The Facts Behind EPA’s Dimock Two Step
Set aside all the stage props, backdrops and inflatable scenery deployed as part of the continuing saga known as Dimock, and you’re left with a pretty basic question – albeit one to which very few outside media have gone out of their way to find a legitimate, science-based answer. Quite simply: Is the water up there safe?
In Dec., EPA says water’s safe; in Jan, with no new data, it says it’s not – EID lays out what’s known and what’s not
Set aside all the stage props, backdrops and inflatable scenery deployed as part of the continuing saga known as Dimock, and you’re left with a pretty basic question – albeit one to which very few outside media have gone out of their way to find a legitimate, science-based answer. Quite simply: Is the water up there safe?
On Dec. 2, 2011, EPA declared that it was, sending an email to several Dimock residents indicating that the data it had reviewed from state-certified laboratories and the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) “does not indicate that the well water presents an immediate health threat.” On Jan. 19, despite having no new data, EPA reversed its position, sending a letter to the agency’s hazardous site cleanup division demanding “immediate action” to protect public health and safety.
Predictably, those opposed to the development of affordable, clean-burning natural gas were quick to applaud the news — with ProPublica even declaring in a 38-point headline that EPA’s change of heart constituted “evidence of fracking contamination,” even though EPA never actually said that (and couldn’t have, since it gathered no data) and state experts consistently having shown it to be false. So once again, amidst all the pomp, circumstance and fanfare, we’re left with a couple questions: For starters, what do the data actually indicate is in the water? And second: Is there actually any evidence suggesting that any of it got there as a result of natural gas development?
In an effort to answer the first question, EPA released a series of memos and letters last week – the list is available here — laying out in specific terms what was found in wells tested by DEP on and near Carter Rd. But sift through the dozen or so documents posted on the website, and eventually you stumble across two memos of significantly greater value than the rest. The first is a memo written by technician Donna Ioven to Richard Fetzer, EPA’s “on-scene coordinator” in Dimock. The second is a 10-page letter from Mr. Fetzer to his bosses at EPA.
As you can see by clicking here, the Ioven memo is short, sweet and to the point: not even two pages in length, and almost all of it focused on identifying which specific components were found in which specific residential water wells. Of the eight wells for which DEP collected data, Ms. Ioven writes that four of them contained compounds of potential concern: Resident 4 had high levels of sodium and manganese; same for Resident 6; Resident 7 had manganese; and Resident 8, arsenic. These were the four households selected by EPA for water deliveries.
The Ioven memo is supposed to serve as the factual, technical basis for Mr. Fetzer’s letter to EPA’s Dennis Carney – capturing and reporting what is known and what isn’t, and passing that information up the food-chain for further consideration. But here’s the problem: Fetzer’s letter doesn’t look anything like Ioven’s memo. The latter, as mentioned, is a simple recitation of facts and figures. The former, unfortunately, reads more like a brief filed by a plaintiff’s attorney – attempting to defend EPA’s decision to intervene by going out of its way to link each of the components found in wells to drilling activity (and on several occasions, looking quite silly doing it).
Take, for instance, Mr. Fetzer’s explanation for how arsenic may have found its way into one private well: suggesting in his letter it could have gotten there from “the use and effects of drilling fluids.” But spend about 10 seconds researching the issue online, and you find that arsenic isn’t even used as a component of drilling and/or completing a well. So where did it come from? According to the U.S Geological Survey (4:00 of this video): “Overwhelmingly, the evidence that we have suggests that the arsenic we see in groundwater originates from natural sources.” Unfortunately, this overwhelming evidence appears to be news to Mr. Fetzer.
The Fetzer letter also makes sure to mention that “glycols” were found in one well, once again attempting to blame that on “drilling fluids.”
Glycols are a major ingredient of antifreeze, and much like other industrial processes, are sometimes used in very small percentages in an oil and gas context to prevent scale build-up in the pipe. Thing is, Cabot has already confirmed that it didn’t use any glycols when it drilled and completed its wells in the area more than two years ago. And actually, the one well in which glycols were detected came in at such low levels that EPA didn’t include that household among the four it chose to receive water deliveries. As reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer: “Tests also found glycol, which is used in antifreeze, at safe levels, and 2-methoxyethanol, a solvent, which does not have an established toxicity level. Those houses are not receiving shipments of water.”
So, after all that, apparently what we have is an issue with sodium and manganese. According to Mr. Fetzer, manganese is “known to be a constituent of some specialized drilling fluids.” Which fluids are those? And did Cabot actually use any of them in Dimock? Fetzer doesn’t say, probably because Fetzer doesn’t know. So we posed the question to the operator itself; the answer we got back was a resounding “no.” But, as we were reminded, neither sodium or manganese is considered a health hazard by EPA. In fact, EPA doesn’t even have what’s called a “maximum contaminant level” (or MCL) for either of those two. According to one federal report:
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So there you have it. Boil it all down, condense it, strain it, and reduce it to its irreducible parts, and what you’re left with is a decision by EPA to spend hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars supplying water to people who don’t need it — a decision made less than two months after the agency deemed the water to be safe, using the same exact data that it cited last week in arguing the opposite. Of the four households set to receive water, three of them have elevated levels of two things that EPA itself doesn’t consider hazardous to health. And the fourth? According to federal scientists, that well has something in it of which “overwhelming evidence” indicates a natural origin. Not drilling a well.
But you know what really gets our goat? According to an updated study released by the Center for Rural Pennsylvania last year, more than 40 percent of private water wells tested in the state don’t meet basic health and safety standards for drinking water – for reasons that have nothing to do with oil or natural gas. Considering that more than three million folks across the state rely on wells for their water, that means more than one million Pennsylvanians could be drinking water today that’s unsafe.
All of which begs the question: If this thing weren’t about politics, why isn’t EPA supplying clean water to any of them?
READ MORE
- Video: Dimock residents tell Binghamton mayor “enough already”
- Guest post: Dimock residents lay out the true story of their town
- Flashback: EPA sends email to Dimock indicating water is safe
- Spreadsheet: Complete water testing data for Carter Rd. residents
A Lesson In How Crackers are Made
With EID programs currently up and running in both Pennsylvania and Ohio -- and having great, collaborative relationships with our friends in West Virginia as well -- it's fair to say that EID is more than a little bit conflicted when it comes to our institutional position on where Shell should build its new $2-billion ethane-fed cracker facility among the several sites currently under review throughout the three-state region.
With EID programs currently up and running in both Pennsylvania and Ohio — and having great, collaborative relationships with our friends in West Virginia as well — it’s fair to say that EID is more than a little bit conflicted when it comes to our institutional position on where Shell should build its new $2-billion ethane-fed cracker facility among the several sites currently under review throughout the three-state region.
But as you might expect, the senior U.S. senator from Pennsylvania isn’t quite so torn. In a letter sent this week to Mark Quartermain, president of Shell Energy North America, U.S. Sen. Robert Casey (D-Pa.) lays out a pretty compelling case for why Shell should set-up shop in Pennsylvania, citing the state’s skilled workforce, extensive rail transportation network, and the “great potential that Marcellus Shale resources” has to offer. Not to be outdone, federal lawmakers from Ohio and West Virginia (and governors too) have weighed in as well, each hopeful that their workforce, infrastructure and shale-related geology will help put their state over the top – and snag 10,000 new jobs in the process.
As Sen. Casey alludes to his letter, the reason Shell’s in the position today to make such an enormous investment in the region is directly related to the remarkable volumes of natural gas (and especially, natural gas liquids) currently being produced from shale. What the senator doesn’t mention in his letter, though, is the fact that he’s currently the co-author and chief sponsor of legislation in the Senate that has the potential to shut down shale development all across the country, starting in his home state of Pennsylvania.
At least that’s the position of Gasland director Josh Fox, who has called for a nationwide ban on the technologies needed to harvest energy from shale, and for good measure, a global ban on all fossil fuels. Over on his website, Fox directs visitors to call their elected representatives and “let them know you support the FRAC Act.” Why that bill? Because “we can’t stop fracking without you.” Does that sound like a disclosure bill to you?
All of which sets up an interesting question: Had Sen. Casey actually passed his legislation when it was first introduced a couple years back, would Shell have decided to invest $2 billion in a facility whose entire business case is premised on continued access to affordable energy resources from the Marcellus and Utica shales? We can’t say for sure. What we do, though, is that one of the provisions included in the $41-billion merger between Exxon and XTO in December 2009 was a clause suggesting the deal could be called off if Congress were to pass a bill making “hydraulic fracturing or similar processes… illegal or commercially impracticable.” Sounds a little bit like Sen. Casey’s bill, doesn’t it?
Separate and apart from the legislation, the senator also appears to have a habit of “shooting first” and asking questions later when it comes to assigning blame in rare occasions when things go wrong. In March 2011, Sen. Casey wrote a letter to the U.S. Department of Energy asking the agency to investigate “yet another gas-migration-related explosion” in McKean Co., Pa. – telling Secretary Chu that, to him, “it appears” the incident was caused by “extensive new deep drilling activities.” Less than a month later, PA DEP released the findings of its investigation, showing the source of methane migration to be shallow, abandoned wells drilled in the area more than 125 years ago. Not shale. And not new.
All that aside, though, Sen. Casey deserves credit for standing up for his state and fighting for thousands of family-supporting jobs at an otherwise very difficult time for our country and our economy. The good news for everyone is that, wherever the cracker is located, most experts believe that the entire region will benefit tremendously from the multi-billion dollar shot-in-the-arm that this facility portends. According to Keith Burdette, West Virginia’s commerce secretary, “the sites [are] just so closely grouped together that the impact across state lines will be significant.”
Of course, all things being equal, Mr. Burdette wants that sucker in West Virginia. Ohio governor John Kasich wants it in Ohio. And Sen. Casey? Well, he wants that cracker in Pennsylvania. As for us? We’d settle for a box of wheat thins. That, and maybe before anyone sends out any more letters – perhaps a moment of reflection on what’s made this entire conversation possible?
Pa. Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Regional Director George Jugovic Jr., a former PennFuture attorney, addressed the Marcellus Shale Gas Environmental Summit this week in Pittsburgh. Following are key excerpts from his remarks:
On Fracture Zone and Groundwater:
- “Marcellus of course is about between 5,000 and 9,000 feet, as it moves across Pennsylvania. And so the point there of course, is that persons that are concerned about interaction between frac fluids and our drinking water supplies, and there are a substantial number of aqua guards that exist between where the Marcellus Shale is and where our drinking water supplies are. Thousands of feet of course separate them.”
- “[U]nless you provide a conduit between those two areas, between the Marcellus Shale and the drinking water, there is virtually no physical way for frac water to interfere with, or directly communicate with, drinking water supplies.”
- In fact, we have not had, to date, any documented incidents of frac water directly communicating and polluting drinking water supply… in Pennsylvania.”
On the FRAC Act:
- “The fact is, that even if enacted, we don’t believe that the FRAC Act will change regulation in Pennsylvania at all.”
- “Pennsylvania already achieves what is sought to be achieved by the Federal FRAC Act. We already require cementing and casing to protect underground drinking water resources, which I just went through briefly, and we also, I will go through this in a little more detail, require reporting of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing by the percent volume.
- “[A]ny member of the public or industry for that matter, that wants to identify what is in FRAC fluids can get on our website and go to that well and find out what the mix was by percent volume and identify all the chemicals used in that particular well for fracking.”
Audio clip available HERE.
PA DEP Continues to Confirm the Fact that Hydraulic Fracturing Has Never Impacted Groundwater
The tightly-regulated, 60 year-old energy stimulation technology call hydraulic fracturing – which has been used safely more than 1.1 million times throughout the United States – has never in its history been found to adversely impact sources of underground drinking water. Independent scientific experts and state regulators from energy-producing confirm this fact, over and over again. A national organization of state groundwater water regulators has, as well. This year, the EPA told Congress that hydraulic fracturing has never resulted in a single case of groundwater contamination.
And in Pennsylvania, where the responsible development of the Marcellus Shale’s abundant, clean-burning natural gas reserves – enabled by fracture stimulation technologies coupled with horizontal drilling – are helping to put tens of thousands to work, top environmental regulators also continue to ensure that these critical facts are known.
Here’s a quick and recent snapshot of what PA DEP is saying about hydraulic fracturing’s long and clear record of environmental safety:
“Jennifer Means, a representative from the state DEP’s Eastern Oil and Gas Region Office in Williamsport, later substantiated Mr. Chacon’s statements. ‘So far it has not been our experience that the fracking process has caused any water-supply issues,’ Ms. Means said.” (Scranton Times-Tribune, 10/20/10)
“Thus far, the DEP says they’ve found not one instance of underground contamination of well water from fracking. ‘We haven’t had frack fluid come back from thousands of feet down and get into people’s drinking water supply,’ [DEP secretary John] Hanger said.” (KDKA-TV, 10/16/10)
“‘It’s our experience in Pennsylvania that we have not had one case in which the fluids used to break off the gas from 5,000 to 8,000 feet (1,500-2,400 m) underground have returned to contaminate ground water,’ said John Hanger, secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).” (Reuters, 10/1/10)
FRAC Act supporters claim that fracturing is unregulated and unsafe, and therefore Congress must fundamentally rewrite federal law to give EPA outright authority to oversee this process. Inherently, though, energy-producing states are best situated to regulate this technology, and the 60 year track record of environmental safety underscores that fact. Put simply, the FRAC Act is yet another Washington ‘solution’ in search of a problem.
What does Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection secretary and a University of Pittsburgh environmental engineering have in common? They both understand the facts regarding the 60 year-old energy stimulation technology called hydraulic fracturing, which has been used safely to enhance oil and natural gas production in more than 1.1 million wells nationwide without every contaminating groundwater — and aren’t afraid to let these facts be known.
John Hanger, Gov. Rendell’s PA DEP chief and former Penn Future executive, notes that the media (err Josh Fox & CNN) are overestimating “the risks of hydraulic fracturing.” Sec. Hanger tells Reuters, under the headline “Pennsylvania regulator says shale gas drilling method safe,” this about fracturing, which has helped create nearly 88,000 jobs through the development of the Commonwealth’s clean-burning natural gas resources trapped in the Marcellus Shale formation over just the past few years:
Pennsylvania’s chief environmental regulator said on Friday he saw no evidence that the chemicals used in the shale gas drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing contaminates underground water supplies.
“It’s our experience in Pennsylvania that we have not had one case in which the fluids used to break off the gas from 5,000 to 8,000 feet underground have returned to contaminate ground water,” Hanger said.
Hanger’s comments echo frequent statements by energy companies that there have been no proven cases of water contamination from hydraulic fracturing, a process used to remove natural gas from shale beds deep underground.
Hanger said the public and the media appear to overestimate the risks of hydraulic fracturing. “There’s a lot of focus in the media and the public on the problems that we have not had,” he said during an hour-long interview in his office.
But Sec. Hanger is not alone in ensuring that these critical facts about fracturing’s long and clear record of environmental safety are made available to the public. Under the headline “Pitt Professor Says Fracking Safe, Decades-Old Process,” the Wheeling News Register reports this:
[Radisav] Vidic, professor of environmental engineering at the University of Pittsburgh, said this form of rock fracturing has been used for decades to extract minerals – and with no direct side effects.
“I have not seen any evidence that fracturing itself poses a danger to the environment,” he said. “The process has been around since the 1950s. If everything is followed correctly and done by the book, the impact should be minimal.”
And from Central Pennsylvania to Eastern Wyoming, and many places along the way, fracture stimulation technology is to continuing to serve as a key component to energy and economic security for thousands of communities, and for our nation.
Here’s a quick look at what they’re saying about America’s oil and natural gas industry:
- Taking responsibility: “Three companies with local Marcellus Shale drilling sites took state Fish and Boat commissioners on a field tour through Lycoming County Sunday, showing some of the methods in place to protect the environment and local wildlife, keep nearby residents happy and collaborate with one another to keep improving practices. Chief Oil & Gas, Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and Range Resources led a tour of sites in Mifflin, Watson and Cummings townships, where the shale is in various stages of extraction. (Williamsport (PA) Sun-Gazette, 10/4/10)
- More oil rigs popping up around Cheyenne: “More oil rigs are popping up around Cheyenne, and a few rigs 50 miles north of town probably have reached their target, the Niobrara Shale. So how much oil is down there? If anyone knows yet, mum’s the word. … They’re betting that a combination of drilling techniques can unlock oil from the Niobrara. The shale formation is similar to the Bakken Shale in western North Dakota, scene of booming oil production for the past few years. (Associated Press, 10/3/10)
- Drilling will help stimulate economy: “Hydraulic fracturing is a proven technology that is regulated at the state level. It involves pumping a water mixture into underground rock layers where oil and natural gas is trapped. This mixture is 99 percent water and contains a small amount of fracturing fluid and sand. The additives used in fracturing fluids are used in many household products, including toothpaste, cosmetics and even ice cream. These additives are diluted with water by a factor as high as 122 times before being pumped into the ground, according to federal studies. In fact, studies by the U.S. EPA and the Ground Water Protection Council have confirmed no direct link between hydraulic fracturing operations and groundwater impacts. (Charlottesville Daily Progress, 10/4/10)
- Property owners stump for drilling rights at Wayne County barbecue: “The constitutionality of the Delaware River Basin Commission’s role in regulating the burgeoning natural gas industry in Wayne County came into question Saturday afternoon at a gathering of drilling advocates. “Our nemesis is the Delaware River Basin Commission,” said Bob Suhosky, a member of the Wayne County Oil and Gas Task Force who holds a lease individually in Cherry Ridge Twp. “They’re taking a certain amount of constitutional rights from us.” … Marian Schweighofer, executive director of the Northern Wayne Property Owners Alliance, concurred with Mr. Suhosky’s views. “In America, we own the property. We own it from here to China,” Ms. Schweighofer said. “If there’s a taking, you’re supposed to be compensated for it.” (Scranton Times-Tribune, 10/3/10)
C…BS Evening News Whiffs on Hydraulic Fracturing Facts
Recent national news segment on hydraulic fracturing swings and misses on technology’s 60-year old record of safety, effectiveness, transparency
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FRAC Act Author Bob Casey Served By PA DEP
FRAC Act Author Bob Casey Served By PA DEP
PA DEP all alone in continuing to insinuate that natural gas exploration had something to do with Dunkard Creek — while EPA, WV agencies say otherwise
DEP Official: “There Has Never Been Any Evidence” Tying Hydraulic Fracturing to Water Contamination
Scranton Times Tribune
Laura Legere
April 2, 2010
[Scott Perry, director of the Department of Environmental Protection's Bureau of Oil and Gas Management] also insisted that even though the department is proposing to strengthen its disclosure requirements, hydraulic fracturing is not a threat to water supplies.
“There has never been any evidence of fracking ever causing direct contamination of fresh groundwater in Pennsylvania or anywhere else,” he said.
“If I honestly thought that fracking was causing a direct communication with groundwater resources, I wouldn’t be talking about how we have a chemical list. That is the ultimate half-measure. I would be saying, ‘This cannot occur.’”
Gas drilling, DEP given a bad rap
Centre Daily Times
Sen. Mary Jo White, Environmental Resources & Energy Committee chair
March 30, 2010
“There is also no evidence that fracking a deep well, as is done to access Marcellus Shale gas, is contributing to aquifer depletion or degrading water quality. Most gas is more than a mile below the surface, maintaining several thousand feet between the shale and the aquifer.
“DEP, along with 18 other states, certified to the Ground Water Protection Council last year that they have no instances of fracking resulting in any water quality problems in which this activity is occurring. President Obama’s EPA drinking-water quality chief recently provided similar testimony before Congress.”
