Ruling allows Scroggins back on Cabot-leased land Fracking activist will fight buffer zone in May trial

Update, April 30 2104: Scroggins V. Cabot trial, set for May 1 in Montrose, Pa., postpomed until July 2.

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A ruling Friday by a Pennsylvania judge to allow activist Vera Scroggins back on land leased by Cabot Oil & Gas is a “big win” according to her legal team, but the fight will continue in a trial scheduled for May 1.

An order, drafted by Cabot attorneys and handed down by Judge Kenneth Seamans in October, barred Scroggins from setting foot on land owned or leased by Cabot, “including but not limited to” well sites, well pads, and access roads. That language kept Scroggins from approximately 200,000 acres -- nearly 40 percent -- of Susquehanna County where Scroggins lives, including property of friends, neighbors, stores, parks, schools and health care providers.

After a hearing Monday, Judge Seamans modified the injunction to restrict Scroggins only from work areas designated by no-trespassing signs and a 100-foot buffer zone. The new order, issued on Friday, allows Vera to enter other land leased by Cabot, including markets, public spaces, physicians offices, and hospitals. It also allows her to use public roads that go by work sites, but the ruling stipulates that she cannot stop or linger at the entrances to access roads.

In an interview Friday with Associated Press reporter Michael Rubinkam, Scroggins’ attorney Scott Michelman characterized the revised order as “a big win,” but he added that the 100-foot buffer could pose unjustified restrictions. Scroggins said the revised order was “a step in the right direction. ” She told me today that she and her legal team will fight the buffer zone at a trial scheduled for May 1.

Scroggins’ vantage point was mostly from public roads by drilling sites, although Cabot claims that she also trespassed onto private land under lease by the Texas drilling company, posing a safety risk to herself and others. In a statement Friday, Cabot officials said they were "satisfied” with the ruling to maintain an injunction against Scroggins that “protects Cabot and its employees, contractors and others” and “keeps landowners from being exposed to liability that could arise from Scroggins' actions."

One of the main questions to be resolved: Is a buffer zone, which does not apply to other citizens, necessary to protect the health and safety of Scroggins and others, as Cabot claims, or is it being used by Cabot to discourage anti-fracking activists from filming or viewing Cabot operations from legitimate vantage points, as Scroggins claims.

Scroggins has taped and posted hundreds of video files on You Tube showing drilling operations in Susquehanna County since 2009, including spills, clean-ups, and discharges. The videos cast operations in a way that runs counter to the industry’s portrayal as clean and safe. Scroggins has also lead tours for political action groups, academics, journalists, and other interested parties visiting the area to learn more about drilling and the controversial practice of high volume hydraulic fracturing to stimulate the gas wells.

Cabot Oil and Gas v. Vera Scroggins

Cabot v Scroggins = heat over land rights, speech, fracking Pa. court considers injunction to limit activist’s actions

Vera Scroggins and her lawyers (left) at the Montrose courthouse Monday

A confrontation over free speech and land rights that began inside a courthouse in Montrose, Pennsylvania this morning grew more contentious outside, as lawyers and demonstrators took their arguments to the courthouse steps and parking lot.

The hearing, in the Court of Common Pleas before Judge Kenneth Seamans, involved what degree Cabot Oil & Gas can limit activist Vera Scroggins in her attempts to videotape drilling operations and related activity. The company has faced public relations and environmental problems in Dimock township after the state Department of Environmental Protection held Cabot's operations responsible for polluting an aquifer that supplies dozens of homes in Dimock Township.

Scroggins has taped and posted hundreds of video files on You Tube showing drilling operations in Susquehanna County since 2009, including spills, clean-ups, and discharges. The videos cast operations in a way that runs counter to the industry’s portrayal as clean and safe. Scroggins has also lead tours for political action groups, academics, journalists, and other interested parties visiting the area to learn more about drilling and the controversial practice of high volume hydraulic fracturing to stimulate the gas wells.

Scroggins’ vantage point was mostly from public roads by drilling sites, although Cabot claims that she also trespassed onto private land under lease by the Texas drilling company, posing a safety risk to herself and others.

One basic question before the court was whether Scroggins willfully and habitually trespassed. Her lawyers said that drilling zones were not always clearly marked with no trespassing signs, that Scroggins' ventures into drilling territory in each case were in good faith to openly ask questions and seek information, and that she always complied if asked to leave.

Two other questions, however, make the case a potential landmark test of a company’s control over property it leases but does not own. The first question is whether Cabot can legally keep Vera away from leased land, including access roads, with a buffer zone that extends into adjoining public roads and right-of-ways. The second question is whether a party that owns sub-surface rights but not surface rights can legally act as “gatekeepers” for who can and cannot come onto the land. Can a mineral rights lessee forbid a person who has been invited onto the land by the property owner to view operations?

Seamans granted the injunction in October, after Vera appeared in court without an attorney to answer the trespass charge.  Since then, the case has generated interest and outrage among activists who say Cabot is restricting limits on Scroggins’s constitutional right to report what is happening in her community, and its actions have a chilling effect on others. Attorneys Scott Michelman, of the Public Citizen Litigation Group in Washington, D.C. and Gerald Kinchey, in private practice in Sayre, Pa., have taken up Scroggins’ case pro bono.

Ostensibly, the injunction was designed to keep Scroggins away from work areas for safety reasons. But technically, the language forbids Scroggins from setting foot on land owned or leased by Cabot, “including but not limited to” well sites, well pads, and access roads. That phrasing is what makes the case a possible watershed. The Texas drilling company has leases on more than 200,000 acres -- nearly 40 percent -- of Susquehanna County where Scroggins lives, including rights to property of friends, neighbors, stores, parks, schools and health care providers. Obeying the injunction has required both active research to find out what land is leased, and also avoidance of places that she would normally go without thought.

At today’s hearing, Cabot proposed an alternative plan that would ban Scroggins from 150-foot setbacks from access roads and 500-foot buffer zones from work sites. Cabot attorney Amy Barrette, of Norton Rose Fulbright, argued the setbacks were necessary because “given Ms. Scroggins’ past conduct, if you give her an inch, she will take many, many miles, and she will be up on the well pads.”

Michelman argued that the order went well beyond addressing safety concerns and posed “a chilling effect” on the speech and actions of activists who wanted to call attention to fracking operations. An injunction that prevented Vera from entering designated work sites would be reasonable, he said, but not a buffer zone. He pointed out that such a zone could keep Scroggins from certain parts of public roads as well as areas that property owners are allowed on, even if they invited her to go with them.

The broad scope of the injunction is not about safety, but a ploy to intimidate activists, Michelman said in an interview after the hearing. “It tells them you will pay for exposing what is going on at these sites. You will pay for speaking out against the big oil and gas companies.”

During the hearing, Kinchy argued that, unless it is specifically written in a lease, the lessor of sub-surface rights does not have the right to dictate who can and cannot come onto leased property. That principal will be relevant if the case goes to trial. Jeremy Mercer, a lawyer for Cabott, rebutted that Pennsylvania case law does in fact give mineral rights holders such rights.

Seamans adjourned the hearing after attorneys from each side agreed to send the court versions of the order that they could live with. Judging by the arguments, that would be in Scroggins’ case an injunction that keeps her from well pads, work areas, and access roads, and in Cabot’s case an injunction that keeps Scroggins from both these areas and specified setbacks from these areas. The case is scheduled to be tried May 1 unless the parties can come to terms.

A small group demonstrated support for Cabot 

More than 120 people attended the hearing, many of them activists from outside the area who were there to support Scroggins. A contingent of a half dozen or so drilling proponents, including some local landowners, demonstrated support for Cabot’s position.

After the adjournment, the crowd swarmed outside the courthouse where both pro-drilling and anti-fracking groups held press conferences. In a rally on the courthouse steps, drilling supporters held signs that said “Drill Baby Drill” and “Vera Get Off Our Land.” At the same time, a mix of Scroggins supporters and adversaries gathered in the corridor that lead to the back parking lot. Vera had sat quietly during the hearing and let council do the talking. Now, flanked by her lawyers, she used the platform to criticize the industry’s safety record and to call for more scrutiny.

“It sends a message that if you speak out, you will pay. This is an outrage,” she said, citing violations that the state has issued the company. “Why are they allowed to operate?”

Barrette (right) argues with Michelman over intention of Scroggins injuncttion

After about 10 minutes, a sheriff’s deputy told the crowd to go outside because the congestion in the hallway was posing a hazard. About this time, Barrette, Cabot’s attorney, shouldered her way through the crowd to Michelman, who was standing next to Scroggins. After an exchange, they exited to the parking lot. Some of the conversation was lost in the noise, but it had to do with the merits of the injunction and the way it was written.

“Did you draft that order?” Michelman said as the two faced each other in the parking lot.

“Yes, and the order was not sought to keep her from the hospital or any of those other places,” Barrette replied.

“Its language was categorical,” Michelman said. “If you wanted something different, you should have drafted it more carefully, and if you didn't like what the court entered you should have moved to modify it. You could have done that in the last five months.”

“We gave you a very narrow proposal that you rejected many times,” Barrette said, as a cluster of reporters and spectators caught up with them. “We'll let the court decide.” Barrette referred questions from reporters to George Stark (a company spokesman who has not returned my calls) and she walked away to rejoin the pro-drilling group in the front of the courthouse.

Shale Shock Media captured some of the events following adjournment, including the confrontation in the parking lot, in the video below:

Solutions to H20 pollution elude officials in Cabot gas field Five years after blast, Pa officials continue tests in Dimock

Five years after the explosion of Norma Fiorentino’s water well signaled all was not well in Cabot’s Marcellus shale gas operation in northeast Pennsylvania, state environmental officials are still trying to gauge the impacts of drilling on the water supplies of local residents.

The agency is scheduling another round of tests to see whether methane levels in Dimock water wells are safe, Colleen Connolly, a spokeswoman for the Department of Environmental Protection, confirmed this week. It's the latest step in an investigation that literally began with a bang on New Year's Day, 2009. The explosion of the Fiorentino well prompted an investigation by the DEP that concluded water wells serving at least 19 homes contained explosive levels of natural gas that had migrated underground from Cabot’s nearby drilling operations.  Since then, dozens of water wells in Susquehanna County have been taken off line due to methane contamination.

Some of the Dimock residents agreed to a settlement with Cabot, negotiated by the DEP, that compensated the parties with payments worth twice the assessed value of their properties, and systems to filter their water. Others have held out. They believe the systems, which require maintenance, are not an effective answer to the problem and do not filter other harmful chemicals associated with drilling. The settlement was finalized in 2010 under DEP Secretary John Hanger (now a gubernatorial candidate).  Hanger, who headed Governor Ed Rendell’s DEP, had originally pushed for an $11 million infrastructure project, to be paid for by Cabot, to restore fresh water to the residents. Cabot opposed the plan for a water line, and the administration withdrew it soon after Tom Corbett, an industry supporter, was elected governor.

Although Cabot continues to develop the Marcellus Shale throughout Susquehanna County, the DEP has banned the company from drilling within a 9-square mile area around Carter Road until it fixes an unremitting methane problem there.

Working with the settlement as a blueprint, Cabot has restored water to some but not all homes through special filtration systems or bottled water. But problem areas persist. Several polluted homes have been abandoned, including two on Carter Road bought by Cabot. The company bought 1101 Carter Road, once home to outspoken fracking activists Craig and Julie Sautner, and demolished the ranch house last year. It then sold the vacant parcel to a neighbor for a fraction of the purchase price, with a condition written in the deed that no residence could ever be built there. Late last year, Cabot bought the home of Mike Ely, on the south end of Carter Road, although the company has not answered questions about its plans for the contaminated property.

Several other homes in the area remain vacant after having been sold to other parties, reportedly for interest in mineral rights. Three vacant homes happen to be near Cabot’s failed Costello gas well, which officials have indentified as a possible source of methane pollution.  This week, Connolly reiterated that the Costello well, near the intersection of the south end of Carter Road and State Route 3023, was “unviable” and “”remedial work is continuing at the gas well, and Cabot and DEP continue to evaluate results at the water wells.”  In addition to fluctuating methane levels, previous tests have shown levels of iron and manganese that were elevated but within standards in some water samples. Elevated levels of these elements are “not uncommon during gas migration,” she reported.

Before Cabot can resume drilling in the banned zone, Connolly said, the company must “demonstrate compliance” with the 2010 Consent order. “We have scheduled another round of testing to determine whether the gas migration event has ceased,” she added. Connolly could not immediately say how many homes will be included in the sampling collection. Sources in the field told me that the DEP plans to test all 19 homes listed in the consent agreement, but that the agency has not been granted access to all the homes.

As I have found with many stories about shale gas, a central problem is a lack of information. Some of this is because state regulators, dependent on updates from companies that are exempt from many disclosure laws, are still trying to figure out exactly what is going on. And some of it is due to the fact that companies are reluctant to share certain information that casts operations in a negative light. This is all complicated by some residents who feel what is happening on their property is their business, others who want to show the world what they want the world to see, and still others working in good faith to expose and understand problems with the intention of making things better. In short the problem is cast in a muddle of projections from stakeholders with widely divergent interests and ideological footing. Chief among these is Cabot, which possesses the facts about what is happening at its restricted sites and underground, test results, along with rights to the land under question.

In addition to speaking with Connolly and people in the field, I have called and emailed Cabot spokesman George Stark over a period of months for an update. Here is one of my email queries from Dec. 10. 2013:

Hi George,

I’m following up on Cabot’s recent purchase of Mike Ely’s property on Carter Road and have some questions related to that:

Why did Cabot buy the property? 

What plans does the company have for it?  

What is the status of the nearby Costello well? Is it all fixed?

Does the company expect to be able to resume development in the 9-square mile “no drill zone”?

Also, a question related to the former Sautner property now owned by the Mayes: Why did Cabot forever prohibit building a home on the property as part of the land covenant?

 Here is Stark’s response, which came a month later, on Jan. 9, after I left several phone messages:

Tom,

Got your message yesterday about the former Ely property. 

Cabot entered into a private business transaction with the prior owner of the property. The sale was agreed to by both parties and we are now the current owners. 

George

Trying to apply his answer to the questions at hand in any meaningful way was fruitless, so I emailed Stark again:

Hi George 

Thanks for responding. But your statement does not answer any of my questions. Here they are again: 

Why did Cabot buy the property? 

What plans does the company have for it? 

What is the status of the nearby Costello well? Is it all fixed? 

Does the company expect to be able to resume development in the 9-square mile “no drill zone”? 

Also, a question related to the former Sautner property now owned by the Mayes: Why did Cabot forever prohibit building a home on the property as part of the land covenant?

That was January 9. Since then I have also left voicemails. I am still waiting for a reply. If Stark’s response, or lack of a response, has any journalistic value in the meantime, it illustrates how some companies deal with these kinds of unpleasant questions. They ignore them, or offer a statement of fact that appears to be authoritative but is actually irrelevant.

There are people on all sides of the debate over the merits and risks of shale gas development who share a sense or frustration over lack of information. A group of drilling proponents called Dimock Proud has been especially critical of the DEP for implementing the no-drilling zone in Dimock without engaging all the people who live there, including those eager to see shale gas development proceed. In their view, the DEP has been operating too much out of the public eye. The group represents people who are in position to make money when Cabot drills on their property. The Dimock Proud web site features letters to the DEP complaining that the agency has ignored their requests for information -- specicially, explanations of the no drill zone around the problem wells and why the ban applies to people in the 9-square mile area who want to see their shale gas developed. The group stresses this compaint:

Dimock landowners have written you countless letters, signed petitions that we sent to you, and absolutely begged you to let us out of that arbitrary 9-square miles. You did nothing! You didn’t even acknowledge receipt of the petitions.

The controversy over drilling and fracking in Dimock is one of many in countless communities in dozens of developing shale gas basins across the country. Some problems are unique and some universal. But Dimock, just across the border of New York State, was one of the first where the media spotlight focused intensely on the gas boom that is transforming the country. And given the persistence of problems there, it's where it might also shine the longest.

Trespassing case tests driller’s control over leased land Activist banned from parks, schools, stores w/ Cabot lease

Vera Scroggins in front of a drilling rig in Dimock Township
PHOTO JAMES PITARRESI

After being charged with trespassing, anti-fracking Vera Scroggins has been banished from land leased by Cabot Oil & Gas. That’s no small deal. The Texas drilling company has leases on more than 200,000 acres -- nearly 40 percent -- of Susquehanna County where Scroggins lives, including rights to property of friends, neighbors, stores, parks and schools.

The Cabot v. Scroggins trespassing case might have been relegated to a journalistic footnote in a national conflict over shale gas development and high volume hydraulic fracturing. It has long been standing practice (and common sense) for companies to restrict access to operations where crews are using heavy equipment and hazardous chemicals under high pressure to drill wells and fracture bedrock a mile deep in the ground.

Scroggins admittedly crossed into designated work areas on occasion, but there were no signs denoting trespass zones, she said, and her ventures into drilling territory in each case were in good faith to openly ask questions and seek information. (Some background on this in a moment.) The remarkable and possibly groundbreaking aspect of this case, however, is not the charge or the defense, but the resulting preliminary injunction the Susquehanna Court of Common Pleas issued on October 21, 2013. Pending trial of the case this spring, the order forbids Scroggins from setting foot on land owned or leased by Cabot, “including but not limited to” well sites, well pads, and access roads. That language, interpreted by Scroggins lawyer Gerald Kinchy, in effect forbids Scroggins from going to certain school grounds, her auto mechanic of 23 years, many other businesses, the county jail, and homes of dozens of friends, among other places. Doing so puts her at risk of contempt of court. (See the full order, embedded below.)

Cabot’s action raises the broader issue of how much control energy companies have over land they lease. While mineral extraction is their stated intention, many standard leases give companies ill-defined and seemingly limitless discretion over land use. “When drilling companies lease rights to land for mineral extraction,” Kinchy said, “does that mean they have rights to exclude other people from that land, even property owners?”

Apart from the Scroggins case, that question has mostly applied to practical matters of daily extraction operations. A company such as Cabot might own rights to a large tract, but it is generally concerned about gaining or restricting access to active work areas. Conflicts might crop up over where exactly a company might build a pad, access road, or pipeline, and at what inconvenience or loss of land use to the landowner. When that happens, lease language and the respective parties’ appetite and resources for litigation come into play, with the company often in a position of leverage.

The Scroggins case breaks new ground. Issues of practicality (and enforcement) aside, it probes whether a company can legally keep a person from stepping foot on leased land outside of established work zones, including public spaces where others are allowed.

Now for some background. Cabot Oil & Gas operations have drawn numerous violations from the state and much national and international media coverage due to recurring water pollution problems in Dimock Township. The company has been a particular target for critics and activists, including Scroggins, who lives in the neighboring township of Brooklyn. (More about that here.)

In Under the Surface, I describe Scroggins this way:

 … a grandmother, amateur videographer, and advocate for many causes, including home births, home schooling, and no mandated childhood vaccinations. In 2009, she took up the cause as a watchdog against oil and gas operators who began leasing large tracts of northeast Pennsylvania to develop the Marcellus Shale. “We’re extra eyes and ears for the DEP,” she told [a community organizer]. “They don’t have enough workers and we have to pick up the slack.”  

Footage from some of Vera’s vigilante patrols in 2009 shows encounters with roughnecks and pipeline workers, some reacting with amusement or annoyance to the woman with a home video camera showing up at these remote and often inaccessible work sites and peppering them with questions. Some called her “ma’am” and briefly addressed her questions; some directed her to the foreman, who almost always asked her to leave; and some simply ignored her or walked away. These brief encounters typically punctuate long unedited footage of vacuum trucks, excavation equipment, and hay bales. Vera also taped public forums and interviews with residents … recounting their experiences with gas development. These videos she posted online, where they joined a broad and growing collection of depictions of Susquehanna County gas development by other independent media, advocates … and professional news outlets. They generally … presented aspects of drilling that lent themselves to visuals: truck traffic, derricks, flaring, fracking, and heavy machinery cutting swaths through the countryside.

Until the injunction, Vera had intensified her efforts, serving as a tour guide for parties interested in seeing and learning about drilling and fracking from a perspective other than that offered by company tours and commercials. On occasion, she has helped me locate operations in the region (viewable from  public roads.)

Cabot poses a sound argument that those venturing onto work sites without permission pose an annoyance, distraction, and/or safety threat. But Vera’s presence has become iconic of another kind of threat to the company – bad public relations and control over its image. The scope of the injunction against Scroggins invites wonder whether Cabot attorneys who crafted the language were unintentionally imprecise, or whether they are testing a strategy to eliminate their Scroggins PR headache once and for all, while sending a message to other activists.

George Stark, a company spokesman, was unavailable to answer this and other questions.

Court Order 10-22-13 New Date 1 2 14 Next Court Day by Thomas Wilber

Cabot buys second polluted residential property in Dimock 12-acre parcel on Carter Road flanked by faulty gas wells

The former Mike Ely propety, now owned by Cabot

Cabot Oil & Gas has closed a deal for a second residential property affected by chronic methane pollution in the heart of its prolific gas operations in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania.

The Texas-based company paid Michael Ely $140,000 for the 12-acre property that includes a doublewide modular home, according to records filed in Susquehanna County Courthouse Wednesday.  The property – now vacant -- borders the intersection of the south end of Carter Road with State Route 3023 in Dimock Township.

The state Department of Environmental Protection has identified at least two malfunctioning gas wells operated by Cabot bordering the property, including the Gesford 3 well, several hundred yards to the north off Carter Road, and the Costello 1 well, just to the south off Route 3023.

Cabot demolished the former Sautner in September 

The agency has forbidden Cabot to drill more wells in a nine-square mile area around the intersection until the company resolves problems with these and other shale gas wells that – according to the DEP inspectors – are causing methane pollution.

The former Ely property sits less than a mile south from another polluted residential property on Carter Road that Cabot bought for $140,000 from Craig and Julie Sautner last year. Cabot demolished the three-bedroom ranch in September and sold the empty lot to a neighbor for $4,000. The new deed includes a clause – called a land covenant -- that forbids residential dwellings on the property.

Cabot bought both the Sautner and Ely properties through a subsidiary called Susquehanna Real Estate 1 Corp.

Ely ancestral home across from Cabot's newly acquired lot

The former property of Mike Ely is part of a larger swath owned by generations of the Ely family since 1858. Bill Ely, Mike’s father, lives in the family’s large ancestral colonial home near the banks of Burdick Creek, which runs under a bridge connecting Carter Road with Route 3023. Bill Ely and his wife, Sheila, are among families in the area that depend on bottled water. Bill told me he has no intention of selling his 19th century house to the company, even though his water is not drinkable.

“I’m not leaving” Ely said Thursday. “My family’s been in this home for generations.”

Susquehanna County and operations centered in Dimock have been the source of both boon and bane for Cabot, which in 2013 was the second largest natural gas producer in Pennsylvania behind Chesapeake Energy. In the first half of the year, Cabot had 15 of the top producing wells in the state concentrated in its leasehold in Susquehanna County – an area experts call a “sweet spot” for Marcellus Shale production. But production has been beset by problems. Both Mike and Bill Ely were among more than 30 families in the area that settled a law suit with Cabot for damages related to water pollution for an undisclosed amount in 2012. The controversy continues, as Cabot, under the watch of the DEP, attempts to fix problems that have prevented it from drilling any new wells in a 9-square-mile region around the Carter Road area. Some of the gas wells have been plugged or shut down, so residents living over them have seen royalty payments dwindle.

Hazards found in some residential water wells include methane, arsenic, bacteria, and various heavy metals that occur naturally. Methane can make water flammable and pose risks of explosion in wellheads and enclosed spaces. Arsenic, heavy metals, and bacteria can cause illness. Drilling can open pathways that allow contaminants to move through the ground, but the extent to which this happens is open to scientific and legal interpretation. Cabot continues to challenge the DEP findings publically with claims the contaminates are a result of naturally-occurring phenomenon.

The DEP began investigating problems in the region after a residential water well on the north end of Carter Road exploded at the home of Norma Fiorentino on January 1, 2009, shortly after Cabot began ramping up operations to produce gas from the Marcellus Shale with the controversial practice of horizontal drilling and high volume hydraulic fracturing. Since then, the area has been the focus of a national controversy over the impacts of shale gas development on residential communities.

During my visit to the area this week, I noticed that a service rig at the Costello gas well had been removed. George Stark, a spokesman for Cabot, was not immediately available for comment about recent developments. Stark told me in September that the rig, which has been at the site for months, allowed crews to “monitor” the casing of the gas well, which appeared sound.

DEP officials explained it differently. They had not pinpointed a source for the problems affecting three homes near the well, including the Ely properties. But they had determined that the suspect Costello gas well was "unviable" and would have to be plugged. In an email response to my query earlier this fall, DEP spokeswoman Colleen Connolly reported that Cabot was ”continuing remedial efforts” at the Costello gas well and “evaluating the effectiveness” of the work.  Methane levels were fluctuating, she said. Additionally, tests had shown levels of iron and manganese that were elevated but within standards in some water samples. Elevated levels of these elements are “not uncommon during gas migration,” she reported.

Update 5:25 p.m. EST. In response to my request for an update this week, Connolly said in an email this afternoon that “remediation work” is continuing on the Costello 1 well.  But the department’s characterization of the status of the well remains vague. In Connolly’s words, the well is "essentially unviable," but DEP officials are "not aware of the gas well having been officially plugged.”

The razing of 1101 Carter Road: The rest of the story… Land “covenant” in deed forbids “human habitation”

The Sautner home became focus of the antifracking movement
PHOTO JAMES PITARRESI 

When I last visited Carter Road, a contractor for Cabot Oil & Gas was demolishing the former home of Craig and Julie Sautner, the anti-fracking activists who had relinquished their three-bedroom ranch as part of a settlement with the Texas drilling company. This was part of a larger dilemma in their hometown of Dimock, Pennsylvania, where the Sautner’s water well was polluted by nearby Cabot drilling operations, according to records from the state Department of Environmental Protection. It’s a charge that Cabot has denied publically and settled privately – with the Sautners and dozens of other plaintiffs.

The Sautner property – adorned with anti-fracking posters and inhabited by some of the most vocal and visible of fracking critics -- had become a particular symbol of the tensions that divided the community. Julie and Craig were featured in various high-profile accounts of the conflict as either victims, heroes or phonies. The aquifer that provided water to their home on 1101 Carter Road, and to 64 other homes in

EPA tecs sample water at Sautner home in 2012

Photo: JAMES PITARRESI

the area, was the focus of a controversial EPA investigation that found pollution at levels posing safety threats in 8 percent of the wells. Instead of making recommendations, the federal agency deferred to the industry’s solution, approved by the state, which was to deliver water in bottles and tanks to affected homes and provide filtrations systems. The Sautners and some other residents found those measures ineffective, and they unsuccessfully pursued a water line from the nearby village of Montrose – a measure that would have cost Cabot more than $11 million.  (A more full account of that story here.)

As part of an eventual settlement, the Sautners sold their property to a Cabot subsidiary for $167,500. Cabot demolished the vacant house, company spokesman George Stark told me after my visit last month, because the company was planning to sell the property, and it was more marketable without the
structure. Yet that answer doesn’t square with information on a deed that has since been filed in the Susquehanna County Court House in Montrose. After demolishing the house, Cabot sold the 3.3 acre parcel to Tim and Debbie Maye – owners of an adjoining property -- for $4,000. (Perhaps the absence of the house is an asset to Cabot, which retained the mineral rights on the Sautner acreage, although it’s worth noting that the DEP has forbid the company to drill in the area until it resolves the persistent problem of methane seeping into some water supplies in nine square miles around Carter Road. It's also worth noting that the Mayes have a history with Cabot that's antithetical to the Sautner's. The Mayes, who were once critical of the company, became shale gas supporters after they settled pollution claims of their own )

The most striking aspect of the sale, however, is this: The new owners of 1101 Carter Road are bound by certain conditions set forth in the deed, in parlance that may fairly be described as epic. It forbids a “residence or dwelling for human habitation” on the land. The time frame for this and other restrictions is “forever,” to be observed by future generations as “covenants running with the land.”

The sale, first reported this week by Laura Legere for State Impact, represents a kind of denouement to a story that I have been following for years while reporting for the Press & Sun Bulletin, in writing Under the Surface, and for this blog. The Sautners were initially enthusiastic and expectant supporters of shale gas development when the landman convinced them to lease their mineral rights in 2008. Their story, and the story of more than dozens others affected by Cabot’s operations, captures a complication that belies a common industry pitch:  Everyone’s a winner with shale gas development. Landowers get royalties, others get jobs, and there is cheap abundant energy for all. Claims of water contamination are exaggerated, fabricated, or trumped up by overreaching regulators.

In reality, there are economic winners and losers, as well as substantial environmental risks and trade-offs. The risks and trade-offs are hard to quantify because the industry is exempt from reporting requirements to disclose what it puts into the ground to stimulate wells, and what comes out. Whether you find this acceptable is likely to depend on whether you trust the industry more than government, your tolerance for mineral extraction in places you care about, and your belief in the wisdom of investing heavily in a fossil based energy system to meet 21st century challenges.

We know this: In some places gas is flowing, and with it, economic bounty to a mix of parties. But we also know this, like most things in life, is a circumstantial and transitory condition. The reality of the matter is that it often takes teams of bankers, lawyers, real estate agents, insurance actuaries, and regulators to sort it all out while being mindful of split estates, law suites, lease language, liabilities, and policy that can cut both ways depending on the proficiency and determination of various stakeholders. In the end, the example on 1101 Carter Road left a new land “covenant” forbidding “human habitation” at a place once called home by the Sautners.

Cabot demolishes home central to Dimock water dispute Methane problems persist in 9-square mile no-drilling zone

The Sautner home became focus of the antifracking movement
PHOTO JAMES PITARRESI 

Cabot Oil & Gas executives may have ongoing problems with operations in Dimock Pennsylvania, but the status of water quality at 1101 Carter Road is no longer one of them.

After years of controversy, Cabot last year paid an undisclosed amount to owners of that property, Craig and Julie Sautner, to settle claims that drilling contaminated their water well. As part of the deal, Cabot acquired the 3.6-acre property, the status of which remained a matter of speculation until last week when flatbeds unloaded a demolition excavator and multiple dumpsters in the driveway of the vacant home.

The arrival of the demolition crew marked a concluding chapter of a conflict that began in September, 2008, when the Sautner’s water suddenly went bad after Cabot crews drilled a nearby gas well into the Marcellus Shale. Under oversight by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Cabot attempted to restore the Sautner’s water with a system of filters and tanks, which took up a substantial part of the basement. The system proved ineffective, and the company began delivering bottled water to the house.

Since then, the three bedroom ranch, sitting tidy and plumb under a canopy of maple trees off the bucolic dirt road, has become a symbol of the anti-fracking movement in the heart of Cabot’s most prolific well field.

EPA investigation begins at Sautner home in Jan. 2012
PHOTO JAMES PITARRESI 

As drilling intensified in the area, Cabot began dealing with similar water complaints at dozens of other homes in the Carter Road area. After investigating the complaints, the DEP held Cabot drilling operations into the Marcellus Shale responsible for methane contamination in 18 water wells, and eventually ordered the company to install an $11 million pipeline to deliver water to the homes. Cabot resisted, and the DEP’s order caused a political fracas that split the community. A group of residents, including those receiving royalty payments and other compensation from the company, sided with the industry and characterized those demanding the water line as malcontents. Plans for the water line were dropped after Tom Corbett, a gas drilling proponent, was elected governor in 2010. But the DEP continued to enforce a ban on drilling in a 9-square mile area around Carter Road where problems persisted.  The primary constituents affecting the wells – methane, arsenic, barium and other metals -- are naturally occurring, and also a product of drilling.

My coverage of this story for the Press & Sun-Bulletin, and later in writing Under the Surface and posts for this blog, brought me into the Saunter’s home on several occasions. The house, with three bathrooms and a finished basement, was fairly new and well kept. A barn-star adorned unblemished vinyl siding next to the garage entrance, and America the Beautiful was inscribed in a silvery stencil on the wall opposite the entrance in the main foyer. The interior decor reflected the Sautner’s fondness for wall art and country nick knacks, carefully arranged, along with framed photos of the Sautner’s teenage children – Cody and Kelly -- and their various pets, including Emmi, an overprotective Chihuahua that had to be contained when visitors arrived.

Cabot contractors demolish the former Sautner property
PHOTO TOM WILBER

The home drew national media attention in 2012, when the federal Environmental Protection Agency, assessing data compiled by Cabot and the DEP, determined that the aquifer feeding the Sautner’s well and other homes in the area showed hazardous levels of pollution. Richard Fetzer, the EPA’s site coordinator, summed it up this way in an internal memo on Jan. 19, 2012: “What is clear is that this data strongly suggests that hazardous substances have been released and are present in some home wells at levels that may present a public health concern.”

The federal agency began it’s own series of tests, and found arsenic, barium, manganese, chromium, and methane in five of 61 wells at levels “that could propose a health concern.” The agency determined no follow up was necessary, however, because residents of affected homes had been notified and polluted wells were taken off line or equipped with filters. The contamination -- in roughly 8 percent of the wells tested -- was from naturally occurring compounds that are also used in or associated with drilling operations, which can exacerbate existing problems or introduce new ones.

Frustrated that Cabot avoided accountability for the problem, the Sautners emerged as dedicated and nationally visible critics of the industry with a degree of animosity that grew with each passing year. They filled their yard and garden with anti-fracking posters, and jugs of brown water. They appeared on television and radio shows and were featured at anti-fracking rallies and concerts, typically carrying the water jugs that became something of a trademark of the movement. Notably, the Sautner’s story was featured in Gasland, the Emmy-award winning film by Josh Fox that premiered on HBO in 2010, and which was largely responsible for inspiring the anti-fracking movement.

The Sautner’s approach -- blunt, antagonistic, and sustained – was eventually met by counter attacks from Cabot and gas supporters, both locally and nationally, determined to discredit their claims. While Josh Fox portrayed the Sautners as victims-turned-activists in Gasland, filmmaker Phelim McAleer, from Ireland, depicted them in his film Frack Nation as self-serving and exploitive phonies. (My reviews of both films can be found here.)

A new message at 1101 Carter Road
PHOTO TOM WILBER

The story is complicated by water quality tests that show different things at different times to different parties, and a settlement with Cabot that forbids parties to talk about the case. We know that, while the Sautner home apparently passed spec when the EPA took samples in January, 2012, it had a documented history of pollution prior to that. We also know that the EPA confirmed water problems at five homes. And we know that, in addition to whatever other terms the Sautners settled with Cabot, they received  $167,500 for their property; and it struck me as newsworthy when I heard that contractors working for Cabot had arrived last week to demolish the home.

I placed a call to Cabot spokesman George Stark, who told me that the company had a potential buyer for the land and that it was more marketable without the house.  Stark said he did not know if the land would be developed, and could not offer other details.

An obvious line of thinking, reflected on anti-fracking list serves, is this: With no home, there is no well, and with no well, there is no liability related to water pollution, at least at 1101 Carter Road. But water pollution at other homes continues to plague the company. Regulators are now focusing on methane pollution in three water wells about a mile south of the Sautner home, where Carter Road tees into State Route 3023. The DEP has indentified Cabot’s Costello gas well at this location as the primary suspect.

Stark said that a service rig, which has been at the site for months, allows crews to “monitor” the casing of the gas well, which appears sound.

DEP officials explained it differently. They have not pinpointed a source, according to a recent report in the Scranton Times Tribune quoting DEP spokeswoman Colleen Connolly. But they have determined that the suspect gas well is "unviable" and will have to be plugged. In an email response to my query, Connolly reported that Cabot is ”continuing remedial efforts” at the Costello gas well and “evaluating the effectiveness” of the work.  Methane levels are fluctuating, she said. Additionally, tests have shown levels of iron and manganese that were elevated but within standards in some water samples. Elevated levels of these elements is “not uncommon during gas migration,” she reported.

New and substantial research shows that methane migration from shale gas development is not an isolated problem. A recent study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that methane concentrations to be, on average, six times higher for homes with water supplies a kilometer or less from Marcellus Shale gas wells. Ethane, another component of natural gas, averaged 23 times higher for homes within a kilometer from natural gas wells.

The Sautners were not on hand to see the demolition of their former home. After the settlement last year, they moved away – first to Ithaca New York, and later to Tennessee. The new owner, not surprisingly, had removed all the anti-fracking signs in the yard and replaced them with a single blue placard that read “Dimock Proud! Where the water IS clean and the people are friendly.”

The excavator raised its boom and swung it toward the side of the garage. It came to an abrupt stop just before impact. The operator then raised the talons of the bucket to the top of the garage, and guided them in a slow arch, peeling back a swath of roof. The machine began biting into the asphalt tiles, roof boards and rafters. Within an hour, the two-car garage was mostly gone, and the machine continued chewing apart the house and packing wads of siding, insulation, wiring and splintered timber into dumpsters. By the end of the next day, all traces of the house were gone, except the foundation, which was filled in shortly thereafter.

The Sautners are bound by the non-disclosure clause from discussing the Cabot settlement or the water issue. But Craig Sautner did offer this about the demolition: “Their (Cabot’s) actions speak louder than words. There is nothing that I can say that tells the story any better than what they did.”

Time will tell whether 1101 Carter Road remains an uninhabited part of Cabot’s oil patch. The company, meanwhile, is staking much of its future on the gas field in northern Pennsylvania. According to Richard Zeits, reporting for the financial website Seeking Alpha, Cabot officials anticipate at least 3,000 future drilling sites on several hundred thousand acres in Susquehanna County. Yet at the heart of this area, where it all began, the future of the nine-square mile no-drill zone remains awkwardly bound to its legacy of water issues.

Note: This video of the demolition was taken by Vera Scroggins, an anti-fracking activist who lives in Susquehanna County.

Records add context to EPA’s aborted Dimock mission Letter from federal hazmat chief shows focus on Cabot

EPA officials begin investigation in Dimock in January 2012
PHOTO BY JAMES PITARRESI

More records are coming to light that show the EPA ended its investigation last year into the impact on fracking on Dimock water wells in the face of political pressure.

After finding arsenic, barium, manganese, chromium, and methane in wells at levels “that could propose a health concern” the agency declared no follow up was required because residents of affected homes had been notified and polluted wells were taken off line or equipped with filters. The contamination -- in roughly 8 percent of 61 wells tested -- was from naturally occurring compounds that are also used in or associated with drilling operations, which can exacerbate existing problems or introduce new ones.

The issue – one of national policy (or not) -- is recently getting the attention it deserves. Last month Neela Barnerjee of the LA Times reported that an internal EPA power point presentation showed that agency staff warned that methane pollution in Dimock was a likely result of shale gas operations that can cause long-term damage to aquifers. On this blog, I have reported that the EPA quietly turned the results of its investigation over to a sister agency called the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, where the outcome faces an uncertain fate. The ATSDR lacks the enforcement muscle of the EPA, has a relatively small budget and staff, and is notoriously slow.

But there’s more to it, and much of the back-story can be found in a series of internal correspondence and documentation uncovered through a freedom of information request by Laura Legere, of the Scranton Times Union. These memos and others now available on line show EPA officials were urgently concerned about pollution documented in Cabot’s own testing of the water, as well as files kept by Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. This was the starting point of the EPA investigation, which intended to “characterize” conditions that were causing disconcerting test results.

A memo dated Dec. 7. 2011 (date corrected from original post) from Jon Capacasa, director of the EPA’s Water Protection Division, captures the urgency of the EPA’s request to the ATSDR to evaluate the health risk of chemicals already documented by Cabot and the DEP.

We believe that the private wells in and around the Dimock area have been negatively impacted by the Cabot natural gas drilling process as evidenced by the presence of methane, butane, propane, ethane, ethene, etc., related gas compounds and also the presence of high concentrations of secondary contaminants like aluminum, iron, manganese, etc. 

We have recently received additional data identifying additional organic chemicals Butyl benzyl phthalate, Triethylene Glycol and 2 Methoxyethanol among others....

This is an urgent matter to the Agency so completion of your review within the next two months is requested.

While EPA staff found the matter urgent, they also noted that test results were not produced by the agency itself. To get their own data, staffers were mindful about overstepping the agency’s jurisdictional boundaries, which are limited due to fracking industry’s exemptions from the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. In justifying the Dimock investigation, the EPA recognized the issue to be “nationally significant and precedent setting” under the federal Superfund law, as detailed in this Jan. 19, 2012 scoping memo from site coordinater Richard Fetzer.

EPA routinely acts under CERCLA [superfund] to protect public health first while it acts to further define contamination. …

Because the action appears to be nationally significant and/or precedent-setting, the Region will continue to coordinate closely with Headquarters. EPA also will maintain coordination and communications with the PADEP. In taking this action, EPA is aware of and has considered the potential applicability of the natural gas exclusion under CERCLA, the Bensten Amendment under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and the exclusion to the definition of the “underground injection” under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). EPA has concluded that this action is appropriate under CERCLA at this time.

The original scope of work, which was later dropped, included determining the source of pollution. In a letter dated Jan. 6, 2012 notifying Cabot attorney Kevin Cunningham of the investigation and a request for records, EPA’s hazardous cleanup director Ronald Borsellino stated the agency was “investigating the source, extent and nature of a release or threatened release of hazardous substances” related to the company’s operations.

Fetzer’s Jan. 29 internal memo sumed it up this way:

What is clear is that this data strongly suggests that hazardous substances have been released and are present in some home well at levels that may present a public health concern. 

Current data does show arsenic and manganese at higher levels than may be typically found in post drilling samples.  Since arsenic and manganese are naturally occurring substances, EPA’s assessment will include comparison of background concentrations present. 

All this qualification, of course, was partly the product of due diligence by the EPA to make its investigation withstand the expected pushback from the state and the industry and to make a case for involvement under Superfund.

States generally are protective of their jurisdiction over shale gas, and this is a critical piece of context. The EPA was conducting a similar investigation in Pavillion, Wyoming, where it found evidence that shale gas development polluted water wells of homes on the Wind River Reservation. Predictably, the agency faced a hostile reception by Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead, a shale gas proponent who characterized the federal action as an example of regulatory overreach. (The EPA recently aborted its plans for a peer reviewed study of its work in Pavillion and turned the investigation over to the state.) The EPA faced a similar reaction from Pennsylvania state officials.

On Jan 5, 2012, (then) Pennsylvania DEP director Michael Krancer wrote to EPA Regional Administrator Shawn Gravin, citing Wyoming Governor Mead’s criticism of the EPA’s investigation in Pavillion. In Krancer’s words, that criticism involved:

the technical, scientific and cooperation shortcomings of EPA’s activities with respect to that state regarding Pavilion and there is no need here to catalogue those in his [Mead's] letter. Suffice it to say that we hope the EPA’s efforts here not be marked by the same rush to conclusions and other deficiencies here as it was and continues to be in respect to the Pavilion matter. . I ask that your efforts be guided by sound science and law rather than emotion and publicity.

Krancer copied a group of Pennsylvania legislators on his letter.

All this correspondence shows how the EPA was in a defensive position from the get go, even though its tests later affirmed a persistent problem with arsenic and methane in some wells. In one well, EPA tests found arsenic at nine times the federal safety standards, prompting the agency to call for an alternative source of water  because the levels posed “significant threat to the residents health,” according to an internal memo from Dennis Carney of EPA’s region 3 to his colleagues. (The name of the well's owner was redacted in the file.)

But there is still a missing piece: Why did the agency suddenly drop its investigation without accounting for the source of pollution in Dimock or characterizing the broader groundwater conditions, as it set out to do? The answer has something to do with jurisdictional limits due to the exemptions from federal law. But an overriding element involves Obama’s campaign platform for a second term, when the president was publically and enthusiastically pitching the merits of shale gas and portraying himself as an industry ally. As the campaign heated up in 2012, the EPA investigation could have backfired if held up in the hands of his opponents as evidence that the president is a regulatory zealot. In fact, Cabot Oil & Gas president Dan Dinges wasted no time exploiting this angle in an open letter -- shortly after the company was put on notice by the EPA – which was promptly featured in a report by Mark Drajem for Bloomberg:

EPA’s actions in Dimock appear to undercut the president’s stated commitment to this important resource,” Chief Executive Officer Dan Dinges wrote today in a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. “EPA’s approach has caused confusion that undermines important policy goals of the United States to ensure safe, reliable, secure and clean energy sources from domestic natural gas.

The EPA said Jan. 19 that it would deliver water to four families in Dimock, where residents say their water has been contaminated during hydraulic fracturing by Cabot. The EPA will also test water at 60 homes to assess whether any residents are being exposed to hazardous substances, the agency said.

Dinges, who also is Cabot’s chairman, said today that the company provided more than 10,000 pages of data to the EPA and there is “no credible evidence” that the water needs further analysis by the federal agency. 

“It appears as though the EPA’s decision is politically motivated and not based on a legitimate desire to address environmental concerns,” the company said in a statement issued with Dinges’s letter.

Dinges was clearly hitting effective buttons. In the world we live in, politics in addition to science is an element of policy making. And here is an example where the direction of science was driven by political forces and interpretations.

Dimock water problems continue after four-plus years Results of recent cases in fracking zone not yet released

Crews use a service rig in Dimock to diagnose problems
PHOTO VERA SGROGGINS 

DIMOCK, Pa. -- More than four years after the explosion of a residential water well called attention to the problem, Pennsylvania environmental officials are still trying to solve water pollution in this small town that has become infamous for shale gas development.

Recent cases involve two homes in a gas field where the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has banned drilling of new wells in the wake of chronic water pollution tracked to nearby operations of Cabot Oil & Gas. Cabot crews continue to operate a service rig between gas wells and water wells to diagnose problems in an area where the DEP has found dangerous levels of methane flowing into residential water wells near the junction of Carter Road and State Route 3023.

Colleen Connolly, a spokeswoman for the Department of Environmental Protection, said this week that the agency has not determined when the latest round of testing will be released.

Cabot has been cited in the past for various violations that the DEP has linked to problems. Wells providing water to several dozen homes have been taken off line or fitted with filtration equipment to remove gas and other pollution since the water well of Dimock resident Norma Fiorentino exploded on New Year’s Day, 2009.

Although drilling has been banned in a nine-square mile area where problems are the worst, the DEP recently allowed fracking to stimulate production of exisiting wells. Two months ago, DEP officials responded to complaints that drinking water at several homes became turbid after crews fracked nearby natural gas wells.  Subsequent tests showed two water wells serving homes along State Route 3023 contained explosive levels of methane, according to information from the DEP.  Cabot Spokesman George Stark did not return calls for comment. In the past, he has said the problem may be linked to a frozen vent.

In addition to methane, the DEP is testing water samples taken from affected homes for various other contaminants, including metals and chlorides (listed below), which are markers for pollution from gas drilling and production.

With the recent announcement that DEP Chief Michael Krancer is stepping down, the problem will be passed on to the third administration. In 2010, John Hanger, who served as Governor Ed Rendell’s top environmental official, found that shale gas operations had ruined the aquifer serving homes in and around Carter Road. As a remedy, Hanger ordered Cabot to build an $11 million pipeline to restore fresh water to affected homes. After the order, Cabot denied that it was responsible for pollution, and the pipeline order was eventually defeated amid political opposition when Tom Corbett, a drilling supporter, was elected governor.  Last August, Cabot reached an undisclosed settlement with 32 of 36 Dimock families suing for damages related to pollution of water wells.  Other lawsuits are pending.

In an investigation last year, the federal Environmental Protection Agency found elevated levels of arsenic, barium, manganese, or methane, in five of 64 water wells – roughly 8 percent. It concluded that the concentrations could pose health risks, but those risks were mitigated by treatment systems drilling companies had installed or planned for the homes. The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry is now following up with an evaluation of it’s own.

Early this year, the DEP came under fire about how it handles testing at sites suspected of pollution from gas development. In January, Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale announced a review of the agency’s regulation, testing and enforcement program. The intention of the probe, according to a letter from DePasquale to Krancer, is to determine the "adequacy and effectiveness of DEP's monitoring of water quality as potentially impacted by shale gas development activities, including but not limited to systems and procedures for testing, screening, reporting and response to adverse impact such as contamination."

The recurring problem of pollution related to shale gas and related public relations issues will be inherited by Krancer’s successor.

While methane migration is not unique to Dimcok, the rural community has been divided by the issue, and is featured as a case study and focal point of the anti-fracking movement just across the state border in New York, where fracking is on hold pending a more extensive review of environmental and health issues.

What the DEP is testing for in Dimock water wells:

MANGANESE
BARIUM
IRON
STRONTIUM
TDS
CHLORIDE
Hardness
pH
SPC
ALKALINITY
BROMIDE
SUSP SOLID
SELENIUM
ARSENIC
SULFATE
MAGNESIUM
ALUMINUM
CALCIUM
POTASSIUM
LITHIUM
SODIUM
ZINC
TURBIDITY
METHANE
ETHANE
PROPANE

Source: DEP 

Pa. DEP considers fracking in Dimock water pollution case Tainted water wells in no-drill zone, but fracking allowed

Pennsylvania environmental officials are attempting to track the source of explosive levels of methane in two private water wells in a shale gas field in Dimock, Pennsylvania.

That in itself is not especially newsworthy. The small town in northern Susquehanna County has been the focus of state and national investigations since 2009, when gas linked to nearby drilling by Cabot Oil & Gas seeped into the aquifer and caused a water well to explode. It’s significant, however, that the recent problems emerged in the middle of a 9-square mile area where the DEP banned drilling four years ago due to chronic methane migration problems. It’s also significant that the agency allowed fracking to resume at two nearby gas wells.

 EPA technician collects samples at a Dimock home last year
Photo James Pitarresi 

Dimock, population 1,400, was among the first Pennsylvania towns to feel the expectations and impact of the Marcellus Shale rush. Much of the town was leased for shale gas exploration in 2006 through 2008. Since then, a history of problems and complaints have made Dimock a household name for those questioning the role of shale gas extraction in the country’s energy future.

Last August, Cabot Oil & Gas reached an undisclosed settlement with 32 of 36 Dimock families suing for damages related to pollution of their water wells.  Other lawsuits are pending. Due to widely publicized concerns, the federal Environmental Protection Agency began its own investigation last year. After six months of testing, the EPA found elevated levels of arsenic, barium, manganese, or methane, in five of 64 water wells – roughly 8 percent. It concluded that the concentrations could pose health risks, but those risks were mitigated by treatment systems drilling companies had installed or planned for the homes. The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry is now following up with an evaluation of it’s own.

In recent weeks, investigators, responding to complaints, have found two new cases where methane concentrations in private water wells pose an explosion hazard, said Colleen Connolly, a spokeswoman for the DEP.  The contaminated water supplies are near the Costello and Gesford gas wells. Those wells, drilled into the Marcellus Shale, were fracked last fall, Connolly said.

And this makes the story more than another gas-migration case. The industry has disputed claims that fracking – the use of pressurized chemical solution to break rock and release gas in deep formations – poses a threat to water tables above them. In fact, it has denied that it has ever happened. That denial is at the root of a national controversy that has raised the stakes on the outcome of ongoing investigations by the DEP and the EPA in Dimock and elsewhere.

It is known that methane migration can happen naturally in gas rich zones. It is also known that drilling (apart from fracking) can cause or intensify problems by opening pathways through the aquifer into pressurized zones below. The problem is managed by casing the well bore with cement to seal off the aquifer, a method that is effective but not foolproof.  

Not do be confused with drilling, fracking is done to stimulate the flow of gas after the well bore has been cemented. It’s functionally and technically a separate process from drilling. The industry’s insistence that fracking cannot create pathways for pollution to reach the aquifer has drawn scrutiny in several controversial cases.

An EPA investigation in 2011 found water wells near fracking operations on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Pavillion, Wyoming were polluted with synthetic chemicals, glycols, alcohols, methane, and petroleum hydrocarbons “consistent with gas production and hydraulic fracturing fluids.” The drilling company implicated in the study, EnCana, has denied responsibility, and the industry is challenging the EPA conclusions.

In a lesser-known case, the Ohio Division of Mineral Resources Management concluded that fracking caused an explosion in Bainbridge in 2007. One house was destroyed and 19 other homes were evacuated due to high methane levels.  According to the agency’s investigation, the problem arose when Ohio Valley Energy Systems Corp fracked the well without properly cementing the production casing.  

The most recent problem in Dimock surfaced after a water well near a gas well turned turbid in early February, according to the DEP's Connolly. She declined to disclose the location, but residents report that crews have been working at two affected homes near the intersection of Carter Road and State Route 3023, which are also near gas wells that have been fracked.

Cabot Spokesman George Stark was unavailable for comment today. The company has blamed the problem on a frozen pipe used to vent methane gases, Connolly said.

The water wells have been taken off line, and methane concentrations have fluctuated since the problem began, Connolly said. Regulators have not reached conclusions about the cause of the problem, and they are continuing to monitor the work of Cabot, Connolly said. Cabot contracts Crews were at the site last week with a drilling rig used to service and inspect gas wells.

While there is relatively little documentation associating high volume hydraulic fracking to water pollution -- apart from spills and accidents related to handling fracking chemicals and waste above the surface before and after they are injected into the ground -- risks of methane migration from drilling are relatively well known. In September, 2009, the DEP issued a draft report that found methane migration from gas drilling, had “caused or contributed to” at least six explosions that killed four people and injured three others in Pennsylvania alone over the course of the decade preceding full-scale Marcellus development. The threat of explosions had forced 20 families from their homes. At least 25 other families have had to deal with the shut-off of utility service or the installation of venting systems in their homes. At least 60 water wells (including three municipal supplies) had been contaminated.