Callous Contempt for Issues Takes Many Forms

From an Article by Alexander C. Kaufman, Huffington Post, December 5, 2017

One of the natural gas industry’s top trade associations launched a front group earlier this year to defend new East Coast pipeline proposals against the kind of protests that have targeted oil projects like Keystone XL and Dakota Access.

The American Gas Association-funded group Your Energy now claims it has recruited roughly 10,000 supporters to advocate for its companies and counter protesters who warn that new pipelines threaten to exacerbate climate change, cause environmental damage and violate landowners’ property rights. The registration number signals the organization’s ramped-up effort to shore up political support for new pipeline projects and tip the scales in favor of corporations that already wield disproportionate clout.

Your Energy ― made up of a national organization and state chapters in Virginia and Connecticut ― provides research and colorful graphics, runs social media campaigns and gives companies access to a “digital war room” that tracks pipeline protests, according to an industry presentation from August. Hu Post obtained the PowerPoint after it briefly became accessible on the American Gas Association’s website.

“There is strong and growing support for the valuable role that natural gas plays in our national energy future and the benefits this fuel brings to our environment and economy,” Jake Rubin, an American Gas Association spokesman, said in a statement.

In August, the group claimed 5,436 registrants, including 3,001 in Virginia and 1,054 in Connecticut. Four months later, that total has nearly doubled. The group has broadened its footprint on social media, increasing the number of likes on its main Facebook page from 40,183 to 93,574. Searching for “Your Energy America” on Facebook lists the page as the top hit, just below Greenpeace USA.

That in itself marks a small victory for the gas lobby. Your Energy builds on a longstanding effort by the fossil fuel industry to paint itself as a mere ideological rival to environmental groups at the opposite end of a political horseshoe.That narrative attempts to reframe the argument against pipelines around jobs and economic development rather than environmental concerns, ignoring the power disparity between deep-pocketed corporate giants and environmental nonprofits.

During Virginia’s gubernatorial election this year, Dominion Energy ― the state’s biggest utility and major political donor ― poured resources into Your Energy Virginia and similar groups like EnergySure to whip up what it called a grassroots “campaign to elect a pipeline,” according to The Washington Post.

At issue was the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which would carry gas 600 miles from West Virginia, through Virginia, to North Carolina. Both Gov.-elect Ralph Northam and his Republican opponent supported the project, which Dominion owns as part of a consortium. Since the election last month, anti- pipeline groups have railed against Northam for failing to disclose that several members of his transition team have ties to Dominion, and vowed to ramp up their opposition e orts. Though owned by other companies, the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a proposed 303-mile gas conduit that would go from West Virginia to southern Virginia, faces similar opposition.

Bruce McKay, Dominion’s senior energy policy director, defended the company’s support of the Your Energy initiative, which he said was part of a “comms program” devised by the American Gas Association in response to the need to “step up and engage in ways that we hadn’t before.”

“The AGA looked at the landscape and saw this public argument taking place about fossil energy and benefits of the natural gas and whether it should be expanded to other parts of the country,” McKay said, using the acronym for the American Gas Association. “It is going out and finding people who are interested in learning more about natural gas.”

Intensifying public opposition to oil pipelines on a national level has heightened concerns for the gas industry. In February, President Donald Trump greenlighted the last permits to complete construction on the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline, which tunneled Bakken field crude oil under a sacred drinking water source in the Standing Rock Sioux reservation.

Trump also revived TransCanada’s bid to build the Keystone XL pipeline to pump tar sands oil ― considered one of the dirtiest fossil fuels ― form Canada through Nebraska, a project that, according to one estimate, would add climate-changing emissions equivalent to putting roughly 5.6 million new cars on the road.

Your Energy overlaps with some of that fight. Enbridge Energy Partners, a pipeline giant working to build multiple tar sands pipelines from Canada into the United States, listed Your Energy as a key public relations campaign in an industry presentation dated Oct. 9. The PowerPoint, signed by Peter Sheffield, an executive and registered lobbyist for Enbridge, also appeared on the American Gas Association’s website.

The company, which hopes to complete a gas transmission line from Ontario to Ohio next year, included slides with quotations from Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln and Dwight D. Eisenhower about challenging lies, winning over public sentiment and carefully planning before challenging opponents.

The gas industry depicts itself as a much cleaner alternative to dirtier fuels like coal and oil. Dave McCurdy, the president and chief executive of the American Gas Association, is a former Democratic congressman from Oklahoma. In June, he told HuffPost that, “We’re the mainstream guys,” as opposed to “extreme kinds of candidates” on both sides. Natural gas ― the majority of which is captured through the technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking ― produces far less carbon dioxide than oil or coal, the source of smog and the main cause of climate change. The U.S. vowed to reduce its CO2 emissions as part of the Paris climate agreement in 2015, and the gas industry and its allies take credit for shrinking the country’s carbon footprint as gas surpassed coal as utilities’ main fuel for electricity.

But natural gas is mostly composed of methane, which traps 30 times more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. Methane emissions are on the rise, in part because of the fracking boom. The U.S. could be responsible for up to 60 percent of the worldwide surge in human-caused methane emissions since 2002, according to a Harvard University study released last year. The researchers said there was too little data to identify specific sources, but the increase tracked the boom in shale oil and gas production across the country, which leaks large amounts of methane from drilling sites and pipelines.

Among conservatives, climate concerns about new pipelines often take a backseat to worries about how they might violate land rights. Last month, the consortium behind the Atlantic Coast Pipeline began preparing to sue the 20 percent of 2,900 property owners who refused to sign voluntary agreements to allow construction on their land.

The American Gas Association said it does not target its member companies’ workers as part of the campaign, and that more than half of its registrants were “non-utility employees.” Rubin did not respond to an email requesting a breakdown of how many registrants worked in the industry that funds Your Energy. But Your Energy has been largely absent from pipeline fights on the ground so far, and has yet to boast any major accomplishments, such as hosting events or hitting targets for the number of phone calls to legislators.

“For them, it’s like, ‘We have to do something, we have to counter this narrative, or at least we have to muddy the waters and make it seem like there’s protests on both sides,’” said Josh Stanfield, executive director of the progressive group Activate Virginia, which has opposed pipelines. “You have to be suspicious because there’s a clear motive on why they would set up a bullshit front organization for PR purposes.”

“Do they serve any purpose other than simply being a form of crisis communications, like a PR response?” he added. “They definitely serve a purpose simply by existing so the industry can say there’s grassroots energy on our side, too, so they can make that argument and point to something as existing.”

Teach the Kids in a Truck

WV Museum (Clay Center) Launches Gas Funded Pro-Fracking Exhibit for Kids

From an Article by Joe Solomon, Huffington Post, July 20, 2015

The Clay Center, West Virginia’s premiere arts and science museum for kids, recently launched a new exhibit focused on the science and wonders of fracking, thanks to hefty donations by the oil and gas industry.

The exhibit, called “Power Your Future,” is housed inside a natural gas-powered truck, which enables it to be driven to local elementary and middle schools.

I tried repeatedly to get permission for a tour of the mobile exhibit, but all of my inquiries went unanswered. What I’ve been able to piece together from photographs and the testimony of those who’ve been on-board is that the interior feels like something between a spaceship and an arcade room—with strips of neon blue and orange lights covering the floor and ceiling. The walls are lined with interactive digital displays where kids can play games which relate in some way to the natural gas drilling industry.

In one game, for example, students race against the clock to connect the different elements which make up methane and other gases. In another, they can create their own music based on the seismic waves industry geologists use to identify shale deposits. A third screen, themed like the popular Facebook app Farmville, allows kids to plant trees as part of a hypothetical “fracking reclamation” project.

There’s also a station called “The Future Starring You” where kids can answer a personality quiz, take a selfie, and then get to see their picture embossed over a cartoon of a worker in the natural gas industry. One photo shows a child’s face on the head of a carton driller, next to a placard that reads “Drill here.”

To be clear, there are no digital games on-board the exhibit that help children learn about the scientifically confirmed dangers of fracking—like say, the proven spikes in earthquakes,climate-warming methane leaks, or cancer-causing radon.

Natural Gas Influence

The Power Your Future exhibit was paid for with $1.2 million in grants donated by EQT Corporation and Energy Corporation of America, two very wealthy gas companies whose logos are emblazoned on the side of the truck.

When critiqued for taking gas money and just showing one side of fracking story, Lloyd Jackson, the chair of the Clay Center’s board defended their “balanced and fact-based educational programming.” Jackson went on to laud fracking, saying, “Natural gas is and will be a central issue for our State and our counties for decades” and that “we can expect the gas industry to be around for a long time.” Jackson was also very defensive about the exhibit’s sponsors, extolling EQT and ECA for their “commitment to our community [and the] betterment of our children.”

It might be important to know that Lloyd Jackson, in addition to chairing the museum board, is the President of Jackson Gas Company, his family’s gas drilling and production business.

The President of the Clay Center, Al Najjar also defended the exhibit by stressing its focus on science-based learning. Najjar told the Charleston Gazette, the way the museum staff addresses the controversy surrounding fracking, “is by talking about it” and “not shouting and screaming about it.” He said, “It’s really about making sure we are getting students to understand how it works, to literally talk about the science.”

Najjar’s logic that the way you address concerns surrounding fracking is by zeroing in on the science seems like a line you’d expect to hear from a gas company’s PR representative.

After all, this is the same logic that says that the way to discuss benzene, a chemical that’s known to cause cancer in humans and is sometimes used in fracking injection fluids, is by only discussing its chemical composition. As it happens, benzene’s molecular composition is C6H6, a rather elegant hydrocarbon design. The form of cancer benzene is most known to create is leukemia.

While the Clay Center claims they give lesson plans to teachers that address some of the larger questions surrounding the gas industry as well as other forms of energy, one wonders why some of these areas of deeper concern were not featured in the exhibit itself?

What’s Your Story?

One also wonders why the Clay Center decided not to highlight the stories of fracking’s impacts on West Virginians. It seems especially ironic when you find out that the Center runs a concurrent exhibit for kids called “What’s Your Story?”

The stories of fracking’s harmful impacts are plentiful in the mountain state.

Eileen Burke, an art teacher for 16 years at Doddridge County High School in West Virginia, in a county where fracking is well underway, heard multiple “horror stories” from her students. Some students would tell her how they couldn’t shower because of how “dark and nasty” their water had become and one girl described how her family was “driven crazy with the noise of two drilling rigs near her home, and the bright lights on the pads—how it’s like daylight at night.”

Other students would fear just getting to school as their school bus would compete with fracking equipment and water trucks on narrow mountain roads.

Eileen herself couldn’t take the stress of having EQT’s fracking wells across from her property. After years of waking up with “metallic coughing,” endless rainy nights worrying about flooding from nearby waste water ponds, and endless truck traffic outside her house, she sold the home she hoped to retire in, and is moving out of state.

Eileen Burke and her husband tried to get answers at EQT’s Bridgeport offices back in 2012. Read the story here.

Another Doddridge County resident, Tina Del Prete, recently started a petition on MoveOn.org calling on West Virginia to follow New York’s lead and ban fracking. The petition has gathered over 2,650 names – with many West Virginians sharing their story alongside their signature.

One recent comment reads: “As a native West Virginian, I would most prefer to raise my two children in the land of their heritage and history. But, we had to leave W VA last year with a lack of confidence that we were safe drinking our tap water, breathing clean air, or if we were literally on stable ground.”

This past April, EQT sued 103 West Virginian landowners so they could trespass their land to pursue its proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline. Many of these landowners continue to protest, bringing their stories of protecting their heritage and their children’s future to bear.

And in 2004, EQT’s contractor bulldozed a historical cemetery of black coal miners in Logan County in order to move fresh pipe to a drilling site quicker. Their descendents’ stories of seeking justice continue to go unheeded.

Why Not Focus on Renewables?

One of the obvious questions that comes up in discussions of the Clay Center’s pro-fracking exhibit is: Why not create an exhibit for children that focuses on renewables? Why not spotlight the energy sources of the future – like wind and solar? Such sources of power are far safer and don’t come with flares and fireballs, water contamination, metallic coughing, dangerous roads, intolerable noise and night light, worsening climate change, and the perils of another boom and bust economy. Plenty of science goes into photovoltaics and converting wind turbines’ kinetic energy into electricity.

Well, apparently, a few years ago the Clay Center asked themselves this very same question.

I spoke with an ex-Clay Center staffer who told me that at the inception point of the mobile exhibit – back when it was still an idea on a drawing board a few years ago, the hope was that it would focus on all kinds of energy – from coal to gas to renewables like solar and wind. This ex-staffer, who wished to remain anonymous, told me they weren’t sure what happened, but that a moment came pretty quick in the brainstorming process where the museum curators decided to double down on gas.

One could guess that ECA and EQT’s money had something to do with it.

Gas Industry Dazzle for Kids Only

See also: www.Marcellus-Shale.us

WV Gas Industry Forcing Pooling Again

Citizen Input to the Legislature is Essential on Most Bills

From an Article by Casey Junkins, Wheeling Intelligencer, February 20, 2015

Whether one wants to call it “forced pooling” or “unitization,” Tim Greene said allowing Marcellus and Utica shale natural gas producers to drill on unleased land will give the industry an unfair advantage in dealing with mineral owners.

Identical bills, both introduced Friday, are now up for committee debate in both the West Virginia House and Senate. The House bill – H.B. 4558 – is sponsored by Speaker Tim Miley, D-Harrison, among others. The Senate bill – S.B. 578 – is sponsored by President Jeff Kessler, D-Marshall, and Senator Larry Edgell, D-Wetzel, among others.

In both 2011 and 2013, similar bills that would have allowed frackers to include unleased minerals in horizontal drilling pads failed to pass in the state Legislature. Reached late Wednesday, Edgell said the pooling bill is “not going to pass,” adding that he had asked his name to be removed from its list of sponsors.”The way this is crafted, it just is not fair to a bunch of landowners I know back home,” Edgell said. “There is a lot of opposition to this.”

Meanwhile, Greene is a former West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection oil and gas inspector who now owns Land and Mineral Management of Appalachia. He said “small” mineral owners throughout the Mountain State will suffer if legislators approve the practice he calls forced pooling.

“I just hate to see it being used as a hammer against the small mineral owner. They deserve the right to negotiate a fair lease,” Greene said. “There are landmen now going around the state telling mineral owners, ‘You either sign this or we are going to force pool you.’ And it is not even the law yet.”

Under the legislation, if surrounding property owners have signed leases with a particular drilling company but one property owner has not, that property owner could be forced to allow their land to be used by gas drillers for the development of the neighbors’ gas. The pooling provision would require gas companies to pay pooled property owners royalties comparable to those paid to neighbors.

In the case of a mineral owner who refuses to sign, he said the bill would require drillers to lease a “supermajority” of the adjoining acreage before they can act on pooling.

Corky Demarco, executive director of the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association, said any royalties paid to an absent property owner would be placed into an escrow account. “Pennsylvania and Ohio have statutes allowing this,” he said. “If we are going to maximize our opportunity with the shale industry, we need some certainty. We can’t allow one mineral owner who wants to hold out to shut down a drilling operation.”

The Legislature ultimately decided against forced pooling in 2011 after many landowners voiced concerns about losing their ability to negotiate better lease deals from the gas companies. The industry tried to pass a similar bill last year without much success.

“There is a lot of acreage in this state that is just not going to be developed unless we get this,” Demarco said. As with Demarco, Greene is not sure of the bill’s destiny, but said companies should not be able to “bully” mineral owners.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

West Virginia Environmental Council Action Alert – February 21, 2015

There are three–yes, three–items about which you might contact Senate Judiciary members.

1. Any day, we’re expecting that committee to take up S.B. 423, “Amending the Aboveground Storage Tank Act.” This bill would gut the water protections gained in last year’s S.B. 373. Tell committee members to reject this bill!

2. We’re also expecting the committee to take up S.B. 482 any day. This bill would seriously weaken air pollution permitting for smaller sources, and establish unrealistic deadlines for the WV-DEP to review permit applications. And it says that if the DEP does not act, the permit is deemed granted as applied for. Tell committee members to reject this bill also!

3. Sooner or later, this committee will take up S.B. 167, the DEP rule that would restore “Category A” (drinking water) status to the portion of the Kanawha River that flows past Charleston. Tell committee members to pass this rule without amendment!

Note:  The House Judiciary Committee meeting at 9 am this Monday will take up “Coal Jobs and Safety Act” (H.B. 2566/S.B. 357); this bill would relieve coal companies from meeting water quality standards in their pollution permits and also weaken aluminum criteria for streams. Mine workers oppose it too, because it weakens mine safety.

This is the mid-point of the 2015 Session of the Legislature, the last (60^th) day is March 14^th.

You need a computer, newspaper, coffee, bottled water and a good dog

WV — Don’t leap into pooling

EDITORIAL – Morgantown Dominion Post Newspaper, November 21, 2014

As heated issues go, most lie just below the surface — simmering — until they start spewing controversy. No one’s calling a proposal in the state Legislature on pooling mineral tracts to drill horizontal Marcellus wells an eruption, yet. But this issue will explode once the regular legislative session begins in January.

This legislation is only a proposal for now, and many of the lawmakers it was presented to this week during an interim legislative session will no longer be in office in 2015. Yet this bill will undoubtedly be on the front burner in what promises to be a turbulent session.

We’re not going to quibble over whether to call it forced pooling or fair pooling, for now. Obviously, where you stand on that detail depends on where you sit. Energy lobbyists, who had a front row seat while ironing out this bill’s specifics during talks among the state’s two major oil and gas industry groups, have gone so far as to deem this measure “fair to all parties.”

However, we are going to lock horns with this proposal on two substantive issues that bulldoze directly over the rights of mineral owners who refuse to participate in pooling projects.

The bill stipulates that the driller must have agreements with mineral owners who own 67 percent of the project’s acreage before it can apply to the state for a pooling order. That percentage is too low. Especially since it conceivably could allow just one owner of that percentage of a mineral rights tract unit to approve such projects.

It’s also conceivable that drilling projects could take a page out of politics’ playbook and gerrymander or manipulate and design project tracts to give drillers every advantage. We recommend raising that percentage to at least 75 percent for the time being, creating a tougher standard for pooling orders.

The issue of just how much is revealed to reach a market-based value vs. what is just and reasonable is also far from clear. More transparency about what other mineral rights owners are receiving and how those figures are reached is also essential to this process. Why not make the prices paid for all leases of mineral rights pubic information?

A final concern of ours is during interviews with legislative candidates this fall, some did note that the issue of pooling would come up in January. It already has and the energy lobby’s pressure on legislators will be relentless from hereon. Only a few candidates were knowledgeable about pooling, earlier. So we call on every lawmaker to do his or her homework and learn the particulars of this proposal.

But even more crucial is that the public also vent its concerns on this issue.

Shakeout Threatens Shale Patch as Frackers Go for Broke

From an Article by A. Loder, Bloomberg News, May 27, 2014

Drillers must keep borrowing to pay for the exploration needed to offset the steep decline in the production from fracked shale gas wells.

The U.S. shale patch is facing a shakeout as drillers struggle to keep pace with the relentless spending needed to get oil and gas out of the ground.

Shale debt has almost doubled over the last four years while revenue has gained just 5.6 percent, according to a Bloomberg News analysis of 61 shale drillers. A dozen of those wildcatters are spending at least 10 percent of their sales on interest compared with Exxon Mobil Corp.’s 0.1 percent.

“The list of companies that are financially stressed is considerable,” said Benjamin Dell, managing partner of Kimmeridge Energy, a New York-based alternative asset manager focused on energy. “Not everyone is going to survive. We’ve seen it before.”

Some investors are already bailing out. On May 23, Loews Corp., the holding company run by New York’s Tisch family, said it is weighing the sale of HighMount Exploration & Production LLC, its oil and natural gas subsidiary, at a loss.

HighMount lost $20 million in the first three months of the year, after being unprofitable in 2013 and 2012, Loews said it its financial reports. As with much of the industry, HighMount has shifted its focus to oil after natural gas prices plunged and has struggled to find sites worth developing, company records show.

In a measure of the shale industry’s financial burden, debt hit $163.6 billion in the first quarter, according to company records compiled by Bloomberg on 61 exploration and production companies that target oil and natural gas trapped in deep underground layers of rock. And companies including Forest Oil Corp., Goodrich Petroleum Corp. and Quicksilver Resources Inc. racked up interest expense of more than 20 percent.

Production Declines

Quicksilver acknowledges the company is over-leveraged, said David Erdman, a spokesman for Quicksilver. The company’s interest expense equaled almost 45 percent of revenue in the first quarter. “We have taken concrete measures to reduce debt,” he said.

Drillers are caught in a bind. They must keep borrowing to pay for exploration needed to offset the steep production declines typical of shale wells. At the same time, investors have been pushing companies to cut back. Spending tumbled at 26 of the 61 firms examined. For companies that can’t afford to keep drilling, less oil coming out means less money coming in, accelerating the financial tailspin.

Interest Expenses

“Interest expenses are rising,” said Virendra Chauhan, an oil analyst with Energy Aspects in London. “The risk for shale producers is that because of the production decline rates, you constantly have elevated capital expenditures.”

Chauhan wrote a report last year titled “The Other Tale of Shale” that showed interest expenses are gobbling up a growing share of revenue at 35 companies he studied. Interest expense for the 61 companies examined by Bloomberg totalled almost $2 billion in the first quarter, 4.1 percent of revenue, up from 2.3 percent four years ago.

The drilling spree boosted >U.S. oil production to 8.4 million barrels a day, 16 percent more than a year ago and the highest since 1986. Growth has been driven by advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which unlocked crude and natural gas trapped in formations like the Bakken shale or the Marcellus shale in the U.S. northeast.

Costly Gains

The gains haven’t come cheaply. Goodrich said earlier this month that it’s trying to whittle its well costs in the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale down to $11.5 million apiece. The $1.1 billion company, based in Houston, spent almost $52 million more than it earned in the first quarter.

The company has enough money to cover its 2014 capital needs and is working with its board to fund 2015 as it ramps up drilling. A successful well announced last month has propelled Goodrich shares to $25.34, more than double the 2014 low of $12.28.

While borrowing to spend is typical of start-up companies, it’s not always sustainable. Forest Oil, where interest expense totaled 27 percent of revenue in the first quarter, in February reported disappointing well results, and warned that it might run afoul of its debt agreements. Forest on May 6 announced a plan to sell itself to Sabine Oil & Gas LLC in an all-stock transaction. The company declined comment. Shares have declined 39 percent so far this year.

More Data Missing in WV

Are the Gas Workers from WV or from TX and OK?

From Article by Ken Ward, Charleston Gazette

Date:  October 27, 2013

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Last week, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s administration told state lawmakers that the boom in natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale field “continues to have a positive impact on West Virginia’s economy.”

Employment in oil and gas industries grew by just more than 20 percent in 2012, according to a report from the Department of Commerce’s Workforce West Virginia division. Average wages also increased, from about $70,000 to $75,600, the reports said.

But the annual report left out some important information: How many of the jobs created by the Marcellus rush are going to West Virginia residents, and how many to out-of-state workers?

For the second year in a row, the Tomblin administration report did not provide that key — and legislatively mandated — data about the residency of natural gas industry workers.

The Commerce Department added information about the race, ethnicity and gender of gas industry workers to this year’s report. But, “Unfortunately, there are still some details we are unable to provide,” an agency spokeswoman said.

As companies race to tap into the Marcellus gas reserves and build associated pipelines and gas-processing facilities, organized labor groups have complained that companies were bringing in out-of-state workers to fill too many of the new jobs.

During a special session in late 2011 that focused on new environmental rules on drilling, a few lawmakers tried to address the workforce issue. They proposed language to require companies to submit new reports to the state to provide an employee residency breakdown.

Industry lobbyists objected to this language, and it was removed during closed-door negotiations between the Tomblin administration and those lobbyists.

A committee bill, approved in the House after months of discussion at interim meetings, had required companies to disclose the information. But the governor’s bill, which eventually passed, instead mandated a government study by the Commerce Department.

Under the final version, the state’s report was required to include, among other things, a review of the number of jobs created for legal West Virginia residents and non-residents and a review of “the number of employees domiciled” in West Virginia.

See also:  www.FrackCheckWV.net

EXPERTS: Facking Methane Leakage Study Financed by Gas Industry with EDF is Deeply Flawed

.  Photo: Raw Natural Gas Piping System

Numerous Problems Are Identified With How Study Was Conducted in Order to Achieve Results Inconsistent with Findings of Independent Researchers at Diverse Drilling Sites

Press Release from PSE Group, September 17, 2013

WASHINGTON, D.C.  — Anthony Ingraffea, Ph.D., Dwight C. Baum professor of engineering, Cornell University, and president, Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers for Healthy Energy (PSE), and Seth B. Shonkoff, PhD, MPH, executive director, Physicians, Scientists, & Engineers for Healthy Energy, and environmental researcher, University of California, Berkeley, issued the following statement today:

 ”The new gas industry/Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) study released Monday on methane gas leakage appears to be fatally flawed. 

The study, “Measurements of Methane Emissions at Natural Gas Production Sites in the United States” by David T. Allen and colleagues was published yesterday in the Journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences at 3pm EST on Monday, September 16, 2013.  The Environmental Defense Fund together with many oil and gas companies funded and supported this research effort.  

The research bears directly on the powerful GHG/global warming effects of methane and thus the implications for regulation and continued widespread development of shale gas. But it has concluded that methane leakage at well sites, selected in time and location by industry participants, is so low as to be nearly trivial. This is a finding at odds with other researchers’ work that shows much higher rates.

Allen and colleagues conclude that upstream (at the well site) methane emissions from the natural gas industry amount to just 0.42% of gross annual domestic production of associated (oil wells) and non-associated (gas wells) natural gas.  However, the study – much like its widely-criticized predecessor, (EPA/GRI 1996), which this study seems to closely follow – is based on a small sampling of hydraulically fractured wells which may not adequately represent national oil and gas activity and the variability within and across production basins.

Furthermore, the fugitive losses reported by Allen and colleagues are 10 to 20 times lower than those calculated from more complete (field-level) measurements.  A fatal flaw in the study by Allen and colleagues is that they make no attempt to discuss these conflicting results, nor do they even reference these other studies as relevant evidence to uncertainty. How might one explain this huge discrepancy in measured emissions? 

Possible explanation #1 for discrepancy: industry well selection.  While it is possible that the gas industry can produce gas with relatively low associated emissions at the well site, this is likely not now the norm nationally, regionally, or even within a single production play. It is in the interest of industry to select lower emitting wells for sampling. Studies carried out by NOAA and other independent researchers which report significantly higher rates of emissions rely on atmospheric measurements and chemical analysis of atmospheric samples to assess emissions across the entirety of a production field rather than a small subset of selected wells. As such, these studies are more likely to reflect accurately real-world emissions from the industry as a whole. 

Possible explanation #2 for discrepancy: The effect of oversight. This paper suggests that when industry knows that they are being carefully watched they are motivated to, and capable of, substantially reducing fugitive methane emissions at the well site.  However, in the real world, not every well has oversight by scientists and engineers of the caliber of Allen and colleagues during all of their work.  In fact, many state oil and gas regulatory agencies in the United States have too few inspectors to monitor the large numbers of wells and regulatory oversight is, thus, greatly limited (http://goo.gl/VK4nzf).  In the real world, gas production operators may not take all precautions necessary to limit fugitive methane loss; field-level measurements capture the emissions from wells owned by these operators as well as exemplary wells. 

The results of this study fall within the range of upstream methane emissions reported in the controversial EPA/GRI 1996 study: 0.38% (± 0.17) of gross U.S. production. One can’t help but notice other similarities between the studies: e.g. relative sample size, sampling methods. The EPA/GRI study has been widely criticized for limited data and unrepresentative sampling (Howarth et al. 2011; EPA 2010; OIG 2013). 

Given the politically charged environment around unconventional natural gas development, we must question whether this study is simply an attempt to manipulate science and reverse the political discussions of fugitive methane emissions. A confirmation of high rates of fugitive methane losses as is concluded in all of the field-level studies to date (again, these were omitted from the Allen et al. paper) would discredit the “clean natural gas” narrative. 

It is likely that a higher methane emission rate would necessitate more regulatory oversight of the oil and gas industry and this study may be an industry maneuver to counter that possibility.   

It is disappointing that Allen and colleagues seem to have failed to employ basic scientific rules including transparent criteria for the selection of study sites to measure, sufficient sample sizes, and the attempt to place their results in the context of other scientific studies to date.  This study falls short in its attempt to help answer questions about methane emissions from modern gas development beyond the small number of gas industry-selected wells where measures were taken.”

ABOUT PSE —  Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers for Healthy Energy is dedicated to supplying objective, evidence-based, scientific information and resources on unconventional gas development (high-volume hydrofracking) and other novel energy production methods. PSE’s mission is to bring transparency to the important scientific and public policy issues surrounding energy, helping to level the playing field for citizens, scientists, advocacy groups, media, and policy-makers. For more information, go to http://www.psehealthyenergy.org/.

A streaming audio replay of the news event is available on the Web at http://www.psehealthyenergy.org/ as of 5 p.m. EDT on September 17, 2013.

Greater Wheeling Homeless Coalition

WV Cost of Living, Child Poverty, Homeless

Article by Joselyn King, Wheeling Intelligencer, June 20, 2013 

WHEELING – When children don’t have a stable home they don’t achieve, and there’s currently a lack of affordable housing in Wheeling, state lawmakers learned Wednesday. 

The West Virginia Legislature’s Select Committee on Children and Other Issues met at Catholic Charities of Wheeling for a public hearing on poverty’s effect on children. The topic for discussion Wednesday was housing, said committee chairman Sen. John Unger, D-Berkeley.

A large percentage of West Virginia’s children younger than age 8 have no stable home in which to live, he said. “This causes toxic stress, and inhibits development,” Unger said. “It creates uncertainty and anxiety, and affects child achievement.”

There are even instances in West Virginia where children are living in cars and abandoned trailers, he said. “The question now is what can we do to address the issue?” Unger asked.

Representatives of local social service agencies present told the panel it is often impossible for lower-income families to afford housing. The local monthly cost for a two-bedroom apartment with utilities can exceed $1,200, said Lisa Badia, executive director for the Greater Wheeling Coalition for the Homeless.

While she praised the presence of economic development in the area, Badia noted those working in the natural gas industry have an advantage over low-income residents in renting housing as their employers often cover the higher cost for rent. “Our folks working tables aren’t able to afford what the housing market is dictating,” she said.

Marlene Midget, executive director for Northern Panhandle Head Start, said affordable housing “has all but disappeared in the area.” “Now people are on the street because they don’t have affordable housing for their families,” she said.

Jodie Gardill, associate director of behavioral health advocacy at Legal Aid of West Virginia, suggested the area needs more public transportation. Not having transportation to a job leads to financial and housing insecurity, she said.

Committee members said they would continue to hold meetings on the issue during future interim legislative sessions.

NOTE: The federal Housing & Urban Development program will assist housing up to $615 per month for a two bedroom facility for a parent with children.  Housing is now more expensive. The influx of gas industry workers in Wetzel, Marshall, Ohio and Brooke counties has resulted in a shortage of available housing, increased housing costs, and an increase in the cost of living more generally.  There are now more West Virginians homeless in need of shelters and those coming in are requiring a longer stay. Needless to say, there is not space enough to care for the current needs.  (Lisa Badia explained these issues on “MetroNews Talkline” on June 27^th). DGN

From the Wheeling Intelligencer article by Casey Junkins on November 16th …

We’ve got about 20 folks outside who don’t like what I do – and don’t like what you do,” said Michael Krancer, secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, as he spoke Thursday to about 2000 attendees during the Developing Unconventional Gas East Conference and Exhibition in Pittsburgh.

As the 20 anti-fracking protesters converged outside the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, they chanted for Krancer to resign, noting they believe he and other Pennsylvania regulators are not properly overseeing the drilling industry. Krancer clearly disagreed, saying the Keystone State must promote energy development.

Tom Petrie, chairman of Petrie Partners, and Gary Slagel, senior adviser for environmental affairs for Consol Energy, believe the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is soon going to find a way to place more regulations on fracking, or hydraulic fracturing used to release natural gas from deep shale formations.

Though the activity is exempt from regulation under the federal Clean Water Act, Petrie and Slagel believe the Obama administration is looking for ways to harness fracking. “We are preparing for the worst,” Slagel said regarding new federal regulations.

Drilling under the CNX Gas Corp. banner, Consol maintains gas operations in Marshall County, while the company also has working arrangements with Hess Corp. for acreage in Ohio and with Noble Energy in West Virginia.

Slagel also said he believes there is more public concern over natural gas drilling than ever existed over coal mining, the business for which Consol is best known throughout the Upper Ohio Valley.

Petrie said the “fear of fracking” is very real among the public, though he does not believe people should be afraid. He noted that Obama’s re-election is a major concern for those in the gas and oil industries because the U.S. EPA is moving in on fracking.

Ray Walker, senior vice president and chief operating officer for Range Resources, reminded those in attendance that the oil and gas industry has been very good to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. “The largest gas field in the U.S. today is the Marcellus (Shale). It has changed the entire marketing process,” he said.

Noting he did not “want to get political,” Walker made it clear he believes oil and gas drillers work best without much oversight by the federal government. Walker also said governments need to realize the potential benefit natural gas has for helping the nation move forward. “If you want to have energy independence, the answer is natural gas. If you want to rejuvenate manufacturing, the answer is natural gas,” he said.