Penn State Fayette Campus on September 5th

Fayette’s Coal and Coke Heritage Center to host book launch on September 5th for ‘Shale Play’ which depicts life in the Marcellus Shale region through stories, images in new book.

LEMONT FURNACE, Pa. — The Coal and Coke Heritage Center at Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus, will host the book launch for “Shale Play: Poems and Photographs from the Fracking Fields,” by Penn State faculty members Julia Kasdorf and Steven Rubin, at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, September 5th.

“Shale Play,” published by Penn State Press in 2018, gathers stories and images about working people and everyday life from Appalachian Pennsylvania and the Marcellus Shale region.

“The long sleep of the Appalachians has been dramatically interrupted by the sudden discovery of the Marcellus Shale,” said Bill McKibben, author of “The End of Nature.” “This book helps us see and understand what that has meant for the region. It’s a classic tale, with echoes of the region’s past — and deep implications for the planet’s future.”

Kasdorf, an acclaimed poet and professor of English and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Penn State, has published three books of poetry: “Sleeping Preacher,” “Eve’s Striptease,” and “Poetry in America.” Her awards include the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize and the Great Lakes College’s Association Award for New Writing, a Pushcart Prize, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry.

Rubin worked for more than 20 years as a freelance photojournalist and documentary photographer. His photographs have been published in The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, Time, Newsweek, and The Village Voice, and internationally in Stern, GEO, Focus, L’Express, and The London Independent Magazine. He is an associate professor of art, specializing in photography, at Penn State.

Kasdorf and Rubin will present and discuss work from the book. Refreshments will be served.This event is free and open to the public. For more information, visit http://www.psupress.org.

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Shale Play — Poems and Photographs from the Fracking Fields

New book by Julia Kasdorf and Steven Rubin, Penn State University, Fall 2018

“The long sleep of the Appalachians has been dramatically interrupted by the sudden discovery of the Marcellus Shale. This book helps us see and understand what that has meant for the region. It’s a classic tale, with echoes of the region’s past—and deep implications for the planet’s future.” — Bill McKibben, author of ‘The End of Nature.’

Brent Broadwater with his cattle

From an Article by Mike Tony, Uniontown Herald Standard, June 3, 2018

Brent Broadwater walks through a pasture of red clover and alfalfa on his East Millsboro angus beef farm and wishes his cows could enjoy it. He knows his cattle would go crazy over the vegetation, but the pasture’s four to five acres are off limits to them now.

After years of seeing reproductive issues among his yearling heifers that grazed in the pasture, Broadwater is convinced that a shale gas well there damaged the health of those cows via a seep that formed at the bottom of the slope on the well’s south side.

“They don’t care about the farmer,” Broadwater said of Chevron and the state Department of Environmental Protection as he stood between the seep and the gas well.

In 2010, Atlas Energy developed the National Mines 26H natural gas well site on Broadwater’s property, and Chevron acquired it in 2011. Broadwater began to have problems with his herd almost immediately. The first two to three years after the well was drilled, only half of the heifers were pregnant, which struck him as highly unusual.

Broadwater bought a new bull, recalling that Chevron blamed his herd’s reproductive issues on the bull. The heifers continued to have trouble breeding, though, and about three years ago, Broadwater stopped making the pasture near the well available to his cattle.

He saw an increase in births right away. This year, the yearling heifers have had a 100 percent calving rate, having not been exposed to the 26H seep water.

But all of the cows that previously grazed in the pasture have continued to struggle with infertility issues and disappointing breeding rates, Broadwater said. He recounted with exasperation that his 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old cows, having been exposed to the seep water, have this year had four stillborn calves and one that was born with a cleft palate and died hours later.

Broadwater has no doubt that the seep is a direct result of the gas well, noting that the seep had killed grass below it for more than 300 feet below.

A lifelong farmer, Broadwater, 68, says he never had to deal with reproductive issues among his herd approaching this scale before. He thinks he and his wife Wanda know how to run a farm after all these years, and he recalled the veterinarian for his herd saying that whatever is killing the grass can’t be good for his cows, especially since the grass is their primary food source.

Broadwater acknowledges that neither Chevron nor the PA-DEP have identified a direct link between the gas well and his cows’ health issues.

Nate Calvert, policy, government, and public affairs advisor for Chevron, said Chevron and the DEP both independently investigated Broadwater’s claims, and based on analytical tests of several water samples and observations made by DEP inspectors during onsite investigation, the DEP determined that the surface water on the property was not an adverse effect of the oil and gas operation.

Calvert said Chevron adheres to all applicable state and federal regulations and responds to documented water complaints in accordance with all state and federal standards, including the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Act, which regulates the drilling and operation of oil and gas wells. “Chevron is committed to protecting people and the environment, and to operating with integrity,” Calvert said.

PA-DEP carefully reviews and investigates every complaint that it receives, DEP Community Relations Coordinator Lauren Fraley said. DEP received one complaint for Broadwater’s site in Sept. 2016 and conducted an on-site inspection three days later. Chevron’s personnel and consultant were also on site. Both DEP and Chevron sampled two areas of saturatedground: one on the western portion of the site and one on the eastern portion of the site.

Following DEP’s laboratory analysis of the samples, the department determined that the saturated area was not an adverse effect of Chevron’s National Mines Corp. 26H gas well.

In April, DEP released the first four years of data on the structural soundness of oil and gas wells submitted by thousands of Pennsylvania’s operators, indicating that the majority are being operated in a manner that substantially reduces the risk for groundwater impact. Well operators are required to inspect wells on a quarterly basis for structural soundness to prevent gas migration, manage leaks and protect groundwater.

According to the data, submitted in 2014, less than 1 percent of operator observations indicated integrity problems, such as gas outside surface casing, which could allow gas to move beyond a well footprint and potentially cause environmental damage.

PA-DEP is responsible in Pennsylvania for reviewing permits and conducting inspections at oil and gas well sites, pipelines and compressor stations.

“Our members, who produce 95 percent of the natural gas in Pennsylvania, are committed to continuously improving technologies through the application of world-class engineering solutions and the implementation of best practices aimed at safeguarding our environment, which includes protecting groundwater and public health,” Marcellus Shale Coalition President David Spigelmyer said.

CONTINUED CONCERNS EXIST

Still, Broadwater and others in Luzerne Township have seen enough to convince them that gas wells aren’t good for their livestock or their community.

Phyllis Palmer, 67, of East Millsboro said that several of her husband’s cows have suffered unusual deformities in recent years, including two calves born with a deformed foot, in addition to four or five cow miscarriages.

“Don’t jump at the chance to get them on your property,” Palmer said of gas wells. “Because you don’t know what you’re gonna get.” Palmer said that the water she used to get from a well now tastes like a sewer and she buys water at Walmart instead.

Several area farmers and residents objected in February to Chevron’s request for a special exception to the Dogbone Centralized Water Facility in Luzerne Township, citing concerns about what the impact might be on their livestock.

The centralized water facility will serve as a temporary storage site for water that will be used for Chevron’s well development activities in the township, and Calvert said that the facility will significantly reduce truck traffic associated with Chevron operations.

Broadwater cited studies by veterinarian Dr. Michelle Bamberger and molecular medicine professor Dr. Robert Oswald that highlights the impacts of gas drilling on human and animal health based on interviews with animal owners who live near gas drilling operations.

A 2012 study by the pair noted eight cases of bovine health being impacted. In all eight cases, the issue was reproduction. Farmers reported an increased incidence of stillborn calves with and without congenital abnormalities such as cleft palate following exposure to affected well or pond water, or wastewater.

In a followup 2015 study, Bamberger and Oswald noted farmers in cases they followed longitudinally over an average of 25 months continued reporting cases of reproductive problems greater than what they had seen in their years of raising cattle, and that health symptoms improved for families moving out of areas with oil and gas industrial activity and living in areas where such activity decreased.

“Without complete studies, given the many apparent adverse impacts on human and animal health, a ban on shale gas drilling is essential for the protection of public health,” Bamberger and Oswald wrote in the 2012 paper, which some have criticized as being an advocacy piece.

In yellow highlighter, Broadwater noted a passage in his copy of the 2012 paper in which a family stopped using well water despite test results indicating the water was safe to drink. Despite losing a year of school, the family’s child gradually recovered after being found to have arsenic poisoning.

Broadwater is concerned about his daughter, who lives about 700 feet from the well, losing at least 10 goats within the past year, which he says is another abnormally high loss.

He’s considering suing Chevron, estimating that he’s lost between $40,000 and $50,000 in production scuttled by the infertility.

He doesn’t care what Chevron or DEP tells him the onsite findings indicate. His farming experience tells him a different story, and he wants Chevron to take responsibility.

“They should fix it,” Broadwater said.

Note Dogbone Shape of Luzerne Township

SPONSOR: Freedom From Fracking, Fayette County, PA

Announcement for Public Meeting on Dogbone Project near US Route 40 in Monongahela River Valley, May 15, 2018

With the apparent approval of the Fayette County zoning hearing board, and a local land owner, Chevron will construct five (5) one million-gallon tanks (5,000,000 gallons) to store and reuse frack water at the intersection of Rush Run Road and Haines School Road in Luzerne Township.

The intended facility will be operational for a period of 5 to 10 years, minimum. Trucks hauling frack and fresh water will run to the proposed facility on a 7 days per week, 24 hour per day basis. Frack water is said to contain radiation along with biocides and other chemicals.

The proposed tanks will not have tops on them and will be open to the air… thanks to our Fayette County zoning hearing board. Not only will the facility harbor many unsafe conditions, it will be a substantial nuisance to the folks who reside all around the area. Major truck traffic, lights at night, pumps and generators running at all hours, an increase in the amount of litter along Rush Run, and the terrible odor from frack water in open tanks. These are just a sampling of what this facility will provide our community.

Neither the township or our county government have done anything to help protect the landowners in the vicinity of the proposed facility. If anything, they are helping to support Chevron’s plans!

Please join us in the effort to keep peace and tranquility in our Agricultural Community. Assist us in battling against big business that just moves in and does whatever it wants to, and also in ghting against our corrupt government agencies that just go along with whatever is best for their pocketbooks… not what is best for the people that live in these communities and have to deal with the problems they both dump on us.

We are a local group formed with the intention of protecting the community we live in. We are local landowners that care about where we live, the air we breathe, water we drink, livestock we raise and the general wellbeing of our community. Come and join us, if nothing else to keep updated on the matter at hand.

The meeting will be held for the community at 7:00 pm on May 15th at the Humbert Barn, located at 289 Heisterberg Road, E. Millsboro (Red Barn Lane). Please come with your questions and concerns.

West Virginia Environmental Council

ACTION ALERT for JUNE 10th

CALL TO ACTION:
Fayette County’s Frack Waste Ban is Being Challenged in Court

<<<< UPDATE: The Fayette County injection well ban appeal hearing is now at 2:00 p.m. in the Robert C. Byrd Federal Courthouse on Virginia St. Please adjust your schedules accordingly. >>>

This Friday, June 10th at 10am, the Fayette County Commission’s historic ban on oil and gas waste disposal is being challenged by EQT Corporation.

EQT is seeking a permanent Injunction against the ordinance to make these kind of county-wide bans unenforceable. We will be doing our best to make sure our ordinance stands, to set a precedent in Fayette County that will uphold other county’s rights to enact similar ordinances. But we need your help!

If you are available, please attend the court date! It will be heard in front of John T Copenhaver at 10 am Friday, June 10th at the Southern District Court of West Virginia (300 Virginia St E. Charleston, WV 25301). Note: You will also need a valid state-issued photo ID in order to enter the courthouse.

If you choose to attend, WEAR BLACK. All the attendees will be showing their support and collective mourning of the damage done to our water and health by showing up in all black attire.

For the water, land, and people, we are part of Headwaters Defense.

We hope you’ll consider joining Headwaters Defense this Friday as they fight to uphold their frack waste ban in Fayette County!

>>> Web-Site for the WV Environmental Council is:

>>> http://wvecouncil.org

Chestnut Ridge map shows Cheat Lake in lower left corner, Lake O' Woods at lower center

Underground Natural Gas Storage Services Proposed for Summit Gas Field in Fayette Co., PA, Monongalia & Preston Co., WV

From an Article of PRNewswire, Houston, TX, July 31, 2015

Interstate Natural Gas Storage Services – Chestnut Ridge Storage, LLC, owned by affiliates of eCORP International, LLC and financial partners, is conducting a non-binding Open Season for natural gas storage capacity and deliverability that will be offered at the Junction Natural Gas Storage Facility that is currently under development.

The Open Season for the initial 15 BCF of working gas capacity will begin on August 3, 2015 and will end at 5:00 pm CDT September 15^th, 2015. After evaluating open season submissions, Chestnut Ridge will seek to execute definitive precedent storage service agreements with successful bidders.

The proposed facility is to be constructed within the West Summit Field that is located in Fayette County, PA and the counties of Monongalia and Preston in West Virginia.

Junction Storage will be a multi-cycle, high deliverability facility with up to 25 BCF of working gas capacity and 500,000 dth/day of peak injection and withdrawal capabilities.

The project scope includes interconnects with the Columbia Gas Transmission, Dominion Transmission, Equitrans and Texas Eastern pipeline systems near the town of Waynesburg, PA.

Chestnut Ridge will seek authorization to construct the project from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and will request market-based rate treatment for this new interstate storage facility. The proposed in service date for this facility is the 2^nd Quarter of 2018, with the potential for limited commercial operations in the 4^th quarter of 2017.

The Junction Natural Gas Storage Facility will be strategically located to provide service to the expanding pipeline networks that are being built to transport the Marcellus and Utica natural gas production to the most valuable markets in the United States. Because of the facility’s design it will be unnecessary to impose restrictions that typically limit the use of conventional gas storage in the region.

Junction Storage will provide highly flexible services that can be specifically tailored to each customer’s needs. This flexibility will provide customers with a valuable new “on-demand” asset to help manage strategic and operational gas requirements, including supply, demand and transportation imbalances, basis, and seasonal price spreads. These services can be particularly useful when the requirements are the result of unplanned circumstances.

About eCORP International, LLC – eCORP International, LLC is a Houston, Texas, based privately held energy company, that is engaged in the development of natural gas storage facilities, natural gas pipelines and unconventional resource plays through its subsidiaries and affiliates.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Tanker Truck for Frack Wastewater

Fayette County  Injection Wells at Lochgelly (WV) Stir Controversy

Action Alert Letter of Tom Rhule, Communications Director, WV Mountain Party, May 22, 2015

On May 14th the WV Environmental Quality Board “EQB” decided to allow Danny Webb Construction continue dumping hydro fracking waste at that Fayette County site without a permit. This is alarming.

It is also disturbing that the WV Dept. of Environmental Protection “WV-DEP” has never cited this operator nor ordered remediation, considering that a Duke University scientist found undisputed evidence of this waste in nearby Wolf Creek. But what is most alarming, is that as far as anyone can tell, that site is still leaking fracking-related toxins and dangerously high radioactivity.

When it comes to industrial dumping, the WV-DEP has never failed to live up to its reputation as the Department of Everything Permitted, especially when backed by the governor-appointed EQB and all the Friends of Cancer who pull the strings in the Statehouse. By the way, there are literally over a thousand industrial waste injection wells strewn all over the State.

So the good citizens of Fayette county have basically been left to their own defenses. And although on May 18, the Fayette County Zoning Board recommended that the County Commission regulate future injection wells through a stringent permitting process, unfortunately that plan will not stop Danny Webb Construction, nor any other currently operating injection site from polluting the county’s waters.

This has been a real problem for quite some time. The West Virginia American Water 2011 Source Water Assessment and Protection Plan for Fayette District PWSID WV330L046 clearly states that “hydrofracking fluid is being injected into abandoned mines.” In fact, page 7 of that Plan lists the dumping of frack waste into abandoned mines, as one of the highest priorities with respect to water contamination. And that was 4 years ago.

Once again, the County Commission’s current zoning recommendation fails to ban it.

The petition that we are circulating urges the Fayette County Commission to immediately pass an ordinance that will make it illegal to dump frack waste and coal slurry anywhere within the county. Passing that ordinance will tell the world that Fayette County is not a sacrifice zone. But it’s going to take your support to make that happen.

On Wednesday, May 27^th, at 9:00 am, the Fayette County Commission will hold its regularly-scheduled meeting. On the agenda is the Zoning Committee’s recommendation, where I intend to introduce the ordinance to ban industrial waste dumping outright. Scheduled at the Fayette County Courthouse and open to the public, your showing up to support the passage of an outright ban will be empowering.

If you haven’t already signed the petition now going door-to-door urging the Fayette County Commission to ban industrial waste dumping, there is a copy at the Cathedral Cafe in Fayetteville. Or, you may endorse a digital petition online at mountainpartywv.com by clicking on the orange-colored YODO – You Only Die Once – button. Accuracy counts, so only one signature per citizen, please!

Citizen activists Tom Rhule of the Mountain Party and Brandon Richardson of Friends of Water will hold a press conference immediately Commission’s meeting on May 27^th outside the Courthouse to answer questions and provide details about the petition drive and proposed ordinance.

Tom Rhule, Communication Director, Mountain Party of WV

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Note:  See also the Fact Sheet from the WV-DEP on the two Lochgelly injection wells.

WV Route 857 North

WV-DEP files case against area developer

From an Article by David Beard, TheDPost.com, May 23, 2014

MORGANTOWN — The state Department of Environmental Protection (WV-DEP) is asking Monongalia County Circuit Court to assess $25,000 per day penalties against a Morgantown developer for alleged environmental violations at a Cheat Lake-area industrial park.

WV-DEP’s Division of Water and Waste Management filed the “complaint for enforcement” on May 22. It issued 12 notices of violation (NOVs) from Sept. 16, 2010, through May 9, 2013, to defendant LPG Land & Development Corp., based on Fairchance Road (WV Route 857 in Monongalia County).

Paul Panson is LPG’s president. The 18-acre industrial park is sited between Fairchance and the Mon-Fayette Expressway, just north of the Interstate 68 and Mon-Fayette interchange. (The LPG site is a service area for the oil and gas industry.)

An LPG representative said Thursday that management hadn’t seen the complaint yet and couldn’t comment.

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Leak Found at Fayette County WV Frack Waste Site

From an Article by Jessica Lilly, WV Public Broadcasting, May 23, 2014

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection says there indeed was a leak earlier this month in a pipe carrying oil and gas waste from an above ground pit, to an underground injection well in Lochghelly in Fayette County.

As we reported earlier this week, Danny Webb Construction is working to close and reclaim an above ground pit holding waste from the oil and gas industry, including frackwater.

The WV-DEP confirmed that residents’ concerns about leakage during the process were valid. The WV-DEP says there was a leak earlier this month in a pipe carrying wastewater to an underground injection well on the property.

The state environmental agency says the leak was fixed and the impacted soil was dug up and disposed of in a landfill.

The reclamation work comes months after the DEP ordered the pits closed because the operator needed to update the lining and install a leak detection system.

Danny Webb Construction used the pits to remove sediments before injecting into a UIC or underground injection well. The permit for this well expired in 2012 but was renewed February 2014, only to be revoked in early March.

Since then, the WV-DEP changed the application for this type of well. The changes include a new format structured to look more like the permit applications used by the WV-DEP’s Division of Water and Waste Management, and also inclusion of additional guidance on what is needed for the application.

As of Wednesday the operator had not resubmitted a permit application. Environmental groups and citizen Brad Keenan are appealing the revocation because it appears to allow the operator to continue to collect waste just the same as if the permit were approved. A hearing before the Quality Control Board is set for June 12 at the Charleston WV-DEP office.