGVILLE TWP. - An explosion at a natural gas compressor station in Susquehanna County on Thursday morning blew a hole in the roof of the complex holding the engines, shaking homes as far as a half-mile away and drawing emergency responders from nearby counties.

The 11 a.m. blast at the Lathrop compressor station off Route 29 sent black and gray clouds billowing from the building for several hours, but the damage was contained to the site and no one was injured, said a spokeswoman for Williams Partners LP, which owns the Lathrop station.

Automated emergency shutdown procedures stopped gas from entering or leaving the compressors, and Williams will do a full investigation of the cause and damage as soon as it is safe to go back into the building, Williams spokeswoman Helen Humphreys said.

"The emergency shutdown equipment did work properly to isolate and minimize the incident," she said. "Emergency procedures were immediately activated. That included notifying local authorities and first responders, and evacuating all personnel."

The Lathrop station pressurizes and dehydrates natural gas from Marcellus Shale wells in the county for transport through interstate pipelines, including the Tennessee and Transco, which bring the gas to market. The station was sold to Williams by Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. as part of a deal announced in 2010 that also included a second compressor station and 75 miles of the natural gas drilling company's gathering pipelines.

Cabot spokesman George Stark said the company was working at its well sites Thursday to make sure they were not sending gas to the Lathrop station. He was unable to provide an estimate of how many wells were influenced by the interruption.

"We're working on rerouting the gas to other, operating compressor stations," he said. "We've got multiple ways we flow our gas."

In a press release Thursday, Cabot referred to the incident as a "flash fire, which extinguished itself immediately" and said it was moving approximately 365 million cubic feet of gas per day through the station before it was shut down.

"The investigation has just begun as to equipment damage, if any, the length of disruption or potential impact," Cabot CEO Dan O. Dinges said in the statement.

Colleen Connolly, a spokeswoman for the Department of Environmental Protection, said regulators were alerted to the explosion at around 11:30 a.m., and inspectors spent the afternoon monitoring air quality around the site after gas escaped from the station.

"The natural gas release valve was quickly shut off," she said. "So far, the levels are coming back acceptable, and there is no danger to the public."

The DEP has permitted seven compressor engines for the site, although it was unclear Thursday how many were running at the time of the fire.

"We're going to begin a full-scale investigation into how this happened," she said, "what was going on up there and the situation with the permits - how many compressors were operating up there and how many they were allowed to operate."

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Dimock, PA Fracking: EPA Water Samples Contained 'Dangerous' Levels Of Methane

When the Environmental Protection Agency announced last week that tests showed the water is safe to drink in Dimock, Penn., a national hot spot for concerns about fracking, it seemed to vindicate the energy industry's insistence that drilling had not caused pollution in the area.

But what the agency didn't say -- at least, not publicly -- is that the water samples contained dangerous quantities of methane gas, a finding that confirmed some of the agency's initial concerns and the complaints raised by Dimock residents since 2009.

The test results also showed the group of wells contained dozens of other contaminants, including low levels of chemicals known to cause cancer and heavy metals that exceed the agency's "trigger level" and could lead to illness if consumed over an extended period of time. The EPA's assurances suggest that the substances detected do not violate specific drinking water standards, but no such standards exist for some of the contaminants and some experts said the agency should have acknowledged that they were detected at all.

"Any suggestion that water from these wells is safe for domestic use would be preliminary or inappropriate," said Ron Bishop, a chemist at the State University of New York's College at Oneonta, who has spoken out about environmental concerns from drilling.

Dimock residents are struggling to reconcile the EPA's public account with the results they have been given in private.

"I'm sitting here looking at the values I have on my sheet -- I'm over the thresholds -- and yet they are telling me my water is drinkable," said Scott Ely, a Dimock resident whose water contains methane at three times the state limit, as well as lithium, a substance that can cause kidney and thyroid disorders. "I'm confused about the whole thing... I'm flabbergasted."

The water in Dimock first became the focus of international attention after residents there alleged in 2009 that natural gas drilling, and fracking, had led to widespread contamination. That April, ProPublica reported that a woman's drinking water well blew up. Pennsylvania officials eventuallydetermined that underground methane gas leaks had been caused by Cabot Oil and Gas, which was drilling wells nearby. Pennsylvania sanctioned Cabot, and for a short time the company provided drinking water to households in the Dimock area.

This January, the EPA announced it would take over the state's investigation, testing the water in more than 60 homes and agreeing to provide drinking water to several of families -- including the Elys -- in the meantime.

Then, last Thursday, the EPA released a brief statement saying that the first 11 samples to come back from the lab "did not show levels of contamination that could present a health concern." The agency noted that some metals, methane, salt and bacteria had been detected, but at low levels that did not exceed federal thresholds. It said that arsenic exceeding federal water standards was detected in two samples.

But Dimock residents say the agency's description didn't jibe with the material in test packets distributed to them, and they voiced concerns about why the EPA had passed judgment before seeing results from nearly 50 homes. Several shared raw data and materials they were given by the EPA with Josh Fox, the director of the Academy Award-nominated documentary "GasLand," who shared them with ProPublica.

EPA press secretary Betsaida Alcantara said the agency was trying to be forthcoming by giving the tests results to Dimock residents and is now considering whether to release more information to the public about the water samples. "We made a commitment to the residents that we would give them the information as soon as we had it," she said. "For the sake of transparency we felt it was the right thing to do."

However preliminary, the data is significant because it is the first EPA research into drilling-related concerned on the east coast, and the agency's first new information since it concluded that there was likely a link between fracking and water contamination in central Wyoming last December. The EPA is currently in the midst of a national investigation into the effects of fracking on groundwater, but that research is separate.

As the agency has elsewhere, the EPA began the testing in Dimock in search of methane and found it.

Methane is not considered poisonous to drink, and therefore is not a health threat in the same way as other pollutants. But the gas can collect in confined spaces and cause deadly explosions, or smother people if they breathe too much of it. Four of the five residential water results obtained by ProPublica show methane levels exceeding Pennsylvania standards; one as high as seven times the threshold and nearly twice the EPA's less stringent standard.

The methane detections were accompanied by ethane, another type of natural gas that experts say often signifies the methane came from deeply buried gas deposits similar to those being drilled for energy and not from natural sources near the surface.

Among the other substances detected at low levels in Dimock's water are a suite of chemicals known to come from some sort of hydrocarbon substance, such as diesel fuel or roofing tar. They include anthracene, fluoranthene, pyrene and benzo(a)pyrene -- all substances described by a branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as cancer-causing even in very small amounts. Chromium, aluminum, lead and other metals were also detected, as were chlorides, salts, bromium and strontium, minerals that can occur naturally but are often associated with natural gas drilling.

It is unclear whether these contaminants have any connection to drilling activities near Dimock. The agency says it plans further testing and research.

Many of the compounds detected have not been evaluated for exposure risk by federal scientists or do not have an exposure limit assigned to them, making it difficult to know whether they present a risk to human health.

Inconsistencies in the EPA's sampling results also are raising concerns. EPA documents, for example, list two different thresholds for the detection of bromide, a naturally occurring substance sometimes used in drilling fluids, opening up the possibility that bromide may have been detected, but not reported, in some tests.

"The threshold that it is safe, that shouldn't be changing," said Susan Riha, director of the New York State Water Resources Group and a professor of earth sciences at Cornell University. "For some reason ... one was twice as sensitive as the other one."

The EPA did not respond to questions about the detection limits, or any other technical inquiries about the test data.

A spokesman for Cabot declined to comment on the water test results or their significance, saying that he had not yet seen the data.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/20/dimock-pa-fracking-epa-water_n_1368148.html?ref=green

Patriot slams limits in new EPA permit

The new permit signed by OEPA Director Scott Nally takes effect April 1 and will halt Warren’s ability to accept treated fracking wastewater from Patriot or any other entity.

Patriot can still accept fracking wastewater from Utica and Marcellus shale exploration but has to find a different method of disposal or reuse, such as recycling or injection-well disposal, said Mike Settles, OEPA spokesman.

Separately, OEPA granted Patriot a permit to accept and treat new wastewater sources from other industries, but Blocksom considered it “a smokescreen” because 98 percent of Patriot’s business is treating fracking wastewater.

Patriot can treat up to 100,000 gallons of fluid per day.

Warren’s new permit, which will replace one that expired at the end of January, comes in the middle of a legal battle involving OEPA, Patriot, Warren and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

The state has said it unlawfully issued permits regarding Patriot’s operations, but the Environmental Review Appeals Commission recently confirmed the legality of the permits.

Legal proceedings, including a hearing in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court, scheduled for Wednesday, are still pending.

But Settles said the entity felt it was time to issue a new permit.

“The appeals of [Patriot’s] original permit are still pending,” he told The Vindicator on Monday. “That could take some time

http://www.vindy.com/news/2012/mar/20/patriot-slams-limits-in-new-epa-permit/

Fracking and the company that's exploring the depths of Fermanagh

They might have struck oil off the coast of County Cork, but one global resources company is going full steam ahead in a bid to extract up to 50 years worth of natural gas from Co Fermanagh.

Earlier this year it was announced that Tamboran Resources had identified a huge shale gas field near the border with Co Leitrim last year. The Australian company is eyeing a £6bn investment which it says could create 600 full-time direct jobs and more than 2,400 indirect posts.

Tamboran claims that the projected production of up to 2.2trn cubic feet of shale gas would remove Northern Ireland's dependency on imported gas and the excess gas supply at peak production would enable Northern Ireland to become a significant net exporter of natural gas to other countries.

The company also said that a community investment fund for Co Fermanagh would lead to additional benefits in excess of £2m per year if the proposed fracking project starts production in 2015.

Dr Tony Bazley, a director of Tamboran locally, said that none of the structures used to drill or extract the gas will be above three metres off the ground and that the visual impact would be minimal. He has also pledged that no chemicals will be used in the process.

"If and when the complex is completed it should look like a large farm with a shed, hopefully a traditional Fermanagh barn and a car park, it should have no impact on farming or tourism, and indeed I would hope that both farming and tourism will benefit from shale gas extraction," he said.

"US President Barack Obama said fracking could be a 'game changer' for the US economy and we hope to see similar benefits in Northern Ireland."

A number of studies as to the pros and cons of fracking are already in circulation. Recently the University of Texas Energy Institute found many problems attributed to hydraulic fracturing are common to all oil and gas drilling systems.

A study said that many reports of contamination could be traced to above-ground spills or mishandling of wastewater rather than the fracking technique itself. The Texas team said that gas found in water wells within some shale drilling areas could be traced to natural sources, and was probably present before fracking operations began.

Surface spills of fracturing fluids posed greater risks to groundwater sources than the actual process of fracking, said the researchers.

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