Supervisors in Ohio Township (Allegheny County), PA last night voted to approve an ordinance that places restrictions on Marcellus Shale drilling in the Township. According to Township Solicitor Mike Witherel, the previous ordinance, passed in 2003, placed no restrictions on drilling. The new ordinance puts in place common sense restrictions on drilling activities.
A new technology funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory may hold the key to cleaning Marcellus Shale (and other drilling) fracking fluids. According to the press release from the DOE below, this new technology removes 99 percent of oil and grease from the water in fracking fluid, and it removes 90 percent of the nasty stuff: benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes. The Osorb technology uses “swelling glass”—silica or sand-like particles—to absorb the chemicals. And it can be re-used over and over again. See a video of it in action below.
Read More “New Technology May Hold Key to Cleaning Fracking Fluids, Early Tests Very Promising”
Range Resources, one of the largest drillers in the Marcellus Shale, will provide ethane to Canadian chemical company NOVA Chemicals. Methane is the primary compound that is “mined” during gas drilling, but ethane is also one of the compounds produced when drilling. And ethane is used by chemical companies as a “feedstock” or raw material to make plastics. For more background, see this MDN story.
From the company issued press release:
Read More “Range Resources to Sell Ethane to Canadian Chemical Company”
The Marcellus Shale layer is about a mile down, depending on where you are. Lately, there’s been talk about tapping into the Utica Shale, which sits below the Marcellus, at about two miles down. A recent permit granted to Williams Production Appalachia to drill its exploratory well deeper on Route 487 in Sugarloaf Township, Columbia County in Pennsylvania sparked rumors that Williams was planning to tap into the Utica. But a spokesperson for Williams, Helen Humphreys, says that’s not true:
Read More “Drilling in the Utica Shale in PA – Ranges Says Yes, Williams Says No”
Now that Michael Krancer has received official confirmation from the Pennsylvania Senate to be the Secretary of PA’s Department of Environmental Protection, he is talking freely with the press and he has plenty to say.
Krancer said the following about his recent “voluntary request” to drillers to stop sending fracking fluid to municipal treatment plants that are not equipped to handle it:
Read More “PA DEP Sec. Michael Krancer Responds to Critics, The Gloves Come Off”
Kathryn Klaber, the president and executive director of the Marcellus Shale Coalition based in Canonsburg, PA, is perhaps the most visible face of the pro-drilling movement in the Marcellus Shale. The Coalition she represents has as its members most of the energy companies who actively drill in the Marcellus. Ms. Klaber is articulate and smart, and not afraid to answer the tough questions about drilling. In a recent interview, she addressed a wide range of issues including how much and what types of investments are being made in the Marcellus, how many jobs it produces, mineral rights vs. surface owners rights, accidents, environmental issues and more.
Among her comments was this exchange about the drilling moratorium in New York State:
Read More “Marcellus Shale Coalition’s Kathryn Klaber Talks about NY Moratorium and Other Issues”
A volunteer water monitoring project in Centre County, PA began in 2010 with the aim to produce a baseline for the health of local streams and waterways in the county. The volunteers keep an eye on the streams because of the upswing in Marcellus Shale drilling activity in the county. If there should be accidents, or if fracking fluid should somehow find its way into local waterways, the data collected by the volunteers will prove a valuable resource for evaluating the environmental impact.
Chesapeake Energy has successfully replaced a wellhead that was defective and had caused a blowout with fracking fluid escaping from a well in Leroy Township near Canton in Bradford County, PA last week. Over a two day period, fracking fluid ran over neighboring land and some of it into a nearby stream that empties into the Towanda Creek. (Read MDN’s original article on the blowout here.)
The PA State Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is investigating the blowout and the potential environmental damage it may have caused. But that’s not good enough for the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA is now throwing its weight around. In a letter to Chesapeake citing the Clean Water Act and various other federal statutes, the EPA is demanding that Chesapeake provide a list of details to the EPA about the incident by May 9.
Forced pooling happens when most landowners in an area have signed leases and want to allow drilling, but one or two have not. If a landowner has not signed a lease but owns land situated between other land already leased, that landowner could be “forced” to allow drilling. The unwilling landowner would not be forced to allow a drill pad, but a driller on a neighboring piece of property would be allowed to drill underneath the landowner with a “minority interest.” Forced pooling is not currently allowed in Pennsylvania, and according to new Gov. Tom Corbett, it won’t be as long as he’s governor.
Read More “PA Gov. Corbett Says “No” to Concept of Forced Pooling of Marcellus Shale Leases”
On April 16, three Democrat Congressional members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Henry Waxman, Edward Markey and Diana DeGette released a report on the chemical contents of hydraulic fracturing products used by the 14 oil and gas service companies. MDN has had a look at that report and finds it confusing, obfuscating and frankly, nothing more than yet another political attempt to bring gas drilling under the oversight of the federal EPA. That is the sole purpose of this report. Let’s dive deeper.
Staffers working for Waxman et al canvassed drilling companies, using the power of the federal government to obtain details on what products and chemicals they use during the process of hydraulic fracturing when drilling for oil or gas. As MDN has described before (but will do so again for those new to the drilling issue), when a company drills first vertically, and then horizontally, it uses a fair amount of water and sand—perhaps 3-4 million gallons of water on average for a single well. Along with the water and sand, which is literally 99.5 percent of what goes down the bore hole, a little bit of chemical mixture is used mostly to lubricate and to prevent bacterial buildup during the drilling process.
Read More “MDN In-depth: A Close Look at the New Democrat Report on Hydraulic Fracturing Chemicals”
A number of stories have circulated since last week when the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) asked Marcellus Shale drillers to voluntarily (or else) stop using municipal sewage treatment plants by May 19 to treat and release drilling wastewater into PA’s rivers and streams (read MDN’s story here). One of the latest articles is (gasp) a pretty balanced article from the Associated Press, so let’s give credit where credit is due since MDN has previously stated almost all of AP’s reporting on the drilling industry is skewed against it.
Below is a list of things we learn from the most recent AP missive, along with MDN’s thoughts. First the background and history, then an examination of the chemistry, and finally what changed the drilling industry’s collective mind about this issue, including who the “real” culprit in all of this may be.
Some empirical data on the positive economic impacts of Marcellus Shale gas drilling in Pennsylvania:
Read More “New Research Details the Positive Economic Impacts from Marcellus Shale Drilling in PA”
A northeastern PA construction company is looking to hire “hundreds” of workers to meet demand for its services in the Marcellus Shale drilling industry:
Coming soon to a fire hall, museum, legion hall, university or television set near you: The Calvin Tillman Show. For those new to the drilling debate, Calvin Tillman is, or rather was, mayor of the small town of DISH, Texas which sits smack in the middle of the Barnett Shale deposit. Mr. Tillman has made a cottage industry of touring the country, including the Marcellus Shale region, and accusing gas drilling companies of poisoning the good citizens of the USA wherever they drill. His evidence? Well, er, let’s not bother with evidence. It’s the accusations that matter! And the children! His children! Other people’s children! Headaches, nose bleeds, asthma…the list goes on. Problem is, there’s never any evidence that ties drilling activities in the DISH region with said ailments, even though a number of environmental tests have been performed.
Mr. Tillman and fellow Texan Tim Ruggiero, a landowner who claims he too was adversely affected by gas drilling, founded an organization in 2010 called ShaleTest.org. The organization’s stated aim according to their website: “ShaleTest.org is a non-profit organization that will collect environmental data, and provide environmental testing to lower income families and neighborhoods that are effected by natural gas exploration.”
In the spring of this year, ShaleTest.org became affiliated with (ie funded by) the larger organization Earthworks, an organization whose goal is to stop mining and energy extraction of every kind on the planet. Apparently Earthworks has showered its largesse on the good Mr. Tillman who can now devote himself full-time to traveling the country and bashing the drilling industry.
Before Mr. Tillman co-founded ShaleTest.org, MDN had the pleasure of hearing him in person when he made an anti-gas campaign stop in Binghamton, NY in February 2010. You can read about that meeting here.
If you would like to hear Mr. Tillman in person when he visits the Northeast, you can find his current speaking itinerary here.
Below you’ll find the “top 5” lists and this week’s calendar listings.
Happy reading,
Jim Willis, Editor
A new landowner coalition has formed in Central New York representing landowners in Oneida and Madison counties. The coalition’s purpose is to negotiate a contract for drilling on their land for both the Marcellus Shale and potentially in the Utica Shale as well.
Chesapeake Energy experienced a blowout at a well being drilled near Canton in Bradford County, PA on Tuesday at 11:45 pm. A blowout occurs when the pressure systems fail and results (in this case) in drilling fracking fluids escaping in an uncontrolled manner. For a time the fluids from the Canton well spread over farm land and into a small stream that empties into the Towanda Creek.
Initially seven families were evacuated from the immediate area. Six of the families have now returned to their homes, but one family will need to stay relocated until the well is 100 percent under control. Crews have significantly decreased the amount of fracking fluid coming from the bore hole, but they have not yet fully stopped it.