Marcellus & Utica shales are being drilled in Ohio

From an Article by Sara Welch, Shale Gas Reporter, July 3, 2019

Since its publication and redistribution, a University of Toledo study that links the presence of radon in homes to proximity to fracking wells has been disputed by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources for using incorrect numbers in its evaluation.

The University of Toledo initially published its study midway through April. However, it wasn’t picked up by science and research websites, and even the Shale Gas Reporter, until the end of June. As its distribution spread, the data behind the study was questioned even less. It wasn’t until The Athens News took a closer look at the numbers to compose a local snapshot of the study that discrepancies were pointed out and the ODNR began working with the university to correct the errors.

After taking a closer look at the numbers referenced in the study, it’s clear they were predominantly derived from a singular source. The ODNR Division of Oil & Gas map the researchers pulled their data from contains accurate information; however, it doesn’t appear to have been read correctly.

From the map’s default view, only fracking wells appear to be marked. When you zoom in three times to take a closer look every well that has been permitted — even ones that have not been drilled — appears. One theory is that the University of Toledo researchers who worked on the study may have incorrectly counted the dots on the map, accidentally including more than just fracking wells in the data from which their study draws its conclusion.

If you’re interested in finding out more about fracking activity in your area, you can find up-to-date data on well drilling and permitting on the ODNR Division of Oil & Gas Resources Shale Well Drilling & Permitting page.

Resources for this Article:

The Athens News > ODNR: Study linking radon to fracking in Ohio uses incorrect numbers
Frontiers in Public Health > Impact of the Hydraulic Fracturing on Indoor Radon Concentrations in Ohio: A Multilevel Modeling Approach (University of Toledo study)
Ohio Department of Natural Resources > Shale Well Drilling & Permitting (ONDR data on fracking wells only)
Ohio Department of Natural Resources > Ohio Oil & Gas Wells (map used in study)

Chernobyl Unit 4 in 1986 explosion damage contaminated the region

From an Article by Grant Smith, Environmental Working Group, May 22, 2019

From 2009 to 2012, Gregory Jaczko was chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which approves nuclear power plant designs and sets safety standards for plants. But he now says that nuclear power is too dangerous and expensive – and not part of the answer to the climate crisis.

“Nuclear power was supposed to save the planet,” Jaczko wrote in a recent op-ed for The Washington Post. As an atomic physicist, he once endorsed that view. But his years on the NRC ­changed his mind:

This tech is no longer a viable strategy for dealing with climate change, nor is it a competitive source of power. It is hazardous, expensive and unreliable, and abandoning it wouldn’t bring on climate doom. The real choice now is between saving the planet and saving the dying nuclear industry. I vote for the planet.

Jaczko describes how his experience revealed the pervasive political influence of the nuclear power industry in Congress and among his fellow commissioners. Their opposition derailed much of the safety measures he proposed in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. In 2011 an investigative series by The Associated Press detailed the collusion between regulators and the industry to weaken safety standards to keep existing plants economically viable.

Jaczko’s efforts to protect the American public likely cost him his career at the NRC. He now leads an offshore wind power startup and is speaking out at an important juncture for the nation’s energy future.

Electric utilities that operate nuclear plants are boasting of being “carbon free” by mid-century. They insist that their aging nuclear plants must be part of the equation to keep costs down. But even though Japan closed most of its reactors after Fukushima, carbon emissions went down, because the Japanese ramped up energy efficiency and solar investments.

“It turns out that relying on nuclear energy is actually a bad strategy for combating climate change,” Jaczko wrote. “One accident wiped out Japan’s carbon gains. Only a turn to renewables and conservation brought the country back on target.”

Jaczko’s heightened concern for a nuclear accident in the U.S. is also well founded. The former director of the nuclear safety project at Union of Concern Scientists, David Lochbaum, determined that the industry’s efforts to continue to run aging nuclear plants 20 to 30 years or even longer than their initial licenses allowed for is akin to playing Russian roulette.

Since Fukushima, Germany has ordered the shutdown of all nuclear plants by 2022. Japan has reopened only a few reactors. Even France, long a champion of nuclear power, is ramping down its nuclear fleet because of safety concerns. But in the U.S., the Trump administration and lawmakers in some states continue to support taxpayer-financed subsidies to bail out money-losing nuclear plants. On grounds of both economics and safety, that’s a fool’s bet.

CDC, state officials investigating multiple cases of rare cancer in southwestern Pa.

From an Article by David Templeton & Don Hopey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 28, 2019

Many in the Canon-McMillan School District first learned about Ewing sarcoma, a rare childhood bone cancer, when Luke Blanock of the village of Cecil was diagnosed on Dec. 5, 2014.

The media did stories about the community rallying around the smart, handsome teenager and his family, then returned on Feb. 19, 2016, to cover Mr. Blanock — pale, thin and having just been told he had only two weeks to live — when he married his high school girlfriend, Natalie Britvich.

He rebounded a bit and even played a round of golf before succumbing nearly six months later on Aug. 7, from multiple tumors of the brain, spine, skull, jaw and pelvis. He was only 19.

But, as it turns out, the Ewing sarcoma scare within Canon-McMillan’s boundaries in eastern Washington County neither began nor ended with Luke Blanock.

In fact, six cases of Ewing sarcoma have been diagnosed within the school district since 2008, including two cases in the past nine months.

And only now is it being disclosed that twice that number of Ewing cases have occurred in southeastern Westmoreland County since 2011.

Only 200 to 250 cases of Ewing sarcoma — a rare cancer of the bone or nearby soft tissue — occur each year in the United States. The National Cancer Institute said the incidence for all ages is one case per million but up to 10 cases per million among those in the 10-to-19 age group.

Based on a report by a concerned resident and St. Vincent College researchers about the Ewing cases in Westmoreland County, the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched a study to determine whether these cases constitute a cluster. The state now has expanded the investigation to include the Canon-McMillan School District and Washington County.

Nate Wardle, health department spokesman, said it received more than a dozen phone calls within the last month from residents of Washington and Westmoreland counties about the Ewing sarcoma cases, and several more called this week.

Ewing Sarcoma Canon Cases mount up

The string of Ewing cases in Canon-McMillan began with the mid-2008 diagnosis of Curtis Valent, a Cecil Township resident who graduated from Bishop Canevin High School. He died on Jan. 2, 2011, at age 23, according to his obituary. His parents could not be reached for comment.

Late in 2008, Alyssa Chambers, then an 18-year-old Canon-McMillan senior living in northern Cecil Township, was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma and survived. She later became an oncology nurse at UPMC Shadyside.

Kyle Deliere, who lived about a mile from Mr. Blanock in the village of Cecil, was diagnosed with Ewing next, on Oct. 30, 2011. He lost weight, had night sweats and fevers, and developed large tumors on his hip, femur and lungs. The 11-letter high school athlete who wrestled for the University of Pittsburgh died on Nov. 15, 2013, at age 27.

Then in June 2018, David Cobb, 37 at the time, and also living in Cecil Township, was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma and now is undergoing rounds of chemotherapy.

Compounding this cancer conundrum and fueling concern, Mitchell Barton, a 21-year-old Canon-McMillan graduate now working as a technician in a local box factory, posted news on Facebook of his Dec. 27, 2018, Ewing diagnosis.

He and Mr. Blanock played baseball together in high school. Mr. Barton, now undergoing chemotherapy, still lives at home in North Strabane, where fracked natural gas wells surround him. For that reason, environmental issues crossed his mind from the moment of diagnosis.

“I worked at a golf course for four years and was exposed to a lot of chemicals, weed killers and things like that,” he said. “Our house also is in a valley surrounded by four gas wells. I heard about natural gas and my mom is concerned about methane [natural gas].”

In addition to the Ewing cases, a 14-year-old girl from Cecil Township died of astrocytoma, a brain and spinal cord cancer, in February, and as many as seven current students and two preschoolers in the Canon-McMillan School District have other types of cancer.

Those nine consist of two cases of osteosarcoma (bone); one liposarcoma (joint); one rhabdomyosarcoma (also joint); a Wilms (kidney) tumor in a child whose family has moved from the district; one liver cancer; two cases of leukemia (blood); and a 2-year-old with cancer that the parent declined to identify.

In another case, a 21-year-old Canon-McMillan graduate of North Strabane was diagnosed in early January with leukemia.

Another concentration of cases: The worries about Ewing and other forms of childhood cancer go well beyond the Canon-McMillan School District. In Westmoreland County, 12 cases of Ewing sarcoma were found to be diagnosed from 2011 through early 2018.

Maureen Grace, a Westmoreland County lawyer and teacher, began compiling a list upon hearing of one case after another in areas southeast of Greensburg. “All that I can say is that I saw beautiful children and families suffering. I asked myself, ‘What if this happened to a child in my family?’ Every child, every parent and anyone who cares about children has the right to clean, healthy, safe air, water and surroundings for their babies, little ones and teenagers to grow and become adults. I don’t know if we have this environment right now,” Ms. Grace said.

“Our children are our most precious resource. If we don’t investigate this to the very best of our abilities, who are we as a culture or community?” she added. “We need to do better for our little ones who look to us for the answers. We need to protect them above all else.”

So determined, she sought help from two St. Vincent College researchers — Elaine Bennett, professor of anthropology and public health, and Cynthia Walter, a now-retired professor of ecology and toxicology — who recruited students to help verify cases, analyze results and write a report. Ms. Grace also received help through the Healthy Child/Healthy World Organization. The research team, known as the Westmoreland County Pa. Ewing Sarcoma Project, submitted its report to the state health department and CDC in December 2017.

Working quietly, Ms. Grace finally responded to longstanding inquiries from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and stepped forward with Ms. Walter, who holds a doctorate in biology, to publicize their results. Ms. Grace said she initially documented eight pediatric Ewing cases and the health department now has expanded that total to 12, when cases involving young adults were included.

Confirming a cluster requires meeting a high statistical and analytical bar, including identifying a pollution or chemical exposure linked to that cancer, according to a Pitt biostatistician. That presents a problem because Ewing sarcoma has no known cause. What could be the cause?

The Westmoreland project presented the state with a long list of possible pollution sources, including countywide shale gas drilling and fracking operations and a Penn Township landfill that has accepted thousands of tons of radioactive drill cuttings from gas well sites. The project’s report also makes a case for how pollution exposure could lead to Ewing.

But Ms. Grace said she and the team don’t yet know if fracking, water or air pollution, or pollution from old industry, among other sources of pollution and contamination, are responsible. “We don’t want our aim to stray from seeking a scientific cause and solution,” she said.

The health department said it is reviewing cancer statistics for Washington County and for the Canon-McMillan School District, where it is only aware of four cases but has yet to incorporate 2018 cancer data into its review. In the past decade, two additional Ewing sarcoma cases have occurred in Washington County — one in Charleroi and another in or near Bentleyville — with at least two cases each in Greene and Fayette counties.

The health department also said it has been working with researchers to separately evaluate and monitor Westmoreland County statistics. Even with 12 Ewing cases, the department does not see a statistically significant excessive number in Westmoreland County, Mr. Wardle said, adding that that finding has been shared with concerned residents of the county. “But we will continue to monitor the number of cases in the area.”

He said the department is doing the statistical evaluation of the Ewing cases in Washington County and now has included all childhood cancers in the study, including those identified by the Post-Gazette.

The Ewing family of sarcoma is not one of the common cancers the department reports on annually, he said. Most cases occur in teens when they experience growth spurts, and science is limited as to what causes it.

The concerned citizens who recently called the health department wanted to know if the cancer cases are related to environmental factors, including radiation, Mr. Wardle said. Washington County has historic radiation issues related to a uranium mill tailings disposal site in North Strabane, near Canonsburg, where the U.S. Department of Energy continues to report background or below background levels of radiation.

Another concern is the widespread drilling and fracking of more than 1,000 shale gas wells, which produce waste water with radioactive components, among other pollutants. The first experimental well in southwestern Pennsylvania was fracked in 2005 in Cecil Township. The township now sits downwind from a phalanx of compressor stations and a hilltop cryogenics plant, a major source of pollution.

Academic studies done in Pennsylvania and Colorado have found higher rates of childhood cancers in areas where fracking is occurring but with no links to Ewing sarcoma.

The Marcellus Shale Coalition, the trade organization representing the shale gas industry in Pennsylvania, issued a statement citing a review of medical data by the American Cancer Society that found “no known lifestyle-related or environmental causes of Ewing tumors ….”

In a statement, David Spigelmyer, coalition president, said attempts to link the incidence of Ewing sarcoma and other childhood cancers to the shale gas drilling industry were without scientific or medical support.

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See also: Study Finds Higher Risk of Brain Tumors in Appalachia, January 17, 2019

Multiple Safety Issues with Nuclear Plants

Why This Nuclear Engineer Says Every Nuke Plant in the US Should Be Shut Down Yesterday

From an Article by Karl Grossman, Common Dreams, January 13, 2017

The good—the very good—energy news is that the Indian Point nuclear power plants 26 miles north of New York City will be closed in the next few years under an agreement reached between New York State and the plants’ owner, Entergy.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has long been calling for the plants to be shut down because, as the New York Times related in its story on the pact, they pose “too great a risk to New York City.” Environmental and safe-energy organizations have been highly active for decades in working for the shutdown of the plants. Under the agreement, one Indian Point plant will shut down by April 2020, the second by April 2021. 

“If the general public would see these secret ‘red’ reports, its view on nuclear power would turn strongly negative.” They would be among the many nuclear power plants in the U.S. which their owners have in recent years decided to close or have announced will be shut down in a few years.

This comes in the face of nuclear power plant accidents­—most recently and prominently the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan—­and competitive power being less expensive including renewable and safe solar and wind energy.

Last year, the Fort Calhoun nuclear plant in Nebraska closed following the shutdowns of Kewanee in Wisconsin, Vermont Yankee in Vermont, Crystal River 3 in Florida and both San Onofre 2 and 3 in California. Nuclear plant operators say they will close Palisades in Michigan next year; Oyster Creek in New Jersey and Pilgrim in Massachusetts in 2019; and the closure of California’s Diablo Canyon 1 in 2024 will be followed by Diablo Canyon 3 in 2025.

This will bring the number of nuclear plants down to a few more than 90­ — far cry from President Richard Nixon’s scheme to have 1,000 nuclear plants in the U.S. by the year 2000.

But the bad—the very bad—energy news is that there are still many promoters in industry and government still pushing nuclear power. Most importantly, the transition team of incoming President Donald Trump has been “asking for ways to keep nuclear power alive,” as Bloomberg reported last month.

As I was reading last week the first reports on the Indian Point agreement, I received a phone call from an engineer who has been in the nuclear industry for more than 30 years­ with his view of the situation.

The engineer, employed at nuclear plants and for a major nuclear plant manufacturer, wanted to relate that even with the Indian Point news—“and I’d keep my fingers crossed that there is no disaster involving those aged Indian Point plants in those next three or four years”­—nuclear power remains a “ticking time bomb.” Concerned about retaliation, he asked his name not be published. 

Here is some of the information he relayed – a story of experiences of an engineer in the nuclear power industry for more than three decades and his warnings and expectations.

The Secretive INPO Report System

Several months after the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania in March 1979, the nuclear industry set up the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) based in Atlanta, Georgia. The idea was to have a nuclear industry group that “would share information” on problems and incidents at nuclear power plants, he said.

If there is a problem at one nuclear power plant, an INPO report will communicate the incident other nuclear plant operators. Thus the various plant operators could “cross-reference” happenings at other plants and determine if they might apply to them.

The reports are “coded by color,” explained the engineer. Those which are “green” involve an incident or condition that might or might not indicate a wider problem. A “yellow” report is on an occurrence “that could cause significant problems down the road.” A “red” report is the most serious and represents “a problem that could have led to a core meltdown”­ and could be present widely among nuclear plants and for which action needs to be taken immediately.

The engineer said he has read more than 100 “Code Red” reports. What they reflect, he said, is that “we’ve been very, very lucky so far.” If the general public would see these secret “red” reports, its view on nuclear power would turn strongly negative, said the engineer.

But this is prevented by INPO, “created and solely funded by the nuclear industry,” thus its reports “are not covered by the U.S. Freedom of Information Act and are regarded as highly secretive.” The reports should be required to be made public, said the engineer. “It’s high time the country wakes up to the dangers we undergo with nuclear power plants.”

The NRC Inspection Farce

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is supposed to be the federal agency that is the watchdog over nuclear power plants and it frequently boasts of how it has “two resident inspectors” at each nuclear power plant in the nation, he noted.

However, explained the engineer, “the NRC inspectors are not allowed to go into the plant on their own. They have to be escorted. There can be no surprise inspections. Indeed, the only inspections that can be made are those that come after the NRC inspectors “get permission from upper management at the plant.”

The inspectors “have to contact upper management and say they want to inspect an area. The word is then passed down from management that inspectors are coming­ so ‘clean up’ whatever is the situation is.”

“The inspectors hands are tied,” said the engineer.

The 60- and Now 80-Year Operating Delusion

When nuclear power plants were first designed decades ago, explained the engineer, the extent of their mechanical life was established at 40 years. The engineer is highly familiar with these calculations having worked for a leading manufacturer of nuclear plants, General Electric. 

The components in nuclear plants, particularly their steel parts, “have an inherent working shelf life,” said the engineer.

In determining the 40-year total operating time, the engineer said that calculated were elements that included the wear and tear of refueling cycles, emergency shutdowns and the “nuclear embrittlement from radioactivity that impacts on the nuclear reactor vessel itself including the head bolts and other related piping, and what the entire system can handle. Further, the reactor vessel is the one component in a nuclear plant that can never be replaced because it becomes so hot with radioactivity. If a reactor vessel cracks, there is no way of repairing it and any certainty of containment of radioactivity is not guaranteed.”

Thus the U.S. government limited the operating licenses it issued for all nuclear power plants to 40 years. However, in recent times the NRC has “rubber-stamped license extensions” of an additional 20 years now to more than 85 of the nuclear plants in the country­ permitting them to run for 60 years. Moreover, a push is now on, led by nuclear plant owners Exelon and Dominion, to have the NRC grant license extensions of 20 additional years ­to let nuclear plants run for 80 years.

Exelon, the owner of the largest number of nuclear plants in the U.S., last year announced it would ask the NRC to extend the operating licenses of its two Peach Bottom plants in Pennsylvania to 80 years. Dominion declared earlier that it would seek NRC approval to run its two Surry nuclear power plants in Virginia for 80 years.

“That a nuclear plant can run for 60 years or 80 years is wishful thinking,” said the engineer. “The industry has thrown out the window all the data developed about the lifetime of a nuclear plant. It would ignore the standards to benefit their wallets, for greed, with total disregard for the country’s safety.”

The engineer went on that since “Day One” of nuclear power, because of the danger of the technology, “they’ve been playing Russian roulette­, putting one bullet in the chamber and hoping that it would not fire. By going to 60 years and now possibly to 80 years,  “they’re putting all the bullets in every chamber­ and taking out only one and pulling the trigger.”

Further, what the NRC has also been doing is not only letting nuclear plants operate longer but “uprating” them­ allowing them to run “hotter and harder” to generate more electricity and ostensibly more profit. “Catastrophe is being invited,” said the engineer.     

The Carbon-Free Myth                    

A big argument of nuclear promoters in a period of global warming and climate change is that “reactors aren’t putting greenhouse gases out into the atmosphere,” noted the engineer.

But this “completely ignores” the “nuclear chain”­ the cycle of the nuclear power process that begins with the mining of uranium and continues with milling, enrichment and fabrication of nuclear fuel “and all of this is carbon intensive.” There are the greenhouse gasses discharged during the construction of the steel and formation of the concrete used in nuclear plants, transportation that is required, and in the construction of the plants themselves.

“It comes back to a net gain of zero,” said the engineer.  Meanwhile, “we have so many ways of generating electric power that are far more truly carbon-free.”

The Bottom Line

“The bottom line,” said the engineer, “is that radioactivity is the deadliest material which exists on the face of this planet ­and we have no way of controlling it once it is out. With radioactivity, you can’t see it, smell it, touch it or hear it­ and you can’t clean it up. There is nothing with which we can suck up radiation.”

Once in the atmosphere­ having been emitted from a nuclear plant through routine operation or in an accident ­“that radiation is out there killing living tissue whether it be plant, animal or human life and causing illness and death.”

What about the claim by the nuclear industry and promoters of nuclear power within the federal government of a “new generation” of nuclear power plants that would be safer? The only difference, said the engineer, is that it might be a “different kind of gun­but it will have the same bullets: radioactivity that kills.”

The engineer said “I’d like to see every nuclear plant shut down­ yesterday.”

In announcing the agreement on the closing of Indian Point, Governor Cuomo described it as a “ticking time bomb.” There are more of them. Nuclear power overall remains, as the experienced engineer from the nuclear industry said, a “ticking time bomb.”

And every nuclear power plant needs to be shut down.

See also:  www.FrackCheckWV.net

'Moratorium' not yet approved by NY Senate

Medical professionals & researchers cite new anti-fracking evidence in letter to Gov. Cuomo

From an Article by Matthew McKibben, Legislative Gazette, May 29, 2014

A coalition of hundreds of medical experts and academic researchers has sent a letter to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and acting Department of Health Commissioner Howard Zucker asking them to place a moratorium on high-volume hydraulic fracturing for up to five years.

The letter comes in response to the growth of “disconcerting” trends in the existing and emerging data on fracking, according to a statement issued by the coalition.

The letter states, “The totality of the science – which now encompasses hundreds of peer-reviewed studies and hundreds of additional reports and case examples – shows that permitting fracking in New York would pose significant threats to the air, water, health and safety of New Yorkers.”

Some of the groups signed on to the letter include the American Academy of Pediatrics; American Lung Association in New York; the Otsego County Medical Society; Tompkins County Medical Society; Center for Environmental Health; and David Carpenter, MD, director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University at Albany.

The letter discusses trends in data that, according to the coalition, proves the state should take a leadership role in the nation by announcing a moratorium on fracking.

The letter points to recent studies that show the link between water contamination and fracking-related activities is now indisputable; that the structural integrity of wells can fail and failures become more common over time as wells age and cement and casings deteriorate; the disposal of fracking wastewater is causally linked to earthquakes and radioactive contamination of surface water; air quality impacts from fracking–related activities are clearer than ever; community and social impacts of fracking can be widespread, expensive, and deadly; and industry secrecy contributes to unsettled science

The coalition’s letter also notes that many additional studies are under way and it is critical to give those studies time to be completed for the full scope of the impacts of fracking to be understood.

“Given the lack of any evidence indicating that fracking can be done safely–and a wealth of evidence to the contrary–we consider a three to five year moratorium to be an appropriate time frame,” the letter states.

The letter is available online here: bit.ly/1kO3jFu

WVU Professor Addresses 625 Foot Set-Back Rule for Marcellus Wells

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

Usually when you write about a meeting, the procedure is to focus on what was said.  In this case the emphasis must be on interpretation of what was said, because the background formed what was said, not the research.

The meeting was titled “Monitoring of Marcellus Drilling Operations.”  The speaker was Dr. MIchael McCawley of the WVU Department of Occupational and Environmental Health Scienc. These lectures were held at Philip Barbour High School auditorium, Philippi, WV on October 15 and again the 16th at Erickson Alumni Center at WVU.

Dr. McCawley was handed a really raw deal with this research assignment.  The Marcellus industry is having to fight a vast number of complaints of health effects, from people who live in the vicinity of drilling operations, compressors, NG liquids separation plants, and pipelines. And,  similarly down stream from the places they take their flowback.  Apparently the geologists and petroleum engineers did not anticipate the effects of use of “slick water fracturing,” which has proved a couple magnitudes of order worse than the fracturing done before the year 2000.  Partly this is a matter of new chemicals used, and partly a matter of the scale of the effort.

The industry is in trouble.  It barely makes any money for those at the top, except the bankers who loan the money and get their share “up front.”  One internet site in Pennsylvania has a “List of the Harmed” which now runs over 1200.  The Sierra Club is putting together a similar portfolio, documented cases where people have complaints subsequent to drilling in their neighborhood.  Physicians, untrained in the hazard, who once would not listen to some of the complaints, are beginning to see a pattern.  Worst of all, lawyers have perked up their ears and many court battles are on the way.

What the Marcellus industry needs is ammunition to use in court.  Unfortunately, both the business men and the legislators who wish to accommodate them don’t have a background in science and aren’t particularly motivated to listen to those who do.  Failing scientific evidence already in existence, they want a law to take the place of it, since law is cheaper to come by.  Hence, the idea that a legislated distance between the drilling pad and the home (or large livestock building) will provide safety for the rural residents. 

This is where the 625 foot “set-back” comes from.  The exact figure is a guess, a fervent hope.  Will everyone be safe if they live in a residence 625 feet or more from the well being drilled?  That is the question the legislature and the industry have put, and Dr. McCawley was expected to answer.

So how was Dr, McCawley funded?  Minimally, of course.  He and his students had funds from DEP to make short term measurements at only seven sites.  This was to detect any and all chemicals in the air, noise, light and radiation. 

It reminded me of something that happened during the 19 years I taught Sophomore Analytical Chemistry.  A Member of the College Board of Directors brought me a lump of rock from a gold mine he had bought out West.  Would I assay it for him, please?  Fortunately, I was able to convince him I didn’t have the resources, connections and experience to provide these particular answers.   Dr. McCawley wasn’t so fortunate at convincing state government they had asked a bad question.

The effect of chemicals and noise depends on the direction the wind is blowing (toward or away from the sampling site or some oblique), how fast it is blowing and factors which affect turbulence (mixing the chemical in the air), such as hills and valleys, trees, buildings, and inversions. 

Dr. McCawley discussed inversions extensively in his talk.  This is a common occurrence in Appalachia when the wind is quiet.  Temperature normally decreases as you go up in the atmosphere from ground to space.  An inversion is when temperature goes down as you go up, then there is a layer where it gets warmer, then goes down again above that.  The effect is to capture gases and particulates being emitted in the ground hugging layer and accumulate them for some time, frequently up to dangerous levels.  A famous inversion disaster occurred at Donora, Pennsylvania in 1948.

So what could Dr.McCawley come up with from the seven sites where the companies knew where he was sampling and why?  The chemical tests were for dust, a variety of hydrocarbons, ozone, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and diesel emissions . (Incidentally Dr.  McCawley was instrumental in discovery that diesel particulate emissions are carcinogenic, cancer forming, earlier in his career.)  This is the carefully worded abstract for the meeting:

The West Virginia Natural Gas Horizontal Well Control Act of 2011 required determination of effectiveness of a 625 foot set-back from the center of the pad of a horizontal well drilling site.  An investigation was conducted at seven drilling sites to collect data on dust, hydrocarbon compounds and on noise, light and radiation levels.  Measurements of air contaminants were taken at these sites to characterize  levels that might be found at 625 feet from the well pad center at unconventional gas drilling sites during activities at those sites.  While there were detectable levels of dust and volatile organic compounds found to be present at the set-back distance, the duration of the specific activity of interest at each of the sites did not allow comparison of collected data to limits of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) and therefore  did not allow recommendations to be made for a setback distance based on the NAAQS values.  Some benzene concentrations were, however, found to be above what the CDC calls “the minimum risk level for no health effects.”  This is a concern for potential health effects that might arise due to these exposures over a long time.  Also, not all of the studied contaminates emanate from the center of the pad, so any new regulations might consider a different reference point or points (such as roadways) from which to measure the setback distance.  There does not seem to be a simple solution to specifying a single point from which to specify the set-back distance to assure exposure control.  There is no single geometry to which all drill site activities conform.  The activities follow the terrain of the site  and the needs of the process.  There is no reason to believe using the center of the pad as the reference point from which the setback is taken will assure that activity associated with  some possible sources of the studied contaminants will not occur closer than 625 feet from the actual source.  Studies have shown that meteorology (and topography) may be a more important  factor than a distance measured on a map for determining air contaminant concentration.  The levels of contaminant that were seen were not unexpected based on previous studies.  However, they were seen to fluctuate over a wide range (i. e. have a high standard deviation) so that consideration needs to be given to increased control monitoring of the process such as directed reading monitors  at sensitive locations near the well pad connected wirelessly to the operations center at the pad.

Read that last sentence again carefully.  Dr. McCawley is suggesting the only rational way to protect people – put monitors on the homes and barns, and shut down or modify operations when the danger level is reached.  My prediction: It will never happen in this world.  It wouldn’t happen if they were getting ten dollars a thousand cubic feet of gas at the wellhead.  It involves expense, a new set of specialists, and slowing the “hell-for-leather” pace down.  Never happen.

Two Reports are Late; Third Due in July; Quality vs. Speed

From the Article by Pam Kasey for the State Journal, February 21, 2013

Presentations of the status of two studies on horizontal drilling the Legislature expected from the WV Department of Environmental Protection about two months ago were made on February 21^st and offered little substance while promising to deliver much, soon.

When the Legislature passed the Natural Gas Horizontal Well Control Act in December 2011 for regulating the production of natural gas from horizontally drilled wells, lawmakers mandated follow-up studies in case further regulation was needed. One study was to investigate the safety of pits and impoundments and evaluate whether a special regulatory provision is needed for radioactivity or other toxins. Another was to explore whether the act’s setback distance — the center of a wellpad may not be located within 625 feet of an occupied dwelling — is sufficient given the noise, light, dust and volatile organic compounds generated by the drilling of horizontal wells.

A finding that existing regulations are inadequate would trigger the development and proposal of new rules by the DEP.

Those two studies were due at the end of 2012 and are not yet done; a third is due July 1. Huffman defended the lateness in the hearing in the House of Delegates chamber. “We have taken a lot of time with these studies to try to be as scientific and comprehensive as we could,” Huffman said.

“I know that pushes us well into the legislative session,” he said, acknowledging that the point of the deadlines was to allow time for legislators to consider emergency action that might be needed in this session. “But there are over 40 pages of rules being considered by the Legislature that may not be directly as a result of the studies we are working on but are a result of the comprehensive knowledge base we’ve accumulated over the past couple of years.”

In updating lawmakers on the status of the studies, two DEP presenters emphasized the challenging logistics of accomplishing in the one-year time frame everything that had to be done: agreeing with contractors at West Virginia University on what data needed to be gathered, assembling teams, identifying active well sites that met certain criteria, coordinating with operators and landowners, hauling equipment from site to site, gathering the data and compiling worthwhile reports.

Pits and impoundments

For the study on the safety of pits and impoundments, the contractors looked at the three large pits that were constructed after the new rule was in place. Because the sample was small, they added 12 more pits and impoundments from prior to the new rule, according to Mike Dorsey, chief of DEP’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Response.

The good news: None of them was in danger of failing, Dorsey said, including the worst structure DEP was aware of. The bad news: Much improvement is needed.

“The horizontal drilling, the Marcellus business in general is a huge change for people who work for our agency. There’s not been a bigger change in what we do since solid waste laws were changed in the late ’80s, early ’90s,” Dorsey said. He referred to problems discovered during the study with compaction, pit liners, seepage and other aspects.

DEP already put new training in place last fall for inspectors and for the industry, he said, and developed a standardized inspection checklist. The statute also asked DEP to look at radiation. Scant data has been gathered, Dorsey said, from Marcellus drill cuttings and from fluid that has returned from the formation.

Early data range from 0.01 millirem/hour, a measure of exposure, to 0.06 mrem/hour — levels he said would not expose people to the health-based standard of 5 rem/year. Asked by Delegate Tim Manchin, D-Marion, who chaired the hearing, whether regulation on radiation is going to be needed, Dorsey said, “I think the answer is probably going to be no, at least in the short term.”

The pits and impoundments study is in two parts. An engineering aspect was complete in December; the water study is in hand. Dorsey hopes to submit a complete report in two weeks.

Well setbacks and air quality

The study determining whether 625 feet from the center of a wellpad to an occupied dwelling is sufficient given the noise, light, dust and volatile organic compounds that are generated, due December 31, includes a literature review of best practices and a data gathering effort, explained Renu Chakrabarty, an engineer and air toxics coordinator for DEP’s Division of Air Quality.

The field work covered seven wellpads in three counties with three different operators, Chakrabarty said.

Samples for this study and for an air quality study due July 1 were taken by WVU air monitors that ringed the wellpads and by a Department of Energy mobile monitoring trailer, and they were taken at distinct stages of the process: wellpad construction, vertical drilling, horizontal drilling, hydraulic fracturing and well completion. She hopes the noise, light, dust and VOC study will be submitted by the end of March. The air study is not due until July 1.

The importance of timing

Paul Ziemkiewicz, director of the WVU Water Research Institute that has gathered some of the data, took a moment to make a point about the dataset. “What we’ve got is a body of data that’s unprecedented in this country on the air, the water and waste streams, and the impoundment security and safety,” Ziemkiewicz said. “We’ve got a very powerful body of work here.”

Delegate Mike Manypenny, D-Taylor, wanted to make an opposing point on the time it has taken. On the issue of volatile organic compounds — think gasoline or natural gas in the air, which can explode — Manypenny asked Huffman whether DEP rules could prevent accidents like the February 15 incident in which an employee of Central Environmental Services was killed in an explosion that appears to have been related to volatile organic compounds at the well site.