Pipeline work requires extra time and effort

News Release, US Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division

Date March 13, 2019, News Release Number 19-0224-PHI

MILLWOOD, WV – After an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD), the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia has ordered Team Environmental LLC – a natural gas pipeline construction management company based in Millwood, West Virginia – to pay 300 safety inspectors $1,850,000 in back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages for violating the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

WHD investigators found that – from October 20, 2012, to May 8, 2015 – Team Environmental LLC paid its inspectors day rates for all the hours that they worked but failed to pay employees overtime when they worked over 40 hours in a workweek. While the employer argued that the manner in which they paid employees was “industry practice,” WHD found their practices violated the FLSA.

“Team Environmental LLC’s practices resulted in their employees taking home less money than they had legally earned,” said Wage and Hour District Director John DuMont, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. “Other employers should use this as an opportunity to evaluate their own pay practices using the many tools we provide to ensure that they comply with federal labor law. Costly violations like those in this case can be avoided.”

In addition to paying the back wages and damages, the company is enjoined from violating provisions of the FLSA in the future.

“As the Court correctly concluded, industry practice does not relieve an employer from obligations to comply with the FLSA,” said Associate Regional Solicitor Samantha N. Thomas in Arlington, Virginia. “Employees are entitled to their full wages for all the hours that they work, including overtime. This consent judgment helps to level the playing field for employers that abide by the law and encourage FLSA compliance in this industry.”

The FLSA requires that covered, non-exempt employees be paid at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour for all hours worked, plus time and one-half their regular rates for hours worked beyond 40 per week. Employers must also maintain accurate time and payroll records. For more information about the FLSA and other federal wage laws, call the Division’s toll-free helpline at 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243). Information also is available at http://www.dol.gov/whd. Employers who discover overtime or minimum wage violations may self-report and resolve those violations without litigation through the PAID program.

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The Coal Industry Extracted a Steep Price From West Virginia. Now Natural Gas Is Leading the State Down the Same Path. — ProPublica, April 27, 2018.

2017 Anadarko Explosion In Firestone, Colorado

From an Article by the Staff, Colorado Independent, May 11, 2018

Earlier this week, we reported on allegations made by six former Anadarko employees who say the oil and gas giant demonstrated a pattern of ignoring safety concerns in the years, months and weeks leading up to last year’s fatal explosion of a home in Firestone.

Among those speaking out in a class-action lawsuit are the company’s former longtime chief lobbyist, Chris Castilian, and its former longtime spokeswoman, Robin Olsen – both of whom say Anadarko has lost its credibility when it comes to safety and corporate citizenship. Olsen is cited in the lawsuit saying that when she urged her boss to address safety concerns, he told her to “keep quiet” and “shovel shit.”

Indy Editor Susan Greene broke the story and spoke with KGNU’s News Director Maeve Conran about what these allegations mean for Anadarko’s operations in Colorado, for the broader oil and gas industry, for the state agency tasked with regulating oil and gas operations, and for this year’s gubernatorial election.

At issue, Susan says, is whether Anadarko has met its end of the social contract it has in our state and how much uncertainty folks in its gas patch are living with.

Also in question is the extent to which the company and its high-paid proxies are set on trying to avoid increased regulations and block U.S. Rep Jared Polis, a longtime fracking critic, from becoming governor.

Here’s the audio…. Listen Here

Diesel exhausts near Barr family home

Marcellus Shale impacts still large in Wetzel County

From an Article by Mandi Cardosi, WTRF 7 News, Wheeling, WV, April 11, 2014

Wetzel County has always been a producer of natural gas, but a boom in the Marcellus Shale gas drilling really put it on the map for the Mountain State. Since 2008, the county at the base of the Northern Panhandle saw an increase in drilling by 6,000 percent.

A recent collaborative research effort looking into the shale drilling was released to show the effects of the oil and gas industry on West Virginia, among other surrounding states. The Multi-State Shale Research Collaborative, of which the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy participated in, released case studies April 10, which examined the impacts of shale oil and gas drilling in four active communities.

Read the case studies HERE.

The study looked at Carroll County in Ohio, Greene and Tioga counties in Pennsylvania and Wetzel County in West Virginia.

West Virginia is unique in that companies have been taking actions to sever surface rights from mineral rights, meaning some individuals do not own the mineral right so their land. This means some residents don’t have control over fracking on their property and are limited in being compensated from the oil and gas companies.

“Overall, the impact is unclear with how much royalty payments are flowing in,” said Sean O’Leary, fiscal policy analyst with the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy. “Local officials will note jobs in gas industry are going to out of state workers.”

Unemployment in the county remains 3 percent higher than the state average at over 10 percent. ”There hasn’t been a population boom as you see in other counties (including Pennsylvania and Ohio drilling counties),” O’Leary said. “The population continues to decline – you’re also not seeing new home constructions, sales, real estate prices are the same.”

The community in Wetzel County was, according to the WVCBP, still impacted by the industry in the fact that officials were caught off-guard when it came to town, so to speak.

O’Leary said his best advice for communities would be proper planning, as Wetzel County has a task force of county leaders to discuss road damage from heavy truck traffic as well as other primary concerns.

By promising more jobs, the oil and gas industry hasn’t delivered in many cases and Wetzel County continues to suffer from the double-digit unemployment despite having some of the highest natural gas production in the region, the WVBPC said.

“In Wetzel County the Marcellus shale boom has brought some growth but less development,” said Ted Boettner, executive director of the WVCBP. “This highlights why it is so important for communities to enact policies that ensure that they are better off, not worse off, after the drilling subsides.”

In the debate over whether hydraulic fracturing should be allowed in New York State, the need for millions of gallons of water at each well is a major concern, according to Matt Richmond of Radio WSKG.  Now a Canadian company called GasFrac is trying to eliminate the large volume (2 to 8 million gallons) of water for every well being fracked by using propane instead of water.

Kyle Ward  of GasFrac says that, besides propane, there are only four ingredients in the company’s fracking fluid, all of which decompose naturally. Not only that, all of the propane comes back out of the well, whereas much of the water used in fracking stays underground.

Ward says the propane that comes back up out of the well can be easily separated. It’s then sold or reused.  “The propane fracturing would leave most of those naturally-occurring constituents down in the shale,” says Dave Yoxtheimer of Penn State’s Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research.

While Yoxtheimer says propane offers a solution for the challenge posed by wastewater treatment, he says it also creates new risks. “You have a large volume of an explosive substance that you’re transporting and then handling onsite,” Yoxtheimer says. In fact, a recent explosion at a Gasfrac site in Alberta led to a three-week shutdown in operations while the company reviewed its safety procedures.

The company has expanded anyway, fracturing more than 500 wells in 2011. That’s a nearly four-fold growth in just two years. This year the company completed its first wells in Ohio’s Utica Shale. Gasfrac’s Kyle Ward says the technology, which was first used in 2008, should also increase production by up to 30 percent over the life of a well. It’s too soon to say whether that’s true. Still, the company’s expansion after just a couple of years is a sign that the technology is attractive to companies.

But Nadia Steinzor of the Oil & Gas Accountability Project says regulators should take a close look at the use of propane, also known as LPG fracking, before it spreads.  “Every time there’s a new technology that could get more gas out of the ground, a lot of people get really excited,” says Steinzor. “But just because LPG is new and different and doesn’t use water, doesn’t make it safe.”

Steinzor’s group along with 14 other environmental organizations sent a letter to New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) in April.  The coalition is calling on the DEC to perform a separate environmental review of propane-based fracking before allowing it in the state.

A deal with a landowners’ group in New York’s Southern Tier that would have required drillers to use Gasfrac has been put on hold since first being reported in March.  An earlier report on propane fracking was presented here in FrackCheckWV.net

As reported by the Wheeling Intelligencer, the Ohio County Board of Education is objecting to Chesapeake Energy’s proposed natural gas drilling site near Wheeling Park High School. In a letter to the WV Department of Environmental Protection, concern is about evacuation routes and increased truck traffic. The well site is less than 1,000 feet from the high school’s track and about a half-mile from the J.B. Chambers Performing Arts Center.

“Should an explosion, spill, trucking accident, fire or other emergency at the proposed well site occur, the close proximity creates a clear and present danger for the safety of approximately 2,000 individuals who either attend the school or work there daily,” states the letter, which was signed by all board members and Superintendent George Krelis. Krelis during Wednesday’s meeting noted the board of education previously decided against leasing any of the school system’s property to drilling companies.

Ohio County Schools Deputy Superintendent Dianna Vargo said Chesapeake Energy wants to meet with school system officials and other stakeholders to discuss the proposed well site. Krelis said the school system will express their opposition during that meeting, which has not yet been scheduled.

The land on which the well would be drilled is owned by the Parks System Trust Fund of Wheeling and the lease is signed by members of the Wheeling Park Commission. Park Commission President and Chief Executive Officer J. Douglas Dalby said Chesapeake Energy is following the proper procedures in preparing to drill the wells on the trust fund’s property. “We believe in safety first. If there are safety issues that need to be addressed, Chesapeake needs to address them,” Dalby said. “I believe the issue of truck traffic is a legitimate concern that the school has raised.”

Stacey Brodak of Chesapeake Energy said the company has drilled many wells safely in urban settings, including some near Bethany College and West Liberty University and is willing to address the concerns of Ohio County Schools officials. However, substantial concern also exists in Brooke County over heavy truck traffic and pollution from drilling and fracking.  The “March at Bethany College” is set for this Saturday, May 5^th.

The West Virginia DEP’s emergency rule issued on August 22nd references i well site safety standards and casing and cementing standards.  To develop these plans, the DEP is seeking input from the public through September 30th.  These may be mailed to the Office of Oil and Gas, 601 57th St., S.E., Charleston, W. Va., 25304 or e-mailed to DEP.comments@wv.gov.  You can download the casing and cementing standards here, and the well site safety plan standards here.

On June 30, 2011, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) announced the release of preliminary  revised regulations on hydraulic fracturing.  I was initially impressed with the scope and depth of the regulation, particularly since the regulations included banning fracking on public lands and air pollution regulations.

However, the New York Water Rangers Campaign, a collection of seven public health/environmental advocate groups, issued a press release that itemizes what the groups have collectively prioritized as the Top Ten Fracking Flaws in the preliminary revised regulations.  Below is an abbreviated version of the list.

1. New York State isn’t proposing to ban any chemicals, even those known to be toxic and carcinogenic.
2. The preliminary draft allows drilling waste to escape treatment as hazardous waste, even if it is in fact hazardous under the law. This means fracking waste could be sent to treatment facilities unable to properly treat it, putting the health and safety of our waters and communities at grave risk.
3. The state proposes allowing sewage plants to treat drilling wastes.
4. Drinking water supplies would be inadequately protected. The preliminary draft increases buffers and setbacks from aquifers and wells. However the protections are inconsistent and can be waived in some instances.
5. Some fracking restrictions would have sunset dates.
6. The preliminary draft does not analyze public health impacts, despite the fact that fracking-related air pollution and the potential for water contamination have serious effects on people—especially the elderly and children, and communities downwind and downstream of proposed fracking operations. There is growing evidence of negative health impacts related to gas extraction in other states.
7. The DEC proposes issuing permits before formal rulemaking is complete, a backward move that leaves New York’s waters and communities at risk.
8. The state is breaking up environmental impact reviews. The thousands of miles of pipelines or compressor stations required for drilling to get the resulting gas to market will be reviewed by a different agency under a different process.
9. While proposing to put the New York City and Syracuse watersheds off- limits to drilling, critical water supply infrastructure would not be protected. The state proposes…….(an inadequate)….. buffer around New York City drinking water infrastructure in which only an additional review would be required and upon which projects could be permitted—not a formal ban.
10. New York’s environmental agency has been subject to steep budget and staff cuts and does not have adequate staff or resources to properly oversee fracking, even if every possible protection were in place.

“Without providing the necessary measures that will prevent pollution from drilling and fracking, New York’s communities and environment will suffer like Pennsylvania’s,where drilling is running wild. On the whole, the revised Draft doesn’t cure the ills of gas development that are the most dangerous so the industry’s interests will win out over public health,” said Tracy Carluccio, Deputy Director, Delaware Riverkeeper Network.

A press release by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation summarizes the preliminary changes.  The recommendations contain these major revisions:

• High-volume fracturing would be prohibited in the New York City and Syracuse watersheds, including a buffer zone;
• Drilling would be prohibited within primary aquifers and within 500 feet of their boundaries;
• Surface drilling would be prohibited on state-owned land including parks, forest areas and wildlife management areas;
• High-volume fracturing will be permitted on privately held lands under rigorous and effective controls; and
• DEC will issue regulations to codify these recommendations into state law.

The complete revised draft is expected to be released for public comment and review in August. The groups are strongly requesting the DEC to expand public comment period from 60 days, one month less than the public comment period for the first draft of the SGEIS, to at least 180 days.

The full 1,095 page Preliminary Revised Draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement is available here.