FracFocus.org = Hocus Pocus

FracFocus Gets A Failing Grade from Harvard Law School

An Earthworks Article by Alan Septoff, April 25, 2013

Thanks to two great stories by E&E’s Mike Soraghan, we know that the Harvard Law School has evaluated FracFocus.org and found government (and the public) shouldn’t rely upon it . . . as a database listing actual fracking chemicals used on specific wells.

In short, Harvard says FracFocus is inadequate for at least three reasons:

1. It is hard to determine when and if companies make disclosures.
2. The data contained within FracFocus isn’t verified — it consists of whatever the company reports.
3. Secrecy claims made by companies aren’t verified — FracFocus allows for unchallenged and extremely broad disclosure exemptions made at the company’s discretion.

In sum, Harvard says that FracFocus allows for disclosure on the fracking company’s terms without much regard for the community’s right to know. And the end product is inconsistent and unreliable.

More cynically (and Harvard doesn’t say this), FracFocus allows companies and states to receive the political benefit of requiring fracking disclosure without actually requiring fracking disclosure in a way that benefits the public or impacted communities.

Additionally, FracFocus makes retrieving the data much more difficult than it needs to be, as SkyTruth demonstrated by scraping the data and putting it into a much more public-friendly tool.

Background on fracking disclosure

Because of  loopholes in federal environmental laws, frackers have been free to inject toxic-containing frack fluid through a community’s water table without disclosing them to the impacted community.

As the shale boom progressed, this ability caused increasing outrage to the point that it looked like meaningful disclosure might be required—perhaps even by the federal government.

In part to head off the possibility of federal involvement, gas development states and industry—working with enviros, including Earthworks—drafted and enacted disclosure requirements. Wyoming was first, followed by Texas.

During this time, industry funded the creation of FracFocus.org, which is administered by Ground Water Protection Council. Many states that require fracking disclosure, specifically require it through FracFocus. And the federal government is considering incorporating FracFocus into disclosure for fracking on Bureau of Land Managment lands as well.

State-based disclosure has come up short

As Harvard demonstrates, FracFocus has come up short as a fracking disclosure tool.

Unfortunately, the state interpretation of disclosure regulations is lacking as well. For example, Earthworks and other enviros are now suing Wyoming state government—which started as a trend-setter—for not properly implementing their fracking regulations.

Taken together, the inadequacies of state fracking disclosure implementation and FracFocus serve as a strong argument that disclosure should be required at the federal, not state, level. And were fracking treated like almost every other industry, that would already be the case.

NOTE: Pictured above is Sharon Wilson from Texas who heads up the Earthworks’ Oil and Gas Accountability Project. She says that FracFocus “allows trade secret exemptions.”

Visit EcoWatch’s FRACKING page for more related news on this topic.

Shale Project on PA Route 87

A project of Carnegie Mellon University and the Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs

About the Project:

Debate on natural gas extraction by hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) of shale rock formations center on arguments about energy, the economy, and the environment. There has been considerably less attention paid to the societal and social impacts of hydraulic fracturing, including impacts on tourism, patterns of housing development, crime, social services usage, road quality, and urban planning and population issues.

The urgency to understand these concerns brought together researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and officials from the Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs and the Chrostwaite Institute to create the Research Guide to the Marcellus and Utica Shales. The purpose of this project is to catalogue the literature on natural gas extraction by hydraulic fracturing in order to help policymakers and researchers comprehend the existing research on this topic and identify issues for further study.

Description:

This catalogue contains over 1,200 sources, making it the most comprehensive bibliography on natural gas extraction by hydraulic fracturing. Although the focus of this project is on the Marcellus and Utica shales, we included sources about hydraulic fracturing and other natural gas shale plays more generally..

The catalogue contains research and documents from: peer-reviewed journals, academic papers;other articles and documents, including those from industry-sponsored and anti-fracking sources; maps and data files;government reports, regulatory documents, hearing testimonies, court cases;books and videos.

Newspaper sources were excluded from our review of the literature, however, we have compiled a list of newspaper series on the topic.

We found that the bulk of the literature on the impacts of Marcellus and Utica shale gas drilling discuss public health, environmental concerns, economic impacts, and politics and regulation. We found relatively few sources examining particular social impacts, such as housing or roads. By revealing what sources are available, this bibliography identifies gaps in the literature and issues for future study.

Search Methods:

We conducted a systematic search for literature on hydraulic fracturing and the Marcellus and Utica shales using 9 search engines and databases:

• Google Scholar, WorldCat, Government sites in Google (search by domain: .gov), Web of Knowledge, ProQuest and ProQuest Congressional, SCOPUS, LexisNexis, Thomas (Library of Congress).

Variations of the following keywords in our searches produced the references catalogued in this project: Utica shale: Marcellus shale, hydraulic fracturing (and also the alternate terms: fracking, fracing, and hydrofracturing), social and economic impacts, crime, drugs, housing, labor, road/rail/transportation, tourism, taxes, property, welfare, health (and alternately, public health/healthcare), environment.

Contributors: Anna Kasunic and Collin Siu developed this project under the direction of Robert P. Strauss, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the H. John Heinz III College, and Dr. Afeworki Paulos, Social Sciences Librarian and adjunct faculty member at the School of Social and Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. Edward J. Knittel and Jeffrey Heishman of the Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs provided valuable feedback throughout its development.

Correspondence about this project is welcomed, including comments about broken links and suggestions for resources to be added, through their contact form or email at marcellus.biblio@gmail.com

WV State Capitol Building

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Agency Review: WV-DEP, Office of Oil and Gas

The Legislative Auditor has conducted a performance evaluation of the Office of Oil and Gas (OOG) as part of the Agency Review of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) authorized pursuant to West Virginia Code §4-10-8. The report contains the following issues:

 

Issue 1: The Office of Oil and Gas Is Not Enforcing Statutory Requirements as They Concern Abandoned Oil and Gas Wells Which Is Causing the Number of Abandoned Wells to Increase.

 Currently there are approximately 13,000 abandoned oil and gas wells in West Virginia; 36.1 percent are listed as having no known operator, 44.4 percent are currently registered to known operators that do not have an abandoned well initiative compliance agreement, and 19.2 percent are registered to known operators that are in the 10-year Abandoned Well Initiative program. The remaining 0.3 percent, 34 wells, are in the Bona Fide Future Use Program.

 The OOG is not requiring operators to plug abandoned wells or prove that there is bona fide use for such wells as stated in Code. Data provided by OOG indicates that the number of abandoned wells is increasing, and some wells remain abandoned for 10 or more years.

 Due to the large number of abandoned wells and the difficult-to-get locations, inspections are typically not conducted. Unless an operator applies for a wellwork permit that would require an inspection, or a citizen files a complaint, the well site will go uninspected for potential hazards to the public and the environment.

 The Legislative Auditor conducted a random sample of the OOG’s ERIS database. The analysis revealed that a large number of wells had missing or inconsistent information.

Issue 2: The Office of Oil and Gas Should Develop Performance Measures in Order to Better Gauge Agency Performance.

 The mission statement developed by OOG is fully supported by statute. West Virginia Code assigns the OOG with mandates to regulate oil and gas operations.

 The OOG lists a relevant performance measure in the 2011 Executive Budget Operating Detail; however, other performance measures should be included to better gauge agency performance.

Issue 3: The Office of Oil and Gas’ Website is User-Friendly and Transparent But Could Benefit From Some More Improvements.

 The OOG website, although it is basically user-friendly and transparent, it could improve in both these areas; scoring 9 out of 18 points for user-friendliness and 15 out of 32 points for transparency, resulting in a total score of 24 out of 50 possible points, or 48 percent.

Recommendations

1. The Legislative Auditor recommends that the OOG program the ERIS database to alert it any time a well is out of production for a period longer than 12 months since this is a key determination of abandoned well status set by Code.

2. The Legislative Auditor recommends that when a well is out of production for a period longer than 12 months, the OOG should enforce Code and require the operator to either:

• plug the well,

• place it back into production,

• place it into Bona Fide Future Use, or

• place it into a long-term compliance initiative agreement.

3. The Legislative Auditor recommends that the OOG update its database system an data entry procedures to avoid and eliminate errors such as missing and inconsistent information.

4. The Legislative Auditor recommends that the OOG incorporate performance goals and measures to address its compliance with Code for wells that are out of production longer than 12 consecutive months and place them in the Executive Budget Operating Detail and OOG website.

5. The Legislative Auditor recommends that the Office of Oil and Gas further develop performance measures in order to better gauge agency performance.

6. The OOG should consider providing public access to its performance goals via its website and include the current and historical performance measures, budget information, and other user-friendly and transparency website elements identified by the Legislative Auditor.

Conrad Volz promoting FracTracker

Last year, the development of the FracTracker database for Marcellus shale gas production activities was progressing rapidly, under the leadership of Professor Conrad Volz, in the Center for Healthy Environments and Communities (CHEC) within the School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh.  Then, Professor Volz became an open critic of hydrofracking because it can contaminate drinking water.  He was forced to resign after becoming involved in a couple of disagreements over data interpretation.   His replacement, Professor Bernard Goldstein has also been a strong advocate for environmental regulation of hydrofracking for the protection of the public health.

Now the Heinz Endowment is withdrawing financial support for the FracTracker program at Pitt; and, Professor Goldstein is resigning. He is a former dean of Pitt’s Graduate School of Public Health; and, he said Heinz’s decision was a factor in his resignation, but not the only one. He said he had already planned on retiring from teaching at the end of September.  “My point is, in academia we’re really much better at developing things. Our strength is not in maintaining things over the long term,” he said.

Energy companies have identified major reserves of natural gas in Marcellus shale, a formation that lies under much of New York and Pennsylvania, and parts of Maryland, Ohio and West Virginia. Drilling in the shale has raised concerns about the use of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which injects chemical-laced water to break up the shale and allow natural gas to escape.  Environmental groups and the Environmental Protection Agency have expressed concerns about how the process affects water, soil and air quality. The industry insists it is safe, or to the extent there are adverse impacts that it is worth the risks.

The University of Pittsburgh and the Center for Healthy Environments and Communities (CHEC) will continue to research natural gas and its impacts on public health, although the funding sources are not yet secured. Bruce Pitt, chair of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, will be CHEC’s new interim director.