Snake Handlers in Demand in the Marcellus
You may have thought snake handling was something done in tiny fringe churches tucked away in the backwoods of Appalachia. Think again. Snake handlers, or wranglers, are very much in demand in the Marcellus Shale to protect oil and gas workers on location, and to protect the snakes themselves–Timber rattlesnakes, a candidate for the threatened species list. Drillers and pipeline companies have to jump through many hoops to drill a well or lay pipeline. MANY hoops. One of those hoops is to ensure their work does not unduly harm a threatened or endangered species, plant or animal (called T&E in the business). When it comes to rattlesnakes, drillers call in the specialists to handle them…
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Last Thursday, Precision Pipeline of Waynesburg, Pa was drilling under the Little Mingo Creek behind the Mingo Creek Church on behalf of Sunoco Logistics when the drill bit hit something really solid. It stopped the bit and led to drilling mud, often called bentonite, to leak into the the Little Mingo Creek causing a gray “sludge” to travel down the creek in Nottingham and Union townships (Washington County), PA. Bentonite is non-toxic and used in products from shampoo to deodorant and toothpaste. It’s also used to lubricate the drill bit and carry drill cuttings out of the ground. While non-toxic, a whole lot of bentonite in the water can, of course, suffocate fish and cause problems for wildlife that happen to drink it…
Lately it seems like a week doesn’t go by that a new pipeline project is announced. No one should be surprised, but of course we all are. It only makes sense: drillers have sunk a lot of holes in the Marcellus and Utica, and now all of that gas and natural gas liquids (NGLs) needs a way to get to market. The northeast alone can’t handle all of the gas and NGLs being produced. Yes, the ethane cracker plants will help with regards to ethane–but there’s still way more ethane that even the planned three cracker plants can handle. And way more methane (natural gas) than the northeast can absorb. How do you get it to market? With pipelines. The first thing pipeline operators do is pick the “low hanging fruit”–in this case reversing pipelines and using loops to increase capacity and change the direction of the flows. But according to the midstream companies themselves, the low hanging fruit is about all picked. Now it’s on to the higher hanging fruit–so-called “greenfield” pipelines that cut through “virgin” land. Below we have a very interesting quote about decisions that will soon be made impacting the rest of this decade, along with a very useful chart of pipeline projects…
What are the nightmares that keep drillers up at night? Is it the prospect of having to pay big fines, like the biggest fine paid to date in Pennsylvania, announced just last week (see 
Range Resources has just had their knuckles rapped, hard, by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) with respect to wastewater/recycled water impoundments (i.e. ponds) they operate in Washington County, PA. Range has been fined the most any company has been fined by the DEP in the modern shale era–$4.15 million. They will also be required to close five of the seven impoundments they’ve operated in the county (Range was closing them anyway), and make major upgrades to the two remaining impoundments. There’s no way to sugarcoat this–Range was taken to the proverbial woodshed by the DEP and got a lot more than a switch to the rear-end…