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Activist slams DEC on drilling
He claims agency files fail to include water contamination cases in western counties.
ALBANY -- The state Department of Environmental Conservation says its records contain no examples of drinking-water contamination from natural gas drilling. But an Ithaca-based environmental researcher claims those records fail to include two decades of county health department cases from the three western counties that are home to most gas wells.
Walter Hang, an anti-drilling activist who runs a company that maps environmental impacts, made his claims in a letter to DEC. He said dozens of county health department reports on water and gas leak problems possibly linked to gas drilling in Allegany, Cattaraugus and Chautauqua counties never made it into DEC's records on natural gas safety issues.
DEC is considering new rules for gas drilling to handle the looming natural gas boom in the Marcellus Shale, an ancient underground rock formation that stretches from the Catskills through the Southern Tier and into the Allegany Region and continues into Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
It's not the first time Hang, owner of Toxics Targeting, has confronted the DEC. In November, he said DEC records showed 270 contamination cases linked to drilling, but DEC Commissioner Pete Grannis said that Hang had misinterpreted the records.
In his Friday letter to Grannis, Hang said he found 135 natural gas and oil incidents reported to health officials in Chautauqua County, which is home to about one-fifth of all the oil and gas wells in the state.
Hang said those cases included more than 50 incidents involving brine contamination of private water wells, homes where methane gas seeped inside and drinking water that could be ignited.
None of the incidents were included in a spills database relied upon by DEC to support its claims that there are no cases of drinking water contamination caused by hydrofracking, a new drilling technique that uses a mix of chemicals, sand and water to break apart gas-bearing rock formations deep underground.
A number of environmental groups claim DEC's proposed new rules are too weak to protect water from contamination. Gas companies, along with several property owners groups, said the rules are sufficient, and stricter limits would reduce economic development.
DEC spokesman Yancey Roy said Monday the department would have no comment while it reviewed Hang's correspondence. In 1985, DEC made the three counties responsible for preliminary investigations into water-well contamination complaints.
An attempt to obtain comment from the New York Independent Oil & Gas Association, a trade group for drilling companies, was not successful.
"DEC knows their records are not complete," Hang said. "Yet for two years, they have been assuring people that they have not had any problems with gas drilling. The counties are passing these cases up, but DEC is not including them. DEC is in denial that these problems can occur."
Hang also cited a July 2004 letter from the Chautauqua County Health Department, in which water resource specialist Bill Boria wrote that the department had "investigated numerous complaints of potential contamination problems resulting from oil- and gas-drilling activities."
Boria wrote that the complaints were for water contaminated by above-ground drilling activities, and "suspected ground water contamination problems resulting from oil and gas drilling activities and hydrofracturing. These complaints that were reported are probably just a fraction of actual problems that occurred."
Officials at the Chautauqua County Health Department said Boria was not available Monday, and that no one else in the department could take a reporter's questions.
Brian Nearing can be reached at 454-5094 or by e-mail at bnearing@timesunion.com.
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Activist challenges DEC claim of few gas drilling problems
The state's assertion that natural gas production is a clean, well-regulated industry has been called into question by memos from a health official working in drilling communities in western New York.
William T. Boria, a water resources specialist at the Chautauqua County Health Department, reported his agency has received more than 140 complaints related to water pollution or gas migration associated with nearby drilling operations. The cases correspond to a time when the industry took root in western New York decades ago, according to Boria, and continue through the last few years.
"Those complaints that were recorded are probably just a fraction of the actual problems that occurred," Boria stated in a 2004 memo summarizing the issue. County health officials tabulated information on 53 of the cases from 1983 to 2008 on a spreadsheet, including one where a home was evacuated after the water well exploded.
A separate case filed with the health department in Allegheny County found a residential well contaminated with oil last year during natural gas drilling operations nearby. The drilling company, U.S. Energy Development Corp., installed a water filtration system at the home, put the residents up in a motel and offered compensation, according to a memo from the company to the DEC.
Data and memos were obtained from the county health agencies through the Freedom of Information Law by Walter Hang, a database specialist in Ithaca.
The cases do not appear on a database kept by the state Department of Environmental Conservation to track problems and complaints related to spills and pollution.
The volume of cases may be small or not so small, depending on your view, but they pertain to a bigger question about transparency of the state's oversight of the industry. At several public information sessions on natural gas drilling in recent years, regulators from the Mineral Resources Division of the state Department of Environmental Conservation have characterized the industry as being problem-free in New York.
This issue is especially relevant as the DEC prepares final guidelines -- called the Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Study -- necessary to allow permitting for Marcellus Shale development to begin in New York.
Industry proponents say the document provides sufficient safeguards against risks from water pollution and other problems. Critics say it is too lax, especially to oversee the intensive type of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing -- commonly called fracking -- necessary to develop the Marcellus.
DEC: Few Problems
At the center of the debate is an apparent disconnect between regulators' assertions that drilling problems are minimal, and complaints filed by residents living near rigs suggesting otherwise. It's become a theme in the larger debate about drilling.
Hang's firm, Toxic Targeting, compiles government environmental data for municipalities and engineers. In November, Hang released a list of 270 files, compiled from the DEC's own spills database, documenting cases of contamination and ecological damage involving oil and gas industry operations over the past 30 years.
Dangers ranged from methane migration -- which causes explosion hazards when gas collects in water wells and enclosed spaces -- to contamination from brine and other byproducts of drilling.
DEC Commissioner Pete Grannis responded with a letter to state elected officials stating Hang's analysis was overblown and taken out of context. More than half of the cases were unrelated to natural gas drilling, Grannis said, and they occurred while the DEC was overseeing 10,400 wells. Overall, DEC says, the number of problems related to drilling is disproportionately small compared to other causes.
The Grannis letter concluded: "Requirements in place since the 1980s have successfully rendered drilling associated methane migration so rare that there has not been a reported incident since 1996. … When problems do occur, they are promptly and effectively addressed by DEC's spill response and Oil & Gas regulatory programs and staff."
There are those who take issue with that claim, citing more recent incidents of methane migration, as well as other problems.
One of those cases came to light last spring in Allegany County, near a non-Marcellus drilling operation by U.S. Energy Development Corporation.
Workers were fracking, a process that involves injecting a chemical solution under high pressure in the well bore to stimulate gas production, said Dave Eddy, who lives in a home near the gas well with his wife and two young children.
One night, his wife drew a bath for the kids and the faucet produced a foamy, chocolate-brown stream, he said.
Testing by the company found the well was polluted with gas, according to a letter to the DEC from Jerry Jones, operations manager at U.S. Energy. The company subsequently installed a filter on the home, put the family up in a hotel and offered compensation for the pollution, the letter states.
Wells Ruined
Recently, and closer to home, methane migration has been a problem with Marcellus production just south of the border, where a dozen wells were ruined near Cabot Oil & Gas drilling operations in Dimock Township, Pa. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is holding Cabot responsible.
DEC officials have said their strong regulations and oversight will continue to prevent that type of problem in New York.
Data recorded by Boria, the Chautauqua County water resources specialist, shows problems related to methane and brine cropping up in wells and homes over the last 30 years.
"A representative I spoke with from the Division of Minerals insists that the potential for drinking water contamination by oil and gas drilling is almost non-existent," Boria said in his resulting memo. "However, this department has investigated numerous complaints of potential contamination problems resulting from oil and gas drilling."
Over the years, relatively few gas wells have been developed in Broome compared to counties in western New York, but the issue of oversight will become more significant in the region with Marcellus Shale development. Some of the most promising geological parts of the Marcellus extend under the towns of Kirkwood, Binghamton and Conklin and Sanford.
If developed to its potential, the Marcellus is expected to create drilling far more widespread and intense than what has been seen in western New York.
Neither Boria nor Grannis were available for comment late last week. However, Yancey Roy, a spokesman for the DEC, said Friday the agency "will be able to talk about the issues raised once all appropriate staff have had time to review the material" compiled by Hang.
Chris Tucker, a spokesman for Energy in Depth, an industry group in Washington, D.C., questions the validity of Hang's views drawn from western New York. Although Boria's correspondence states that complaints have fallen regarding drilling activity in Chautauqua County, Tucker points to figures showing a surge in statewide natural gas production between 2000 and 2005 after a general decline in the 1990s. Tucker, responding over the holiday weekend by e-mail, did not have numbers specific to Chautauqua County, but he believes complaints may have fallen while production grew.
"My guess is that Mr. Hang wouldn't want you to focus too closely on that point," he said. "It doesn't fit all that well with his unifying theory of the universe."
He added: "To the extent that additional efforts can be made to promote more direct communication between the county and DEC on these matters, certainly those efforts should be pursued."
Need Assurances
A former organizer with the New York Public Interest Research Group. Hang has been an activist pushing to reform DEC regulations governing the gas industry. He says residents affected by drilling problems face an impossible burden of proof, and the DEC does nothing to help them.
"You've had these problems for 25 years," Hang said. "Time and time again, the DEC's Mineral resources turns a blind eye and says it's marsh gas, or doesn't even investigate. Local communities have been struggling with the problem on their own."
Hang is bothered by the fact that the Eddy case and other problems are not recorded in a database easily accessible and searchable by the public. He is also troubled by the DEC's failure to acknowledge them in their overall assessment of risks the agency presents to the public.
"In all fairness, there have been concerns voiced for decades," Hang said. "We need assurances that when these concerns come up, they will be addressed in a more comprehensive fashion."
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Complaints in Western NY raise questions about drilling safety
Information obtained by a local environmental activist is raising questions about the safety of natural gas drilling.
CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY -- Walter Hang, of Toxics Targeting, used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain more than 140 complaints filed with the Chautauqua County Health Department by residents living near drilling rigs. The complaints, filed over a 25 year period, correspond with the time when gas drilling started in Western New York.
The DEC is looking into the information obtained by Hang. A 2009 letter obtained by DEC Commissioner Pete Grannis to state officials stated that problems associated with drilling for natural gas were minimal. "Requirements in place since the 1980s have successfully rendered drilling associated methane migration so rare that there has not been a reported incident since 1996," Grannis says.
Hang says the complaints filed with Chautauqua County Health Department should be looked at more closely before the DEC makes any final decision to allow more drilling in New York State. " There are all of these examples where people suddenly got contaminated. I don't know what's going on. They reach out to the DEC and nothing happens," Hang says.
For more information, click this link: www.toxicstargeting.com/MarcellusShale
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Plan to send fracking wastewater near Keuka Lake is abandoned
A contentious plan to locate a wastewater disposal site in the Steuben County town of Pulteney is officially dead, although the company that proposed the project is leaving the door open for similar facilities in the future.
Chesapeake Energy sought approval to convert an abandoned natural gas well on the west side of Keuka Lake into a site that would accept more than 180,000 gallons of wastewater a day.
The wastewater is a byproduct of the hydraulic fracturing procedure, or hydrofracking, used to tap the Marcellus Shale natural gas formation.
Chesapeake's plans drew widespread resistance from local governments as well as residents in Pulteney and around Keuka Lake.
The company Tuesday submitted letters to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and state Department of Environmental Conservation, asking that its permit applications be withdrawn.
However, the decision to withdraw was not the result of public outcry, said David Spigelmyer, Chesapeake's vice president of government relations.
"We've been working on enhancing and developing our recycling program. There's no immediate need for us to have this permit," said Spigelmyer, who said the decision was also influenced by New York's moratorium on Marcellus Shale exploration.
"If we are able to develop Marcellus Shale in New York state, we wouldn't want to remove options from the table," he said. "It might be necessary to have disposal facilities in the future."
Underground injection wells are closely monitored by the EPA, and Chesapeake Energy is comfortable with their safety, Spigelmyer added.
The controversy tore into the fabric of the Keuka Lake community, said Pulteney Town Supervisor Bill Weber.
"It's done some damage to the community, too, that we need to repair. There was some mistrust," Weber said. "I wish there was some graceful way of telling all the people who were shouting that vocal opposition doesn't cut it with EPA and DEC. The most important thing is to open communications with the people involved and deal with it in a sensible fashion."
U.S. Rep. Eric Massa, D-Corning, disagreed.
Even though Chesapeake's letters to the regulatory agencies specifically said the decision to withdraw wasn't based on public outcry, Massa said he believes the opposition did make a difference.
"The concerned citizens of the Finger Lakes showed everyone that a strong grassroots movement can defy all odds and emerge victorious," Massa said in a prepared statement. "While some politicians may try to swoop in and take credit for today's news, clearly this victory belongs to the citizens that fought to protect the place they call home."
State Sen. George H. Winner Jr., R-Elmira, also applauded Chesapeake's decision to withdraw. And he said Marcellus Shale exploration should still be encouraged, but cautiously.
"Moving forward, I can't stress enough that our communities will always be best served by a careful, complete, serious, objective and thoughtful consideration of the future of the Marcellus Shale natural gas industry," Winner said in a news release.
Walter Hang, president of Ithaca-based Toxics Targeting Inc., has been working with Pulteney residents on the wastewater issue.
Even with Chesapeake's decision, the Pulteney saga proves this is a problem that has not been adequately addressed by DEC and others, Hang said.
"That was obviously a ridiculously bad location to put a deep well injection facility," he said. "Why would you ship that water hundreds of miles to the middle of nowhere and move it to within a mile of this historic jewel of a Finger Lake?"
For Pulteney, at least, that is now a moot point, and residents are relieved and happy.
"The citizens' resounding grassroots movement showed that a billion-dollar corporation couldn't have their way," said Jeff Andrysick of Gallagher Road in Pulteney. "I think this was not only a Pulteney, but a lake-wide, movement.
"I've never seen citizens around this lake more united on any issue. All of Pulteney is going to celebrate tonight."
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Hundreds turn out to oppose wastewater facility
Pulteney, N.Y. — The estimated population of Pulteney is about 1,300.
At times Sunday it looked like every one of them was crowded into the Pulteney Fire Hall to discuss the proposed plan to deposit contaminated wastewater in a former natural gas well.
More than 300 people came to hear a panel discuss the plan. Chesapeake Energy approached Pulteney officials last fall about the plan to dump the wastewater, which is generated from the hydrofracking process, into a well about a mile west of Keuka Lake.
Around the same time, Chesapeake submitted a permit application to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to convert the old well into a disposal well.
Injection wells are a method used by gas drilling companies to dispose of the waterwater created by high-volume, horizontal hydraulic fracturing – or “fracking” – which is a process used to tap the gas-rich Marcellus Shale formation.
There is a shortage of treatment plants able to handle the waste in the Northeast, and injection wells provide “the most cost effective and environmentally sound option” for disposing of the wastewater, Chesapeake wrote in its EPA application.
The panel included U.S. Rep. Eric Massa, D-Corning, Tony Ingraffea, professor of engineering, Cornell University, Walter Hang, president of Toxics Targeting, Art Hunt, owner of Hunt Country Vineyards, Richard Young, professor of geology at SUNY Geneseo, activist Steve Coffman and attorney and environmentalist Rachel Treichler.
All those on the panel were against Chesapeake’s plan to pump wastewater into the former well.
When Massa asked the crowd how many were also against it, the vast majority of the audience raised their hand.
Ingraffea warned that Chesapeake’s plan would mean approximately 180,000 gallons of wastewater would be pumped into the well daily for 10 years.
The wastewater, which is a highly concentrated brine that critics say contains toxic materials such as benzene and radioactive material from the hydraulic fracturing process, would be hauled in tanker trucks.
Ingraffea said it would mean three trucks an hour eight hours a day would be traveling to and from the site. He said that would put a serious strain on the roads leading to the old well.
He said the high level of truck traffic also increases the chances of an accident or spill.
Hang said it was the responsibility of those living near the well to stop Chesapeake’s plan.
“I have very bad news for you,” Hang said. “They are going to drill in the Marcellus formation as soon as they can. There’s only one way that’s not going to happen. If you stop it. I’m going to teach you how to kill the project.”
Hang said the Pulteney town board could pass a resolution asking Chesapeake to rescind its proposal.
This could present a challenge, since three of the five town board members lease the mineral rights to their land to Chesapeake.
Hang also said Pulteney residents should fight to gain lead agency status. Currently the State Department of Environmental Conservation is the lead agency on Chesapeake’s permit request.
“You should control the process, not the Department of Environmental Conservation,” Hang said.
He also recommended opponents begin fundraising to hire an attorney.
“You can nip this in the bud if you organize and act immediately,” Hang said.
Massa told those assembled he would fight for them in Washington, D.C.
“If you make this decision, in a generation, or two, or three you find out the entire area of Western New York has been turned into a large Love Canal, the people responsible will be gone,” Massa said. “What will you say to each other?”
Massa said Pulteney residents should not be fooled by lease agreements offered by Chesapeake.
“After you can’t live in your house or sell your house because you don’t have access to fresh water, the pennies you got will seem like silver to Judas,” Massa said.
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