Fracking is a big deal where ever it occurs AND chemical spill$ can occur!!!

From an Article by Reid Frazier, Allegheny Front, November 17, 2022

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has fined the natural gas drilling company CNX some $200,000 for spilling natural gas production fluids at well sites in Greene County, Pennsylvania.

The spills took place between 2019 and 2021, all in Richhill Township. (Greene County is in the extreme southwest corner of Pennsylvania bordering West Virginia on the south and west.)

The largest spill took place on September 18, 2019, in which approximately 40 barrels, or 1,680 gallons, of production fluid leaked out of a containment structure and spilled on the ground at CNX RHL 71 and RHL 87 well site.

The PA-DEP said the company tried to make repairs to the containment and remove fluids from the site. But CNX “postponed full remediation nearly 70 days due to its ongoing hydraulic fracturing activities,” according to a PA-DEP press release. In total, the company had to remove nearly 1,400 tons of contaminated soil at the site.

Another spill occurred at the site on January 23, 2021, in which 420 gallons of fluid discharged onto the ground due to an “equipment failure.” Another spill of 40 gallons occurred three months later.

A smaller incident occurred in December 2019, in which 30 gallons of fluid leaked out of containment and into a sediment basin at the company’s RHL 4 well pad. According to the PA-DEP, “CNX postponed removal of contaminated soil until hydraulic fracturing was completed, and the discharge continued for days.”

The company ended up removing nearly 2,000 tons of contaminated soil from the site.

“Delays like these are unacceptable. PA-DEP expects, and the regulations require, prompt reporting and cleanup of spills and that operators will take measures to prevent future incidents,” said PA-DEP southwest district oil and gas manager Dan Counahan, in a statement.

Production fluids are a byproduct of the drilling and fracking process in oil and gas production. They can contain high levels of naturally-occurring metals, radioactive materials, and salts, but also can contain fracking chemicals. The fluid is too toxic for disposal in municipal wastewater facilities and is typically disposed of in deep injection wells.

The company paid two fines, of $125,000 and $75,000, for the violations. The money will go toward the state’s fund to plug abandoned oil and gas wells.

>> This story is produced in partnership with StateImpact Pennsylvania, a collaboration among The Allegheny Front, WPSU, WITF and WHYY to cover the commonwealth’s energy economy.

Sunoco Mariner East 2 Pipeline appears “high risk” for residents

Editorial of the Delaware County Daily Times, Swarthmore (Pa), January 25, 2018

A community group has asked Delaware County Council to do a risk assessment on the Mariner East 2 pipeline project, seen in the photo during construction. Council has agreed to the request.

Don’t look now, but those who for months have opposed Sunoco’s massive $2.5 billion Mariner East 2 pipeline project have just scored a couple of significant victories.

First, the PA state Department of Environmental Protection halted all construction on the pipeline project across the state. The PA-DEP cited “egregious” problems that have plagued work on the pipeline now for months, including several discharges and spills. In at least one instance, private water wells in Chester County were disturbed.

The state also noted that Sunoco Pipeline LP, the offshoot of Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners, which is planning to move hundreds of thousands of barrels of volatile gases across the state, from the Marcellus Shale region to Marcus Hook, had done some work for which it was not permitted. Mostly, it involved a controversial drilling technique called Horizontal Directional Drilling, which the company utilizes in tricky areas and which they say is actually less destructive to the environment.

But they got caught doing it out near Harrisburg in an area where they were not permitted to do so. So the PA-DEP finally shut down all work until Sunoco can come in with a report telling them how they plan to avoid any more mishaps and adhere to all PA-DEP regulations. Sunoco says it plans to do just that.

Then this week a group of citizens opposed to the pipeline appeared before Delaware County Council asking them to support their push for a full risk assessment study of the project and its effects on the county.

Council, which was one of the early supporters of the pipeline plan and the economic boost it held for the county, agreed.

Council Chairman John McBlain and new Democratic Councilman Brian Zidek will set up the parameters for the study, then council will put the project out for bid for outside consultants.

It’s one of the persistent cries of those who have watched in horror as Mariner East 2 has cut an ugly path through the county. Sunoco, having been granted the crucial public utility status by the courts years ago, went about acquiring property as close as possible to an existing pipeline, Mariner East 1. That line, which used to ferry oil to the refinery at Marcus Hook, already is up and running delivering the kind of ethane, butane and propane that for the most part will be stored at the Marcus Hook Industrial Complex before being shipped to markets overseas.

Look, putting in a pipeline is not pretty. And one look at the neighborhoods where Mariner East 2 has come in – 11 miles across western Delaware County and another 25 miles across Chester County – can easily attest to that. Eventually, Sunoco insists, the landscape will be restored and no one will know the pipeline is there. After all, pipelines are not exactly a new idea in this area of the state. There are hundreds of miles of pipeline criss-crossing all kinds of neighborhoods.

But none will carry the kind – or the amount – of materials that Mariner East 2 will ferry across Delaware County. Through densely populated neighborhoods. A few hundred feet from elementary schools such as Glenwood Elementary in Middletown.

Those who stand against the pipeline don’t buy all the hype about the economic benefits of this project. They are leery of almost anything Sunoco says, and they have the scars to prove it.

But while they grudgingly admit there is an economic benefit to the pipeline, they continue to question why that necessarily overrules their safety concerns, their hardships during construction, their property values, and their worries about problems once the pipeline is up and running.

And they question why no risk assessment was done before the project was approved.

In fact, several state legislators, including state Rep. Chris Quinn, R-168 of Middletown, and Chester County Sen. Andy Dinniman, D-19 of West Whiteland, have fired off letters to Gov. Tom Wolf asking for exactly that.

“There is no example of a pipeline of that size with this sort of material running through a built-up area like our county,” George Alexander of Media told County Council.

Eve Miari, a member of the Middletown Coalition for Community Safety, one of the most vocal critics of Mariner East 2, said no governing body in the state has stepped up to answer questions or at least delve into the potential for a problem.

“We have a huge regulatory gap where no one at the federal or state level is looking out for the safety of the residents and you have an out-of-state corporation basically putting their pipeline through the regulatory hole,” Miari told council.

For their part, Sunoco and their backers among labor unions and the oil and natural gas industry, insist that they are following all state regulations in construction of Mariner East 2, and that it is being installed and will be operated to the highest industry standards.

Sunoco spokesman Jeff Shields responded to the move by County Council by saying the project has been “thoroughly vetted” by federal, state and local agencies. He pointed out that pipelines have been used to move natural gas and other materials safely across Pennsylvania for nearly 100 years, including in many areas across Delaware County, and in close proximity to schools, hospitals, senior living facilities and homes.

“We have been living with these pipelines safely for decades, and we know that pipelines are the safest way to transport petroleum products,” Shields said. Opponents remain unconvinced. And the tide just might be turning in their direction. It’s late in the game, but their questions are not going to go away. It might be the only way to resolve their concerns. Bring on the risk assessment.

Five or six workers clean up after Rover pipeline

From an Article by Scott DiSavino, Reuters News Service, January 12, 2018

(Reuters) – Ohio environmental regulators on Friday told federal energy regulators the state has significant concerns about the potential for a spill from Energy Transfer Partners LP’s drilling under a river as the company works on the Rover natural gas pipeline.

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency said in a filing with the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that it learned this week that 148,000 gallons of drilling fluid were “lost down the hole” that ETP is drilling under the Tuscarawas River in Stark County, Ohio.

That is the same site as a spill last April of 2 million gallons of mostly clay and water used to lubricate drilling blades, which led FERC to temporarily ban ETP from new horizontal drilling.

The state has “significant concerns for the potential of similar releases as occurred at this location in April,” it said in the filing. “We are deeply concerned this second drill under the Tuscarawas River is heading towards a similar outcome which resulted in the previous release to the environment.”

The state EPA said in its filing the company has not discovered any new spills in the area. Ohio, which asked FERC to ban all of ETP’s horizontal directional drilling in November, said in its filing on Friday it wants more information on the Tuscarawas drilling.

FERC in December allowed ETP to complete all horizontal drills on the Rover project, including those in Ohio. Pipeline companies use horizontal directional drilling to cross under large obstacles like highways and rivers.

Once finished, the $4.2 billion Rover pipeline will carry up to 3.25 billion cubic feet of gas per day from the Marcellus and Utica shale fields in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia to the U.S. Midwest and Ontario in Canada. One billion cubic feet per day of gas can supply about five million U.S. homes.

ETP said in December it expected to finish Rover by the end of the first quarter. About 0.9 bcfd of gas was already flowing on the completed portions of the pipeline, according to Reuters data.

Major gas producers that have signed up to use Rover include units of privately held Ascent Resources LLC, Antero Resources Corp, Range Resources Corp, Southwestern Energy Co, Eclipse Resources Corp and EQT Corp.

Rover is in WV Counties Doddridge, Tyler, etc.

Example of Drilling Mud Spill for Pipeline

From an Article by Joe Fisher and Maya Weber, Platts News Service, August 9, 2017

Houston — Energy Transfer Partners’ beleaguered Rover Pipeline natural gas project is expected to be in service by the end of November or early December, with full commercial service in January, company executives said Wednesday.

>>> Phase 1A of Rover — from Cadiz to Defiance, Ohio — is nearly done, with completion expected by the company in the coming days, executives said during a second-quarter earnings conference call. When finished, Rover will seek US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission permission to place those facilities into service.

>>> Phase 1B is awaiting FERC approval for one directional drill. With that approval in hand, the drill should be completed in about 40 days, and in-service authorization will be sought immediately after that, executives said.

>>> Rover Phase 2 is held up at FERC as well.

“Assuming quick resolution by FERC regarding Phase 2, we expect to be in service by the end of November or early December with full commercial service in January,” Energy Transfer CFO Tom Long said.

Rover has faced regulatory setbacks after drilling releases into Ohio wetlands and demolition of a farmhouse that had been eligible for listing on a national historic registry. FERC initiated investigations related to both matters and ordered a stop to some directional drilling. The Ohio EPA has also proposed fines related to environmental mishaps and ordered remediation. And West Virginia regulators last month halted some operations in light of erosion and runoff problems.

Any signoff to bring parts of the project into service will require first satisfying FERC. The agency on July 12 gave Rover a substantial list of environmental restoration work it would require before allowing Mainline A of the project to enter service.

In addition, FERC has said that prior to authorizing future HDDs, commission staff “anticipates the development of a set of protocols to prevent future drilling and mud contamination.”

Cleanups to ‘resolve themselves pretty quickly’

Matt Ramsey, Energy Transfer’s chief operating officer, said Rover has been working with Ohio EPA and fully complying with its order for a cleanup project at the Tuscarawas River where an inadvertent release of drilling mud occurred. Cleanup is expected to be completed by mid-August, he said.

“Those issues are going to resolve themselves pretty quickly,” Ramsey said.

The drilling mud discharge contained diesel fuel of an unknown origin.

Energy Transfer maintains it does not know where the diesel could have come from. ETP executives do not expect FERC’s investigation into the matter to hold up bringing Rover into service, they said Wednesday.

In one positive development for the Rover project Wednesday, West Virginia’s Department of Environmental Protection lifted a cease and desist order it had issued in mid-July halting work on two supply laterals and a compressor station in Doddridge and Tyler counties. An inspection Wednesday determined that violations had been corrected, the DEP said. The agency had previously flagged failures to maintain erosion control devices needed to keep sediment out of waterways.

Energy Transfer recently announced the sale of a large stake in Rover to private equity firm Blackstone for $1.57 billion. Closing of the deal is not dependent upon the full in-service of Rover, executives said. Closing with Blackstone is expected in October.

Construction of the Rover-related Revolution project is expected to be completed during the fourth quarter, executives said Wednesday. The Revolution Pipeline originates in Butler County, Pennsylvania, and will extend to ETP’s Revolution Plant, a new cryogenic gas processing plant in Western Pennsylvania.

Mariner 2 Drill Approvals

Energy Transfer’s Mariner East 2 NGL pipeline project also has been bedeviled by regulatory and/or environmental issues. According to Long on Wednesday, about 80% of the pipeline has been strung and more than 70% has been welded. More than half of the pipeline has been lowered into its trench and backfilled.

Long said Wednesday that a halt on horizontal directional drilling in Pennsylvania instituted in July had been partially resolved.

“Over the last several days, the [Pennsylvania Environmental] Hearing Board has authorized ME2 to proceed with 16 drill locations,” he said. “We are working for approval to complete the remaining drills,” he said of the 39 drill sites where works remains stopped.

Mariner East 2 is expected to be in service during the fourth quarter, according to Energy Transfer.

The company has been in talks with potential partners that would provide capital for Mariner East 2 through a joint venture. Mackie McCrea, ETP’s chief commercial officer, said the company prefers a partner in the project that would bring long-term demand charges or long-term purchases.

Energy Transfer has been working on extending and restructuring “the vast majority” of agreements related to Mariner East 2. Rover is key to Mariner East 2 as well as the Revolution project, executives said.

The company is looking forward to a stronger balance sheet as these and other projects come online and begin generating revenue, and leverage comes down, executives said. Once earnings catch up with three years’ worth of project funding, its equity overhang will go away and there will be a “totally different balance sheet,” Long said.

During the second quarter, Energy Transfer Partners net income was $292 million, and adjusted EBITDA was $1.6 billion. Adjusted EBITDA increased $229 million compared to the year-ago quarter, “reflecting significantly higher results from the midstream and crude oil transportation and services segments,” the company said.

Mariner East 2 Pipeline from WV to Delaware River

From an Article by Kirk Jalbert, PhD, MFA, July 26, 2017

ME2 pipeline and spills map by Kirk JalbertLast week, a judge with the PA Environmental Hearing Board granted a two week halt to horizontal directional drilling (HDD) operations pertaining to the construction of Sunoco Logistics’ Mariner East 2 (ME2) pipeline. The temporary injunction responds to a petition from the Clean Air Council, Mountain Watershed Association, and the Delaware Riverkeeper Network. It remains in effect until a full hearing on the petition occurs on August 7-9, 2017.

ME2 is a 350-mile long pipeline that, when complete, will carry 275,000 barrels of propane, ethane, butane, and other hydrocarbons per day from the shale gas fields of Western Pennsylvania to a petrochemical export terminal located on the Delaware River.

The petition relates to a complaint filed by the three groups detailing as many as 90 “inadvertent returns” (IRs) of drilling fluids and other drilling related spills along ME2’s construction route. IRs refer to incidents that occur during HDD operations in which drilling fluids consisting of water, bentonite clay, and some chemical mixtures used to lubricate the drill bit, come to the surface in unintended places. This can occur due to misdirected drilling, unanticipated underground fissures, or equipment failure.

What is Horizontal Directional Drilling?

An illustration of an “ideal” horizontal directional drilling boring operation is seen in the first graphic below (image source). The second image shows what happens when HDDs go wrong (image source).

Mapping Inadvertent Returns

me2_ir_legendThe Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) posted information on potential regulatory violations associated with these IRs on the PA Pipeline Portal website on July 24, 2017. This original file listed 49 spill locations. Our original map was based on those locations. As part of their legal filing, volunteer at the Clean Air Council (CAC) have parsed through DEP documents to discover 90 unique spills at these and other locations. On July 31, 2017, the DEP posted a new file that now lists 61 spill locations, which account for some of these discrepancies but not all.

Working with the CAC, we have created a map, seen below, of the 90 known IRs listed in the DEP documents and from CAC’s findings. Also on the map are the locations of all of ME2’s HDD boring locations, pumping stations, and workspaces, as well as all the streams, ponds, and wetlands listed in Sunoco’s permits as implicated in the project’s construction (see our prior article on ME2’s watershed implications here). Open the map full-screen to see many of these features and their more detailed information.

View map fullscreen | How FracTracker maps work

Analysis Results for ME2

From our analysis, we find that, conservatively, more than 202,000 gallons of drilling fluids have been accidentally released while constructing the Mariner East 2 pipeline in Pennsylvania since the first documented incident on May 3rd. We say conservatively because a number of incidents are still under investigation. In a few instances we may never know the full volume of the spills as only a fraction of the total drilling muds lost were recovered. A full breakdown by county and known gallons spilled is seen below.

A few important notes on our methods and the available data we have to work with:

CAC obtained spill locations from DEP incident reports, inadvertent return reports, and other documents describing spills of drilling fluid that have occurred during Mariner East 2 construction. Those documents reflected incidents occurring between April 25, 2017 and June 17, 2017. In reviewing these documents, volunteers identified 61 discrete spills of drilling fluid, many of which happened at the same or similar locations. Unfortunately, separate coordinates and volumes were not provided for each spill.
When coordinates were not provided, approximate locations of spills were assigned where appropriate, based on descriptions in the documentation. Two IRs have no known location information whatsoever. As such, they are not represented on the map.
Spill volumes were reported as ranges when there was inconsistency in documentation regarding the same spill. The map circles represent the high-end estimates within these ranges. Of the 90 known spills, 29 have no volume data. These are represented on the map, but with a volume estimate of zero until more information is available.

All documentation available to CAC regarding these spills was filed with the Environmental Hearing Board on July 19, 2017. DEP subsequently posted a table of inadvertent returns on its website on July 24, 2017. Some of those spills were the same as ones already identified in documents CAC had reviewed, but 29 of the spills described on the DEP website were ones for which CCAC had never received documentation, although a subset of these are now listed in brief in the DEP spreadsheet posted on July 31, 2017. In total then, the documentation provided to CAC from DEP and spreadsheets on the DEP website describe at least 90 spills.

HDD Implications

The DEP’s press release assures the public that the drilling fluids are non-toxic and the IRs are “not expected to have any lasting effects on impacted waters of the commonwealth.” But this is not entirely the case. While the fluids themselves are not necessarily a public health threat, the release of drilling fluids into aquifers and drinking wells can make water unusable. This occurred in June in Chester County, for example.

More commonly, drilling fluid sediment in waterways can kill aquatic life due to the fine particulates associated with bentonite clay. Given that HDD is primarily used to lay pipe under streams, rivers, and ponds (as well as roads, parks, and other sensitive areas), this latter risk is a real concern. Such incidents have occurred in many of the instances cited in the DEP documents, including a release of drilling muds into a creek in Delaware County in May.

We hope the above map and summaries provide insights into the current risks associated with the project and levels of appropriate regulatory oversight, as well as for understanding the impacts associated with HDD, as it is often considered a benign aspect of pipeline construction.

Large high pressure gas pipeline on farmland

U.S. blocks major pipeline after 18 leaks and a 2 million gallon spill of drilling mud

Video in Article: Cleanup workers wade through the Rover pipeline spill in Ohio wetlands

From an Article by Steven Mufson, The Washington Post, May 10, 2017

A video shows drilling mud discharged into a wetland area along the Tuscarawas River south of the town of Navarre. The affected area is 1,000 feet long and 500 feet wide. (Ohio EPA)

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has curtailed work on a natural-gas pipeline in Ohio after the owner, Energy Transfer Partners, reported 18 leaks and spilled more than 2 million gallons of drilling materials.

The pipeline regulator blocked Energy Transfer Partners, which also built the controversial Dakota Access pipeline, from starting horizontal drilling in eight areas where drilling has not yet begun. In other areas, where the company has already begun horizontal drilling, the FERC said drilling could continue.

The FERC also ordered the company to double the number of environmental inspectors and to preserve documents the commission wants to examine as it investigates the spills.

The biggest spill, in a pristine wetland along the Tuscarawas River about 50 miles south of Akron, covered 6.5 acres, the commission said, “coating wetland soils and vegetation with bentonite clay and bore-hole cuttings.” A video provided by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency showed drilling mud a foot or two deep.

Energy Transfer Partners has asserted that the spills of nontoxic drilling mud, used to cool and lubricate drilling equipment, were inadvertent and had been predicted in its permit application to build the Rover gas pipeline. The horizontal drilling is done to place pipelines well below ground to minimize the chances of contamination of rivers or wetlands.

However, the FERC said that its staff has “serious concerns” regarding the magnitude of the largest spill, “its environmental impacts, the lack of clarity regarding the underlying reasons for its occurrence, and the possibility of future problems.”

It said that the largest spill was “several orders of magnitude greater than other documented inadvertent returns for this project.”

The commission, which regulates all natural gas pipelines, said that “a stoppage of additional drilling is warranted to facilitate a review of Rover’s efforts to search for and locate any potential releases.”

The Ohio EPA has fined Energy Transfer Partners about $400,000 and asked the FERC for support. Craig Butler, the Ohio EPA director, said the company’s response had been “dismissive,” “exceptionally disappointing” and unlike any other response he has seen from a company in his 27 years at the agency.

The Rover pipeline is $4.2 billion project that would link the shale-gas-rich regions of Appalachia to Michigan and Ontario.

It is just one of many pipelines whose fate lies in the hands of the FERC, a technocratic and relatively obscure agency. The five-member commission has lacked a quorum since early February, putting new permits on hold. That has placed an obstacle in the path of the White House.

The Trump administration late Monday nominated two new members for the commission, potentially clearing the way for controversial, multibillion-dollar pipeline and natural-gas export projects like Rover, which was one of the last permits issued in February.

The White House picked Neil Chatterjee, energy policy adviser to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and Robert F. Powelson, a member of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission since 2008.

President Trump has voiced support for new oil pipeline projects such as the Keystone XL and Dakota Access lines, and Gary Cohn, head of the White House National Economic Council, recently threw the administration’s support behind a liquefied natural gas export terminal in Oregon’s Jordan Cove that had been rejected by the FERC a few months ago.

The nominees, who must be confirmed by the Senate, would probably tilt the balance of the commission toward approving gas projects.

The Jordan Cove project was the only major LNG project the FERC has rejected. And the commission does not have jurisdiction over oil pipelines.

Nonetheless, leading Republicans and oil and gas industry groups have applauded the nominations. Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), a senior member of the Senate Environment Committee, said in a statement that he was “thrilled” and that the nominations would “ensure Republican leadership” of the commission and “bring a great, pro-energy perspective.”

Christopher Guith, a senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, called the nominations “phenomenal picks” and said, “From strained competitive markets to crucial energy infrastructure, FERC faces many challenges, and these nominees will help move America toward a more secure energy future.”

Height Securities said in a note to investors Tuesday that it would take about six weeks or more for the two nominees to be confirmed. “In the meantime, we believe FERC will continue avoiding controversial issues, even after quorum returns,” the firm said.

That could change once there is a new chairman. Height Securities said that the White House is expected to name Kevin McIntyre, co-head of the energy practice of the Cleveland-based law firm Jones Day, to serve as FERC chairman, further cementing the position of industry supporters.

Height said that the list of pipelines delayed by the lack of a FERC quorum includes the Nexus crossing Ohio, PennEast serving Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and Mountain Valley, serving West Virginia and Virginia. The stalled merger of Westar and Great Plains, two utilities, would need the FERC’s go-ahead once they finish ironing out final terms.

“For too long, FERC has merely served as a pit stop for the fossil fuel industry on its way to constructing dirty energy infrastructure,” Sierra Club global climate policy director John Coequyt said in a statement. “This cannot continue.”

A native of Lexington, Ky., Chatterjee has played a role in the passage of major energy, highway and farm legislation. Before working for McConnell, he worked in government relations for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association and as an aide to then-House Republican Conference Chairwoman Deborah Pryce of Ohio.

Powelson was first nominated to the Pennsylvania PUC by Gov. Edward G. Rendell (D) and appointed chairman by Gov. Tom Corbett (R) in 2011. Powelson serves as the president of National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.

Drilling mud spill on Rover Pipeline (See Video)

Ohio EPA orders Rover pipeline builder to pay $431,000 for violations

From an Article by Marion Renault, The Columbus Dispatch, May 8, 2017

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has ordered Energy Transfer, the company building the Rover natural gas distribution pipeline, to pay $431,000 for water and air pollution violations at various locations across the state.

In its order issued Friday, OEPA also instructed Energy Transfer to submit plans to address potential future releases and restore impacted wetlands along the $4.2 billion underground pipeline route, which stretches from Washington County in southeastern Ohio to Defiance County in the northwest.

Work on the pipeline began in mid-February, and state officials say a total of 18 incidents involving mud spills from drilling, stormwater pollution and open burning at Rover pipeline construction sites have been reported between late March and Monday to the agency.

That includes a 200-gallon release of mud Monday in Harrison County. Other Rover pipeline incidents include a spill that impacted one village’s public water system and another that smothered a protected wetland with several million gallons of bentonite mud, a natural clay which is used as a drilling lubricant.

“All told, our frustration is really high. We don’t think they’re taking Ohio seriously,” said OEPA Director Craig Butler. “Normally when we have … a series of events like this, companies respond with a whole lot of contrition and whole lot of commitment. We haven’t seen that. It’s pretty shocking.”

Alexis Daniel, an Energy Transfer spokeswoman, said Monday in an email statement that the “small number of inadvertent releases of ‘drilling mud’ during horizontal drilling in Ohio … is not an unusual occurrence when executing directional drilling operations and is all permitted activity by (the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission).

“We do not believe that there will be any impact to the environment,” Daniel said, adding that the company — the same one behind the controversial Dakota Access pipeline — is managing the Rover pipeline situation in accordance with its federal- and state-approved contingency plan.

After a pair of wetlands spills in April, Energy Transfer still planned to finish the Rover project and begin operating the pipeline this year.

“I believe and have told them that they’re rushing and building so quickly that they’re not paying attention to best management practice,” said Butler. “With oil and gas expanding in Ohio, we’ve seen a lot of pipeline activity. We’re not unaccustomed to seeing an occasional release. “This is pretty systemic — that’s when the alarm bells go off in my head.”

Butler said the OEPA has referred the matter to the FERC for analysis and is exploring other legal options.

“It’s very concerning. These violations are a swath across our entire state,” said Cheryl Johncox, a Sierra Club organizer. “We have no faith in their ability to operate a pipeline safely.”

OEPA inspectors across the state will continue to assist with monitoring, response and cleanup, Butler said.

But Sierra Club and other environmental groups are calling for the state to go further and seek an immediate injunction to shut down the project. Either this company is completely irresponsible or they just don’t care,” said Johncox. “We want the construction halted.”

Butler said the state “is limited in that we cannot ask them to shut down their operations. It’s a story left unfinished.

Plenty of spills also in West Virginia

Fracking Caused 6,648 Spills in Four States Alone, Duke Study Finds

From an Article by Lorraine Chow, EcoWatch.com, February 21, 2017

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has long been tied to environmental risks such as spills. The frequency of spills, however, has long been murky since states do not release standardized data. Estimates from the U.S. Environment Protection Agency (EPA) vary wildly.

“The number of spills nationally could range from approximately 100 to 3,700 spills annually, assuming 25,000 to 30,000 new wells are fractured per year,” the agency said in a June 2015 report. Also, the EPA reported only 457 spills related to fracking in 11 states between 2006 and 2012.

But now, a new study suggests that fracking-related spills occur at a much higher rate.  The analysis, published February 21st in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, revealed 6,648 spills in four states alone—Colorado, New Mexico, North Dakota and Pennsylvania—in 10 years.

The researchers determined that up to 16 percent of fracked oil and gas wells spill hydrocarbons, chemically laden water, fracking fluids and other substances.

For the study, the researchers examined state-level spill data to characterize spills associated with unconventional oil and gas development at 31,481 fracked wells in the four states between 2005 and 2014.

“On average, that’s equivalent to 55 spills per 1,000 wells in any given year,” lead author Lauren Patterson, a policy associate at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, told ResearchGate.

North Dakota reported the highest spill rate, with 4,453 incidents. Pennsylvania reported 1,293, Colorado reported 476 and New Mexico reported 426. The researchers created an interactive map of spill sites in the four states.

Although North Dakota is rich in oil, the state’s higher spill rate can be explained by varying state reporting requirements. North Dakota is required to report any spill larger than 42 gallons whereas requirement in Colorado and New Mexico is 210 gallons.

Patterson points out that the different reporting requirements are a problem.

“Our study concludes that making state spill data more uniform and accessible could provide stakeholders with important information on where to target efforts for locating and preventing future spills,” she told ResearchGate. “States would benefit from setting reporting requirements that generate actionable information—that is, information regulators and industry can use to identify and respond to risk ‘hot spots.’ It would also be beneficial to standardize how spills are reported. This would improve accuracy and make the data usable to understand spill risks.”

The reason why the researchers’ numbers vastly exceeded the 457 spills estimated by the EPA is because the agency only accounted for spills during the hydraulic fracturing stage itself, rather than the entire process of unconventional oil and gas production.

“Understanding spills at all stages of well development is important because preparing for hydraulic fracturing requires the transport of more materials to and from well sites and storage of these materials on site,” Patterson explained. “Investigating all stages helps to shed further light on the spills that can occur at all types of wells—not just unconventional ones.”

For instance, the researchers found that 50 percent of spills were related to storage and moving fluids via pipelines. “The causes are quite varied,” Patterson told BBC. “Equipment failure was the greatest factor, the loading and unloading of trucks with material had a lot more human error than other places.”

For the four states studied, most spills occurred in the the first three years of a well’s life, when drilling and hydraulic fracturing occurred and production volumes were highest.

Additionally, a significant portion of spills (26 percent in Colorado, 53 percent in North Dakota) occurred at wells with more than one spill, suggesting that wells where spills have already occurred merit closer attention.

“Analyses like this one are so important, to define and mitigate risk to water supplies and human health,” said Kate Konschnik, director of the Harvard Law School’s Environmental Policy Initiative in a statement. “Writing state reporting rules with these factors in mind is critical, to ensure that the right data are available—and in an accessible format—for industry, states and the research community.”

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Wide Concern About Fracking

From an Article by Deirdre Fulton, Common Dreams Blog, August 29, 2016

Fracking opponents vowed to keep up the fight in Colorado on Monday after it was announced that measures seeking to restrict fracking in the state had failed to make the 2016 ballot.

Secretary of State Wayne Williams said Monday that supporters failed to collect enough “valid voter signatures” for Initiatives 75 and 78, which would have given local authorities more power to regulate fracking and implemented mandatory setbacks for oil and gas activity around schools, playgrounds, and hospitals, respectively. 

As Denverite explains:

The state office looked over roughly 5,000 signatures for each of the measures, per normal procedure, and rejected about a quarter of them for being “invalid.”

The state then took that rejection rate and applied it to the total number of signatures collected, essentially knocking out a quarter of the submitted signatures and putting them below the requirement.

The state identified “several potentially forged signature lines” on Initiative 78. 

According to the secretary of state’s office, proponents have 30 days to appeal the decision to the Denver District Court.

A statement from anti-fracking groups distributed Monday suggested organizers were still deciding whether to appeal.

“As we review the ruling, we want to assure our volunteers and supporters that we are as committed as ever to giving the residents of Colorado a say this November on whether their communities can regulate fracking,” said Tricia Olson, executive director of Yes for Health and Safety Over Fracking.

“That fracking is dangerous to the health and safety of the state’s residents resonated loudly in every corner of the state,” she said. “Today’s announcement is not the final action on this issue as countless residents are now committed to protecting their children’s schools, parks, and homes.”

“We will not be cowed by the anti-democratic efforts of the oil and gas industry,” added Suzanne Spiegel of Frack Free Colorado.

The Colorado Independent reports:

The failure of both measures to make the ballot comes after months of a costly, contentious and occasionally disorganized grassroots campaign. Industry groups poured money into a “decline to sign” effort, and anti-fracking activists say they faced harassment from opponents while trying to gather signatures to qualify the measures for the ballot.

Furthermore, the Coloradoan reported this month, opponents raked in more than 35 times the contributions of groups backing the measures, with about 90 percent of the anti-ballot measure donations coming from energy companies.

“The ‘Decline to Sign’ campaign only served to highlight the industry’s stranglehold on the state government,” said Spiegel. “The actions of the industry have only served to galvanize supporters and we intend to fight the destructive and dangerous fracking practices that harm our health and destroy our environment.”

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, a fracking supporter, was among those opposing the initiatives. He predicted last week that the measures would not make the November ballot.

Earlier this month, the New York Times wrote that if either measure should pass, “it would represent the most serious political effort yet in the United States” to stop fracking. 

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Speakers at Antero Hearing

Letter from April Keating, Mountain Lakes Preservation Alliance, August 28, 2016

Antero Resources has been holding meetings for its proposed landfill and water processing facility, ironically named “Clearwater.” The 400-acre facility, a 25-year project located upstream of the Hughes River, will affect 11 wetlands and over 5 miles of streams in the area.

The WV Rivers Coalition, in its letter to the WV-DEP, states that there is no mention of a Groundwater Protection Plan in its stormwater permit, a document that must be made available to the public at all times, according to WV law. “The landfill will discharge into streams that are located within the Zone of Peripheral Concern (ZPC) for the Hughes River Water Board, which sells bulk water to Pennsboro, Harrisville, and Cairo in Ritchie County,” states the letter. The ZPC is the riparian land between a 5- and 10-hour travel time upstream of a public water supply.

The Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP) also does not include a section about spill prevention and response procedures, as required by the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit for Stormwater Associated with Construction Activities.

The stormwater permit is not the only permit being sought for the facility. A 401 permit is required to show that the company will comply with Clean Water Act regulations.

Nine speakers spoke for almost an hour about their concerns for the project at Tuesday’s stormwater permit hearing, which took place at Doddridge County High School and was sponsored by the WV-DEP.

>> Charlotte Pritt, Mountain Party Candidate for governor, spoke about the health hazards of radiation found in frack waste, and called for a ban on fracking.

>> Lew Baker of the West Virginia Rural Water Association noted that there should be continuous monitoring at the facility, not just at the water intake.

>> Bill Hughes of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition noted that this project is experimental and should never be done on this scale.

>> Cindy Rank of the WV Highlands Conservancy mentioned the inadequacies of the permit applications, and the fact that the effects of such a project should be looked at in aggregate and not separately.

>> April Keating, of Mountain Lakes Preservation Alliance, pointed out that 4,000 new wells were planned over the next 40 years, and the water supply would be adversely affected. She also noted that leaking pipelines and gas infrastructure, such as compressor stations, would affect air quality and accelerate climate change rapidly, leading to numerous effects on the environment and economy.

The WVDEP is taking comments on the stormwater permit until September 3. Comments can be submitted electronically at DEP.comments@wv.gov, or by writing to:

West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, Permitting Section, Division of Water and Waste Management, 601 57th Street, Charleston WV 25304

 Contact: April Keating, 115 Shawnee Drive, Buckhannon, WV 26201

Internet: www.mountainlakespreservation.org 

Email: apkeating@hotmail.com   See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net