The Liberal Politics & Current Events Book Club discussion
Fracking viewpoints
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Quinn
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Feb 17, 2013 08:44AM
I work at Allegheny College, a Liberal Arts small school in Meadville, PA. Recently the college has been approached by an energy company infomring us that they have found natural gas reserves below our off campus wildland area where we do geology and environmental studies field work. There has been a large on campus discussion about whether or not this is something to pursue, what are the risks, etc. Since the discussion has begun, an interesting dicotomy has developed in which Geology people are all for it on both sides (professors and students). The interesting devide is among the Environmental Studies department. Students tend to be animatly opposed to the fracking drilling, while the professors that I have spoken with, say that there isnt any real risk, and that they are all for it. Are there any general thoughts, information, or books that anyone would like to share about this? I find it fascinating that there is such a devide on campus, and would love to hear what you all think.
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The movie Gasland would be good to watch for the anti-fracking viewpoint. http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/whats-...
Thanks Jimmy. The website is quite interesting and informative. I would be interested to see other sides of the argument. I get weary (not saying information is wrong) when I see webpages with that kind of title specifically stating a bias. I will try and see the movie when I can, and will share this information with some of my colleagues to get their reaction.
This may help or you could just go to the fracking industry. They'll give you the pro slant. http://now.tufts.edu/articles/frackin...
Be careful of avoiding the facts. There are not always two sides of equal measure.
This too is interesting, and presents the two sides of the argument very well and in depth. I guess my frustration with the whole thing right now is that there is so much bias involved in the conversation. Look at the two sources arguing each side. One is a representative from Exonn Mobile and the other is an attorney from Environment America. Do either of these two men have the expertise to give me real information about the process of fracking, or the ways to make it safe? I think a geologist vs an environmentalist would be most helpful, but when I do a google search I cant find that source. This is rhetoric from both sides, and I think the hole issue needs facts more than it needs rhetoric. Does that make sense? Don't get me wrong from what I understand its a really bad idea to jump into a new pond without checking for sharp objects. I would just rather talk to the person who has checked for sharp objects than listening to my mother on the one hand saying don't go in there, and my friend on the other calling me chicken...if that metaphor works here.
There were a ton of "facts" in what I gave you. For some reason you seem to be doubting them.
I don't want you to get heated jimmy. But do you understand what I'm saying about which facts are included? Usually when you are making an argument there is a tendency to leave out facts of viewpoints, even if its unconsciously. I like the facts you have given me and they are things I have already heard, I just am trying to understand why there are Environmental Scientists that contradict some of the conclusions. I don't want you to get frustrated with me here. The Exonn guys said that water contamination could be avoided pretty easily by safely securing the lines, and the environmental guy said that water contamination was likely. Who is the guy that would be securing the lines, and is it really that easy, and will it really work. That's the kind of stuff I'm looking for. Please understand I'm not arguing with you, or the things that you gave me. I see discussion as most constructive when there is conversation involved, and the tufts article was good. The first two links that you included are great information and allot of helpful facts that were presented to encourage a certain opinion.
It's going to happen because it is big money for the small school and it is happening all over your state. Hopefully you will be able to see the entire operation close up.There will be no problems if there are no accidents. The only thing you can do is hope there will be no accidents. That's why they call them accidents.
Halburton, the wonderhead of the technology industry has developed a new fracking formula that is less harmful than previous formulas. Find out if that is the one that will be used. Halburton gets no rewards they just discovered they can frack some wells with cheaper ingredients which happens to be less hazardous substances.
Find out in advance how long the well is projected to last, as it won't last that long.
Find out who is invested in the drilling which is usually separate from the pumping, and the pumping, find out what their track records are.
Hopefully you just got there and you will have a couple of years to see if there are any strange things happening after the well has been running awhile, like methane in the water. But you probably don't use well water so you got no worries.
You probably won't be able to see them dispose of the spent fracking solution, that would be interesting. Maybe you could follow the trucks when they take the spent fracking solution off site. At places without lawyers they might be inclined to leave some of the spent fracking solution behind to be absorbed by the local environment. You won't see that at your school unless you got really dumb lawyers okaying your school's contract.
The geologists are taking everything they do out of context because they can only work with a very tiny subset of data in order not to get into areas they don't know enough about. That's how they stay knowledgeable about what they are working on.
The environmentalists are using the trickle down theory to see what happens if this happens when this happens, all very unscientific according to today's standards. But that way you get to see what happens when your experiment leaves the area you know everything about and enters a region you don't know anything about.
what convinces me to fight against fracking is that it's is done without transparency. the chemicals that they use are not disclosed to the public, or even the landowner who has leased land for fracking. being a natural-born skeptic, i have to believe that if those chemicals weren't harmful, the information would be made available. the other thing is that the guy from Exxon is representing a multi-billion dollar industry that is making huge profits from fracking. the guy from Environment America is not. they don't stand to make huge monetary gains from their work. (.org!) from their website:
"Environment America is a federation of state-based, citizen-funded environmental advocacy organizations. Our staff and members work to protect the places we love, advance the environmental values we share, and win real results for our environment."
I think you are right Robert, that this will probably happen. Below I have included an article written in the school newspaper on the Fracking discussion.Although many details remain unclear about the possibility of hydrofracking in Allegheny’s Bousson Experimental Forest, conversations are progressing about the general logistics, implications and risks involved with hydrofracking.
In the second of this semester’s series of informational sessions moderated by the Bousson Advisory Group, a panel of executives and legal experts answered questions from the approximately 50 students, staff, faculty and community members in attendance.
Much of Wednesday’s discussion centered around hydrofracking’s legal implications and their relationship to environmental risks.
Panel member Jake Polochak is a leasing attorney and managing partner at the law firm Morascyzk & Polochak. The firm represents landowners in the Appalachian Basin, specifically within the context of the region’s developing gas and oil industry.
Polochak said that if Allegheny were to consider signing a lease with a company interested in fracking, it should prioritize its control over the property.
“I would recommend to any landowner the first criteria you need to meet, unless you’re willing to sell your property…is satisfactory landowner control and surface protection,” Polochak said. “From there, I would move into the type of production incentives I could get in the lease.”
He went on to say that most gas companies he has worked with have been reasonable negotiators in terms of incentives and surface rights.
“Frankly, most gas companies leasing in this area at this time are more than willing to offer landowners satisfactory landowner protections,” Polochak said. “The landowner can play a large role in what surface activity will occur, and where it will occur.”
Panel member Susan Stout, a project leader at the U.S. Forest Research Service, said that it is important to remember the wide range of aspects encompassed by the word “surface.”
“The picture of the surface impacts need to include the roads, the fragmentation of the forest, the containment of methane leaks in the well pad and in the infrastructure and the burden of truck traffic on local community,” Stout said.
She said the federal government only acquired the surface of the Allegheny National Forest when they established it in 1923. They did not acquire the mineral rights.
Another panel member was Richard Neville, an environmental group manager with the Department of Environmental Protection. Neville said that from a surface standpoint, the biggest problems within the gas and oil industry are related to site preparation issues.
“It’s not the process of drilling the well that usually causes the problem. It’s the site preparation that it takes to get in there to do the work,” Neville said.
There are many abandoned wells in the western Pennsylvania region. In the first information session, Jack Ubinger, senior vice president of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, said that it would not be wise to drill near abandoned wells.
“You should be looking for the orphan wells because if they are there you shouldn’t drill there, because they are artificial pathways,” Ubinger said.
Neville explained that drilling operators are ultimately responsible for any unforeseen accidents associated with drilling, whether or not they really caused the problem.
However, Polochak clarified that this responsibility only applies if the affected landowner has a contractual relationship with the driller who may have caused an impact.
“If you had the property next door to a well and didn’t have a lease with that operator, your only recourse would be through the DEP,” Polochak said. “The DEP would have to plead jurisdiction of how that was handled.”
During the first six months after a well has been drilled, a presumptive liability stipulation exists saying that any water contamination occurring within a 2,500-foot radius of the well is automatically assumed to be the operator’s fault.
“The Department has the right to order the operator to fix that water,” Neville said. “If you’re not within that period of time, then it becomes the Department’s burden to determine whether the company caused the problem.”
Within the period of presumptive liability, operating companies are automatically obligated to restore or replace the contaminated water with water of equal quantity and quality. If a problem is identified after the initial 6-month period, the DEP investigates the reason for the problem before automatically assuming the operating company is guilty.
Neville said that water is often already above the maximum contaminant limit established by the federal government before drillings begins. Many people do not realize their water has high levels of iron or manganese.
He said that in these cases, the government is not required to restore water levels all the way back to the MCL. However, the government does encourage application of treatment systems to the contaminated water.
“Where you run into a little bit of issue with this is the Department of the Commonwealth cannot tell the operator what he chooses to do. So you may have a disagreement with the operator on what exactly constitutes restoring or replacing the water,” Neville said. “But at the end of the day, it’s our responsibility to make sure that your water after impact is as good as it was before the impact.”
In regards to the streams at Bousson, Neville referenced the water management plans designed by the Department which dictate safety terms for operators working in areas with water supplies.
“We’re comfortable that if you follow that water management plan, that we don’t have negative impacts on the streams,” Neville said.
Associate Professor of Biology Catharina Coenen inquired about the long-term integrity and durability of the wells.
“When the College is at its 400-year anniversary, how are we going to think back about this? What do we know about how well those wells might hold up?” Coenen asked the panel.
President of Universal Well Services, Inc. and Allegheny alumnus Roger Willis, ’80, said that although it is required to close up wells after drilling is completed, that there is not much risk of leakage from wells.
“The worry of gas migrating…to the surface from a depleted well is truthfully very low,” Willis said.
He explained that as a well is being drilled, there are several different pieces of casings under the ground, grouted in place. When plugging the well up after drilling is complete, the state requires operators to remove all free and movable casing, as well as replace it with impermeable cement.
He added that the cement would be of lower permeability than the rock that was underground in the first place.
“As the well would be depleted, the likelihood of any gas migration would cease to exist,” Willis said.
Geology major Douglas Barber, ’13, said that the risks of fracking are generally exaggerated.
“Bottom line is, it’s not as environmentally damaging as it’s thought to be,” Barber said. “As long as they follow procedure, it’s 100 percent foolproof.”
Polochak attested that the risk of dangerous accidents is low when it comes to drilling.
“I deal with a lot of concerned landowners who want to know, how is this industry going to kill me?” Polochak said. “And I say, ‘best chance, truck accident.’”
Associate Professor of Geology and advisory group member Ronald Cole asked the panel about the specific concerns involved with hydrofracking in western Pennsylvania.
“We’ve heard about this in other parts of the state, but the geological conditions are far different here than elsewhere. So talking specifically about western Pennsylvania, what sort of criteria are available at this point to evaluate?“ Cole asked.
Cole specified that he was interested in the potential effects on the surface as well as on shallow groundwaters.
Neville replied that fracking in the western region of Pennsylvania is less risky than in other parts of the state due to the strong rock lying underneath the area.
“When you’re talking about western Pennsylvania, you are talking about more competent [rock] formations than you are in other parts of the state. So when they started drilling Marcellus wells over by…Susquehanna County…you had issues with…the shallower gases, formations, getting disturbed,” Neville said.
He added that this region’s primary concern when drilling should be the large quantity of abandoned wells.
“The other side of the coin though is, in western Pennsylvania you have hundreds of thousands of many old holes in the ground,” Neville said, referring to the many abandoned wells in the state. “Some of them are plugged, some of them are not. There are many that we don’t even know about.”
Associate Professor of Economics Stephen Onyeiwu, a member of the advisory group, asked if any specifics are currently known about the amount of money the college is looking at if it chooses to negotiate drilling in Bousson.
“Some members of the community have said the decision depends on what the economic benefits are…to coming in, doing seismic testing and exploring for gas,” Onyeiwu said. “Therefore, it would be very difficult to really make a decision without knowing those facts.”
Willis said that a specific amount of money cannot be predicted at this point.
“There are a couple wells that have already been drilled [Lippert Well] really close to the Bousson….the productivity of that well isn’t known yet,” Willis said. “So that’ll…establish a baseline. In this area there’s been really no Marcellus exploration, because it’s very thin, and the Utica is still in very early stages of development.”
He added that another important consideration to consider is the part of the property which would be assigned to the lease.
Polochak agreed that leases have many different variables, and therefore a specific amount is almost impossible to define at this early stage.
“You would need a crystal ball to know what you were signing…but going by what others are signing around here, you would sign between $1,500 and $40,000 an acre to sign that lease,” Polochak said. “Whether you see production royalties down the road or not, would depend on a thousand variables.”
He said that a non-surface lease is the most practical path for a private school property such as Allegheny to follow, explaining that this is because neighboring properties would likely explore joint leasing ventures with the college.
In the first informational session, advisory group member and Vice President of Finance and Administration Larry Lee said that even if the college did agree to allow seismic testing at Bousson, fracking still may not occur.
“One of the first steps is to do the seismic testing so they can understand more about the geology and where they may want to drill,” Lee said. “Even if we decided that we did want to do this, the geology may not support it, and they may not select Bousson as one of the sites that they want to explore anyway.”
Assistant Professor of Environmental Science and Studies Jack Meeder asked whether drilling operators in Pennsylvania are responsible for removing the well pad and all other changes to the surface after drilling is completed.
Polochak said that all of the leases analyzed at his firm require operating companies to remediate the disturbed surface, back to as close to the original conditions as possible. However, he added that he is unaware of any wells that have actually been pumped to completion.
“Even if the lease doesn’t address restoration of the site, the Pennsylvania regulations require that all wells drilled have to be restored within nine months of drilling. Y
I found interesting that much of the talk is about the legal ramifications. You will also notice a comment from one of our concerned Environmental students, labeling this as an "Emotionally Charged" issue. Would love to hear thoughts
Health impact group studies are just beginningNew York Dept of Health was going to release a report Feb 14 about what if any restrictions or rules might be needed for fracking but they were not ready to release it.
They said they are looking at this, just released.
• The US EPA hydraulic fracturing study. This is a study of potential impacts of HVHF on drinking water resources. Commissioned by Congress, this includes 18
research related projects. The EPA published a 278 page progress report a few weeks ago which we are reviewing.
Major healthcare provider in PA fracking area says their study will be available in 5 years.
• Geisinger Health Systems study. Geisinger, which cares for many patients in
areas where shale gas is being developed in Pennsylvania, is undertaking studies
to analyze health records for asthma and other respiratory diseases, accidents
and injuries, as well as birth outcomes.
Supposedly Univ of PA is going to release something in Feb.
• University of Pennsylvania study.
A study of HVHF health impacts was recently announced, led by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and in collaboration with scientists from Columbia, Johns Hopkins and the University of North Carolina.
http://www.cleanwaternotdirtydrilling...
"two arcane laws known as split estates and forced pooling"In recent years, energy companies have used these precedents to bypass property owners who object to drilling under their turf. Now residents in North Carolina, which legalized fracking just last year, hope their government will protect their property rights before drilling begins.
http://blogs.reuters.com/events/2013/...
Oil Addiction, Not Fracking, Caused the 2011 Oklahoma Earthquakes...would be funny if it wasn't true.http://news.yahoo.com/oil-addiction-n...
Fracking's "revolving door""The revolving door data in this report raises troubling questions about the incentives that may be guiding public officials' oversight of fracking in Pennsylvania, from governors to DEP secretaries to well inspectors."
http://pipeline.post-gazette.com/news...
