Towns Fight States on Drilling

States hoping to capitalize on their energy booms are running into resistance from local officials who want to be able to police the noise and industrialization that accompany oil-and-gas drilling.

The municipalities are fighting laws that bar them from regulating drilling, enacted by state lawmakers who feared towns would stunt job-creation and a stream of tax revenue.

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Cabot Oil & Gas workers develop a fracking site in South Montrose, Pa.

Last Thursday, seven towns collectively sued Pennsylvania in state court to overturn a law passed in February that prevents them from using their zoning authority to regulate oil-and-gas development. The day before, an Ohio state senator introduced legislation to grant local officials more control over where companies can drill.

Also late last week, an energy company and a landowner appealed rulings in New York state courts that towns can use their zoning power to ban gas-drilling, despite a state law that prevents them from regulating the industry. The state has temporarily blocked companies from drilling in the Marcellus Shale while regulators weigh the environmental impact.

The balance between local land-use regulation and energy development has been hard to strike in Pennsylvania, which is carved up into more than 1,000 townships, some of which worry about how drilling would affect traffic, property values and public health.

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Fracking Companies Make Top Bids For Water Alongside Colorado Farmers

While there has always been competition for water in Colorado, today's contenders no longer just include farmers, but the oil and gas industry too.

The Denver Post reports that an auction hosted by the Northern Water Conservancy District for unallocated water diverted from the Colorado River Basin saw top bids from hydraulic fracturing companies.

Hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" is a process of extracting gas from the earth's shale rock layers using first vertical and then horizontal drilling methods, so that the pipe makes a deep "L" shape underground. Through that pipe, a mixture of water, sand and chemicals (also known as fracking fluid) is pumped down into the shale to break up the rock and extract natural gas.

A concern raised by Gary Wockner, director of the Save the Poudre Coalition, is that water first used for agriculture can stay in the hydrological cycle longer, but water contaminated by fracking is generally removed completely.

"Any transfer of water from rivers and farms to drilling and fracking will negatively impact Colorado's environment and wildlife," Wockner said.

Last month Congresswoman Diana DeGette and Congressman Jared Polis asked President Obama to support stronger environmental and public health standards.

DeGette stated in a press release:

In Colorado, our public lands are central to our recreation economy, and I couldn’t be more supportive of President Obama and Secretary Salazar’s move to require drilling chemical disclosure on public lands. However, with drilling in Colorado increasingly happening next to suburban homes and schools, it’s essential to disclose fracking chemicals anywhere they’re used in order to protect the public’s health in populated areas where those chemicals are most likely to affect our air, water and health.

In 2010, Wyoming became the first state to require that energy companies disclose chemicals injected into the ground, though not chemicals identified as trade secret.Environmental groups are currently seeking to force a more full requirement of disclosure in state court.

(A website in support of the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act (FRAC) features an interactive walk-through of the dangers and controversy surrounding fracking. The bill was introduced to Congress in 2009 but did not pass.)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/02/fracking-bidders_n_1398786.html

To Protect Americans' Health, Oppose Expanded Fracking Until Stronger Safeguards Are in Place

The Department of the Interior issued more than 2,000 violations to oil and gas companies drilling on public lands between 1998 and 2011 -- some for extremely dangerous actions like failing to install blowout preventers or building unsafe wells. And yet only 6 percent of violators had to pay a fine, and all together, those fines totaled just $273,875.

NRDC opposes expanded fracking until more effective safeguards are put in place.

The American people want stronger protections. A recent survey conducted by a Bloomberg News National Poll found that 65 percent of people said we need more regulations for fracking, while only 18 percent said there should be less regulation.

The support cuts across region and political affiliation. Kelly Gant, a mother from Bartonville, Texas, put it this way: "I'm not an activist, an alarmist, a Democrat, environmentalist or anything like that. I'm just a person who isn't able to manage the health of my family because of all this drilling."

Families like Kelly Gant's shouldn't have to suffer because energy companies have not been held accountable. While no energy development can be completely safe, drilling and fracking can be made safer than current operations. But this is only possible if the state and federal governments adopt and enforce much stronger laws and standards.

NRDC supports establishing a fully effective system of safeguards for hydraulic fracturing to protect our health and environment and is committed to working with the federal government, states, communities and industry to put these safeguards into place right away.

These safeguards include:

1. Putting the most sensitive lands, including critical watersheds, completely off limits to fracking;

2. Not allowing leaky systems by setting clean air standards that ensure methane leaks are well under one percent of production to reduce global warming pollution, and requiring green completions and other techniques to reduce air pollution;

3. Mandating sound well drilling and construction standards by requiring the strongest well siting, casing and cementing and other drilling best practices;

4. Protecting the landscape, air, and water from pollution by closing Clean Air, Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water loopholes, reducing toxic waste, and holding toxic oil and gas waste to the same standards as other types of hazardous waste, funding robust inspection and enforcement programs, and disclosing fully all chemicals;

5. Using gas to replace dirtier fossil fuels like coal by prioritizing renewables and efficiency, implementing recently established mercury, sulfur and other clean air standards, and setting strong power plant carbon pollution standards; and

6. Allowing communities to protect themselves and their future by restricting fracking through comprehensive zoning and planning.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frances-beinecke/to-protect-americans-heal_b_1397555.html?ref=green

Chardon rally protests fracking

Concerned community members gathered in Chardon on Saturday afternoon to protest hydraulic fracturing in Geauga County and Northeast Ohio.

To help raise awareness of the alleged dangers of the practice in hopes of getting legislation passed to ban it, about 50 people marched around Chardon square with signs and chanted slogans like "O-H-I-O, hydro-fracking's got to go."



Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a process that sends a high-pressure mix of water, sand and chemicals underground to fracture rock and release gas and oil trapped under the earth.

The process has come under criticism, with some saying the methods contaminate an area's water and can even cause earthquakes.

The crowd eventually gathered around the gazebo at the center of the square and heard from various speakers.

Kathy Hanratty with the Network for Oil and Gas Accountability and Protection addressed protecting our natural resources.

"As water is the most precious and threatened resource on Earth, we can't allow a billion-dollar industry to damage our water," Hanratty said.

Hanratty also said the benefits of fracking do not outweigh the costs of damaging the environment.

"Of course we will make some profit in the area, but it is only crumbs compared to what the oil and gas industry will make," she said. "Does this profit, or any profit, really cover the loss of our water? Does this cover the loss of our air?" Continued...

http://news-herald.com/articles/2012/04/01/news/nh5307323.txt

Exclusive: Investors press U.S. shale oil drillers to control flaring

Reuters) - Investors representing $500 billion in assets are pushing energy companies in the shale oil rush in North Dakota and other states to disclose the amount of natural gas they burn - a practice they see as a wasteful financial risk.

"We want to encourage companies to articulate plans for resolving this issue while shale oil production is still in its relative infancy," said Karina Litvack, the head of governance and sustainable investment at F&C Asset Management.

Litvack is one of 36 investors who sent a letter to 21 oil drillers including Continental Resources Inc (CLR.N), Exxon Mobil (XOM.N), and Chesapeake Energy Corp (CHK.N) asking them to disclose the amount of natural gas they are burning off, or flaring, at shale oil operations in North Dakota, Texas, Colorado and Ohio.

While shale oil drilling has helped reverse a decades old decline in U.S. crude output, the lightening pace of new development may also have an environmental dark side. The investors and others say emissions from flaring and venting natural gas cause air problems and increase global warming.

The investors want the companies to disclose by May 1 how much flaring they are doing and to meet with them to plan ways to tackle the problem.

The practice "poses significant risks for the companies involved, and for the industry at large, ultimately threatening the industry's license to operate," they wrote in a letter to the companies.

Energy companies flare natural gas they are unable to capture and sell as they produce shale oil which is much more valuable. The practice, which had been in decline in the traditional oil business, is now soaring at shale oil formations in North Dakota and Texas where the infrastructure is not keeping up with the boom.

Techniques including hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, have given drillers in those states access to vast new deposits of shale oil. But some states, many of which are new to drilling, do not have strong regulatory systems in place.

One third of the gas North Dakota produces is flared. The amount flared per day by last July had increased 1,200 percent since 2004, when development of the Bakken shale formation began, according to the state's government.

The investors estimate flared gas in North Dakota produced 2 million tons of carbon dioxide last year, equal to 384,000 extra cars on the road. And even with low natural gas prices, the state lost about $110 million in revenue last year from the flaring, they say.

Continental, whose CEO Harold Hamm is Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's top energy advisor, Exxon, and Chesapeake would not comment on the letter.

As the shale gas fracking boom in Pennsylvania and Texas helps sink natural gas prices to 10-year lows, drillers are hesitant to invest in pipelines that would capture the gas.

"Such a short sited approach raises significant concerns," said Steven Heim, a managing director at Boston Common Asset Management and one of the investors who sent the letter.

Persuading companies to build natural gas pipelines at the Bakken formation in North Dakota is no easy task as oil output there outpaces the building of even crude pipelines and much of the petroleum has to be shipped in trucks.

But some companies have been responsible, he said. EOG Resources Inc, (EOG.N), for example, put in some pipelines before they started fracking for shale oil.

(Reporting By Timothy Gardner; Editing by Sugita Katyal)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/29/us-usa-fracking-investors-idUSBRE82S03120120329

Western Pennsylvania municipalities file suit against state over new gas laws

Seven municipalities in three counties are suing the state and several state agencies in the first challenge to new oil and gas laws, according to a filing this afternoon in Commonwealth Court in Harrisburg.

South Fayette, Peters, Cecil, Mt. Pleasant and Robinson, Washington County, are joined by two municipalities from Bucks County in challenging the state's new restrictions on local land-use laws for drilling.

The municipalities — mostly growing suburbs — want to retain their rights to say where drilling can happen in their towns and under what circumstances, powers affirmed by the courts before state lawmakers voted in February to restrict those powers.

State lawmakers do not have the right to supersede the state's Municipal Planning Code, the state constitution's tool for authorizing local property rules, they claim in the suit. Several legal experts have been skeptical of that claim and the chance the suit has at overturning the new laws.

"Act 13's broad brush approach and failure to account for the health, safety, and welfare of citizens, the value of properties, adequate open spaces, traffic, congestion, the preservation of the character of residential neighborhoods and beneficial and compatible land uses, results in an improper use of the Commonwealth's police power and is therefore unconstitutional," the lawsuit states.

"By crafting a single set of statewide zoning rules applicable to oil and gas drilling throughout the Commonwealth, the Pennsylvania General Assembly provided much sought-after predictability for the oil and gas development industry.

"However, it did so at the expense of the predictability afforded to Petitioners and the citizens of Pennsylvania whose health, safety and welfare, community development objectives, zoning districts and concerns regarding property values were pushed aside to elevate the interests of out-of-state oil and gas companies and the owners of hydrocarbons underlying each property, who are frequently not the surface owners," according to the lawsuit, a copy of which the Tribune-Review obtained from lawyers in the case.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/breaking/s_788949.html

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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