Water Problems from Drilling are Widespread in Pennsylvania

By Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica

When methane began bubbling out of kitchen taps near a gas drilling site in Pennsylvania last winter, a state regulator described the problem as “an anomaly.” But at the time he made that statement to ProPublica, that same official was investigating a similar case affecting more than a dozen homes near gas wells halfway across the state.

In fact, methane related to the natural gas industry has contaminated water wells in at least seven Pennsylvania counties since 2004 and is common enough that the state hired a full-time inspector dedicated to the issue in 2006. In one case, methane was detected in water sampled over 15 square miles. In another, a methane leak led to an explosion that killed a couple and their 17-month-old grandson.

Methane is the largest component of natural gas. Since it evaporates out of drinking water, it is not considered toxic, but in the air it can lead to explosions. When methane is found in water supplies, it can also signal that deeply drilled gas wells are linked with drinking water systems.

In many cases the methane seepage comes from thousands of old abandoned gas wells that riddle Pennsylvania’s geology, state inspectors say. But other cases, including several this year and the 2004 disaster that left three people dead, were linked to problems with newly drilled, active natural gas wells.

The issue came to the forefront in January when methane was found in the water at 16 homes in the small town of Dimock, in northeastern Pennsylvania. State officials cited Cabot Oil & Gas for several violations they say allowed the gas to seep out of the well structures and into water supplies there. The Department of Environmental Protection asked the company to encase its lower well pipes completely in concrete — a process known in the industry as “cementing” — and assured the public that the contamination in Dimock was rare.

But according to a department spokeswoman, there have been at least 52 separate cases of what the state calls “methane migration” in the past five years. In two of the 2009 cases, regulators responded to complaints from more than 32 households and asked gas companies to supply clean water to at least a dozen homes with contaminated wells.

An undated report from the Pittsburgh Geological Society posted to the DEP’s Web site makes it clear that old wells and new drilling can lead to stray gas problems. “Although it rarely makes headlines,” the report reads, “damage or threats caused by gas migration is a common problem in Western Pennsylvania.”

The case Lobins was investigating at the same time as the Dimock case concerned a string of problems in Bradford, a rural town 200 miles west of Dimock along the state’s northern border. Shortly after a contractor for Schreiner Oil and Gas drilled several dozen wells in the area last spring, residents began complaining of murky and foul-smelling tap water. When the DEP investigated, it found methane in three water wells and metals in six others. It asked Schreiner to supply water to eight homes, and the company has begun installing water treatment systems at each house. While no new gas wells have been drilled in the Bradford area, according to the DEP, the existing ones continue to operate.

Michael Schreiner, Schreiner’s president, declined to comment for this article.

Lobins said the problems in Bradford — as in many of the contamination cases across the state — stem from a bad cementing job around the core of the well. In most gas drilling, the well pipe is encased in layers of concrete to keep it isolated from surrounding groundwater. The concrete also contains the enormous pressure exerted on the system during the process of hydraulic fracturing, which pumps water, sand and chemicals to the well bottom to break up rock.

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Source: AlterNet

Union Pacific to Pay for Water Act Violations

By John Boyd, Journal of Commerce Online

Union Pacific Railroad will pay civil penalties of $800,000 and is restoring some Nevada stream areas at an estimated cost of $31 million, the Department of Justice said, to settle alleged Clean Water Act violations in 2005.

In January 2005, the government said, UP’s tracks in the Clover Creek and Meadow Valley Wash areas “sustained significant damage following a flood in southern Nevada” and the railroad “made time-critical actions to repair damage.”

But Justice said “UP also conducted extensive non-emergency construction and stream alteration work without obtaining the required Clean Water Act permits, which could have minimized and compensated for the damage to the streams.”

That work included building “massive structures to control stream flows, such as dikes, berms, levees and diversions within the stream systems,” some up to 15 feet high and as much as thousands of feet in length.

The proposed decree said “Union Pacific has already performed substantial removal, restoration, and re-vegetation work at many sites.” It also said “nothing in this consent decree shall constitute or be construed as an admission of liability or wrongdoing by Union Pacific.”

John C. Cruden, acting assistant attorney general for the department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, said work the railroad agreed to undertake in the settlement “will restore Clover Creek and Meadow Valley Wash.”

Kush said “most of the requested work is complete.” Justice said UP agreed to restore 122 acres of mountain-desert streams and wetlands, in 21 sections in Clark and Lincoln Counties, Nev.

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Source: The Journal of Commerce Online

Oil Companies Buying Up Billions of Gallons in Water Rights in the Parched American West

In preparation for future oil shale mining projects near the Rocky Mountains, six oil companies have gained rights to billions of gallons of water in the American West, potentially jeopardizing water supplies throughout the region, according to a new report by Western Resource Advocates [pdf], an environmental group. It is still preliminary to speculate on the implications of the findings, but many are concerned that if the companies put their rights to use, water will be shifted away from agriculture and community use.

Using public records, the report examines more than 200 water rights held by six energy companies, including Shell and ExxonMobil, which, it is estimated, are collectively entitled to divert at least 6.5 billion gallons of water from rivers in western Colorado, as well as almost 2 million acre-feet of water from the state’s reservoirs, which is enough to supply the Denver metro area for six years. Shale oil production is a water-intensive process: up to five barrels of water are consumed for every barrel of oil produced. This means that projects producing 1.55 million barrels of oil per day would require 378,000 acre-feet of water each year, compared to the Denver metro area’s consumption, which is less than 300,000 acre feet. Should oil shale production hit full stride in the next 15 to 20 years – something the White House under President George W. Bush tried to accelerate by opening up 2 million acres controlled by the Bureau of Land Management to leasing and approving royalty rates and leasing rules – there will be a major political battle over water rights [Colorado Independent].

Extracting oil from shale is still an experimental process, facing major technological, environmental and regulatory hurdles, and is considerably more expensive than conventional drilling [Wall Street Journal], and the report has reignited an ongoing public debate over what the impacts of oil shale mining will be on nearby communities and the environment. Last September, the mayors of 11 mountain communities in Colorado wrote a joint letter to publicly express concern about “significant impacts on our community infrastructure, environment, and quality of life” from the development of oil shale…. “There has also been little evaluation of the impact these technologies and processes will have on local communities or the regional air and water resources” [Environment News Service], they wrote.

Shell spokesman Tracy Boyd defended the industry’s strategy of preemptively buying up water rights, saying, “The rights that we have, for the most part, are conditional. The water has to be there legally and physically” [AP], adding that, “We’re picking up properties as they become available or look strategic” [Wall Street Journal]. He tried to minimize cause for concern by saying that Shell expects not to need all that water for another 15 years, by which time it may have developed oil extraction methods that require less water.

Colorado law allows river water to be used, at no cost, by any entity that can show the water will be put to a “beneficial” use. Extracting oil fits into that category, as does, for example, growing alfalfa, providing household drinking water and making snow at ski resorts. Oil companies can get water rights in two ways…. For a minimal filing fee, the companies have claimed scores of “junior” rights that allow them to draw water from a particular river after other users have satisfied their needs. The companies have also purchased dozens of “senior” rights from old-time farming families; those rights give them priority access to water, even in dry years [Wall Street Journal].

Source:  Discover Magazine Blogs

Abundance of Trash ‘Impairs’ San Francisco Bay

By Jane Kay, San Francisco Chronicle Environmental Writer

The heaps of trash ringing San Francisco Bay are so unsightly and threatening to wildlife that regional regulators voted Wednesday to designate most of the shoreline and two dozen tributaries as “impaired” under the federal Clean Water Act.

So far, the bay’s pollution spots have been linked to such contaminants as mercury, PCBs and DDT as well as invasive species.

But tons of cigarette butts, diapers, crushed Styrofoam and plastic bottles and bags convinced the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board to vote unanimously to designate the edges of the central bay and the south bay, along with 24 rivers and creeks, as places in need of trash controls.

Until now, Oakland’s Lake Merritt has been the only bay waterway designated as “impaired” because of trash that ruins walks along the shore, despoils habitat and endangers wildlife.

The vote was the first step in putting counties and cities on notice that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency could impose legal requirements and fines if they don’t get rid of the trash. But the listing could also bring resources to aid in the cleanup.

Environmental groups praised the vote as a start in getting cities and counties to reduce trash by eliminating plastic bags and discouraging extraneous packaging as well as capturing street trash flowing to the bay. They also want the regional board to issue storm-water permits to counties and cities that require measurable, enforceable reductions in trash.

On last year’s statewide Coastal Cleanup Day, volunteers collected 125 tons of trash from the bay, including 15,000 plastic bags. A 2005 study by the regional board’s staff scientists found an average of three pieces of trash along every foot of streams flowing to the bay.

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Source: SFGate.com