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CONSOL Energy COO DeIuliis Says Marcellus Drilling has Potential to “Reshape Western PA Economy”

Nicholas DeIuliis, the Chief Operating Officer of CONSOL Energy Inc., spoke to a leadership group at the Rivers Club in Downtown Pittsburgh today. Among the things he said:

“Five years ago, no one knew how to spell Marcellus Shale,” DeIuliis, who is also president and COO of CNX Gas Corp., a part of CONSOL, said. But now, the natural gas reserve has the potential to reshape western Pennsylvania’s economy. He projected that by 2020, 175,000 jobs would be created from the Shale, and state and local tax revenue would be in the neighborhood of $1.4 billion.

“These are jobs that require serious levels of training, they’re not minimum wage jobs,” he said. “There’s a lot to be excited about in the Marcellus Shale.”*

*Pittsburgh Business Times (Mar 2) – CONSOL COO Nicholas DeIuliis: Marcellus has changed everything

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Two Bills in NY Legislature Will Kill Drilling in the Marcellus Shale

New York State Senator Tom Duane (Democrat-Manhattan), and New York Assemblyman James Brennan (Democrat-Brooklyn) have introduced bills in the state legislature that would kill Marcellus Shale drilling in New York State.

[The] two bills…would prohibit any permits for oil or gas drilling from being issued for two years, prohibit drilling within five miles of the New York City water supply and ban drilling anywhere within the Delaware River watershed.

The bills introduced by Duane and Brennan have already attracted a number of Democratic co-sponsors in the Assembly from both upstate and downstate.*

Sen. Duane says there is no such thing as safe hydrofacturing drilling. The Independent Oil and Gas Association of New York State opposes the legislation, as does the Business Council of New York and many other organizations and individuals.

MDN recommends landowners who support drilling should make their voices heard. Call Sen. Duane and Assemblyman Brennan to register your opposition. And check in with your local Senator and Assemblyperson while you’re at it.

  • Sen. Duane’s phone numbers
    District Office – (212) 633-8052; Albany Office – (518) 455-2451
  • Assemblyman Brennan’s phone numbers
    District Office – (718) 788-7221; Albany Office – (518) 455-5377

*City Hall (Mar 1) – Legislators In Albany And New York Float Hydrofracking Bills

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New Wastewater Treatment Plant Approved in Central PA

Narrowsburg, NY – The River Reporter (Feb 25)
‘Unauthorized’ wastewater hearing brings flowback feedback

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has granted its first permit to a wastewater treatment facility since new, stricter guidelines were recently implemented. From The River Reporter article:

The DEP has issued its first new permit for treating drilling wastewater to TerrAqua Resource Management LLC of Williamsport, allowing the company to treat and discharge 400,000 gallons per day of gas well drilling wastewater into the West Branch Susquehanna River Watershed.

According to the DEP, the permit requires TerrAqua to meet the proposed new regulatory standards of 500 parts per million for total dissolved solids (TDS) and 250 parts per million for chlorides and sulfates. TerrAqua has indicated that it will pursue a thermal treatment process capable of reducing TDS levels to less than 500 parts per million at all times.

The discharge permit also requires TerrAqua to monitor for radioactivity, a large number of metals, including barium, strontium, iron, manganese and aluminum, as well as organics such as toluene, benzene, phenols, ethylene glycol and surfactants.

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PA Gov. Rendell Predicts His Proposal to Tax Marcellus Shale Gas is DOA

WTAE Pittsburgh (Feb 25)
Rendell Talks Expanded Sales Tax Plan In Pittsburgh

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (Democrat), has proposed a severance tax on natural gas in the Marcellus Shale. But the Governor himself is not optimistic that the Pennsylvania Legislature will pass his proposals. From the WTAE news report:

In addition, Rendell is reviving proposals he has offered before, including extending the tobacco tax to cigars and smokeless tobacco and adding a severance tax on natural gas extraction to capitalize on the industry’s hot pursuit of Marcellus Shale.

However, Rendell said he’s not optimistic the state Legislature will vote for his changes.

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New President of Marcellus Shale Coalition Says Drilling Will Bring 110,000 Jobs to PA in 2010

Katie Klaber, the new President of the Marcellus Shale Coalition recently appeared on the Clean Skies News network to discuss the environmental issues of natural gas drilling. It’s an informative and short piece (under 10 minutes), and worth watching (embedded below).

Among the things discussed that MDN found interesting:

  • Ms. Klaber says Marcellus Drilling will bring 110,000 jobs to Pennsylvania in 2010.
  • Some drillers recycle and reuse 100% of fracking water, but the industry average right now is recycling and reusing 60%.
  • Because of the high rate of recycling, a shortage of wastewater treatment facilities is not critical at the moment, but more facilities will be needed in the next few years.
  • Drilling companies already have an MSDS (Materials Safety Data Sheet) at the drilling site for each and every chemical used in the fracking process. That is right now, today. So the hue and cry that drillers are “hiding” the chemicals used in fracking is not true.
  • Ms. Klaber predicts that Pennsylvania will be a net exporter of natural gas by 2014.

Testing Your Water – Advice for Landowners in the Marcellus Shale

WaterWorld (undated, accessed Feb 24)
Testing the waters

Drilling activity is tightly regulated everywhere it’s done, including Pennsylvania. Water supplies located near drilling are regularly tested to ensure the water is not being contaminated. If a resident lives within 1,000 feet of a well being drilled, the cost of testing is funded by the drilling company. Local testing company Benchmark Analytics from South Waverly, PA had these useful remarks for landowners in an article published on the WaterWorld website:

Many residents have contacted Benchmark to establish a "baseline" prior to gas drilling activity. The baseline tests are important to establish the water quality at a specific site prior to any gas well activity, [Laboratory Manager Kay] Shimer said. Natural gas producers are required to establish a baseline for any water source within 1,000 feet of a gas well, she said, though some companies test residents’ water within 1,500 or 2,000 feet. If people have any questions about whether they qualify for testing through a gas producer they should contact the well drilling company in their area, she said. The sampling and testing is done by an independent laboratory, she said, and Benchmark has completed some testing for gas producers.

Homeowners should not collect their own water samples, Shimer said; an independent third-party sampling agency or field technicians from a certified laboratory should do the sampling. Benchmark field technicians do some sampling, Shimer said, though gas producers typically hire independent agencies to sample water sources near their well projects.

Shimer also recommends landowners read the publication by Penn State University called Water Facts #28 – Gas Well Drilling and Your Private Water Supply (available for free download on the MDN Links & Resources page).

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Engineer Explains Why Hydraulic Fracturing in the Marcellus Shale is Safe

The Energy Collective (Feb 23)
Shale Gas and Drinking Water

In an article posted on The Energy Collective website, Geoff Styles, who has a degree in chemical engineering (U.C. Davis) and worked for Texaco for 22 years, in addition to working for NASA, explores just what hydraulic fracturing is, how it’s done, and why it’s safe, particularly in the Marcellus Shale deposit. It is an extremely well written and enlightening article—please read it!

Here is a brief extract:

[F]or the purposes of this discussion let’s take a quick look at one of the shale regions at the heart of this controversy, the Marcellus Shale in the Appalachian region of New York, Pennsylvania and the Virginias. In the course of my research I ran across a handy document on groundwater from Penn State. Aside from surface water (lakes, rivers and streams), it identifies the various aquifers in Pennsylvania by type in Figure 4. The key fact from the perspective of fracking safety is that the deepest of these aquifers lies no more than about 500 ft. below the surface, and typically less than a couple of hundred feet down. By contrast, the Marcellus Shale is found thousands of feet down–in many areas more than a mile below-ground–with a thickness of 250 feet or less. In addition, the gas-bearing layers are sealed in by impermeable rock, or the gas would eventually have migrated somewhere else. In other words, the shale gas reservoirs are isolated by geology and depth from the shallower layers where our underground drinking water is found.

He covers many other issues, including the relatively SMALL amount of water used to frack a well with horizontal drilling—compared with water used in a “traditional” oil or gas well. And how the aquifer is protected when the drilling begins, before any water and chemicals are pumped into the well.

Bottom line?

Thus, whether intentionally or as a result of a basic misunderstanding of how this technology works, we are being presented with a false dichotomy concerning shale gas and fracking. The real choice here isn’t between energy and drinking water, as critics imply, but between tapping an abundant source of lower-emission domestic energy and what looked like a perpetually-increasing reliance on imported natural gas just a few years ago.

Well said Mr. Styles. Well said.

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Sierra Club National Organization Supports Gas Drilling, Local Chapters Do Not – Tension Brewing

NPR Morning Edition (Feb 23)
Natural Gas As A Climate Fix Sparks Friction

In a surprisingly balanced report by NPR, we learn of the infighting that is taking place in the Sierra Club, between the national organization and the state and local chapters. It seems the national organization believes natural gas and gas drilling are a good and acceptable alternative to coal. But local chapters are concerned about drilling’s effect on the the landscape and on water supplies.

Click through on the link above to read the transcript or listen to the four minute segment, which includes the Sierra Club attending a ribbon cutting ceremony at a plant at Cornell University to celebrate their conversion from coal to natural gas.

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Engineering Firm in Luzerne County, PA is Hiring Engineers for Marcellus Drilling

Wilkes-Barre Times Leader (Feb 23)
Natural gas industry has engineering firm hiring

More jobs are coming to the Marcellus Shale region because of drilling activity. An engineering firm in Plains Township (Luzerne County), Pennsylvania is hiring:

Borton-Lawson has been advertising for seven engineering, design and surveyor positions. Chris Borton, company president, said the marketplace is unlike anything he’s seen in the 22 years since he and Tom Lawson teamed up.

“It’s a tough economy. There are still things that are going on out there,” said Borton on Tuesday.

The influx of companies exploring and drilling in the Marcellus Shale region has created work for Borton-Lawson and others. It’s opened a branch office in the Pittsburgh area.

New Anti-Drilling Movie GASLAND Takes Aim at Hydrofacking

gaslandlogo Coming soon to an art house theater near you is… GASLAND, winner of the Special Jury Prize for Documentary at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. From the GASLAND official website:

When filmmaker Josh Fox discovers that Natural Gas drilling is coming to his area—the Catskillls/Poconos region of Upstate New York and Pennsylvania, he sets off on a 24 state journey to uncover the deep consequences of the United States’ natural gas drilling boom. What he uncovers is truly shocking—water that can be lit on fire right out of the sink, chronically ill residents of drilling areas from disparate locations in the US all with the same mysterious symptoms, huge pools of toxic waste that kill cattle and vegetation well blowouts and huge gas explosions consistently covered up by state and federal regulatory agencies. These are just a few of the many absurd and astonishing revelations of a new country called GASLAND.

Michael Moore, writer/producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, Sicko, and Capitalism: A Love Story among others, has pioneered this kind of “documentary” that’s long on innuendo and short on facts, perfecting it as an art. It seems Mr. Moore has spawned imitators, including Josh Fox.

The drumbeat will only grow louder from the anti-drilling movement. Their two-pronged attack is to claim: 1) Hydraulic fracturing as a mining technique is unsafe, and 2) Your water will become contaminated with nasty chemicals and/or methane gas if there’s a drill anywhere near you. Both claims are false.

Look, no one wants people’s water to become polluted, or livestock to become ill, or water to become contaminated. Painting energy companies as the Great Satan, as films like this try to do, is simply childish and simplistic at best. There are safeguards in place. Drilling IS happening in a lot of places—with no negative consequences. We need to stay vigilant, of course. But drilling can happen safely, and it should. To ban all natural gas drilling and hydrofracking as a technique is unreasonable.

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Swamp Angel Energy Guilty of Illegally Dumping 200K Gallons of Brine in PA

Mother Nature Network (Feb 22)
Gas drillers plead guilty to felony dumping violations

Two people from Swamp Angel Energy pled guilty last week to dumping 200,000 gallons of brine in an abandoned oil well in McKean County, Pennsylvania.

According to the article:

[P]art-owner Michael Evans, 66, of La Quinta, Calif., and John Morgan, 54, of Sheffield, Penn., admitted dumping 200,000 gallons of brine – salty wastewater that’s created in the drilling process – down an abandoned oil well. The maximum penalty for both Evans and Morgan is three years in prison, a fine of $250,000, or both. Sentencing will be June 24.

Swamp Angel Energy was (and is currently) drilling in the Allegheny National Forest, located in McKean County. Also according to the article:

Swamp Angel has 77 active, permitted wells in Pennsylvania, all of them in McKean County.

Fellow drillers and those in the drilling industry have swiftly and rightly condemned the illegal dumping. The article is anti-drilling with a smug “See, I told you so,” kind of tone, which is to be expected coming from MNN. However, the illegal actions of a few should not be used to paint all drilling companies with the same broad brush.

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New Marcellus Wastewater Treatment Plant Coming to Elk County, PA

DuBois Courier-Express/Tri-County (Feb 20)
Marcellus shale drilling water may be treated at local acid mine treatment site

Drillers in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania will soon have a new plant to treat wastewater, called flowback, from drilling activities. The new plant will be located in Brandy Camp (Elk County), PA. From the article:

The project will be located at the existing Blue Valley acid mine drainage treatment and fish culture station in Brandy Camp, which is operated by the Toby Creek Watershed Association, according to a Friday news release.

The project, to be known as the Blue Valley Hydrofrac Plant, will be owned and operated by Flowback Wastewater Development Group, which has Frank Nickens as director of operations.

As for capacity of the plant:

The first phase will provide for treatment of up to 300,000 gallons per day of hydrofracture flowback and production brine wastewaters. The output will be 1.2 million gallons per day of recycled hydrofracture makeup water or 720,000 gallons per day of treated acid mine drainage water.

The second phase will add an additional 1.15 million gallons per day of treated acid mine drainage.

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Chesapeake Withdraws Application to Store Millions of Gallons of Wastewater near Keuka Lake

Syracuse Post-Standard (Feb 21)
Plan to truck hydrofracking wastewater to Finger Lakes shelved, for now

Readers of Marcellus Drilling News know that we advocate for landowners, and that we support safe drilling. But, drilling companies sometimes do themselves no favors and deservedly receive suspicion and condemnation. Case in point: Chesapeake Energy, one of the largest drillers in the U.S., is looking for a place to store millions of gallons of wastewater from their drilling operations in Pennsylvania. They thought they may have found a spot in the Steuben County (New York) town of Pulteney, in an old gas well no longer in use. They wanted to store up to 663 million gallons of wastewater—called “flowback” in the drilling business—in the old gas well, and they filed an application to do so.

Flowback, which is water combined with sand and unspecified chemicals, is what’s leftover after it’s been pumped into the ground and brought back out again. The problem is, the chemicals used by drilling companies are a closely guarded trade secret—something that gives them an edge over competitors when drilling. So no one knows what, exactly, is in the flowback, nor in what proportions. This makes people uneasy when you want to store millions of gallons of it close to homes with water wells, and close to their vineyards. The old gas well sits next door to an active vineyard.

It’s also bone-headed of Chesapeake to want to store it in this particular abandoned gas well, as the location is just one mile away from Keuka Lake, one of the Finger Lakes in Central New York. The proposed underground storage by Chesapeake “would not be lined or contained.” If, by some unfortunate event, the stored flowback were to leak into Keuka Lake, the resulting contamination could be catastrophic. It appears to be a risk just not worth taking. Much better for Chesapeake to look for a facility that will treat the flowback and return it to them to be reused for more drilling.

Chesapeake has withdrawn its application for now. Although not a popular subject with drillers, if drilling companies were to disclose the chemicals used in the drilling process, it would go a long way to silencing the critics that there is no safe way to drill.

The article from the Syracuse Post-Standard is fair and balanced (more or less) with a video interview of a local landowner who lives across from the abandoned gas well. It’s worth your time to read the article and watch the video interview.

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DISH, Texas Mayor Calvin Tillman Visits Binghamton – Marcellus Drilling News was There

This will necessarily be a long article. As a regular reader of Marcellus Drilling News, you have come to expect brief articles highlighting information useful for landowners and other interested parties in the Marcellus Drilling debate. Last night, your faithful scribe attended a local meeting in Binghamton, NY at Binghamton’s East Middle School, to hear DISH, Texas Mayor Calvin Tillman and his views on natural gas drilling. I went with an open mind to evaluate whether Mr. Tillman and the other speaker of the evening—lawyer Helen Slottje from Ithaca—would present information that would challenge my views that drilling can be done safely when it’s done right.

I would say it’s a fair statement that if you went to the meeting as a supporter of drilling, or as an opponent, your view was not changed by the presentations. I attended on behalf of the average landowner, even though I do not have land for lease in the Marcellus myself. I tried to be your eyes and ears at the meeting. Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with, nor compensated by, anyone in the drilling debate on either side of the debate. I’m just an interested blogger and advocate for landowners and the rights of private property owners.

This is an account of what happened last night…

Read More “DISH, Texas Mayor Calvin Tillman Visits Binghamton – Marcellus Drilling News was There”

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Susquehanna River Basin Commission Monitors Waterways for Contamination

WETM-18 TV (Feb 15)
Gas Drilling Prompts More Water Quality Monitoring

Due to concerns over drilling in the Marcellus and discharge of wastewater from drilling operations into area waterways that ultimately find their way to Susquehanna River, the Susquehanna River Basin Commission has placed monitoring devices in the Twin Tiers area of New York (Binghamton and Elmira). So far 10 monitoring devices have been installed, with another 20 to be installed by June.

Marcellus Drilling News applauds the efforts of the SRBC to ensure local waterways remain contamination-free from drilling activities. Everyone wins when there is vigilance and monitoring.

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Youngstown, OH Gets 350 New Jobs Due to Marcellus Drilling

The Vindicator (Feb 16)
V&M delivers plant, 350 jobs

Youngstown, Ohio is getting a new $650 million pipe mill and 350 new jobs due to Marcellus Shale drilling. V&M Star Steel has just announced they are building a new plant in Youngstown because of its proximity to the Marcellus Shale deposit. The new mill will manufacture pipes used in drilling in the Marcellus, according to V&M president, Roger Lindgren. The mill is expected to start operations in 2011, and be up to full capacity in 2012. Although this is a new plant and new construction, it is an expansion of V&M’s existing operation in Youngstown, built on property next to their current facility.