MORGANTOWN DOMINION POST editorial Monday 20 April 2015

Can the WV-DEP reform itself?

Environmental well-being is primarily a function of regulatory well-being. That at least is the idea in the state Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) realm.

The DEP is still the principal agency that West Virginia deploys to monitor its hills, rivers and streams and its air. But is that as true as we would like to think?

While some try to portray the WV-DEP as yet another regulatory bogeyman, others call it the Department of Environmental Prevarication.

In the past, we have leaned more toward the latter description. However, in recent weeks, the DEP has taken initiatives that give one reason for hope. For instance, this past week, the DEP ordered more than 90 coal prep plants to disclose potential pollutants that could be dumped into waterways. The DEP said that order will better protect state streams and that any additional costs should not be significant compared to the liability for polluting waterways.

That agency also recently hosted a public hearing on water quality standards, part of one program’s annual quarterly meetings. These meetings agendas also don’t dawdle on fluff, either.

The most recent agenda took up proposed changes to aluminum and selenium criteria and an update on algae monitoring done in 2014. The DEP has also become much more visible in the state’s annual spring highway cleanup, through the Adopt-A-Highway program.

Clearly, for those who take a dim view of the DEP’s efforts — and we often count ourselves among them — there are also reasons to think nothing has changed. For example, the state’s Environmental Quality Board recently said the DEP violated state law when it allowed a company to operate two underground injection wells with a “rule” it issued, instead of a state permit.

Or the WV-DEP’s almost cavalier approach to reports of black water flowing into a Raleigh County stream. Only after it responded in a timely manner on the fourth report was a coal company cited.

There was also the incident of orange rocks in the Cheat River at the mouth of Muddy Creek recently, which the DEP appeared nonchalant about investigating, and no one was held accountable.

No, the DEP has not cast off its bureaucracy and still appears to lean in on industry’s side more often than it does the environment’s. However, because of the DEP’s increased manpower and funding, as well as coal’s diminishing influence, this could change.

In the interest of everyone’s well-being, it should.

Our Landfills are Filling with Drill Cuttings

WV-DEP Holds Final Hearing on Drilling Waste Disposal

From an Article by Michael Erb, Wheeling Intelligencer, July 31, 2014

CHARLESTON – A handful of passionate opponents spoke out Wednesday against proposed rule revisions for the disposal of waste material from drilling sites. The comments came during a public hearing at the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection in Charleston.

Members of the Wetzel County Solid Waste Authority, as well as a representative of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, urged officials to reconsider the rules, which opponents say do not protect waterways and the public from toxic and radioactive materials which leach into drinking water.

According to the WV-DEP, the proposed rule revision establishes protocols for the proper handling, management and disposal of drill cuttings and associated drilling mud generated in the exploration and production of oil and gas from the horizontal drilling process. It also requires radiation and leachate monitoring at all facilities receiving drill cuttings and associated drilling mud.

Bill Hughes, a resident of New Martinsville and chairman of the Wetzel County Solid Waste Authority, said the authority hired two companies to draft reports on possible air and water issues stemming from the placement of drill waste in state landfills. Both reports, he said, ultimately stated there was a likely risk to health and too many unknown factors, such as the level of chemical and radiation exposure.

“We’re doing things that are really unexamined, unexplored,” Hughes said. “This is uncharted territory. We are literally guessing in the dark and we’re hoping it’s not glowing in the dark.”

Hughes said the WV-DEP is too slow to regulate these kinds of issues, often waiting until years after companies have established a broad environmental footprint in an area before beginning to address concerns.

Hughes said since 2011 the state has allowed hundreds of thousands – perhaps millions – of tons of toxic and radioactive materials to be dumped in state landfills with little oversight or thought of long-term consequences. “It’s the long view that motivates me,” Hughes said. “What is the state going to be like for our children and grandchildren?”

Angie Rosser, executive director of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, echoed those concerns. “These practices are in essence an experiment and the rivers and people of West Virginia are the subjects of this experiment,” she said. “We cannot cut corners when it comes to protecting our waters and our health. This problem will not go away. I’m very concerned about our state’s handling of this issue.”

Tom Aluise, spokesman for the WV-DEP, facilitated Wednesday’s hearing. “We’ll take all the comments into consideration and submit our agency-approved rule to the Legislature for consideration for the next session,” he said, adding the public has been submitting written comments for 30 days, with the period ending Wednesday.

Aluise said a temporary rule is in place governing how the materials from horizontal well development must be stored and tested for radiation. Only a handful of landfills in West Virginia are allowed to accept the materials, nearly all of which comes as a byproduct of horizontal drilling in the Marcellus shale.

The proposed Solid Waste Management Rule 33CSR1, once approved by the Legislature next spring, would replace the emergency rule that went into effect July 10. “The emergency rule is the exact same thing as the rules we are discussing here tonight. It was put into place to make these guidelines effective immediately,” Aluise said. “You need to have a permanent rule in place once the temporary rule expires.”

Aluise said all public comments will be included in a report along with the agency’s final recommendation.

The full proposal can be viewed on the WV-DEP’s website here.

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WV Chapter

WV Sierra Club invites you to participate in the 2014 Spring Gas Well Workshops:

This is a great opportunity to become a well informed gas well sleuth.

There will be three online workshops devoted to intense guided study in three topics:

Using West Virginia Online Databases (Monday, May 19 through Sunday, June 1)

We’ll look at and grow used to accessing West Virginia online oil and gas databases that are available to the public.

West Virginia Underground Injection Control Class 2 Program (Monday, June 2 through Sunday, June 15)

We’ll look at class 2 UIC wells in West Virginia used to dispose of liquid oil and gas waste, including state and federal laws, what the wells do, and the waste they inject.

West Virginia Laws and Regulations (starts June 16)

We’ll look at West Virginia laws that relate to oil and gas activity, specifically those that fall under WV Department of Environmental Protection oversight, including instruments the DEP uses like General Permit for Water Pollution Control.

The online workshops include a short overview YouTube video and downloadable study materials. The Databases and UIC Class 2 workshops will have online forums where participants can ask questions and exchange information.

A sample workshop is at http://workshops.sootypaws.net/moodle/

Login as Guest at http://workshops.sootypaws.net/moodle/login/index.php and use the password Sierra. There is a sample forum, video, and workshop materials.

A handout for all participants on how to use the workshops’ web interface is at http://workshops.sootypaws.net/documents/using_gws_handout.pdf

Registration is a two step process. Contact Jim Sconyers  (jimscon@gmail.com ) to let him know you desire to attend one, two, or all three workshops. Each workshop has a separate enrollment key necessary to attend.

Once you have the enrollment key, go to http://workshops.sootypaws.net/moodle/login/index.php to log in. As a first time user of the website you’ll need to create a login name and password.

After you’re logged in you can use the enrollment key to automatically register for the workshop(s) you are interested in. We hope you can join us for this educational opportunity.

Thank you, Chuck Wyrostok, Sierra Club (WV Chapter),

outreach@marcellus-wv.com, www.marcellus-wv.com

Source: www.marcellus-shale.us

Methane escapes from natural gas wells even before fracking, new direct measurements from airplane flyovers show

From an Article by Stephanie Ogburn, ClimateWire, E & E Publishing, April 15, 2014

A new study has found that a small number of gas wells are releasing significant quantities of methane into the air even before they are hydraulically fractured, or fracked.

The paper, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the result of measurements of methane made by flying an airplane over parts of the Marcellus Shale.

The researchers detected a “significant regional flux” of methane, a greenhouse gas with about 30 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide over a 100-year period, coming from an area of gas wells in southwestern Pennsylvania.

“Basically what we observed was very high concentrations in a particular region,” said Paul Shepson, a professor of atmospheric chemistry at Purdue University and an author of the study. On two days of airplane flights over the area, the research team detected high concentrations of methane in the atmosphere.

Tracking methane back to the source
While flying, researchers followed those plumes of methane back to individual well pads, where they circled the pads to verify that those were the methane sources. Later, members of the research team worked to understand what processes were occurring at those particular well sites. To their surprise, the researchers learned that the wells had not yet been fracked and were not producing gas.

“The methane emissions from the gas wells … are surprisingly high considering that all of these wells were still being drilled, had not yet been hydraulically fractured, and were not yet in production,” the paper reports.

Typically, during the drilling process, methane emissions are estimated to be between 0.04 and 0.3 gram of methane per second per well. The researchers measured emissions rates of 34 grams of methane per second—100 to 1,000 times greater than those estimates. These high emissions were only found in 1 percent of the wells surveyed, however.

This finding lends additional credence to the idea that a small subset of wells, drilling processes and equipment is probably responsible for a large percentage of the emissions from gas drilling.

A ‘fat tail’ of a few leaky wells
This is often referred to as the “fat tail” or “super-emitter” problem, that just a small subset of wells or pieces of equipment is responsible for the majority of the leaks from the natural gas system (ClimateWire, Feb. 14).

Additional evidence for this idea of super-emitters has been reported in other studies, said Steven Hamburg, chief scientist at the group Environmental Defense Fund, which is spearheading a set of studies on leaks from the natural gas supply chain. “I think everything we have seen so far—but we still have a lot of studies to release—;suggests that fat tails are real,” Hamburg said.

Shepson and his co-authors suggest that the reason for high emissions from those wells was either the fact that drillers encountered methane from shallow coal pockets they found that was released to the surface, or that the wells were drilled using a method called underbalanced drilling, which allows fluids and gas to come up to the surface during the drilling process.

In late March, the Obama administration released guidance directing U.S. EPA to address methane emissions from the oil and gas industry, after a number of studies measuring emissions from the air, known as “top-down” measurements, showed that the agency’s emissions estimates for the industry were too low (ClimateWire, March 31). The agency is expected to release white papers soliciting information from independent experts on the topic as early as this week. In the fall, it is expected to decide whether to develop additional regulations on oil and gas methane sources.

Balancing the findings of such top-down studies with the “bottom-up” inventories done by EPA, in which components and processes are estimated to leak at certain rates and then essentially added up, is a perennial challenge. EDF’s Hamburg said a study sponsored by his group is currently looking at this very issue and is conducting both bottom-up and top-down estimates of emissions in the same location and trying to reconcile them.

Ultimately, both types of studies are needed to determine emissions, he said. “It’s not an ‘either-or’; it’s a ‘both-and,’” Hamburg said.

Gas Combustion Flare -- quanity of gas and quality of flame vary widely

Air monitoring in fracking areas fails to detect spikes in toxic emissions, new study says

A large flare at a central collection facility.

From an Article by Lisa Song & Jim Morris, Center for Public Integrity, April 3, 2014

Some people in natural gas drilling areas complain about nauseating odors, nosebleeds and other symptoms (such as rashes & headaches). They fear these could be caused by shale development but usually get the same response from state regulators: monitoring data show the air quality is fine.

A new study helps explain this discrepancy. The most commonly used air monitoring techniques often underestimate public health threats because they don’t catch toxic emissions that spike at various points during gas production, researchers reported Tuesday in the peer-reviewed journal Reviews on Environmental Health. The study was conducted by the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project, a nonprofit based near Pittsburgh.

A health survey the group released last year found that people who live near drilling sites in Washington County, Pa., in the Marcellus Shale, reported symptoms such as nausea, abdominal pain, breathing difficulties and nosebleeds, all of which could be caused by pollutants known to be emitted from gas sites. Similar problems have been reported by people who live in the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas, the subject of a recent investigation by the Center for Public Integrity, InsideClimate News and The Weather Channel.

While residents want to know whether gas drilling is affecting the air near their homes — where emissions can vary dramatically over the course of a day — regulators generally use methods designed to assess long-term, regional air quality. They’re “misapplying the technology,” said lead author David Brown, who conducted the study with three of his colleagues at the Environmental Health Project. Stuart Batterman, an environmental health sciences professor at the University of Michigan, said the study underscores the need for specialized monitoring programs that target community health.

But creating these programs is difficult, Batterman said, because scientists don’t fully understand the emissions coming from natural gas facilities. Air pollutants ebb and flow based on equipment malfunctions, maintenance activities and the weather. They’re released from storage tanks, compressor stations and pipelines during every step of the process: drilling, hydraulic fracturing, production, and processing.

No easy solutions

The Pennsylvania report is the latest demonstration of how little is known about the health impacts of unconventional natural gas development, which uses hydraulic fracturing to extract tightly bound gas. In February, 190 experts from industry, government and the medical community gathered in Philadelphia to discuss major data gaps. The conclusions they reached were almost identical to those in a recent study in Environmental Science & Technology that cited a lack of “comprehensive” public health research.

Isobel Simpson, an atmospheric scientist at the University of California-Irvine who was not involved with the Pennsylvania study, said the group’s paper shows the lack of a one-size-fits-all solution.

“Air quality monitoring is complex, so you need a range of [methods] depending on what your goal is,” she said. Is the research about asthma or cancer? Overall air quality or human health? “All of those weigh into the strategy you’re using.”

Many federal and state-run monitors average their data over 24 hours or take samples once every few days. It’s a technique that’s been used for decades to assess regional compliance with the Clean Air Act. But natural gas facilities have sporadic emission spikes that last just a few hours or minutes. These fleeting events, which release particulate matter, volatile organic compounds and other harmful toxins into the air, can quickly lead to localized health effects. When averaged over 24 hours, however, the spikes can easily be ignored.

Spot monitoring can only catch a fraction of the emission spikes. “Attempts to capture these peaks with 24-hour [averages]; through periodic or one-time spot sampling (under 24 hours); or after a complaint has been filed, will most often miss times of peak exposure,” the authors of the new study wrote.

Batterman, the University of Michigan professor, said 24-hour samples are still useful for long- term health studies, since pollutants like benzene and particulate matter can lead to chronic effects that don’t show up until years or decades later. Ideally, scientists should use a combination of methods to monitor long-term and acute impacts, he said, “but there are technology and cost issues.”

The best way to analyze short-term impacts like skin rashes and headaches is to take frequent samples over a sustained period of time, said Beth Weinberger, a co-author of the new study. She and her colleagues assessed indoor air quality in 14 homes near drilling sites by taking measurements of fine particulate matter once a minute for up to 24 hours. After examining their data, they found that some homes had very high levels of particulate matter more than 30 percent of the time.

“It was alarming, because we realized if fine particulate matter was getting into the house, other things, like benzene and formaldehyde, probably were as well,” Brown said.

Weinberger said her group is now working with other organizations to find affordable monitors that would allow them to take indoor and outdoor samples so they can design better studies.

The limits of air monitoring are especially apparent when regulators respond to citizen complaints near drilling sites. InsideClimate News and the Center for Public Integrity reviewed more than a dozen TCEQ investigation reports on Eagle Ford oil and gas-related complaints. In most cases, regulators responded by taking instantaneous air readings next to industrial facilities. Some inspectors conducted an initial survey by sniffing the air for detectable odors, then returned days later with monitoring equipment. On several occasions, the instruments detected such high levels of contaminants that inspectors fled the site.

Weinberger said the TCEQ’s practice of taking quick “grab samples” is “the perfect design” to miss detecting emission spikes. “That’s what you do if you’re not interested in capturing episodic exposures,” she said. Also, more frequent and consistent sampling is needed, such as monitoring once an hour for two weeks. Regulators can then compare the individual data points with existing health standards to see how often they’re exceeded.

Even when scientists use the right monitoring techniques, it can be hard to figure out what the numbers mean. Federal air quality standards exist for only six chemicals: ozone, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and lead. All other pollutants, including dozens of volatile organic compounds, are managed by a patchwork of occupational standards and state guidelines.

Texas, for instance, uses short-term exposure guidelines of 180 parts per billion for benzene and 4,000 parts per billion for toluene to determine whether a situation requires further investigation.

Other states have different guidelines, and some chemicals have none at all because little is known about their health impacts. The guidelines have another flaw: They don’t fully consider what happens when people are exposed to many chemicals at once, as is common near gas and oil production sites.

This report is part of a joint project by the Center for Public Integrity, InsideClimate News and The Weather Channel. Lisa Song is with InsideClimate News and Jim Morris is with the Center for Public Integrity.

Morgantown Dominion Post

MORGANTOWN, WV. DOMINION POST NEWSPAPER, Tuesday 7 January 2014
 
EDITORIAL — Morgantown Dominion Post, January 7, 2014

Work in progress, not the last word — WV Legislature should revisit regulation of Marcellus shale drilling now, not later

For all their scientific bent, a series of legislative studies on horizontal gas well drilling are short of useful data. Couple that with the state Department of Environmental Protection’s (WV-DEP) reluctance to recommend any action, and we haven’t even begun tapping into how best to regulate this industry.

Oh, there are regulations out there as a result of “modified” legislation that became law more than two years ago. However, this legislation’s shortcomings were apparent from the start. Many, including our newspaper, referred to it then as a work in progress. However, these studies’ shortcomings, the tabling of any proposed amendments and the WV-DEP’s inaction have kept this issue on the shelf.

Ask what’s next and many lawmakers, researchers and the WV-DEP tell us further study. Further study on: The safe disposal of radioactive gas well drill cuttings. Measuring noise, dust, light and volatile organic compounds emanating from these well pads. A workable and fair setback rule for surface owners.

But as most of these studies almost predictably conclude: “As evident by the many … studies under way, these initiatives will result in more complete information over time. Once available, this data will help advance and guide future rule development.” Or, as some researchers noted about their own studies’ limits, “A health effects-based setback distance proposal might require a study with a lengthy (three years or more) sampling effort” at more sites with more detailed analysis.

Anyone see a pattern here? In the meantime, the studies suggest current regulations will serve “to minimize and mitigate human health and environmental impacts.” That’s nice to know. But minimizing and mitigating health and environmental impacts doesn’t seem like quite enough if it’s your family living by a well pad.

Admittedly, the regulations signed into law at a special session of the Legislature on December 14, 2011 were a giant leap forward then. And the Marcellus industry itself is also still a work in progress. Yet, the current regulations heralded a beginning — not and end — to this issue. More definitive sampling and health-effects studies may be needed to address the long-term impact of these wells.

However, the continued intermittent exposure of households and communities to these well pads until such studies are “complete,” if ever, is risky business. Furthermore, we question whether the WV-DEP will ever even take up suggestions from these studies. The Legislature needs to revisit the regulation of shale drilling, especially setbacks and monitoring, this week. Not another two years from now.

The West Virginia Water Research Institute at West Virginia University, with the help of the Colcom Foundation, is expanding its successful Monongahela River water quality monitoring program to include the upper Ohio and Allegheny rivers.

The Institute developed the Quality Useful Environmental Study Teams program – known as QUEST – in response to growing concern over total dissolved solids – or TDS – in the Monongahela River in 2009. The newly expanded program is now called Three Rivers QUEST, or 3RQ.

A $700,000 grant from the Colcom Foundation, a Pittsburgh-based private foundation dedicated to fostering a sustainable environment, will allow for a geographic expansion of the program to include the Allegheny and upper Ohio River basins.

The first step in expanding the program was identifying partners to implement the monitoring program in the new geographical regions. Using a Request for Proposals process, Wheeling Jesuit University was selected to monitor the water quality of the upper Ohio River areas from Pittsburgh, Pa. downstream to near Parkersburg, W.Va. The monitoring will include several locations on the main stem of the Ohio River as well as major tributaries in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Duquesne University in Pittsburgh will monitor the lower Allegheny River and its key tributaries while the Iron Furnace Chapter of Pennsylvania Trout Unlimited will monitor the upper portions of the Allegheny River and its tributaries.

The new program partners will be officially recognized and welcomed to the QUEST team at the annual State Water Research Conference on Tuesday and Wednesday (Oct. 30 and 31) at the Waterfront Place Hotel in Morgantown. The success of the QUEST program will be highlighted at this year’s event and presentations by Institute Director Paul Ziemkiewicz and QUEST Program Manager Melissa O’Neal will cover the topic in greater detail. To view the agenda and to register for this year’s event, visit www.wvwaterconference.org/2012.

The QUEST program includes a regimented, bi-weekly monitoring effort. While in the field, the Institute’s technicians record field data and collect water samples that undergo a rigorous chemical analysis at a state certified laboratory. In addition to the research, local watershed organizations participate in the monitoring program by collecting field data from various locations in the headwater streams of the rivers’ tributaries.

The QUEST program supports participating watershed organizations by providing access to monitoring equipment, chemical analysis of water samples and the use of an innovative data management tool that allows volunteers to enter their data via the internet into a secure, self-managed database. All the data collected is displayed on the program’s interactive web site (www.3riversquest.com) where citizens, scientists, federal and state agencies and industry have access to the water quality information and can search by location or date.

Founded in 1967, the West Virginia Water Research Institute is funded through the U.S. Geological Survey. It serves as a statewide vehicle for performing research related to water issues. It serves as the premier water research center in West Virginia and, within selected fields, is an international leader.

The primary mission of the Colcom Foundation is to foster a sustainable environment to ensure quality of life for all Americans by addressing major causes and consequences of overpopulation and its adverse effects on natural resources. Regionally, the Foundation supports conservation, environmental projects and cultural assets.

The grant from the Colcom Foundation was made in conjunction with “A State of Minds: The Campaign for West Virginia’s University.” The $750 million comprehensive campaign being conducted by the WVU Foundation on behalf of the University runs through December 2015.

CONTACT: Dave Saville, WV Water Research Institute
304.293.7066, Dave.Saville@mail.wvu.edu

Sky Truth promotes environmental awareness and protection

The SKY TRUTH “meet and greet” session is set now for Wednesday, October 24th at 1 PM in the Byrd Center for Legislative Studies Auditorium at Shepherd University, in Shepherdstown, WV. 

Come out and meet the fearless leader, John Amos, the Chief Laboratory Rat, Paul Woods, and the amazing group of Sky Truth interns and volunteers.

Find out what Sky Truth is all about.  AND get some free pizza and cake.

SKY TRUTH is a non-profit group working out of Shepherdstown, WV, dedicated to the use of modern imaging methods and scientifically sound techniquies to examine environmental issues in the region, around the nation and indeed the world.

FrackCheckWV.net provided somewhat more detail on Sky Truth on June 18, 2012 as can be seen here. And, to see a recent Sky Truth Alert for a Horizontal Drilling Permit granted to Antero Resources in Doddridge County, WV, go to this web-site: Well API Number 017-06121

This is a training workshop for citizen volunteers to become gas well watchers. Goodness knows, there are enough of them to watch – thousands, as old as early 20th century or as new as now. This project will apply to any completed gas well – Marcellus, or not.

Working with George Monk and Molly Schaffnit, the West Virginia Sierra Club has developed a common-sense online experience suitable for all. The workshop will be organized into three sessions, each with a target date. Each session will include George and Molly’s youtube videos, as well as text items and other resources. Workshop participants will be able to view and read the material on a flexible schedule. A session will be followed up by a free conference call for participant discussion and questions-and-answers with project leaders. Conference calls are free to callers, and there are two date/time options for the conference call for each session. The workshop schedule is included below to help in your personal planning.

Most of the training is simple and observational. The training will show what to look for, how to “see” a well site, and so on. There is one element that involves an actual scientific test, using materials similar to litmus paper. That session shows clearly how-to-do-it. And we provide the required test materials to participants at no cost.

Once volunteers register for the workshop, they will receive the link to the project website, where all necessary information will be available. In addition, participants will receive the call-in number and code for all the conference calls.

In case a person is interested but unable to access youtube videos, we  provide alternatives suitable for slower connections.

It’s springtime – just in time for the outdoor well-watching season!

To register for the workshop, please click on Register below. Put “gas well workshop” in the Subject line.  [That is, send an email to: jimscon@gmail.com with those words, or call Jim Sconyers at 304-698-9628.] 

Register

Session 1 – Videos and materials – May 9 – 12, 2012

Conference calls –  May 14, 2012   6:00 PM and May 16, 2012   7:00 PM

Session 2 — Videos and materials – May 17 – 20, 2012

Conference calls -   May 22, 2012   6:00 PM and  May 24, 2012   7:00 PM

Session 3 — Video and materials – May 25 – 28, 2012

Conference calls –     May 29, 2012   6:00 PM and   May 31, 2012   7:00 PM

Source:  www.marcellus-wv.org

See also:  /2012/02/16/volunteers-conduct-a-“gas-well-study”-for-kanawha-putnam-counties-in-wv/

A “Gas Well Study” report for 2011 has been prepared by George Monk and Molly Shaffnit for Kanawha and Putnam Counties in WV. Examined were surface owner issues and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection’s responses to problems and complaints.

The last paragraph, in the Conclusions section, is worthy of consideration:

Violations are rare in West Virginia according to the DEP. That’s wishful thinking. The state abandons citizens whose domestic water supplies are compromised by improperly cased and cemented wells. Families have to buy drinking water, pay for medical expenses (the family near 47-039-06155 is receiving treatment for heavy metal poisoning), and are sometimes forced to leave their homes because of catastrophic health consequences  brought about due to drillers’ activities.

The opportunity exists for volunteers in each county of West Virginia to organize an effort to monitor the existing permit applications, active drilling operations, completed new gas wells as well as the thousands of legacy wells throughout the State.  It was reported today by Randy Huffman, Cabinet Secretary, Department of Environmental Protection, that State-wide in 2010, 23 % of the natural gas came from 517 wells while the remaining 77 % of the produced natural gas came from some 60,000 other gas wells in West Virginia.  This is a staggering figure, to realize that we have of the order of 60,000 wells active (or inactive but still unplugged) spread throughout our 55 counties.

The “Gas Well Report” by Monk and Shaffnit is available for download at:

 http://members.citynet.net/sootypaws/gws/documents/2011gws.pdf

Additional photographs of the well sites that were visited last year in Kanawha & Putnam Counties are at the following web-site:

http://members.citynet.net/sootypaws/Woods/gaswell/comments/otherwells/2012/index.html