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Upshur County and the Large Diameter InterState Gas Pipelines

Dear Friends: Nice report on WDTV, Channel 5 News

On the last day of my travels in WV, I made a presentation to the Upshur County Commission in Buckhannon,WV requesting a resolution from the Commissioners to FERC asking for a PEIS in WV. Dominion packed the room with their supporters and a debate ensued over several issues including global warming, the need for pipelines and gas, property rights and environmental damage. The TV station is located in Harrison County, WV which is a stronghold for the gas industry. Tensions were high at the end.

The Commissioners were very gracious and asked many questions. Overall, it was a good day for pipeline opponents.

See the video below:

http://www.wdtv.com/wdtv.cfm?func=view&section=5-News&item=Groups-Clash-in-Upshur-County-One-Asks-For-Pipeline-Impact-Statement-27453

Tensions were very high Thursday at the Upshur County Commission meeting. Some environmental groups want an environmental impact statement done for our state’s proposed pipelines. They battled back and forth with Dominion Transmission representatives on what the impacts may be and if more pipelines are actually needed.

The thing that brought the claws out in the first place is there are actually no federal guidelines that control where a pipeline can be built. It’s left up to our local governments. Even when research and data were brought up at the meeting from pipeline supporters and those opposing, no one could agree and it didn’t get any simpler.

The Mountain Lakes Preservation Alliance suggests the Upshur County Commission form a committee to produce the required Hazard Mitigation Plan so that Dominion Transmission could move the Atlantic Coast Pipeline’s route to a more advisable location before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issues a permit.

The 550-mile pipeline would go from Harrison County to Virginia and North Carolina through some public areas, such as less than half a mile from Buckhannon-Upshur High School. The Preservation Alliance says the pipeline is the largest and highest-pressure pipeline ever attempted in these three states.

We have seven pipelines in our state and each side argues whether or not they’re needed. Dominion representatives say they increase the quality of life in modern society and we’re responsible for being as energy independent as possible. While the Preservation Alliance Chair agrees we should be energy independent, she says we can do that through renewable energy and that pipelines decrease our quality of life.

However, the director of Dominion’s Pipeline Integrity and Records says they’re following the requirements and reviewing the consequences.

“When I talk about the operations and maintenance requirements, there are corridors which we are required to study. And we have to evaluate who lives in that corridor, what type of structures are there, and what the consequences of a failure could be. And that really dictates how we operate, maintain, design, and construct the pipeline,” said Shawn Miller, the Director of Pipeline Integrity and Records at Dominion Transmission.

But a Pipelines Campaign Manager for the Sierra Club is concerned about things like accidental explosions, water and air quality, and our communities.

“I’m really concerned about the people here in the state, in West Virginia and Virginia, who don’t want these pipelines. And they have spent their lives building their properties up and now they have to give up their properties, their dreams, their hopes, their families are affected. It’s a big deal,” said Kirk Bowers, the Pipelines Campaign Manager for the Sierra Club’s Virginia Chapter.

Stay with 5 News to see what the Commission decides to do and what’s next for the possible Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

Previous story involving these parties at an Upshur County Commission meeting:
Groups Clash on Proposed Pipeline Near Upshur County School

Kirk A Bowers, Virginia Chapter, Sierra Club
Pipelines Program Manager, 106 George Rogers Road
Charlottesville, VA 22911
Home (434) 296 8673, Cell (434) 249 1439

Jackson's Mill in Lewis County, WV

Central WV Meeting Plans Concerted Action on Broad Issues

Press Release Dated: December 18, 2015

Jackson’s Mill, WV — West Virginians facing crucial quality of life issues with the onslaught of the deep shale oil and gas industry are banding together for the sake of their communities.

On December 15, more than 40 people representing 30 citizen groups from across West Virginia, as well as one Virginia group, gathered to meet one another and to discuss each group’s work surrounding deep shale oil and gas issues.

The various groups and coalitions work to address one or more of the detrimental impacts of oil and gas production on communities, human health and the environment that arise from activities associated with deep shale hydraulic fracturing or “fracking.”

Their concerns include property rights, air, water and noise pollution, compressors stations, water withdrawal from our state’s streams and rivers, pipelines, wastewater treatment facilities, waste disposal and waste transportation, as well as public policy proposals looming when the West Virginia Legislature begins its regular legislative session this January 2016.

Attendees included representatives of community action groups, based in areas where the rural way of life and the environment are directly impacted by fracking/gas, as well as members of statewide organizations such as the West Virginia Surface Owners Rights Organization, West Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club, West Virginia Rivers Coalition and West Virginia Highlands Conservancy. Also in attendance were leaders from the faith community, scientists and public policy/economic professionals.

“Monroe County citizens are broadly mobilized to focus on blocking the development of frack gas infrastructures,” said Monroe County resident Laurie Ardison, who is with Preserve Monroe and POWHR, Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights, which is an interstate coalition group working to protect the water, local ecology, heritage, land rights and human rights of individuals, communities and regions from harms caused by the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructures.

“We have an opportunity to develop clean jobs with renewables and cheaper energy efficiency programs. Locking us into fossil fuels for the future is going to pull us away from forward thinking economic development,” said April Keating with the Mountain Lakes Preservation Alliance.

“Clearly, we can increase our capacity and impact when we work together towards common goals,” said Janet Keating, the principal organizer of the meeting and executive director of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, based in Huntington.

“Coming together from across the state working on various issues related to shale gas development, we learned common concerns connect us,” said Angie Rosser, executive director of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition. “We see a need to work together to set the best way forward for a healthy environment and economic future for our state.”

“There are negative health consequences for the people who live near fracking sites. It is time for policy makers and the industry to recognize that people who live next to natural gas facilities are paying a high price,” said Conni Gratop Lewis of the WV Environmental Council.

Another attendee stated, “The meeting was an energizing experience for me. I had been feeling a bit burned out lately, but now I feel like we may have a chance of beating this assault.”

“From pipelines cutting through the highland mountains to waste inundating the lowland fields and wetlands, the recent boom of oil and gas development is as harmful to many as it is economically beneficial to a few,” said Cindy Rank of the WV Highlands Conservancy. “As the region celebrates any short-term economic gains, we must also fight to preserve the air we breathe, the water we rely on, the forests we enjoy, and the health of those who live near the drilling and production operations.”

Contacts:

>>> Janet Keating, OVEC, 304-522-0246 or janet@ohvec.org

>>> Cindy Rank, WV Highlands Conservancy, 304-924-5802, clrank2@gmail.com

>>> Elise Keaton, Greenbrier River Watershed Association, 304-207-1150, elise@greenbrier.org

>>> Laurie Ardison, Preserve Monroe and POWHR, 304-646-8339, ikeandash@yahoo.com

>>> April Keating, Mountain Lakes Preservation Alliance, 304-642-9436, apkeating@hotmail.com

US Forest Service concerned about proposed pipelines through forests in West Virginia & Virginia, but is FERC listening?

From an Article by Steve Szkotak, Associate Press, August 5, 2015

Richmond, VA — The U.S. Forest Service has raised hundreds of concerns about a proposed natural gas pipeline that would carve a 30-mile swath through national forests in Virginia and West Virginia.

The written comments to federal regulators question why the proposed route of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline has to go through the George Washington and Monongahela national forests and raises similar worries cited by residents along the path of the 550-mile energy project.

The 335 questions, comments and corrections were submitted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in late July by H. Thomas Speaks Jr., forest supervisor. The Forest Service already has given the builders of the proposed pipeline the green light to survey the forests.

The pipeline is proposed by Dominion Resources Inc., Duke Energy and two energy partners. It would carry natural gas from Marcellus shale drilling in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia to the Southeast. It would run from Harrison County, West Virginia, southeast to Greensville County, Virginia, and into North Carolina.

The $5 billion pipeline is intended to deliver cleaner burning natural gas to the Southeast as utilities move away from coal-burning power plants amid tighter federal rules on pollution that contributes to climate change.

The Forest Service filing was in response to a draft report filed in May by Dominion. Forest surveys of wetlands and wildlife, among other resources, are nearing completion, said Frank Mack, a spokesman for Dominion Transmission, a subsidiary that would build the pipeline.

“Much of what we have completed since May will address many of the comments the National Forest Service sent to the FERC, and which we plan to make public when we file our Resource Reports with our application to the FERC later this summer,” Mack wrote in an email.

The Forest Service said Speaks’ comments are intended to guide Dominion as it develops its final report with the agency on the national forest routes. The Forest Service will make the final decision whether the pipeline is a “suitable use” for the national forests, said Jennifer Adams, special project coordinator for the Forest Service.

Adams said a similar report was filed by the Forest Service on another interstate pipeline project, the Mountain Valley Pipeline, but those comments have not been released. The Mountain Valley project would go through a section of the Jefferson National Forest.

The 300-mile pipeline is a joint venture between EQT Corp. and NextEra Energy Inc. It would run from Wetzel County, West Virginia, to another pipeline in Pittsylvania County in Virginia.

On the Atlantic Pipeline, one Forest Service comment questions the “necessity to cross” forestlands in building the pipeline. Speaks wrote that the Forest Service policy does not authorize the use of U.S. forests “solely because it affords the applicant a lower cost or less restrictive location when compared to non-NFS lands.”

The Forest Service filing also questions whether hazardous materials such as blasting materials would be stored on forestland, the impact on streams and fish, and the restoration of habitat after the pipeline is built, among others.

While politically popular, the proposed pipeline has found opposition among its planned route by residents who object to a pipeline dissecting their land or on environmental grounds. The pipeline has spawned at least two groups opposed to its construction and several lawsuits.

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

See also information on the August 18th regional protests in VA, WV, PA, OH, MD, NC, TX, OR, etc.:  ”Hands Across Our Land“

Myra Bonhage-Hale (Her WV Herb Farm)

Proposed Documentary on WV: In the Hills and Hollows

Film Proposal by Keely Kernan, Independent Film Director, Shepherdstown, WV, May 15, 2015

The boom and bust coal industry that has dominated the landscape of West Virginia for over a century is being replaced by the natural gas industry. Rural West Virginian communities, steeped in history and heritage, are facing yet another uncertain future.

Background:

Due to a shift in market demand, and the development of technology to access the Marcellus Shale formation, a massive natural gas boom has swept through rural communities in the northern part of West Virginia. Much like the massive infrastructure built to support the coal industry, large new infrastructure systems are being built to produce and transport natural gas acquired through fracking.

There are currently four pipelines proposed, each measuring over 3 feet in diameter, to transport natural gas from northern West Virginia to other states and ports for export. In the Hills and Hollows investigates the boom and bust impacts that mono-economies based on fossil fuel extraction have on local communities. It provides an intimate look inside the lives of several West Virginia residents living in the middle of the boom and how their quality of life has changed by this industry. The film also explores the lives of residents who have become refugees, forced to leave their home, and the place they love as a result.

Fundraising Tiers:

Your donation is tax-deductible, made possible by our fiscal sponsor, the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition! Below are the funding tiers and the value of each.

Tier 1 – With 10,000 we are able to continue shooting the film throughout the spring and summer of 2015. This will cover the cost of travel and accommodations.

Tier 2 – If we reach $20,000 we will be able to start post production and contract additional post production team members. This will help us begin the process of editing the hundreds of hours of footage captured during production!

Organizations interested in sponsoring the film have the opportunity!

Sponsorship Levels and Benefits

All organizations that sponsor will receive regular updates on all news relating to the film.

Official Sponsor “Made Possible by” Logo and organization’s name under a “Made Possible By” line in the end credits of the feature film and on the project’s website the organization’s logo appears on banner, listed on all social media and on printed material. This credit is given to organizations that contribute $10,000 or more to the feature film.

Sponsor “A Special Thank You to” Logo and organization’s name under “A special thank you” line in the end credits of the feature film and on the project’s website and on all social media. This credit is given to organizations that contribute $5,000 or more.

Co – Sponsor “ Thank you” Organization’s name listed in the end credits of the feature film and in the film’s website. This credit is given to organizations that contribute $2,500 or more.

Contributing support “Additional Support By” Organization’s name listed in the end credits the feature film. This credit is given to organizations that contribute $1,000 or more.

Some of the REWARDS are shown here. These include paintings by Lewis County resident and farmer Myra Bonhage-Hale as well as prints by local artist Mike Costello.

Why should I care about what is happening in West Virginia?

West Virginia is ground zero for fossil fuel extraction and is intrinsically linked to the country and the world. As a nation we are at a crossroads in history. Are we ready to transition from fossil fuels to more environmentally and socially responsible forms of energy? In the Hills and Hollows shows us the impact of today’s energy on people living at its source, and convinces us that we need another way.

The objective of this film is to inspire an urgent conversation about what is at risk and what we cannot afford to ignore. Because mainstream news and large media corporations are not giving residents a voice the urgency is at an all time high for independent filmmakers to ensure these stories are heard by mass audiences.

Production Schedule:

March — October 2015: Continue filming

November 2015: 100% of filming completed, contract sound designers and hire post-production team, post-production starts.

May 2016: Final finishing begins: picture locked, online 1080P, color correct master, score the film with composer, complete sound design and final mix.

Film submitted to film festivals. Following premieres at festivals and US broadcast: Film is made available on the website to stream. DVD copies will be distributed to colleges and universities, libraries, nonprofits, and other organizations and institutions.

Statement from Director:

I grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of south-central Pennsylvania, near the border of Maryland and West Virginia. My childhood was spent combing the vast mountain forest that surrounds our home. After exploring the world at large, I moved to West Virginia in 2013, back to the same mountain range where I spent my youth. My time since then has been spent traveling throughout the state researching the issues on the ground, connecting with families and organizations working to empower their communities against incredible odds. As Americans we are taught to believe that we have inalienable rights. What is happening in West Virginia is a human rights issue. Peoples’ health, water, security, property values, and quality of life are being compromised. “In the Hills and Hollows” is motivated by a desire to expose the extreme situation and inspire reform.

See:  https://vimeo.com/inthehillsandhollows and www.FrackCheckWV.net

Fragmented & Over-Developed Landscape

TITLE: Oil and gas development transforms landscapes

From a Report by Brady Allred, et al., The University of Montana, April 29, 2015

Researchers have conducted the first-ever broad-scale scientific assessment of how oil and gas development transforms landscapes across the US and Canada. A landscape transformed by broad-scale vegetation loss and fragmentation from oil and gas development is shown in the photo.

But what are the ecological consequences of this accelerated drilling activity? Researchers at the University of Montana have conducted the first-ever broad-scale scientific assessment of how oil and gas development transforms landscapes across the U.S. and Canada.

Their work was published April 24 in an article titled “Ecosystem services lost to oil and gas in North America” in Science. The article concludes that oil and gas development creates significant vegetation loss of rangelands and croplands across broad swaths of central North America.

Lead author Brady Allred said, “There are two important things here: First, we examine all of central North America, from the south coast of Texas to northern Alberta. When we look at this continental scale picture, we see impacts and degradation that are missed when focusing only at a local scale. Second, we see how present policies may potentially compromise future ecosystem integrity over vast areas.”

Allred and co-authors estimated that from 2000 to 2012 oil and gas development removed large amounts of rangeland vegetation, culminating at a rate per year of more than half of the annual grazing on U.S. public lands. Vegetation removed by this development on croplands is equivalent to 120.2 million bushels of wheat, approximately 13 percent of all wheat exported by the U.S. in 2013.

Fragmentation and loss of habitat also disrupts wildlife migration routes, alters wildlife behavior and assists new disruptive invasive plant species. Co-author Dave Naugle highlights the complexity of the issue: “We’ve known about the impacts of oil and gas development for years, but we now have scientific data from a broad regional scale that tells us we need to act now to balance these competing land uses.”

Furthermore, nearly half of wells drilled are in extreme- or high-water-stress regions. High-volume hydraulic fracturing uses 2 million to 13 million gallons of water per well, intensifying competition among agriculture, aquatic ecosystems and municipalities for water resources.

“We need a policy framework that quantifies and weighs major tradeoffs at large scales because current policy does not address both assessment and future mitigation adequately,” said co-author Julia Haggerty of Montana State University.

“Satellite technologies now can provide annual acre-by-acre information for land managers on oil-and-gas-driven land-use changes,” said Steve Running, a co-author and UM Regents Professor of Ecology. “We must have policies that ensure reclamation of this land after production has ended. Otherwise, by 2050, tens of millions of acres of land will be permanently degraded.”

The authors assessed the ecosystem services lost by using high-resolution satellite measurements of vegetation growth based on methods developed by co-author W. Kolby Smith and previous groundbreaking research by Running. Terrestrial plant production is the foundation of the biospheric carbon cycle and the basis for a multitude of critical ecosystem services.

>>> Brady Allred is assistant professor of rangeland ecology at UM’s College of Forestry and Conservation. Additional co-authors are W. Kolby Smith, a recent UM doctoral student now at the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota; Dirac Twidwell from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln; and Samuel Fuhlendorf from Oklahoma State University <<<

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

We Care about Life Down on the Farm

Let us count the ways energy production causes damages

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

I remember a Soil Conservation pamphlet I saw as a child called “6,000 years of civilization.” The thesis was that most of the civilizations before the Romans, and the Romans, too, had destroyed the soils in their areas of the Middle East by ignoring soil depletion. Each generation looked out for itself, extracted the yield without thought of the future. Eventually there was not enough food production (transportation was crude and slow) and eventually there was not enough that the armies could hold the empires together. The principal exception was Egypt, which had the renewing soil deposits from the annual Nile flood. It held on for 3,000 years, when the average empire lasted about 250 years.

I thought of this when I read the editorial in the 13 February Science, the Journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science which is the world’s largest scientific organization, and the most prestigious place to publish science.  It was titled “Give soils their due.” Being keen on that sort of thing, since I am a life-long farmer, I realize that at any time the earth has a “carrying capacity.” Just like my pasture can only carry so many cows without being degraded, the earth can only support so many people.

I also remember reading about what caused the 1977 revolution in modern Egypt – high price of food got the hungry people out on the street. There was a riot because of food prices in Argentina in 1989 and in one in Italy not many years ago. Nothing gets people stirred up like having hungry kids. I also remember a graph in Science of the population of China on the vertical scale and time on the horizontal scale. Each bump up was labeled with a new food stuff which caused the increase. Millet, very early, dry land rice, wet land rice and toward the present, corn and then potatoes.

The authors of “Give soils their due” also talk about how properly managed soils hold water and purify it, remove carbon from the air and incorporate it in soil organic matter. It reintroduces nutrients from dead plants and unused plant parts, and prevents wind loss in dust storms. All this is linked to human and animal health, as well as food supply.

These authors recognize paving land over for cities, expansion of farming to marginal soils in deserts and far North regions, and cut down the tropical forests. Unfortunately, nothing is said about modern methods of extracting hydrocarbons for energy.

Now let us count the ways present day energy causes damage to the earth and its inhabitants. Drilling in deep ocean water, like the BP disaster, risks spilling very large quantities of oil into the ocean. The biggest fear of that event was that the leak was around the outside of the drill pipe, and the entire oil reservoir would drain out with no way to stop it, a disaster tens or hundreds of times more serious. Seafood and wildlife were damaged as was the productive capacity of the Gulf. The dispersants, used to break up the oil mass were offenders, too. BP pleaded guilty to 11 counts of manslaughter, two misdemeanors, and a felony count of lying to Congress. BP also agreed to four years of government monitoring of its safety practices and ethics, and the Environmental Protection Agency announced that BP would be temporarily banned from new contracts with the US government. As of February 2013, criminal and civil settlements and payments to a trust fund had cost the company $42.2 billion. Drilling in the Arctic, being pushed by the oil companies, would be even worse, since the platforms would be subject to the surging ice, and spill cleanup would, too.

Fracking destroys the surface by pushing aside top soil and covering the spot with crushed stone for the drilling pad and roads, and preventing forest growth along the numerous pipelines. Also by emitting hazardous chemicals into the air from drilling pads and compressor stations, by contaminating aquifers and streams with waterborne chemicals, all of which degrades farming or forestry, and living in the area where fracking is done. Disposal of fracking water causes earthquakes. Storm water is diverted from the natural channels, and it carries contaminates. The huge area that can be subject to fracking is easily recognizable by looking at a map of the shale beds believed to have gas potential. It even affects the area outside of that due to sand mining in the Upper Midwest and waste water disposal in other places.

Shale oil and tar sands have very low Energy Return on Energy Invested. Tar sands need to be diluted with a light oil supplied from somewhere else, other drilling.

Coal is dirty. In addition to the carbon, it contains a wide variety of elements that contaminate the air: sulfur (as much as 5 percent) and heavy metals, which are bad because the body has no mechanism to eliminate them once inhaled or ingested. I remember reading decades ago that coal contains enough uranium and thorium to generate as much power as the coal itself does. It poisons water with selenium, and if it is strip mined, destroys top soil and drainage.

And then there is the product of burning carbon in air. Few articles remind us that one ton of carbon takes two and two-third tons of oxygen out of the air to make three and two-thirds third tons of carbon dioxide. The kicker, though, is that 400 parts by volume in the atmosphere means carbon dioxide is diluted by 2500 more volumes of pure air to reach the concentration of carbon dioxide the atmosphere. Said in another way, one volume of carbon dioxide will pollute 2500 parts of air. The volume of the atmosphere is huge, but our present way of getting energy, now well over 150 years old is now obsolete.

All the different ways to obtain energy above hurt the earth and its people, the poorest first. There is no moral charity in advocating, or for anyone of any faith to advocate, anything other than reducing burning carbon for energy as quickly as rationally possible.

>> Tom Bond is active with the Guardians of the West Fork and other West Virginia citizens concerned about the impacts of proposed large diameter natural gas pipelines.

Percent Change in Jobs with & without Fracking

The false promise of fracking and local jobs

From an Article by Susan Christopherson, Professor, Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University, January 27, 2015

In a surprise decision that led to consternation in the oil and gas industry and elation among fracking opponents, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in December banned fracking in the state. He attributed his decision to unresolved health risks associated with this drilling technique, but the governor surely also weighed the economics and the politics.

During the past five years, I’ve researched and written about the economic impacts of fracking and, as a long-time resident of New York, I have observed its fractious politics. What I’ve found is that most people, including politicians and people in the media, assume that fracking creates thousands of good jobs.

But opening the door to fracking doesn’t lead to the across-the-board economic boon most people assume. We need to consider where oil and gas industry jobs are created and who benefits from the considerable investments that make shale development possible. A look at the job numbers gives us a much better idea of what kind of economic boost comes with fracking, how its economic benefits are distributed and why both can be easily misunderstood.

Not a recession buster

Pennsylvania is one of the centers of dispute over fracking job numbers. In Pennsylvania, the job numbers initially used by the media to describe the economic impact of fracking were predictions from models developed by oil and gas industry affiliates. For example, a Marcellus Shale Coalition press release in 2010 claimed:

“The safe and steady development of clean-burning natural gas in Pennsylvania’s portion of the Marcellus Shale has the potential to create an additional 212,000 new jobs over the next 10 years on top of the thousands already being generated all across the Commonwealth.”

These job projections spurred enthusiasm for fracking in Pennsylvania and gave many people the impression that oil and gas industry employment would lead Pennsylvania quickly out of the recession. That didn’t happen.

Pennsylvania’s unemployment roughly tracked the national average throughout the state’s gas boom. While some counties benefited from the fracking build-up, which occurred during the “great recession,” the state economy didn’t perform appreciably better than the national economy.

Nationally, the oil and gas industry employs relatively few people compared to a sector like health care and social assistance, which employed over 16 million Americans in 2010. The drilling, extraction and support industries employed 569,000 people nationwide in 2012, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Although it grew faster than other sectors of the economy, the core of oil and gas employment constitutes only one half of one percent of total US private sector employment. This total includes jobs unrelated to shale development and jobs that preceded the shale boom. As for job growth, the EIA indicates that 161,600 of these jobs were added between 2007 and 2012. Drilling jobs specifically increased by only 6,600.

Impressive growth percentages notwithstanding, that is not a lot of jobs. In 2010, more than 143 million people were employed in the US, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

In Pennsylvania, the Multi-State Shale Research Collaborative (MSSRC) report on shale employment in the Marcellus states found that shale development accounts for 1 out of every 249 jobs, while the education and health sectors account for 1 out of every 6 jobs.

FedEx drivers?

The central issue with job projections is how many additional jobs are credited to oil and gas development beyond the relatively small number of people directly employed in oil and gas extraction.

In December 2014, Pennsylvania’s Department of Labor and Industry reported that just over 31,000 people were employed in the state’s oil and gas industry. That figure was higher than the federal data indicates, but appears to be reasonable. However, what’s striking is that the Department attributed another 212,000 jobs to shale development by adding employment in 30 “ancillary” industries.

All employment in these related industries – including such major employers as construction and trucking – was included in this attributed jobs figure. Thus, a driver delivering for FedEx or a housing construction worker were “claimed” as jobs produced by the shale industry.

This is eye-rolling territory for economists. They know that attributing two additional jobs to every one directly created in an industry is very generous. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania attributed seven additional jobs to each one created in the oil and gas industry.

Depending on how broadly you define the state’s oil and gas industry, between 5,400 and 31,000 people were employed in Pennsylvania before many of the rigs started pulling out in 2012 to head west. Certainly, jobs in other sectors were also created, but a generous estimate would be 30,000 to 60,000 rather than the hundreds of thousands claimed by industry promoters.

QCEW is the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, a federal-state cooperative program that is based largely on the quarterly Unemployment Insurance reports filed by employers. Multi-State Shale Research Collaborative, Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center, Author provided.

The MSSRC report demonstrates that only a tiny portion (under 1%) of jobs in many of these 30 industries could be related to shale development activities, and further, that Pennsylvania employment in these industries overall changed little before, during, and after the shale boom.

The real winner: Texas

Beyond the exaggerated numbers, a geographic blindness obscures our view of fracking jobs. Where do the workers extracting gas in Pennsylvania or Ohio live and spend their money? Where are the best jobs located? While the fracking industry may support the national economy as a whole, some places are winners and others are losers.

In Ohio, where extraction continues because its shale holds both natural gas and other valuable “wet gas” hydrocarbons, a series of investigative reports by The Columbus Dispatch showed that at least a third of the workforce in drilling areas are transient workers. In the four Ohio counties with the most shale permits, the number of local people employed actually decreased between 2007 and 2013.

This tells us that the production sites aren’t necessarily the places that get the economic boost. The most skilled workers on drilling crews are from Texas and Oklahoma and they return home to spend their earnings. Northern Pennsylvania drilling crews spent much of their money in the Southern Tier of New York.

My own research on the geography of shale jobs shows that Texas has derived the lion’s share of the benefits from US fracking. Texas has consistently had around half the jobs in the oil and gas industry (currently 47%). During the 2007-2012 shale boom, Pennsylvania gained 15,114 jobs in the drilling, extraction and support industries, but Texas gained 64,515 – over four times as many jobs. Texas not only has much of the skilled drilling workforce, but the majority of the industry’s managers, scientists and experts, who staff the global firms headquartered in Houston. Still, even in Texas, energy-related jobs constitute only 2.5% of the state’s now more diversified employment.

What does this tell us about New York’s decision on fracking? Andrew Cuomo may have decided that the state would do better providing finance capital to the oil and gas industry from Wall Street rather than taking on high-risk, low-reward fracking production. _________________________________

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Frack Sand Truck Accident

Fracking’s biggest safety threat is on rural roads

From an Article by John Finnerty, CNHI State Reporter, December 25, 2014

Editor’s note: As Ashtabula County works to begin fracking in the county, the following is part of a series about fracking in neighbor Pennsylvania. [Ashtabula County is the largest county in Ohio, on Lake Erie it borders Penna., and grows 65% of the grapes grown in Ohio.]

HARRISBURG, Pa. — One of the first things a firefighter or police officer must know when rushing to a heavy truck crash in the heart of Marcellus Shale country: Don’t believe what it says on side of the truck.

“We’ve had accidents where it said ‘fresh water’ on the side of the truck,” said Craig Konkle, energy development emergency services coordinator for Lycoming County. “But when it started leaking black liquid, we knew we weren’t dealing with fresh water.”

While environmental concerns dominate much of the debate about the effect of gas drilling in rural Pennsylvania, Konkle said the single greatest threat to public safety is on the roads.

The fast expansion of drilling activity has created a surge in traffic. Trucks carry water – often polluted from the drilling process – to and from wells. They also haul sand, as well as solids extracted during drilling and chemicals used to force open gas reservoirs beneath the surface.

Often truck cargo isn’t labeled. Much of the byproduct from drillers’ fracking process — including the briny, chemically laced water — is classified as “residual waste.” Drilling waste has been exempt from federal hazardous waste rules since the 1980s, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. So there are rarely placards on the trucks.

While trucks pass without markings, there is little doubt about the volume of material that’s being shipped over the state’s roads. Drillers generated 32 million barrels of liquid waste and another 1.3 million tons of solid waste last year, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Some of that went over the border into Ohio, where drillers shipped 3 million barrels of liquid waste, according to state records. They were on pace to export a similar amount this year.

The passage of those trucks is often fraught. Many drivers hail from Texas or Oklahoma – places without the snow-slicked mountains typical of Northern Tier winters, said Chris Smith, with Lycoming County’s Community Traffic Safety Project. And accidents are more and more common.

Collectively, the state’s five-busiest drilling counties recorded 123 more heavy truck crashes in 2011 than they did just two years earlier, when the gas boom started, Department of Transportation data shows. That’s a 107 percent jump. (The number of deaths in those crashes grew modestly, from 75 to 79 during the same period)

One fatal crash in 2011 took the life of John T. Jones III. He was driving a Subaru Legacy in Susquehanna County when a Mack truck came barreling down a hill, went through a stop sign and rolled over on top of his car.

Documents from a lawsuit filed by Jones’ widow show that the truck driver, who came to the Marcellus region from Texas, had expressed misgivings about the safety of his truck but was ordered to take it because it was the only one available that day.

Jones’ daughter, Allison Jones, was in the car but survived the crash. She said she doesn’t blame the driver. “It’s not like he made the decision to drive the truck, even though it was a bad truck,” she said in a deposition. Jones’ family settled with Southeast Directional Drilling in 2012. Terms were not disclosed.

The number of heavy truck crashes has since fallen from its 2011 high, but it’s still 58 percent higher than in 2009.

Smith said safety practices vary by company. Most are responsible, but not all. “There are some contractors who feel that it’s more important to get to the site” than take precautions in bad weather, she said. Smith said she spoke to one driver who told her: “I was hoping that the State Police would pull me over to get the truck I was driving off the road.”

Truck crashes pose other dangers — to areas where cargos are spilled and to emergency workers who often can’t be sure what’s inside. Truckers are supposed to carry manifests of their loads, Konkle said. But during an emergency, accessing the paperwork in the cab might be difficult, or the driver may be too injured to talk.

Rescue workers are trained to focus first on protecting nearby streams or waterways, he said. Generally, the immediate threat from gas wastewater is extremely high levels of saline, he said. But local fire companies may be at a loss for someone on duty who’s up-to-speed on handling a complicated spill, especially in the rural areas where these crashes often happen. “For your local guys, it’s tough to be trained up on everything,” he said. Or, if an expert is available, sometimes they cannot get there in time.

Last April, a tanker carrying diesel fuel failed to stop at a red light and slammed into two trucks hauling fracking water. The Washington County episode sent 400 gallons of fracking water and 1,300 gallons of diesel into a nearby stream.

Smith said local officials have tried to respond to the dangers posed by fracking truck traffic. Her safety project gets a $94,000 grant, about half of which is used to forge connections between public safety officials and local gas industry companies that encourage safer driving.

In addition, Lycoming County uses a portion of its $5 million in well impact fees to prepare firefighters for emergencies involving trucks that haul chemicals for fracking or waste from drilling sites. While Pennsylvania doesn’t tax drillers for the gas they extract, companies must pay a $50,000 fee per well. Much of that money goes to local governments where drilling takes place.

So far, Lycoming County’s classes, run through Pennsylvania College of Technology in Williamsport, have trained 148 firefighters, said David Pistner, director of energy initiatives for the college.

See also:  www.FrackCheckWV.net

Land & Stream Pipeline-Disturbances in WV

WV Wilderness group fights against gas companies over pipeline in Pocahontas County

Based upon a Report from News 59, WVNS-TV, August 19, 2014

MARLINTON – The West Virginia Wilderness group has been fighting for months with three gas companies that want to put a pipeline in Pocahontas County.

Lauren Ragland is the founder of West Virginia Wilderness. She said the pipeline does not belong in Pocahontas County. “There are three gas companies that want to race over the Allegheny mountains with natural gas that would permanently affect our area. These are 42 inch pipelines or transmission pipelines and they would race and roar through the mountains,” Ragland said.

She said the gas companies are not telling the public all the information about what the pipeline will do to the land. “It’s like saying I’m gonna build a garden but you don’t mention that you plan to disturb the land and you need to add things to the dirt”. Ragland wants the County Commission to say no to the gas companies like some other neighboring counties have been doing in Virginia.

The Pocahontas County Commission met Tuesday, August 19th to hear from both West Virginia Wilderness and representatives of Dominion Resources’ companies. The commission did not decide anything, but instead listened to both sides and the public.

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Ed Wade of the Wetzel County Action Group was in Marlington to present his photo collection of disturbances to the land and streams due to pipeline construction in WV.  He said that Dominion has no experience with such a large pipeline (42 inch diameter) and severe damages would be done to the mountains including the Monongahela National Forest.

The Dominion SE-Pipeline would originate in Harrison County, WV, and continue thru Lewis, Upshur, Randolph and Pocahontas counties in West Virginia. Then, it would disturb in Virginia the counties of Highland, Augusta, Nelson, Buckingham, Cumberland, Prince Edward, Nottoway, Dinwiddie, Brunswick, Greenville, and Southampton before entering North Carolina.

Dominion has presented their plans also in Nelson County, Virginia, where the citizens have become actively involved as reported here and here.

This SE-Pipeline could be re-purposed or dual-purposed to move natural gas from West Virginia to the East Coast for ocean shipment as liquefied natural gas (LNG) to other countries, thus increasing the price of natural gas in the US. Dominion denies any such intention at this time.

See the previous FrackCheckWV post on the SE-Pipeline here.

Extensive Land Disturbances Continue Unabated

WVU Researchers Focus on Reducing Shale Drilling Risks

From an Article by David Bradley, NGI Shale Daily, June 27, 2014

A series of precautions, some of which are already being used, can help reduce environmental and health risks associated with horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking), according to a study by researchers at West Virginia University (WVU).

The study, published in Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts, includes recommendations to address air, noise and light pollution, water management, and engineering flaws associated with horizontal gas well development and completion. The researchers reviewed environmental literature relevant to shale gas development and examined more than 15 Marcellus Shale facilities in northern West Virginia.

“These facilities are often located within a few hundred meters of homes and farms, many of which are supplied by shallow water wells,” said Paul Ziemkiewicz, one of four co-authors of the study and director of the West Virginia Water Research Institute. “As a result, many of the public’s concerns focus on air and groundwater pollution as well as light and noise associated with horizontal drilling and well completion. This study was initiated largely due to these public concerns.”

The researchers concluded that well sites should have properly constructed containment structures in the event of a well blowout or large fluid leak, and that all wells should be pressure tested before fracking operations, and should include blowout preventers to bring any uncontrolled fluid release under control quickly. Other recommendations, some of which are already incorporated by the industry and regulatory agencies, include:

Waste transportation plans — The planned disposal of liquid and solid waste should be a required and enforceable component of well permits;

Pits and impoundments — Better training is needed for regulatory and industry field inspectors to significantly improve the design and construction of storage pits and impoundments for liquid waste;

Air monitors and sound meters — Installation of air monitors and sound meters at sensitive locations and connect to a central monitoring station;

Noise reduction — Route traffic away from residences where possible, use better wetting agents to reduce peak dust exposures, and stage traffic to reduce both diesel exhaust concentrations and noise; and

Performance-based standards — Require placement of continuous monitoring instruments near sensitive locations for feedback and process control at drill sites for air, light and noise.

They also called for further study of solid wastes from fracking, and research to identify the source of airborne contaminants found at horizontal drilling operations.

Responsible utilization of shale gas is one of the focus areas of WVU’s “Mountains of Excellence” research program, which was introduced in 2012.