Obama’s plans for shale gas diminish EPA involvement

It’s no mystery that President Obama is tying the country’s energy future to shale gas development. He articulated this commitment first in his campaign and later in his State of the Union Address. Now his actions show just how supportive his administration is to the industry’s quest to build demand and discourage regulation.

Last month, Obama approved policy for shale gas export terminals – a move the industry needs to capitalize on global markets and buoy prices needed to support aggressive expansion of domestic wells, infrastructure, and exploration.  Those banking on shale gas received more good news last week, when the president, speaking to an international audience from Berlin, announced a federal plan to regulate CO2 emissions from coal. Coal regulations impact shale gas markets, as natural gas is a cheap alternative to coal at power plants. (I won’t get into the broader discussion here on shale gas versus coal as greenhouse gasses, other than to acknowledge there is fierce debate about the wisdom of embracing policy that encourages another generation of fossil fuel extraction.)

The administration’s gas industry-friendly stance, while good for natural gas investors, does not bode well for those hoping the federal government will step up regulations, or at least close loopholes to federal environmental laws. An exemption from the Safe Drinking Water Act allows operators – with no disclosure -- to inject hazardous chemicals into the ground to stimulate well production; and exemptions from federal hazardous waste laws allows the industry to dispose of toxic waste through conventional methods.

Hours after the president announced to the world his proposal to regulate coal emissions, his EPA issued a press release without fanfare stating the agency is dropping a key investigation into a link between fracking and ground water contamination. Consequently, the agency will be turning its probe of groundwater pollution in Pavillion, Wyoming over to the state. It’s hard to overstate the symbolic importance of this. The EPA’s findings in Pavillion –- that fracking could be linked to groundwater pollution -- ran directly counter to claims by the industry that no such evidence exists. The EPA’s decision not to pursue the Pavillion case in the face of industry opposition illustrates how policy is made at the intersection of politics and science.

Obama has made his politics on shale gas clear. So what about the science? It’s mixed, inconclusive, and largely out of the line of public scrutiny because the industry controls it almost exclusively. There are places, however, where groundwater contamination has become so bad around shale gas fields that the EPA has stepped in. Among these places are Pavillion, Wyoming and Dimock, Pennsylvania.

In Pavillion, the agency issued a summary of its investigation into polluted water wells near fracking operations on the Wind River Indian Reservation in 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.

Similarly, analysis of water tests prompted a federal investigation in Dimock in December, 2011. Following tests from the Pennsylvania DEP showing that methane from nearby drilling had polluted wells along Carter Road, officials at the Agency for Toxic Substances Disease Registry found evidence of elevated levels of various solvents, metals, and glycols that posed “a possible chronic public health threat based on prolonged use of the water” in “at least some” of the Dimock wells. A follow up investigation by the EPA last year found elevated levels of arsenic, barium, manganese, and methane in five of 64 water wells.

So those are small but important examples of the science and politics at work. What was the policy outcome?

In Dimock, the EPA determined  “no further action” necessary because the industry, which has denied responsibility for the pollution, has provided alternative drinking water or filtration systems to the affected homes.  The EPA turned its results back over the ATSDR, with no timetable for the release of further analysis.

In Pavillion the EPA was working against the wishes of Encana, the company implicated in the investigation and which has denied responsibility. The EPA was also working against the wishes of the state of Wyoming, where officials were angered by the suggestion that the state’s efforts to control the industry fell short. Hence, the EPA’s announcement last week the was cast in an awkward tone attempting to defend its work while yielding to officials at Encana and the state who wanted the agency to butt out:

While EPA stands behind its work and data, the agency recognizes the State of Wyoming’s commitment for further investigation and efforts to provide clean water and does not plan to finalize or seek peer review of its draft Pavillion groundwater report released in December, 2011. Nor does the agency plan to rely upon the conclusions in the draft report.

The report went on to explain that the agency was working on a broader evaluation of fracking and groundwater. But the status of that, too, remained unclear. According to the press release, the report is expected next year. But an Associated Press report earlier this week said that the EPA report has now been delayed until 2016.

These are all clear signs that the EPA’s investigation into the safety of shale gas development – along with federal regulatory possibilities – have been put on the back burner if not abandoned all together. In the meantime, policing of the national shale gas boom will continue to be left to individual states in the absence of federal baselines, regional planning, and uniform rules. Measures to gauge and control the cumulative impact of fracking and waste disposal on water supplies, and the legacy of abandoned infrastructure for future generations, will be left to faith in the belief that capital markets can adequately protect public health and the environment.

Diesel not allowed for fracking, except when it’s allowed State, federal policies leave door open for petro-distillates

Conventional wisdom and certain regulations suggest that injecting diesel fuel into the ground is generally not an environmentally sound idea. Diesel fuel, to nobody’s surprise, contains toxic and carcinogenic chemicals, including The Big Four: Benzene, Toluene, Ethylbenzene, and Xylene, collectively known in regulatory terms as BTEX. While part of a potent energy formula that has added vitally to the industrialization of our country – these compounds cause serious risks when let loose in nature. They can cause cancer, damage vital organs and wreck nervous systems. They dissolve easily in water. They are toxic at very low levels. Their individual dangers are compounded when they are mixed.

Diesel fuel contains all of these compounds, and despite calls for an outright ban of diesel as a primary fracking agent, it’s allowed with a Class II injection permit from the Environmental Protection Agency. There are also ways around the federal permitting process. Operators can add BTEX to fracking fluids and avoid federal regulations as long as the hydrocarbon mix doesn’t meet the technical definition of diesel. It’s up to states to regulate fracking, and because fracking is exempt from the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, there are few restrictions on additives or requirements for their public disclosure.

The well service industry likes to use petroleum distillates because they are cheap and effective. According to a report from a U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce, BTEX compounds appeared in 60 hydraulic fracturing products between 2005 and 2009. During that period operators knowingly injected 11.4 million gallons of products containing at least one BTEX chemical. Despite all the talk about “green fluids” from the PR branch of the industry, many operators favor petroleum distillates to produce shale gas, and have fought hard to keep them in the mix.

Recent legislation passed in Illinois, a place where state officials have touted rules as the toughest in the land, is an example. What I find striking, after being tipped by comments from several SGR readers on my last blog-post, are eleventh hour revisions to the Illinois statute dealing with the issue of petroleum compounds as fracking agents. HB 2615, the original version of the bill, would have made it “unlawful to perform any high volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing operations by knowingly or recklessly injecting diesel or any petroleum distillates.” (Emphasis my own.) In the face of industry resistance, the final bill (SB 1715) dropped the term “petroleum distillates” and, further, defined diesel as any one of six particular chemical profiles listed by the Chemical Abstracts Service, or as “additional substances regulated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency as diesel fuel.” (The National Resources Defense Council, one of many environmental groups with mixed reviews of the Illinois regs, characterized them as falling short of safeguards, but better than "a very bad situation" of proceeding with no policy at all. You can read NRDC staffer’s Ann Alexander’s blog here. Sandra Steingraber, an environmental activists, characterized the Illinois legislation as a lame compromise at the expense of open government and public health.)

That federal policy, meanwhile, remains inconclusive and incomplete after a history of ineffectiveness.  After determining in 2004 that fracking with diesel “may pose environmental concerns,” the EPA worked with delegations from some of the largest well service companies, including Halliburton, who agreed in a memorandum of understanding to voluntarily remove diesel fuel from fracking fluids. But when the companies found that diesel suited their needs in the field, they used it anyway. According to an ensuing Congressional investigation, oil and gas service companies injected over 32 million gallons of diesel fuel or hydraulic fracturing fluids containing diesel fuel into wells in 19 states between 2005 and 2009. For this, there were no permits issued, nor were fines levied. Since then, the EPA has begun a process to update its regulations on diesel and fracking and to provide a statutory definition of diesel. A precise definition is still pending along with final policy.

New York, the only state with major shale gas potential where permitting remains on hold, is also working on regulations that state officials have touted as the “best in the country.” Yet these regulations, as proposed, do not outlaw BTEX and other petroleum distillates. Nor do they forbid diesel fuel unless it is used as “a base fluid.” In other words, diesel can be added to fracking recipes, as long as the fluid is not the base ingredient. (In that case, operators would have to get a permit under the still undeveloped federal policy.)

The use of petroleum distillates to serve our lives is not unusual or categorically dangerous – Gasoline after all contains BTEX and inherent risks, and there is little doubt about consequences of using it improperly. Yet most of us encounter the handling and burning of gasoline in our workaday travels. This is because the use of gasoline – and risks related to spills or dumping – are tightly controlled.

With fracking, the regulatory controls are much weaker, due largely to the failure of state and federal governments to keep pace with the rapid advancement of the domestic shale gas industry along with its monumental stakes on public welfare.

HBO’s Gasland II will amp up national fracking debate Partisans will love, hate sequel. What about mainstream?

Competing visions of fracking went head to head last night in upstate New York.

Josh Fox screened his much-anticipated Gasland II at a school auditorium in the City of Binghamton, before a crowd of more than 500 people.* Phelim McAleer, a drilling supporter staking his career on discrediting the work of Fox, screened Frack Nation in front of several hundred viewers at an American Legion post in Vestal, about 20 minutes away.

GASLAND Part II Teaser Trailer #3 from JFOX on Vimeo.

After airing on AXS Cable TV early this year, Frack Nation continues to make the rounds in civic halls throughout the country. Similarly, Josh Fox is screening Gasland II in various communities as part of a “grass roots tour” prior to its television premier on HBO in July. It’s no coincidence that the films aired at the same time at nearly the same place this week. Broome County, which borders Pennsylvania, represents a strategic point in the frack wars, both symbolically and tactically. It sits over a prime part of the Marcellus Shale, a worldclass natural gas reserve, in a state where the fate of fracking is in the hands of an undecided governor, and stakeholders for and against it have been campaigning hard during a moratorium on permitting enacted almost five years ago.

I dropped by the American Legion just prior to the Frack Nation screening and found a full parking lot with strong representation from the pickup and SUV crowd, a horse shoe game going on outside, and a neon sign advertising Coors Light at the bar inside. Frack Nation promotes the industry view that natural gas development is harmless and economically critical, and portrays those who are victimized and their champion, Josh Fox, as phonies.

Running short on time, and having already seen and reviewed Frack Nation (more on that here), I moved on to the West Middle School in Binghamton and the upstate premier of muckraker Josh Fox’s latest film. Gasland II is a sequel to the 2010 film that depicts a deceitful, greedy, and destructive industry building profits off the backs of residents and the environment. It is not without flaws. It is one-sided, didactic, and prone to dramatization at the expense of depth. But it’s underlying premise, the industry wields unmatched influence that allows it to cover up problems, silence critics, and take what it wants through a mismatch of legal and lobbying power, is fair game. Its cinematography is masterful. Those who are skeptical that plutocrats are looking out for the greater social good will find the film a powerful rallying point. Those who feel Big Oil is being unfairly demonized will find it over-wrought and sensationalistic. But the true test of the movie is how it’s received by those with no particular view – the mainstream HBO audience it will reach this summer.

Fox emphasizes the scope and intensity of the on-shore drilling boom, spurred by the massive shale reserves that have become part of President Obama’s domestic energy strategy. These pay zones underlie dozens of states, including areas previously untouched by mineral extraction. Fox again showcases stories that served as the foundation for his original film – contamination in Pavillion, Wyo., Dimock, Pa., and pending development near his ancestral home in the Delaware Water basin in Milanville, Pa. Fox revisits these places for an update, and to establish a connectedness with down home America and a range of characters. In transition he explains: “My back yard is tied to national policy, which is tied to tiny places like Pavillion, Wyoming.”

There are parts of the movie, intended to be provocative, that just seem out of whack. I found an opening sequence pairing explicit footage of the devastating BP Gulf Oil disaster to the thumping groove of the Beach Boys Good Vibrations to be sardonic and more importantly off point. It doesn’t really tell us much. Perhaps the attempt with the music was to instill a sense of ignorantly blissful detachment to the cruel reality of what is happening, and perhaps that might work on a subliminal level for some. Or, it might just be weird.

I found other parts of the film broke significant ground. Fox gets Lisa Jackson, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, on record in an exclusive interview stating that there are “many cases of ground water and drinking water contamination” and that “states are going to have to step up” to regulate and enforce gas drilling.

Fox’s approach is urgent and unsettled – and in the hyper-tasking 21st Century media style, he packs an excessive number of visual cues and audio bites per minute of film. He moves from place to place, issue to issue, victim to victim, story to story, grounding the film in the occasional return to his own back yard, where the gas companies are closing in on a pristine section of the Delaware Water shed. Along the way, he sheds light on some important issues: the revolving door between the government institutions and the gas industry, the psychological war fare tactics the industry employs as a public relations strategy, and the chronic issue of methane migration found at drill sites globally.

He targets those who support gas, but never challenges the motives or stories of those who oppose it. I know that’s not a fit with the narrative line, but an effort to broaden his view would help his credibility and diminish a sense that he is cherry picking. I know through my own reporting that there are indeed many just cases and grievances against the industry from people pulled into the controversy by their own bad judgment or naivete, as well as from victimized innocent bystanders. But there are also cases where the industry becomes an attraction for opportunist, political or otherwise, posing as victims or champions of victims. Beyond that, Fox tends to mix images that are not clearly explained or sourced to amp things up. And while the visual style and frenetic pacing of the film will leave an impression on an audience that otherwise isn’t going to last through a plodding policy discussion, it will likely alienate those looking for a sense of precision and parity. (Surely, there are some people in the industry who are working to improve things?)

As with his first film, Fox excels at showing the gas development through deeply personal moments, and he improves, to some degree, his explication of the mechanics behind the problems. The flaming faucet that became iconic of Fox’s first film is presented again in various forms in Gasland II. Drilling increases the risks and complications of methane migration – the more holes you put in the ground, the more conduits you create for methane to move into places where it can blow things up. The risks go up when drilling into and through pressurized methane-baring zones. In this film, Fox uses Cornell University professor and fracturing expert Tony Ingraffia – a good choice -- for a tutorial on cement casing failure that plagues the industry. But flammable water is also a natural phenomenon, and by failing to explain this or even address it in either Gasland or Gasland II, Fox has left open the door for McAleer and other industry supporters eager to attack his work.

Still, Fox scores critical points for accuracy in a part of the discussion that has been muddied by the gas industry propaganda and they come at a place where McAleer’s movie runs aground as credible journalism. That is the part detailing the EPA’s investigation in Dimock, Pa, where methane migration and other problems associated with shale gas development became Exibit A for the anti-fracking movement. (I'm very familiar with this, as it's one of several story lines in Under the Surface.) It is a matter of record that, after Norma Fiorentino’s water well exploded on Jan. 1, 2009, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection found nearby drilling had caused water contamination in an aquifer that supplied homes along Carter Road. A subsequent investigation by the federal EPA also found high levels of methane, arsenic, and various heavy metals – all elements associated with drilling -- in some of the Carter Road wells. The EPA ended its investigation late last year without “need for further action,” as Fox correctly documents, amid the election season and growing pressure on the Obama administration and Congress. Government officials in Texas, Wyoming, Pennsylvania, and other gas states did not like the EPA looking over their shoulders and, further, there was fear that federally documented problems would encourage political action that would eliminate industry exemptions to the Safe Drinking Water Act and hazardous waste disposal laws. Without these exemptions, the industry would have to disclose the hazardous chemicals that go into and come out of the ground.

The mainstream media, encouraged by industry press releases, generally interpreted the EPA’s handling of the Dimock case as a signal that the water was “safe.” In fact, the EPA said in the text of its analysis that, although pollution was found at "levels that could present a health concern ... no further action” was required because the companies had offered filters and bottled water to residents with contaminated wells. Then the agency quietly turned the case over to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a sister agency that handles health investigations. That ATSDR review, which Fox doesn’t address, is still pending. You can read more about it here.

McAleer, along with various industry PR firms, seized the headlines that touted Dimock water as safe and presented them as vindication. There was no problem, and malcontents on Carter Road had made it all up to bolster their legal claims. This detail is important because it cuts to a point made in Fox’s film that rings true to me, after years of reporting. As with an addict, the industry’s unwillingness to recognize it has any problems is the biggest hurdle to any meaningful reform or improvement.

(Spoiler alert) Fox saves the most compelling scene for the end, and it will surely resonate with a broad audience without need for technical interpretation. As the industry presses Congress to have the EPA stand down, Fox is denied entry to document a Congressional hearing questioning the agency’s role in investigating water pollution cases. Fox persists, citing his First Amendment rights. After a few tense moments, Committee Chairman Andy Harris – a gas supporter with financial ties to the industry -- has Fox arrested. Harris had denied Fox’s prior request for media credentials to attend the hearing, and the ensuing scene likely makes more compelling video and gripping narrative than anything Fox might have gained at the hearing. It will surely resonate with mainstream audiences who are skeptical of government ties to Big Oil or any corporate interest.

Liberty is a sacrosanct ideal, but its governmental underpinnings, in practice, can fill a person with a sense of ineffectiveness, tedium, and saturation of discussion ad nauseam. Still, we take comfort in knowing that we are always welcome in this discussion, if and when we choose, whether at public meetings or at the voting booth. We elect officials who enlist wonks and lawyers to make the fine print of government and its service to people, even those with competing ideological values, into policy that hopefully provides net improvement to our everyday lives. At least that’s the way it’s supposed to work. By extension, we count on media to provide access into the discussion by recording and analyzing government’s workings. While many residents might not find the time to make it to a town board meeting, much less a Congressional hearing, they are reassured in knowing that these hearings are accessible for coverage by reporters with recording equipment. When people are arrested for insisting on their First Amendment rights – the most fundamental tool for government by the people -- alarms should go off with anybody who values liberty.

Gasland aired on HBO in the summer of 2010. It earned Fox an Academy Award nomination and an Emmy, and brought the issue of fracking to mainstream audiences. The sequel is expected to reach similarly large audiences on HBO this summer. I expect most viewers, because of Fox’s gift to combine story-telling with arresting imagery, will sit through and perhaps be moved by a film about issues involving policy that is otherwise dense and obscure.

Frack Nation is a film built on the basis of discrediting Gasland. It will please a political niche, but it’s not enough to gain traction with a universal audience. In this country, powerful institutions have traditionally made attractive targets for mainstream media. Joseph Pulitzer built a newspaper empire on this approach that would set the mold for 20th century journalism; and the work of Upton Sinclair – an earlier recipient of the Pulitzer Prize– popularized a name for it: muckraking.

Shining the media light on rich and powerful people and institutions – raking the muck -- is a revered function of the working press. Exposes of critics of rich and powerful, on the other hand, may find a place in the news hole, but are not typically front page candidates. In this regard, McAleer’s success is married to the success of Fox. The more famous Fox becomes, the more relevant McAleer’s efforts to discredit him.

But there is something more:  We are no longer in the days of Pulitzer or Sinclair.  The post-20st century media is shaped by a business model with less resources for reporting, which is expensive, and more room for talking heads, reality television, and other content that is inexpensive. The Internet has made news reporting and consumption more fragmented and segmented, with endless choices to fit ideological views. (This is not all bad, but that’s another discussion.)

Spread across this media, the shale gas debate is fragmented by political ideology over science, and at the core of this fragmentation are opposing views about the role government plays in a free country. In the shale gas debate, government is seen as both an intruder on free enterprise and a protector of people’s rights from the intrusion of others. In both Gasland movies, Josh Fox represents the liberal view that corporate America has run amuck at the expense of the planet and the well-being of its citizens, and government policing is the first step toward justice for those who have been wronged and the final step to bring things back into balance. McAleer represents the conservative view that free enterprise, in this case represented by gas industry, is benevolent and government is, at best, a hindrance.

It’s a discussion that applies to many facets of our life, including property rights, land use, public health, and standard of living, and it’s a discussion that was easy to ignore when energy was mostly produced in far-away places and global warming was less real. Hopefully, we will all not only get engaged, but think about the broad and collective impact of our personal energy decisions, aside from our political beliefs.

* I originally wrote "about 400" and changed it after an organizer noted that the school auditorium holds 900, and it was more full than not.

Can wind, water, sun satisfy NY’s huge energy appetite? Anti-fracking movement offers plan with hard numbers

Powerimg NY with renewable energy means more hydro power
like the  2,353-megawatt Robert Moses plant in Niagara Falls

New York state has become a battle ground for the country’s energy future. Do we – through shale gas development -- lay the foundation for another generation of fossil fuel production and consumption, or not?  The heat and intensity of the debate – fracking is bad, fracking is good – often overshadows an underlying reality that makes the discussion so critical to begin with. That reality is expressed in these simple numbers tabulated by the federal Energy Information Administration:

In 2010, New York state consumed more than four times as much energy as it produced (3,728 trillion BTUs vs. 867 trillion BTUs).

Although these numbers seldom if ever find their way into rallies and rhetoric, the protracted debate over shale gas in the Empire State is hopefully compelling residents to pay closer attention to where energy comes from and how they use it.  The consequences of flipping a switch should become less of an abstraction now that the on-shore drilling boom has brought the extraction energy to our collective back yards.

New York state (and the rest of the country) could make up its energy shortfall by using fracking to exploit previously inaccessible carbon reserves, such as the Marcellus and Utica shales lying under largely unexplored regions of New York between the Finger Lakes and the Catskills regions. There is now expectation that the United States will become an energy exporter after the Obama administration recently approved policy to permit liquefied natural gas exporting plants in the wake of a market glut from shale gas production. (It’s a policy that will help shareholders, but hurt wage-earners, according to a federal report, which I have written about here.)

Despite consensus that fossil fuels are not sustainable – even the fracking proponents pitch natural gas as a “bridge” to a world someday powered by cleaner alternatives – acceptance of renewable energy has, for various reasons, yet to reach critical mass.

Whether or not fracking takes us across the bridge to the next generation of energy, there are paralyzing chasms that must be crossed, one way or another, in policy and politics.  In New York state and other places, there is the gulf between the energy consumed and the amount produced – a disparity that is more unsettling as competition for cheap carbon continues to increase globally at unprecedented rates. There is also a chasm between opposing visions of our country’s future by patriots for and against shale gas development. And there is a certain disconnect between the past and future that we are unable to bridge in the present. The moratorium on shale gas permits in New York is approaching its fifth year anniversary (July 23) with little signs of advancing state policy on the broader issue of energy.

New Yorkers Against Fracking poster for rally in Albany

Anti-frackers are seizing the moment to showcase their way forward with a plan that demonstrates how New York can make up its energy shortfall with other natural resources – sun, wind, and water. New Yorkers Against Fracking, a grass roots political action group, is organizing a rally in Albany on June 17  “calling on Governor Cuomo to reject fracking and lead the nation in constructing a renewable energy economy here and now in New York.” Until now, the anti-fracking movement has put more energy into shutting down fracking than proposing concrete alternatives. It’s encouraging to see the movement harnessing its considerable grass roots punch to advance the discussion rather than simply to fortify an impasse.

While banners, placards, slogans, marches, and chants will be the natural and time-honored means for delivering political pressure at the Albany rally – called New York Crossroads -- the concept behind the rally is based on research by a group of scientists, economists, and academics. The result is a paper published in March in Energy Policy, an international academic journal dealing with political, economic, environmental and social aspects of energy. It spells out empirically how New York state can wean itself from fossil fuels and convert completely to renewable energy sources by 2050.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s hesitancy over fracking provides a stark contrast to the approach of the Obama administration, which has characterized shale gas development as “a priority” in the country’s energy future. Now the anti-frackers hope to present the ambivalent New York governor (and potential presidential candidate) with a blue print to overcome the political inertia and practical barriers to advance beyond fossil fuels.

“You have to be realistic and pragmatic,” said Anthony Ingraffea, a Cornell University engineer, former fracking industry consultant, and one of the 13 co-authors of the plan. “If you say no to shale gas, you better say yes to something else.”

The report considers the cost and feasibility of powering New York’s residential, manufacturing and transportation sectors with solar, wind, and water energy technologies -- combined with reduction through inherent efficiencies. It also accounts for known health risks associated with carbon fuels. Not surprisingly, it is drawing challenges and criticism on many fronts, including questions about the reliability of a post-carbon grid adjusting to power flows and natural cycles, and behavioral changes, capital sources, enterprise, and political shifts that will be necessary for a renewable energy plan to flourish.

Those on both sides of the fraking debate – now being recast in New York as the fracking versus renewable debate -- see Cuomo’s leadership as pivotal. He could allow fracking in New York as it has proceeded in Pennsylvania, free of a severance tax and exempt from water conservation and hazardous waste handling laws. This would channel more capital into drilling and related infrastructure and contribute to a glut of cheap fossil energy that hurts the competitive position of renewables. Or he could tilt the scales in the other direction, allowing greater incentives for renewables while discouraging shale gas development.

Authors of the report – titled  “Examining the Feasibility of Converting New York State’s all-purpose Energy Infrastructure to one using Wind, Water, and Sunlight” --have been promised an audience with Cuomo, Ingraffea said, which has yet to happen, but they are encouraged by the governor’s hesitancy to approve fracking and the mounting political pressure to provide answers.

New York is hardly starting from scratch in harnessing renewable sources. According to the same EIA report that outlined the state’s energy deficit:

The State possesses considerable renewable energy potential. Several powerful rivers, including the Niagara and the Hudson, provide New York with some of the greatest hydropower resources in the Nation, and New York’s Catskill and Adirondack mountains offer substantial wind power potential.

The EIA report notes that New York produced more hydroelectric power than any other state east of the Rocky Mountains in 2011 and that the 2,353-megawatt Robert Moses Niagara hydroelectric power plant in Niagara Falls was the fourth largest in the United States in 2010. Looking ahead, New York's Renewable Portfolio Standard requires that 30 percent of electricity come from renewable energy resources by 2015; in 2011, 24 percent of electricity came from renewable energy resources. The report also notes that residents in New York, in metropolitan areas at least, are already inclined to conserve energy. Although the state was the eighth largest energy consumer in the country in 2010, it had the second lowest energy consumption per capita after Rhode Island due in part to its widely used mass transportation systems.

Ingraffea dismisses the idea that a fossil-fuel free New York is a pipedream. “The technology is already here,” he said. “The bridge is behind us. Renewables are every bit as real as coal, oil, or gas.  The hard part is not the science. It’s the policy.”

It’s not surprising that the feasibility paper has been criticized and debated over its assumptions and practicality. Andrew Revkin, the New York Times analyst and blogger who covers energy, climate, and environmental issues for Dot Earth, summed it up this way: “To me, the analysis works best as a thought experiment, given the monumental hurdles — economic, political, regulatory and technical — that would hinder such a shift.” (You can read his full assement here.)

Two of the papers’ authors, Ingraffea and Robert Howarth, are also principal aubthors of another paper that has riled the industry with science suggesting  shale gas development is as bad or worse than coal in contributing to greenhouse gasses and global warming. The work, titled Climate Impacts of Shale Gas Development,  has been met with rebuttals and challenges (including this one by Francis O’Sullivan and Sergey Paltsev at MIT) as well as praise. That’s the fitting and proper nature of academic scholarship, the scientific method, and the hard work of blending science with policy. At the very least, it provides a starting point for much-needed discussions – one challenging the conventional wisdom that gas is cleaner than coal, and the other providing an empirical framework for life after carbon. With or without fracking, carbon reserves are finite, and New York’s share of them will last for maybe a generation or two, perhaps less. The legacy of abandoned wells may well outlast that.  What then, if not renewables? And if renewables, why not sooner rather than later?

Audiences at public talks show texture of fracking debate. Next up: Revolution Books, Joint Landowners Coalition

My nature and disposition are better suited for reporting and writing than public speaking. But it’s hard to write a book about an issue like fracking and then duck out of the fray.

So I do what I can as a speaker -- a role I find both challenging and fruitful. As a reporter, I seek out sources as part of my work-a-day routine. Less frequently do they seek me out (although the frequency is increasing in the Internet age.) The dynamic is different at public talks. Here I encounter in one spot a freewheeling mix of those there to listen and those there to tell me something, with protocols and expectations that tend to change from group to group. Speaking invitations have taken me to some diverse venues including geology conventions, libraries, bookstores, universities, a retirement communities, and a brewery. Some audiences tend to be neutral, some opinionated, and some committed to specific positions for or against gas drilling. Some are more informed than others. Some have unique experiences or are tied to the outcome of the story in a compelling and personal way. Some spontaneously become sources: the young couple in Greenville, Pennsylvania who await drilling crews to begin Utica Shale exploration on their property with large measures of both hope and anxiety and little concrete information; or community members in Oberlin, Ohio mystified about the workings and functions of a nearby disposal well; or a geology expert in Buffalo who offers technical insights in the interest of boosting clarity and credibility in my work. Spontaneous public turbulence is vital to all journalism. It can complicate a simple story line, but it also aerates and enriches reporting by broadening a reporter’s knowledge base and empathy for stakeholders.

In upcoming weeks, I will be participating at events hosted by groups at opposite ends of the fracking spectrum. On Wednesday, I will give a talk at Revolution Books in Manhattan– a store that provides customers “who refuse to accept the horrors of today’s world” with “the books and the deep engagement with each other about why the world is the way it is and the possibility of a radically different way the world could be.” I expect the audience will include anti-fracking activists who feel Big Energy’s grip on natural resources and influence on global politics comes at the expense of public health and the environment.

On May 30, I will moderate a forum in Albany hosted by the Joint Landowners Coalition of New York, a group that sees shale gas development as an economic engine and means for national independence. The forum will include speakers from the industry, medical community, and academia who will “debunk myths” about shale gas development. I expect the audience will include some people who feel that environmental and health risks are merely a fabrication of liberal interests challenging the system of free enterprise.

I have agreed to both of these forums, partly to serve the discussion and partly to observe the discussion. As a journalist, I think it’s critical to be engaged in and witness to all aspects of this debate and to learn as much as I can as I go. I will not take sides on whether the risks of shale gas development outweigh the rewards. But I am not exactly a disinterested observer. I feel strongly that fighting for transparency in matters of overwhelming public interest is fundamental to the work of any journalist, and there is a critical need for transparency, and aggressive reporting, in matters related to the energy industry.

I also believe that the press serves as an agent for reform and a popular counterbalance to concentrations of wealth and power. Some call this watchdog journalism, which is a fitting and non-political name. But I don't shy away from this: This brand of watchdog journalism embodies liberal ideals that have been associated with the traditional media since the days of Joseph Pulitzer and Upton Sinclair. Journalists are not there to take sides, but to equip society – commoners as well as elites -- with the tools it needs for self-governance, and that begins with a spotlight on matters of public interest.

Efforts to test Marcellus in upstate NY produces leaky well Carrizo crews on site to fix casing problem in Owego

Service rig at leaky Marcellus well in Town of Owego NY
Photo provided 

A Houston company’s pioneering venture into the Marcellus Shale in upstate New York has produced a leaky gas well that the company is trying to fix before abandoning the project or turning it over to another company.

A service crew is now working on the Wetterling Well in the Town of Owego after state inspectors found gas leaking from the ground between the bedrock and the cement casing last fall. Carrizo Oil and Gas drilled the vertical well in October to test the Marcellus Shale. The formation, one of the largest gas reserves in the world, runs from upstate New York through Pennsylvania and into parts of Ohio, West Virginia, and Maryland. Carrizo began the project in the Town of Owego even though New York state is not issuing permits for the kind of horizontal drilling and high volume hydraulic fracturing necessary for commercial production. The permitting moratorium is tied to a review of health and environmental impacts by the state Department of Environmental Conservation, now in its fifth year, and a growing protest movement against shale gas development in New York state.

Problems were first confirmed at the Wetterling well on Oct. 25, according to DEC records, when an inspector, responding to updates from company representatives, found levels of combustible gas leaking from the well bore. The leak averaged about 20 cubic feet per day and was coming from somewhere between the cement casing and the ground – an area known as the annulus.  According to the records, a company representative asked the agency last fall if it would be “OK to abandon the well with a vent pipe.”

The DEC inspector, who is not identified by name on paperwork released in response to a Freedom of Information Request to an area resident, reported in notes:

I told him that I did not know and the New York has no specific guidelines about the matter. I went on to say that I have seen other companies re-entering wells of their own accord to fix small leaks. We agreed to continue monitoring the well and that Carrizo would submit an interim plugging report…

The DEC is updating regulations for shale gas as part of the environmental review, called the Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS). In February and March, officials said they expected the report to be issued within weeks. More recently they have said there is no timetable for its completion.

Under current rules, New York state gas well inspectors have broad discretion in interpreting conditions and tailoring enforcement efforts for a given permit. The leak at the Wetterling well was allowed to continue over the winter, before the company began work to fix the problem this spring.

Richard Hunter, vice president of Investor Relations for Carrizo, confirmed that a service crew had set up a rig at the Wetterling site to attempt to locate exactly where gas was leaking from. Hunter explained that crews inserted audio equipment into the hole to listen for the leak – similar to listening for a leak in an inner tube. When they locate the spot, he said, they will “squeeze in more cement” to plug the void between the casing and the ground.

Methane leaks, and the extent to which they are disclosed, have caused major problems for the industry’s image in Pennsylvania. Chronic problems in Dimock, Pa. became a showcase for the anti-fracking movement after methane leaked from production wells into an aquifer used by area residents. The problem became apparent after one water well exploded in 2009, leading to greater public awareness of risks related to shale gas development. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has documented dozens of other cases of methane leaks from gas development, some of them fatal.

Industry officials say problems with methane migration from drilling are exaggerated, and point out that methane can leak into water naturally.

Hunter said the Owego well was drilled as part of a contract with a company that sold assets to Carrizo.  From the beginning, Carrizo planned to plug and abandon the well after testing it, Hunter said, although it could be an asset in future business deals. Carrizo is not likely to pursue development in New York given the regulatory uncertainty, he said. But another company might.

 “The thickness, rock quality and everything in the well was very encouraging, and the same kind of thing we are seeing in West Virginia where we are having success,” Hunter said.

Note: Area resident Gerri Wiley provided records obtained by the Freedom of Information Law from the DEC and a photograph for this report. Sue Heavenrich also reported on the well today on her blog, The Marcellus Effect 

Reporting of shale gas story influenced by Internet trends PR, advocacy, fill niche as journalistic void grows

This post considers the latest news about methane migration in Pennsylvania. But to tell that story, I first have to tell another story.

In 2010, the number of public relations specialists in the U.S. had risen to an all time high of 320,000. By contrast, the number of reporters had fallen to a low of 58,500. The fantastic trajectory of the PR business will hold strong at least through 2020 with a 21 percent growth curve, according to Statistics at the Department of Labor. Over the next decade, the number of new PR jobs alone will exceed the payroll of the entire news industry.

For professional reporters and those who value their vocational contributions to society, it’s only going to get worse. The reporting payroll is projected to decline by another 6 percent by 2020. That means the public will be receiving more information billed as news that has been shaped, spun, or fabricated by professionals working within the narrow parameters of particular corporate interests. This growing rubric of the Fourth Estate will use the traditional tools – press releases and phone calls -- to leverage stories into news outlets. It also has at its disposal Facebook, Blogger, and Twitter – powerful tools to bypass the working press altogether.

At the same time free content on the Internet has eroded the number of staff writers and newscasters and lent traction to corporate interests, it has given rise to a volunteer corps of citizen journalists, muckrakers, and filmmakers. Josh Fox and Michael Moore have become role models for a new breed of advocacy journalists who, once merely consumers in the Market Place of Ideas, now have new access as vendors via social networks. By way of example, I have written about Vera Scroggins, an amateur videographer who lugs equipment over hill and dale, into town and country, recording municipal meetings, toxic spills, and interviews with residents. She filmed operations of shale gas operators that were beyond the wherewithal of the sparse professional reporting staff in rural northern Pennsylvania, and posted footage on the Internet, providing a repository of information otherwise unavailable. Participation of people like Vera is a good thing. It’s empowered the populous by giving everybody a voice -- access to the public stump in the square, and the ability to share information.

But it comes with a cost. The indy and PR news sources that thrive on the Internet are a welcome boon to free speech, but they also tend to undermine the traditional free press, which is unable to generate on-line revenue sources needed to sustain professional reporting. Beyond that economic consideration, there is the matter of content: Independent news largely comes unfiltered for noise, bias, and confusion. When newspaper reporters get a fact wrong, large or small, they are called on it. If necessary, corrections are issued, and their frequency is considered in a reporter’s annual performance evaluation. Additionally, reporters’ work has to pass muster with a staff of editors. These editors undoubtedly have varying political views, but they are all professionally committed to serving the expectations of a diverse readership. Editorial staff is separate from the news staff, both in the physical segregation of office space and in clearly defined roles.

As the public turns to free content on the Internet at the expense of paid content by professional reporters, the type of credibility and checks and balances that professional journalists have traditionally brought to the public are disappearing. The depth of reporting, and the newspaper’s traditional role as advocate for open government and transparency in matters of public interest are also suffering with the decline of revenue available for investigative journalism. It’s not just about the revenue, it’s about the source of revenue – from an independent readership and viewers – that makes the press such an effective watchdog.

Now for the other part of this story.

The gas industry claims that drilling is not a public health threat, and that fracking fluid is harmless. In support of these claims it cites lack of evidence tying operations to pollution and illness. What’s missing is full disclosure. The industry operates on private property without the level of regulatory oversight that other industries face. (It is exempt from both federal Safe Drinking Water Act and  hazardous waste laws that require disclosure of what goes into and what comes out of the ground.) When something goes wrong, it is often a matter between the company and the homeowner to resolve. When legal pressure necessitates, the industry can make the problem go away with settlements that contain non-disclosure clauses.

A recent example came to light with a personal injury claim against Range Resources and other operators by a family in Mt. Pleasant Township, Pa. Range Resources agreed to pay the Hallowich family $750,000 to settle a lawsuit for personal injury damages related to operations near their home. The case was settled by the parties in 2011, no official complaint was filed, and the records were sealed.  

We only know this because the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Washington Observer-Reporter filed and won a suit to get the records unsealed. The unsealed documents also revealed that the PA Department of Environmental Protection did not maintain records of an investigation into a complaint about water contamination at a neighboring property, and that the investigator, Mark Kiel, soon left the agency to work for the gas drilling company he had been investigating. For every case that gets unsealed, there are hundreds, if not thousands of cases sealed in documents that are never opened because their public relevance goes unchallenged, and that’s largely because mainstream media outlets have fewer resources to do that then they did in the golden age of investigative journalism.

Meanwhile, both the DEP and gas companies are able to keep matters of public interest unfolding in Susquehanna County from full public view. Last week, the DEP issued a brief statement that exonerated gas company WPX of causing methane pollution in three wells in the Township of Franklin Forks. Yet the agency is not releasing any results related to the investigation or to its conclusions. It is known that the Franklin Forks area and the nearby Salt Springs State Park contain rich methane reservoirs in both deep and shallow formations (hence the attractiveness of the area to petroleum operators). Although the DEP released its conclusions that the gas affecting the water wells was not from nearby gas wells or production zones being tapped by WPX, it did not explain the source or course of pollution at concentrations five times greater than the threshold for explosion risks.

It’s been a high-visibility case dominated by interest groups. Yoko Ono and other celebrities supporting anti-fracking groups visited the site in January to press their case against allowing fracking in neighboring New York state. On the other side of the fence, the industry group Energy In Depth issued a press release titled “DEP Debunks Methane Claims in Franklin Township,” which seized on the conclusion of the DEP investigation as proof that the industry is being vilified. Meanwhile, the landowner of one of the affected wells – the Manning family – is suing WPX for the pollution. Given the trend, it would be unsurprising if this gets settled behind closed doors.

Franklin Forks may have been less of a story if not for events that have unfolded in Dimock Township, about a dozen miles to the south. More than four years after the explosion of a residential water well called attention to the problem, the DEP is still investigating recurring water pollution problems in the middle of a gas field being developed by Cabot Oil & Gas. 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 Norma Fiorentino exploded on New Year’s Day, 2009. Under the Rendell administration, the DEP cited Cabot for various violations related to the problems.

Now Governor Tom Corbett’s DEP is investigating cases involving two homes in an area where the agency has banned drilling of new wells in the wake of chronic water problems. Recent tests showed dangerous levels of methane flowing into residential water wells near the junction of Carter Road and State Route 3023. Yet the problem, in the eyes of the DEP, remains elusive.  “We are slowly getting some test results back,” DEP spokeswoman Colleen Connolly said. “However  - as per our attorney, DEP does not share test results from private water wells with anyone but the private well owner.”

To be clear, the agency has a policy of releasing incomplete data to homeowners, a policy that has produced much criticism but little action. Officials justify the long-standing practice of excluding some fields as a sound method to filter noise from relevant data. Critics argue that the agency cherry picks the data, and the unreleased fields might be useful indicators of drilling contamination and other problems. Moreover, homeowners have a right to all results of water quality tests that can flag health risks.

The fight over the cause and consequences of methane seeping into private water wells in Susquehanna County is one example of an issue that could stand a little more legal leverage from professional news outlets. While some outlets, including the Scranton Times-Tribune, do what they can with declining resources to report the story, readers would be well served by a legal challenge to the DEP’s refusal to release ground water analysis paid for by tax-payer money concerning matters of overwhelming public interest. News outlets, of course, have to choose their battles and they have less discretion than ever as their revenues fall. In the meantime, we do our best with half-page press releases issued by regulatory agencies, rhetoric from talking heads for or against fracking, or hyperbolic “I told you so” by PR firms and activists representing stakeholders.