Many issues with large scale drilling & fracking

Response to “Police and Gas Industry Monitoring Fracking Activists”

By S. Tom Bond, Retired Chemistry Professor & Resident Farmer, Lewis County, WV

The FrackCheckWV article published on Wednesday deals with law enforcement in the Marcellus region. And, last night a former Marcellus worker called me to talk about what he knows.  He was working for Chesapeake in Bradford County, Pennsylvania, on the border with New York.  The County Seat is Towanda, PA.

Chesapeake hired the Sheriff out of Bradford County and perhaps 6 or 7 of his Deputies to form a sort of “Chesapeake police force.”  The Sheriff became the head of Chesapeake’s security team. They continued to draw pay for their original duties and got an additional  hourly sum to add to it.  Sometimes they would drive out to a well site in Sheriff’s uniforms and change before going on the second job.

Most drillers use rotating shifts of workers and have men work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week for 6 weeks, then take 6 weeks off, for example.  The former Chesapeake worker said Chesapeake only gave 2 weeks off, but after a couple of days rest he began to do lease work for another company.  It turned out the other company was in competition with Chesapeake, so Chesapeake fired him.

The man who came on the job to conduct the firing and dismissal was the Sheriff, and he brought along many assistants as police-security. But the fired man had never had a fight or threatened anybody.  The Sheriff seemed particularly proud that Aubrey McClendon (then the President of Chesapeake Energy) had chosen him to do the job.  It felt like intimidation as the Sheriff stayed with him to go to his locker and every step he made until he left the well site.

Apparently, the usual procedure for the gas company was to make a substantial donation to the police department where salaries were in the $25,000 to $30,000 a year range, and hire these individuals in the $25 an hour range for the company work.  Companies are still allowed to hire police, so far as we know.

A second effect of this hiring of policemen or sheriff’s deputies or other local officials may have been to inhibit the usual police work.  The cops could be afraid of losing their extra pay if they vigorously pursued gas field workers for civil offences.

The crime rate effectively tripled as drilling & fracking & pipeline activities ramped up.  Bar fights were frequent. Drugs followed up from the South, where many of them had been employed previously.  My informant said a house of prostitution was established, patronized primarily by gas field workers.  In his words, “The ‘ladies’ relocated from Oklahoma.”  His telling reminded me of the notorious “high plains drifters” of cattle days in the West.

The “rent-a-cops” approach helped the gas company directly by providing a security force.  It also freed up their other employees to get the high paying drilling & fracking jobs involved. But, to some degree, the taxpayers were robbed of the peace and quiet for which they pay law enforcement officers, to say nothing about the conflict-of-interest that prevails.

In conclusion, he said, nothing has been learned from the days of the Coal Mine Wars of owners against workers.  These early miners organized a march of protest in Charleston WV back to the coal fields in southern WV . Thirteen years after the Battle of Blair Mountain, miners got the right to organize because of the sympathy they gained with the public. The current issues primarily involve the working conditions on the well pads, the working schedule and hours as well as safety and health conditions.

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

Oil workers on strike in Houston and across the United States

From a Report of Eyewitness News, Houston (abc13.com), February 1, 2015

Oil workers from coast to coast are on strike. They started to walk off the job around midnight when their union failed to reach a deal with the energy industry. It’s not clear how many workers are on strike.

The contract in dispute covers about 30,000 workers at refineries, pipelines, oil terminals, and petrochemical plants across the country, including about 5,000 workers here in Houston. A representative for the United Steelworkers Association, which is the union for the workers, say there are work stoppage at these facilities in the Houston area: LyondellBasell in Houston, TX; Marathon Galveston Bay Refinery in Texas City, TX; Marathon Houston Green Cogeneration facility, Texas City, TX; Shell Deer Park Refinery, Deer Park, TX; and Shell Deer Park Chemical Plant, Deer Park, TX.

At the LyondellBasell plant in southeast Houston, workers started to protest around 6am. Last night, more than a dozen workers walked off the job shortly after midnight. “It’s about health, safety. It’s about issues that confront our workers every day,” said Director of the United Steelworkers, Ruben Garza.

Garza explains why the national union called a strike at midnight at specific refineries, many of them in here in Southeast Texas. “We have a lot of health and safety issues we have overtime issues, fatigue standards that the companies manipulate,” he said.

Shell is representing the energy industry in labor talks with the United Steelworkers Association. Shell hasn’t commented on what caused talks to break down. The USW sent a message to its members calling the latest offer from oil companies “insulting.”

USW International Vice President Gary Beevers, who heads the union’s National Oil Bargaining Program, said, “This work stoppage is about onerous overtime; unsafe staffing levels; dangerous conditions the industry continues to ignore; the daily occurrences of fires, emissions, leaks and explosions that threaten local communities without the industry doing much about it; the industry’s refusal to make opportunities for workers in the trade crafts; the flagrant contracting out that impacts health and safety on the job; and the erosion of our workplace, where qualified and experienced union workers are replaced by contractors when they leave or retire.”

See also:  www.FrackCheckWV.net

IHS Global Insight: Study of Jobs and Job Growth

.

Data Seconded by EmploymentCrossing Job Research Data

.

Job search data at Employment Crossing affirms the jobs trend emphasized by the IHS Global Insight report. (The report was funded by the oil and gas industry).

PWWEB News, December 26, 2012

A newly released study by IHS Global Insight claims that unconventional oil and gas production have become an engine of job creation and economic growth.

According to the report, America’s New Energy Future – The Unconventional Oil and Gas Revolution and the US Economy, shale energy has created at least 576,000 jobs in Texas, 102,600 jobs in Pennsylvania, 96,500 jobs in California, 78,900 jobs in Louisiana, and 77,600 jobs in Colorado. The report also claims that by 2020, Louisiana and Colorado would be displaced from their position in the unconventional oil and gas sector by Oklahoma and Ohio. The report was published in December and is co-sponsored by the U.S. Chamber’s Institute for 21st Century Energy.

The IHS report claims that already in 2012, employment in the entire unconventional oil and gas production sectors have added more than 1.7 million jobs to the economy. This number is expected to grow up to 2.5 million jobs by 2015, and 3 million jobs by 2020.

According to the IHS direct employment in the sector consists of about 20% of the jobs actually resulting from unconventional oil and natural gas activity while the rest is contributed by indirect and induced employment.

Job search data at Employment Crossing affirms the jobs trend emphasized by the IHS report.

Right now, as of 26th December, 2012, EmploymentCrossing lists about 50,766 job openings in Texas, out of which 7,863 jobs were in the oil and gas sector. However, a great number of the jobs in the sector, which varied from legal jobs, engineering jobs, and blue-collar jobs to accounting jobs were not directly into production of oil and gas, but indirectly supported by the industry or induced by it.

Pennsylvania shows about 75,158 total job openings on EmploymentCrossing, out of which 904 current jobs were related with oil and gas production though only 99 current openings had to do directly with the production of gas and oil. Similarly, California shows about 210,575 current job openings on EmploymentCrossing, out of which 1,569 oil and gas related jobs were there, though there were only 142 current openings in work directly in oil and gas production.

Speaking on the seeming anomaly about numbers, Harrison Barnes, the CEO of EmploymentCrossing said, “Live job openings in the oil and gas sector on job boards always remains few in number, because they are filled usually within days, and cease to be listed on EmploymentCrossing. However, the ratio of job distribution in the gas and oil sector as highlighted by the IHS report is very valid, because, as job openings listed on EmploymentCrossing show, about 20% of the jobs are directly into oil and gas production lines and 80% are indirect jobs associated with the industry. For example jobs of analytics, consultants or the jobs of attorneys with oil and gas experience would not be categorized directly under oil and gas jobs as they are not working at production lines.”

The original version of the above article is on the  PRWeb Internet site.

Landowners are fighting for the right to appeal drilling permits, as described in the Charleston Gazette on September 22^nd. The state Supreme Court will hear arguments in a significant case that could decide if surface landowners are able to appeal oil and gas drilling permits on their land. Industry lobbyists and the state Department of Environmental Protection all seem to agree that West Virginia’s oil and gas statute doesn’t specifically allow such appeals.

But though justices appear to have incorrectly cited that statute in a ruling 10 years ago, citizen groups argue now that the court reached the correct result. They say surface landowners should have a due process right to have their challenges to drilling permits heard.

“We are asking the courts to recognize the surface owners’ constitutional right to a hearing – a hearing after the driller files the permit application, and to appeal if the DEP errs in issuing the permit,” said Julie Archer of the West Virginia Surface Owners’ Rights Organization. Archer’s organization filed a “friend of the court” brief in support of Doddridge County resident Matthew Hamblet in his effort to challenge an EQT Production Co. gas well permit on his land.

Hamblet owns the surface of a 443-acre parcel, but does not own the rights to the oil and gas underneath the land. When EQT obtained a lease and applied for a permit to drill on the site, Hamblet objected to parts of the company’s permit application, noting damage from previous drilling and urging DEP to require changes in the company’s plans. DEP’s Office of Oil and Gas approved EQT’s plans anyway, and Hamblet filed a lawsuit in circuit court to challenge that approval.

In his case, lawyers Cynthia Loomis and Isak Howell cite a 2002 Supreme Court opinion that said surface landowners have the right to file court appeals of DEP permit actions on oil and gas wells. But the statute cited by the court in that case doesn’t actually grant that right to landowners — only to coal owners who are concerned about nearby gas drilling.

Broad coverage information on Marcellus drilling and fracking can be found at:

www.WVsoro.org       and         www.FrackCheckWV.net