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.”

Will NY natural gas future break from problems of its past? DEC lacks funds to plug tens of thousands of leaky wells

Discharge from this abandoned well killed an acre of vegetation in Oneida County

The debate over natural gas development in New York has mostly been about the future. But residents living over New York’s abundant gas reserves must also figure out what to do about the past.

Regulators estimate there are 57,000 abandoned and orphan oil and gas wells statewide – many of them leaking. Of these, the state has listed 4,722 as a priority due to health and safety risks, but lacks funding to plug them. Wells tend to leak over time as casings deteriorate, raising risks of explosions and providing conduits for water contamination from methane, brine, arsenic and other pollution. The problem is summed up in this 2002 report from the New York Department of Environmental Conservation: “Abandoned wells can leak oil, gas and brine. They can contaminate groundwater and surface water, kill vegetation and cause safety and health problems. Underground leaks may go undetected for years before their damage is discovered.”

It’s a warning supported by facts in New York and neighboring shale gas states, where problems have ranged from drinking water pollution to fatal explosions. (More on that in a bit.)  Unlike many industrial hazards, abandoned wells lurk in unexpected places. (Map here.) They have been found at playgrounds and parking lots, inside buildings, in wetlands, underwater in creeks and ponds, in wooded and brushy areas and in residential yards, according to DEC records. DEC staff discovers more of them every year during scheduled inspections or while investigating complaints. The most threatening cases go on the state’s priority list to be plugged “whenever funds become available.”

So far, funds have not become available, even as the state considers plans to begin permitting new drilling on an unprecedented scale for operators targeting the Marcellus and Utica shales, extending under most of upstate New York.

The abandonment problem is rooted in the economics and regulation of gas production. As wells age and production declines, they become maintenance liabilities, which encourages their sale to whomever will buy them -- typically smaller, less established firms or even homeowners. In the end, the parties left holding them often drop them from their books or go bankrupt.

Theodore Loukides, head of the Oil & Gas Compliance and Enforcement Section for the DEC, issued a bulletin earlier this year notifying operators that “given the state of awareness surrounding energy development, the plugging of legacy wells will likely remain a high-profile issue of years to come.” In the bulletin, published in a newsletter for the Independent Oil & Gas Association of New York, he asked operators for input on plugging, and new initiatives focusing on waste, bulk storage, spills, and proper submittal of annual reports.

DEC spokesman Peter Constantakes didn’t return calls or emails about the subject this week. Yet the “state of awareness” that Loukides delicately mentions is due to the contentious issue of whether Governor Andrew Cuomo will finalize permitting guidelines for high volume hydraulic fracturing necessary to explore and produce the Marcellus and Utica shales, which collectively run under a good part of upstate New York. Since shale gas became a major political issue in 2008, the legacy of “old oil fields” is something you rarely, if ever, hear DEC officials talk about publically, even though the problem has been neatly summarized in prior studies and annual reports.

The 1995 annual report for the Minerals Resources Division was explicit in this warning ,which was repeated verbatim almost a decade later in a 2003 report commissioned by the state Energy and Research Development Authority:

One of the biggest challenges facing the oil and gas regulatory program is the growing liability of idle and abandoned wells. In most cases financial security, even for operators in compliance with current regulations, does not provide sufficient funding to plug the covered wells. When operators default on their tax bills and counties foreclose on properties that contain unplugged wells, those wells become a liability for local taxpayers. This is not a hypothetical worst-case scenario, but reflect current events already happening in the counties. We need a creative approach to develop new solutions to this problem, and hope to productively work together with all stakeholders in this effort.

Fixing the problem will require significant regulatory reform, according to Ron Bishop, a professor of chemistry and bio chemistry at SUNY Oneonta who has been studying the orphan well issue in New York. In a white paper for a land preservation group called Sustainable Otsego, Bishop explains:

Unless the state of New York does something to dramatically alter the long-standing culture of neglect, we can reasonably expect oil and gas industry operators to ignore any new standards just as they systematically ignore existing standards today. 

The problem extends from the pre-regulatory era to current times. It’s common practice for larger operators to sell off wells near the end of their life cycle to smaller firms with less capitol. The sale provides the seller with a better financial outcome than holding onto the dwindling returns and provides a buyer – typically one with limited capital -- a well that it doesn’t have to drill. Bishop cites this explanation from Lou Allstadt, a former senior executive with Mobile Oil:

The original company uses the cash to finance new investments. The buying company operates with lower costs because they spend less on maintenance and safety items and they have fewer well-qualified people to pay. The chain may end there or continue through smaller and ever lower cost operators who do no preventive maintenance at all, do the bare minimum of repairs to keep the well going and eventually walk away, maybe after plugging the hole as cheaply as possible and maybe not plugging at all. The smaller companies often operate each well or group of wells under a separate corporate entity that is always stripped of cash, so if something goes wrong there are no assets to pay off claims. Not all small operators will do this, but it happens. 

Shale gas wells are more prone to this outcome than yesterday’s conventional wells because production from shale, known as tight gas, tends to taper more quickly than conventional wells, according to Bishop.

Now for more on the legacy of problems in New York and Pennsylvania: A starting point is in 2008. The first wave of aggressive shale gas prospecting in New York raised many questions with residents, and DEC staffers staged informational meetings at town halls throughout the Southern Tier to address them. Officials from the Minerals Resources Division pitched shale gas as a clean, problem free and well-regulated industry. They avoided mention of the tens of thousands of orphan wells that in fact represented a serious, chronic, and concrete problem.

Around this time Walter Hang, an environmental researcher, began uncovering a history of neglect that undermined the DEC’s message and sowed early seeds of public doubt about the transparency of both the industry and those who oversee it. Hang is president of Toxics Targeting, a firm that identifies and tracks pollution liabilities for developers and municipalities.

Hang and others who tried to quantify and characterize the problem had tough going, due to a records system that was decentralized, archaic, and often incomplete with files scattered among disparate government offices, private companies, and court rooms. Still, Hang culled 270 records documenting mishaps —some from newspaper clippings, dossiers at health departments, complaints filed with elected officials, and some showing up on the DEC’s database for spills. Many of the problems -- including fires, blow-outs, methane migration, and spills relating to wells or infrastructure –- remained unresolved and partially documented.

Hang’s analysis, which I wrote about in a series of reports for the Press & Sun-Bulletin and later in Under the Surface, drew sharp criticism from industry and regulators who dismissed it as overblown.  A few hundred cases, they said, represents a negligible proportion of the tens of thousands of wells drilled through New York’s history. Still, the cases were troubling then and they are troubling now, mostly because they represent a subset of a greater number of problems that will remain unknown without a reliable and comprehensive system to document them.

In matters of transparency, the oil and gas industry operates mostly on its own terms.  It works on private land under contract with landowners. Chemicals pumped into wells are exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act, and waste that comes out is exempt from federal hazardous waste laws. The absence of a federal regulatory baseline in these two critical areas leaves a lot of grey area.

And it gets greyer. The DEC, like other states, adopts a laissez-faire approach to much of its oversight.  Agency’s are understaffed and rely primarily on paperwork submitted by operators. Complaints involving water contamination are often settled privately between leaseholder and drillers, and they often end with non-disclosure agreements that eliminate any public paper trail.

William T. Boria, a water resources specialist at the Chautauqua County Health Department, was frustrated by this very approach.  He reported his agency had received more than 140 complaints related to water pollution or gas migration associated with nearby drilling operations. “Those complaints that were recorded are probably just a fraction of the actual problems that occurred,” he stated in a 2004 memo summarizing the issue. For fifty-three of those cases filed from 1983 to 2008, county health officials tabulated an informational spreadsheet that cited methane migration, brine pollution, and at least one home evacuation resulting from a water well explosion. “A representative I spoke with from the Division of Minerals [of the DEC] insists that the potential for drinking water contamination by oil and gas drilling is almost nonexistent,” Boria wrote in his memo to a party whose name was redacted. “However, this department has investigated numerous complaints of potential contamination problems resulting from oil and gas drilling.”

The problem is worse in Pennsylvania, where 200,000 or more abandoned wells are more or less hidden under the landscape. In September, 2009, the DEP compiled a draft of known cases where methane leaked from abandoned or working wells.  According to the briefing, methane migration from gas drilling, had “caused or contributed to” at least six explosions that killed four people and injured three others over the course of the decade preceding full-scale Marcellus development. The threat of explosions had forced 20 families from their homes, sometimes for months. 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.

What does this mean for the future? It’s hard to know where to start, but focusing on the cost of the problem is a good place. Plugging a single well can cost between $5,000 and $50,000, according to estimates from the DEC. That means the bill for dealing wells on New York’s priority list alone would cost between $24 million and $236 million. In economic terms, this cost is “externalized,” which means that it is not borne by businesses or their consumer. Rather, it’s falls to taxpayers, or comes at the expense of public health and safety.

In many ways the orphan well legacy is similar to the abandoned mine legacy that continues to foul water and create public hazards in Pennsylvania and other states, and it’s a manifestation of an important aspect of the extraction industry overall. Coal, natural gas, and oil provide modern-day comforts beyond historical comparison. As energy consumers, we should embrace a moral obligation to understand where our energy comes from and at what cost as we evaluate tradeoffs.

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.

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.

What’s riding on the EPA’s water study in Pavillion WY Industry offensive intended to keep federal agency at bay

Technicians collect samples in Pavillion

Let the science decide the debate. Get politics out of it. We hear those directives routinely from politicians and partisans urging people to consider the risks and merits of fracking from one isolated contextual corner or another, or to never mind the broad discussion for now.

The EPA study into ground water pollution in Wyoming represents the latest example over the plasticity of scientific analysis that takes form under the heat and pressure of political forces. It’s about empirical data, what is said about the data, how exactly it is said, what is not said, and control over messages yet to be delivered that is causing confusion and serving political agendas.

The starting point of this thread is the EPA’s investigation into polluted water wells near fracking operations on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Pavillion, Wyoming. The agency issued a summary of findings in late 2011. Testing of two deep monitoring wells found:

detection of synthetic chemicals, like glycols and alcohols consistent with gas production and hydraulic fracturing fluids, benzene concentrations well above Safe Drinking Water Act standards and high methane levels. Given the area’s complex geology and the proximity of drinking water wells to ground water contamination, EPA is concerned about the movement of contaminants within the aquifer and the safety of drinking water wells over time.

Testing of two drinking wells found:

chemicals consistent with those identified in earlier EPA samples include methane, other petroleum hydrocarbons and other chemical compounds. The presence of these compounds is consistent with migration from areas of gas production. Detections in drinking water wells are generally below established health and safety standards. In the fall of 2010, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry reviewed EPA’s data and recommended that affected well owners take several precautionary steps, including using alternate sources of water for drinking and cooking, and ventilation when showering. Those recommendations remain in place and EnCana [an operator] has been funding the provision of alternate water supplies.

The study drew fire from industry because of its explicit association of water pollution with fracking and drilling. In the interest of getting a clearer picture, the U.S. Geological Survey did follow up testing, and provided raw data with no interpretation. Not surprisingly, the EPA found that the USGS results verified the EPA’s findings, and the industry seized on inconsistencies between the data sets. The EPA results, and the methodology behind them, have continued to be a prime public target for industry representatives who claim the agency is overzealous and premature in releasing findings yet to be peer reviewed. (The agency released the findings for public comment corresponding to the peer review process.) The drilling company implicated in the EPA study, EnCana, has denied responsibility, and the industry – primarily through the efforts of the industry house organ Energy In Depth -- continues a campaign to discredit the EPA study.

The EPA association between fracking and groundwater pollution was even more newsworthy owing to the industry’s steadfast claims that fracking has never impacted water supplies. When the story broke nationally, it drew proportionately grand political responses. Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, a ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environmental and Public Works, characterized the EPA’s determination as “part of Obama’s war on fossil fuels and his determination to shut down the natural gas production” and “not based on sound science but on political science.”

The issue of the EPA’s study of pollution in Pavallion is fundamentally about scientists trying to track and understand dangerous chemicals flowing in the ground and threatening public health. But it is also about something else. The battle is setting the stage for how the oil and gas industry will or will not be regulated in the future. Oil and gas development is exempt from federal oversight – including both the Safe Drinking Water Act and hazardous waste laws – and the industry wants to keep it that way. So do oil and gas states, which don’t want the federal government meddling in their decisions and control over exploitation of mineral resources within their borders.

Wyoming state officials, including governor Matt Mead, criticized the EPA’s conclusions and pushed for time for the state to debunk the work. In the face of the backlash, the EPA agreed to retest the wells and called on the USGS to conduct parallel tests. In an attempt to keep the political heat on, Energy In Depth last week held forth an internal EPA memo as evidence that the agency findings were misrepresented by press accounts, and some vague sense of scandal.

When the Associated Press and other outlets began breaking the story in early December, 2011, the headlines focused on the news of the day, which was that the EPA report associated the pollution in Pavillion to shale gas production.

EPA Report Links Fracking To Water Pollution… NPR
EPA: Fracking may Cause Groundwater Pollution… USA Today
EPA Implicates Fracking in Pollution at Wyoming state site… Associated Press

This week, Energy In Depth cited an email from Betsaida Alcantara, communications director for the EPA, to a string of her superiors as evidence that the press in fact got the story all wrong. The email shows that, in the wake of the political firestorm caused by the breaking story on Dec. 8 2011, Alcantara told the Associated Press editors that the headline and the word “implicates” was “unnecessarily inflammatory and irresponsible,” and she urged them to soften it.

As a newspaper reporter for 20 years, I have experienced many such situations, and it’s simply another day in the office when government officials grasp for control of a message based on the extent of the political grief it causes them. When public officials start attacking a news report not on factual errors but on the subjective levels of tone and presentation, it’s typically in the interest of damage control. That’s why in this country we generally depend on news from the Fourth Estate rather than from government outlets.

In the end, the memo from the EPA office to the AP editors points out no factual errors with the reportage, and changes nothing in the EPA’s own earlier press release of the Pavilion study, including this critical sentence: “The presence of these compounds is consistent with migration from areas of gas production.” Yet Energy In Depth is using this note from an EPA staffer as an “I told you so.”

If this is telling us anything, though, it’s the strength of political pressures brought to bear on scientists trying to do their work, and the level of noise it introduces into the system at the hands of PR spin from all sides. (I will add that it’s all part of the necessary but often messy First Amendment process by which we govern ourselves in this country.)

What bearing does the Pavillion controversy have on the future? Plenty. The EPA is in the process of reviewing national data from Pavillion and elsewhere, where available, to assess the impact of fracking on groundwater supplies. Its comprehensive report, due out next year, will set the contextual baseline for future discussion about the need for regulatory reform. The Pavillion matter will test the will of the federal government to challenge industry and states who want to preserve the status quo in their pursuit of carbon riches in more than two dozen major shale gas basins spread across the lower 48 states.

EPA officials arrive to investigate water in Dimock, Pa
Photo James Pitarresi 

In the meantime the EPA has been on the retreat in the face of political opposition stoking an anti-regulatory mood by those who portray fracking as a key to economic stimulation and national independence. Last March, the agency dropped a case against Range Resources after staff scientists traced methane contamination of a private water well to nearby shale gas operations. As reported by Energy Wire, agency administrators withdrew the complaint after former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell intervened on behalf of the company, and Range refused to cooperate with future plans by the EPA to evaluate the impact of shale gas development on water.

In Dimock, Pennsylvania, the EPA found elevated levels of arsenic, barium, manganese, and methane in five of 64 private water wells – roughly 8 percent – near drilling and fracking operations. It concluded that those risks were mitigated by treatment systems installed in or planned for the homes. The mainstream press largely interpreted the EPA’s assessment of Dimock Water as an “all clear” sign, and agency officials made no attempts to dispel that characterization. Meanwhile, the EPA quietly turned the investigation of the water pollution over to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to analysis health impacts.

The parsing of the debate, and what is and is not said, is very much worth paying attention to. The tone coming out from the EPA regional offices tells us something about where Obama is headed with fracking in his second term. It also sets the stage for the person who Obama will choose to succeed Lisa Jackson to head the EPA. In the meantime, there is a wealth of privately-owned science – ranging from water samples to fracking recipes to waste disposal technology -- which will never see public light due to exemptions that enable non-disclosure. And the political hardball will continue. The stakes are high on all sides, so why should we expect anything else?