The “Keystone Pipeline” won’t make gas any cheaper

From an Essay by Ted Williams, Writers on the Range, July 17, 2022

The Keystone Pipeline is fully operational, daily delivering 590,000 barrels of tar-sands oil from Canada to U.S. refineries.

Most of the criticism comes from people who recycle truthiness. Former vice president Mike Pence: “Gas prices have risen across the country because of this administration’s war on energy — shutting down the Keystone Pipeline.” Republican Rep. Jim Jordan: “Biden shut off the Keystone Pipeline.”

Here’s what really happened: No one shut down, canceled, or shut off the Keystone Pipeline. It is fully operational, daily delivering 590,000 barrels of tar-sands oil in Canada to U.S. refineries.

What some pipeline advocates think is the “Keystone Pipeline” is a 1,700-mile “shortcut” called Keystone XL, or KXL. It would have sliced through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma to the Texas Gulf Coast, delivering 830,000 barrels of tar sands oil per day. Many residents of those states fought fiercely against the pipeline cutting through their land.

Now, “Build the Keystone Pipeline” has become a social-media mantra, as if the United States could so decree. It is the Canadian firm, TC Energy, formerly TransCanada, that officially terminated the project once President Biden withdrew its permits.

Even if construction on the pipeline began tomorrow, KXL could not be up and running in less than five years. The KXL pipeline was a project developed by a foreign company that would have delivered foreign oil products to mostly foreign markets.

When President Trump re-permitted KXL in 2017, his own State Department reported that it would not lower gasoline prices. The price of oil is set by the global market and certainly not by U.S. presidents. What’s more, the project was just about dead for a number of reasons, including litigation from aggrieved property owners whose land TC Energy seized by eminent domain.

We should also remember that rendering gasoline from tar-sands oil, the planet’s dirtiest petroleum, is far more polluting and energy-intensive than conventional refining. Some carbon content is burned off in a process that belches greenhouse gases and generates toxic waste called petcoke, which is dumped around the United States in piles six stories high. Petcoke billows through neighborhoods and infiltrates schools and houses even when windows are shut.

Bitumen, basically asphalt, continues to be strip-mined from what used to be Canada’s boreal forests in Alberta. Too thick to be piped, it’s spiked with volatile liquid condensate from natural gas and thus converted to a toxic tar-sands cocktail called ”dilbit,” short for diluted bitumen.

Dilbit, sent through the existing Keystone pipeline, contains chloride salts, sulfur, abrasive minerals and acids, and must be pumped under high pressure. It’s murder on pipes.

In addition to greenhouse gases and petcoke, tar-sands waste products end up in lakes, rivers, fish, wildlife and people. Between 1995 and 2006, when tar-sands extraction was accelerating, Alberta’s First Nations suffered a sudden 30 percent increase in cancer rates.

KXL, if built, also threatened the world’s largest aquifer — the Ogallala. Anyone who thinks Nebraska lacks water should visit Green Valley Township, where I encountered Ogallala water so close to the surface it flowed along dirt roads and ditches. Pintails, mallards, and widgeon billowed out of them. But parts of the aquifer are now depleted, and a major dilbit spill could finish those parts off.

In 2011 a pipeline representative named Shawn Howard assured me that ramming a dilbit pipe through the Ogallala aquifer would be risk free. “Why,” he demanded, “would we invest $13 billion in a pipeline and put a product in it that was going to destroy it like these activists are trotting out? It makes absolutely no business sense.”

The existing Keystone pipeline has ruptured 22 times, including spills in 2017 and 2019 that fouled land and water with 404,000 gallons of dilbit. Business sense, as the oil industry consistently reminds us, is an attribute more often desired than possessed.

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NOTE ~~ Writers on the Range, Essays from the Mountain West

Writers on the Range provides editorial essays to Western newspapers in the intermountain west. Our topics include public lands, outdoor recreation, water and economic institutions serving the west. Our writers are westerners from 10 states with diverse opinions and insight. As a 501c3 corporation as defined and approved by the IRS, donations to Writers on the Range are tax deductible.

On January 4, 2014, Storage Tank leaks into the Elk River contaminated the Kanawha River and the regional water supply

To: Frank Jernejcic, HB 2598 died in committee.

>>>>>>>…………………>>>>>>>…………………>>>>>>>>

From: Frank Jernejcic
Sent: Tuesday, March 8, 2022 12:28 PM
To: Mike Caputo
Subject: HB 2598 – Say No to Weakening Water Protections in the Aboveground Storage Tank Act

Dear Senator Caputo,

I am the Vice-President of the Upper Mon River Association (UMRA) and contacting you on behalf of our organization.

I am asking you to please protect our public drinking water and reject HB 2598, which weakens inspection requirements for certain oil & gas tanks closest to our public drinking water intakes.

All tanks within a Zone of Critical Concern (ZCC) should have the standards and oversight mechanisms of the Aboveground Storage Tank Act.

Please, say no to weaken protections for drinking water in the Aboveground Storage Tank Act and reject HB 2598.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely, Frank Jernejcic, Morgantown, WV 26508

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See also: West Virginia Environmental Council, P.O. Box 1007, Charleston WV 25324 ~ Office: (304) 414-0143, Email: info@wvecouncil.org

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See also: West Virginia Rivers Coalition, 3501 MacCorkle Ave SE #129, Charleston, WV 25304. Office: 304-637-7201, Email: wvrivers@wvrivers.org

xxx

Wild fires in Australia and elsewhere are extreme

From the Interview of Peter Dykstra by Steve Curwood

CURWOOD: It’s Living on Earth, I’m Steve Curwood. The signs of a changing climate seem to be emerging more and more behind the headlines, so for the latest we are on the line now with Peter Dykstra, an editor for Environmental Health News, that’s EHN.org and DailyClimate.org. Hi Peter!

DYKSTRA: Hi Steve, how often do you hear the phrase ‘the fire is too big to put out’ from firefighters? That’s what they’re saying about a huge bush fire outside of Australia’s largest city, Sydney. They say that the city may be couched in smoke for months to come.

CURWOOD: That is not very good news. And of course, it’s due to this massive drought over there.
DYKSTRA: We’ve seen pictures of the iconic Sydney Opera House, and the Sydney Harbour Bridge sort of covered in smoke. That’s the most populous area of the country. And it’s a very, very strong message that climate change is here to stay. And we’re also looking at others from around the world.

CURWOOD: Okay, what do you have in mind?
DYKSTRA: In Bali, tourism center in Indonesia, there’s a combination of drought and the increase in tourism that are really doing a number on the water supply.

CURWOOD: So running out of water for tourists who want their long showers and then how do you grow food?
DYKSTRA: Growing food is part of it. And it’s this inevitable clash between the tourist industry and tourists on one hand and the local residents on the other to get their day-to-day needs. But there’s still another one from Africa.

CURWOOD: Okay, and what’s that one?
DYKSTRA: Victoria Falls, another iconic tourist destination on the Zambezi River. More than half a mile long waterfall is running dry in a way that no one’s ever seen before as a result of the worst drought in that area in a century.

CURWOOD: So is there no water going over the falls or is it just sort of . . . .
DYKSTRA: It’s a trickle. There are some remarkable pictures where you see what used to be in what’s normally this cascade of water stretched out over half a mile. It’s now mostly barren cliffs with just a little stream heading over the falls.

CURWOOD: And I bet this isn’t the last of things along these lines that you’ve noted.
DYKSTRA: There’s one more unfortunately, we need to go to the Alps where it is winter and instead of the Southern Hemisphere summer, and winter, of course is ski season, and we’re looking at an increasing number of closed and even abandoned ski resorts in the Alps, due to a decline in skiable days during the winter months.

CURWOOD: Signs of climate disruption everywhere. Hey Peter, what else do you have for us today?
DYKSTRA: Well, here’s something it seems we’re mentioning this all the time. Unfortunately, we have to mention it again. Because last week, two more indigenous environmental activists, anti-logging activists, were murdered in what appears to be a drive-by shooting in the northeastern Brazilian state of Maranhao.

CURWOOD: Oh man, this is just happening way too much. I think last year 100 and, more than 160 environmental activists were killed. When will this stop do you think?
DYKSTRA: It’s, I don’t know that it’s ever going to stop. There are still brave people who have obviously literally put their lives on the line.

CURWOOD: What do we have from the annals of history for today, Peter?
DYKSTRA: There’s a 20th anniversary, and for me it’s hard to believe that this is already 20 years ago. December 18, 1999, Julia Butterfly Hill came down from the tree she had been sitting in for more than two years, a Northern California Redwood that was slated for cutting.

/// — Julia Butterfly Hill lived in a nearly 200 foot tall California redwood dubbed ‘Luna’ for 738 days to draw attention to the plight of forests. (Photo in Transcript) — ///.

CURWOOD: That tree, I believe, was called Luna.
DYKSTRA: Luna was the name given to the tree. There was an attempt to kill Luna out of spite. But as far as we know, the tree is still alive and well and growing and enormous. Something is different about Julia Butterfly Hill. Her website says she’s “no longer available to discuss the epic tree sit, and that her life has moved on.” I guess somebody that could deal with more than two years worth of absolute solitude may not want to deal with celebrity for the rest of her life.

CURWOOD: Who could blame her? Thanks, Peter. Peter Dykstra is an editor with Environmental Health News, that’s EHN.org and DailyClimate.org. We’ll talk to you real soon, right after the holidays.

DYKSTRA: Well good to talk to you as always and happy holidays to you and happy holidays to everyone.
CURWOOD: And there’s more on these stories at the Living on Earth website, LOE.org.

Related links:

Actress Diane Lane one of those arrested for protesting climate change

ESC Harrison Power Plant conceptual layout

From an Article by Charles Young, WV News, April 13, 2019

CLARKSBURG — Following several years of planning, the developers of a natural-gas-fired power plant planned for a site in Clarksburg’s Montpelier Addition hope to begin construction this summer.

The plant will be West Virginia’s first gas-fired facility. A firm date for the start of construction has not been set and will depend on factors like weather and the finalization of agreements with local entities like the Clarksburg Water Board and the Sanitary Board. Developers expect work to begin in June or July.

The Harrison County Power Plant, a project of Energy Solutions Consortium and Caithness Energy, will be an approximately 630-megawatt generation facility, which is enough electricity to power approximately 425,000 homes, according to project representatives.

During the plant’s construction phase, which is expected to take around 24 months, the plant will support 400 jobs and will rely on local union laborers. Developers are aiming for an estimated in-service date of November 2021.

The company estimates the annual overall economic impact of the plant will be about $880 million, and it is expected to provide up to 30 permanent, well-paid positions during the plant’s operating life.

Todd Waldrop, project director, attended the Clarksburg Water Board’s March 12 meeting and asked its members to consider an alternate main water line extension agreement between the utility and the company. Under the terms of the proposed agreement, the Water Board would serve as the sole supplier of water to the power plant through a dedicated main line, Waldrop said. “We want to construct the lateral for the line from North Ohio Avenue up to the fence line of where the facility will be,” he said. “It’s about a 2,500-foot run.”

The power plant is expected to require an average of around 80 gallons per minute. Energy Solutions Consortium would foot the bill for construction of the main line and would build it to “the Water Board’s standards,” Waldrop said.

Power plant developers also met with representatives of the Clarksburg Sanitary Board on March 12 and pitched a similar agreement for sanitary services via an alternate mainline sewer extension agreement. Clarksburg City Manager Martin Howe, who also serves as chairman of the Sanitary Board, said the board’s members are considering the agreement but have yet to take action.

“This is a very significant project to Harrison County and the region,” he said. “The city is fortunate to be in the position that allows for this development to occur. Without continued investment in our infrastructure, the opportunity would most likely not be able to proceed further.”

John Black, vice president of development for the power plant project, said finalization of these two agreements is “critical.”

“It’s a very stingy plant. It doesn’t use very much water at all. Originally, we had proposed taking it out of the river, but the Clarksburg Water Board and the Clarksburg Sanitary Board were able to meet that supply,” he said. “I think that’s a much better situation for the environment because we’re using water that the city is already producing and we are putting it back in the sewer.”

John Wanalista, director of engineering and project management, said developers are still in the middle of negotiations with the project’s potential contractor. “We’re still in negotiations with an EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contractor,” he said. “We’re not at liberty to indicate who that is at this point.”

Even if the water and sewer agreements aren’t fully finalized by the time the contractor is ready to begin work, there are other alternatives, Wanalista said. “If water and sewer are not there on Day One, there are other ways to obtain the waters that are needed,” he said. “There’s not a whole lot of water needed during the initial stages of construction.”

During a recent meeting, Water Board General Manager Dick Welch said installing a temporary water line to supply the project would take less than a “day or so.”

While some residents may have concerns about the construction of a power plant in Montpelier Addition, the project will be much smaller and much less visible than other area facilities, like the Harrison Power Station or the Longview Power Plant near Maidsville, Black said. This is because both of those facilities are coal-fired facilities, while the Clarksburg plant will utilize locally produced natural gas, Black said.

For example, the emission stacks on the Longview Plant are over 800 feet tall, Black said. “Ours are less than 200 feet,” he said. “And there are typically no visible emissions out of ours. Where we are, tucked back in that hollow, our stack won’t even exceed the ridge line. Our footprint is smaller than a coal-powered (plant).”

=========================

Energy Solutions Consortium also has plans in the works for a second gas-powered facility in Brooke County. Its Brooke County Power will be a 830 megawatt natural gas power plant capable of powering the equivalent of 700,000 homes.

The $884 million facility is expected to consume $177.5 million worth of natural gas annually, supporting hundreds of jobs in the region associated with the natural gas industry, according to developers.

The facility will require up to 30 full-time and part-time employees. In addition to the jobs onsite, the project is expected to create 1,164 direct, indirect and induced jobs due to requirements for maintenance, supplies, fuel and other needed local services.

Kayakers join protest near Paw Paw, WV

From an Article by Patricia Sullivan, Washington Post, August 6, 2017

HANCOCK, MD — Activists with the Potomac Riverkeeper Network set up at Paw Paw Tunnel Campground near Oldtown, Md., for a weekend paddle and protest over TransCanada’s planned natural gas pipeline.

The pipeline that TransCanada wants to build is short, 3.5 miles, cutting through the narrowest part of Maryland. It would duck briefly under the Potomac River at this 1,500-resident town, bringing what business leaders say is much-needed natural gas to the eastern panhandle of West Virginia.

But environmentalists say that brief stretch could jeopardize the water supply for about 6 million people, including most of the Washington-metropolitan area.

That’s why dozens of protesters have gathered each weekend this summer at various points along the upper Potomac, part of a growing national movement that opposes both oil and natural gas pipelines and wants businesses and governments to embrace green energy instead.

Inspired by the Dakota Access oil pipeline protest at Standing Rock, N.D., and the broad wave of demonstrations that has energized the left since President Trump’s inauguration, the protesters hope to persuade Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) and his environment secretary to stop the pipeline, which got an enthusiastic green light from West Virginia.

“It’s got me worried,” said Andy Billotti, 53, who wore a T-shirt from April’s Peoples Climate March in Washington as he erected his tent at the Paw Paw Tunnel Campground near Oldtown, Md., for one recent protest. “If something were to happen, that fracked poison would come down the river . . . right into our wells.”

Opponents gathered at the ­McCoys Ferry campsite in Clear Spring, Md., over the weekend and will be at Taylors Landing next weekend. The protest at Taylors Landing, near Sharpsburg, Md., is slated to include state Sen. Richard S. Madaleno Jr. (D-Montgomery), a gubernatorial candidate and the latest of a handful of politicians to take part.

The activists want Hogan, who this year banned fracking in Maryland, to deny TransCanada a water quality permit to cross the Potomac. Environment Secretary Ben Grumbles said the state has sought additional information about the project from the company and will schedule a public hearing on the permit application in coming weeks.

About 40 other permits are also needed, including ones from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the National Park Service, because the pipeline would also go under the C&O Canal.

Industry and economic development officials say the pipeline is safe and sorely needed to attract new employers to the West Virginia panhandle.

“There are hundreds, if not thousands, of miles of gas lines like this in the Washington, D.C., area,” Eric Lewis, president of the Jefferson County Development Authority (JCDA), told about 60 protesters in July at a town council meeting in Shepherdstown, W.Va. “If people have issues with fracking, they should take it up somewhere else.”

West Virginia’s Public Service Commission already granted its utility, Mountaineer Gas, approval to begin building the distribution pipeline from Berkeley Springs to Martinsburg. Bulldozers are at work. The utility plans to eventually extend that line to Charles Town and Shepherdstown.

The natural gas that runs through the area’s existing pipeline is entirely spoken for since the opening of a Procter & Gamble manufacturing plant near Martinsburg, Mountaineer Gas officials said.

“You’ve got to have an industrial base to provide employment,” said West Virginia Commerce Secretary H. Wood Thrasher. “Without gas service, we are dead in the water.” He said the state has lost a “significant” number of companies interested in moving to the eastern panhandle because of the lack of natural gas service.

The JCDA has been working on getting natural gas service to the region for “decades,” said John Reisenweber, the authority’s executive director. More recently, it has encouraged the development of renewable green energy, such as wind and solar. But manufacturers, commercial and some residential developers insist on natural gas, he said.

While gas pipelines have crisscrossed the country since the 1920s, the number of approved interstate lines has spiked in recent years, driven by the boom in natural gas extraction through hydraulic fracturing. Protests have spiked, too.

New Yorkers convinced their state environmental agency twice in the past two years to deny a water quality certificate for natural gas pipelines. Federal authorities shut down a much-criticized Ohio pipeline in May, after 18 leaks spilled more than 2 million gallons of drilling fluid, adversely impacting the water quality. Catholic nuns near Lancaster, Pa., have built an outdoor chapel in an attempt to stop another pipeline.

In Virginia, two disputes over much larger proposed pipelines have become a hot-button political issue in the governor’s race.

The nation’s 2.3 million-mile pipeline network is considered the safest way to move oil, and the only feasible way to transport natural gas. Natural gas pipeline leaks are down 94 percent since 1984, the industry says. But accidents do happen — an average of 299 significant incidents in each of the past five years, according to federal data.

TransCanada spokesman Scott Castleman noted that his company and its predecessors have a century of experience in the region. The proposed eight-inch diameter pipeline would be buried up to 100 feet beneath the riverbed, with walls twice as thick as required, and constant monitoring for leaks and surges. A dozen TransCanada pipelines safely cross the Potomac River elsewhere in Maryland, Castleman said.

“More and more, people realize that each of these [pipeline] projects deepens our commitment to fossil fuels, locking us in for 40 or 50 more years,” said Bill McKibben, a well-known environmentalist and author. “The scientific verdict on natural gas has changed, and changed dramatically, in the past half-decade.”

The major component in natural gas is methane, which is significantly more efficient at trapping heat — and warming the planet — than carbon dioxide. A study published last year by Harvard University researchers found that emissions from methane have increased significantly since fracking began, although the researchers said they could not readily attribute the increase to fracking.

Members and friends of the Potomac Riverkeeper Network attended the July paddle to raise awareness about the pipeline project. Environmentalists also point to the geology of the upper Potomac. The land beneath the river in this region is karst, a term for a terrain that is full of fractures, caves and pools, where special precautions are needed when building pipelines to avoid spillage of chemicals or gas into the water supply.

“Unless you have an X-ray of the ground, you never know where the water goes, or where it comes from,” said Stephanie Siemek, a doctoral student at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s Appalachian Laboratory in Frostburg, Md., who led a tour of the Paw Paw Tunnel for the environmentalists camping nearby in July. “You don’t know how old it is, or where it’s derived. It might start from a mountaintop, but we don’t know how it gets to a spring.”

Potomac River in eastern WV panhandle

Go to: www.wvsoro.org

Public Meeting on Gas Property Leases in Weston, WV

Review & Commentary by S. Tom Bond, Resident Farmer and Retired Chemistry Professor, Jane Lew, Lewis County, WV, July 2, 2014

On Tuesday, July 1, 2014, Tim Greene and Land and Mineral Management of Appalachia (LMMA) held a meeting in Weston to inform Lewis County residents of their services. He was assisted by Rob Wilming, and Mark Burdette handled physical details. LMMA offers management of oil and gas from leasing, through management of one’s income flow (making sure the lessor is not cheated by the leasing company, as Chesapeake may have done in two current court cases), to investment of the royalty received to provide long term income.

Mr. Greene began by giving several examples of bad deals in some leases. He explained LMMA will be able to spot these and explain how they will affect the lessor’s surface. They will be able to ask the right questions in behalf of the lessor and know the going rates for comparable tracts. They are experienced negotiators.

After the presentation there was an extended discussion of heirship in oil and gas ownership. One couple said one of the other heirs was a lawyer. Mr. Greene’s reactions was “Oh, my!” as if that would make it more difficult. During this discussion he also described partition suits, and said LMMA could handle your lease interest in such cases.

When asked if they handled other forms of natural resources, Mr. Wilming answered that they managed timber and “anything that has value.” The firm doesn’t have any lawyers in it, but has contacts to access lawyers when necessary.

One member of the audience said he had been approached about a right-of-way which was to extend 100 feet on each side of the 42 inch pipeline, and was offered $12,000 an acre. It is to carry gas from West Virginia to the Carolinas.

Another asked how long the gas would last. Some of the audience mentioned the well known rapid decline rate of shale wells. Mr. Wilming said he believes the companies will “come back and redrill and refracture.”

Still another audience member asked if the driller would plug the old well that gives a family free gas before drilling a Marcellus well. The answer was “sometimes they will and sometimes they won’t.” The reaction from the audience was that loosing free gas was a very important result to most rural people. One doesn’t usually receive free gas from a Marcellus well. One lady in the room claimed she had a relative that did.

Mr Greene’s concluding remarks included the statement that LMMA is working with clients, gathering information, but the clients decided whether to sign. “Our goal is to get ahead of the information,” he said. “If they don’t pay royalty we don’t get paid.” He also claimed this is being done elsewhere, it is a new concept , and that another company is doing it in southern West Virginia. One member of the audience remarked Mr. Greene was putting LMMA in a position requiring a remarkable degree of trust from the mineral owner with leasing, managing the flow of income, and investing it.

After the meeting this author discussed this approach by email with an expert who has extensive experience with leases, someone who was in the audience. He suggests this is what could happen:

What these guys are doing is trying to obtain exclusive rights to as much land and minerals as possible in order to gain more influence/leverage over the operators and thus drive lease prices and royalties. This is very similar to the land owner coalitions in NY. Once they get enough acreage accumulated the idea is to lease the entire leasehold for the highest price because the operator will have enough instant drilling units and room for transmission infrastructure.

It would thus give this group a huge amount of influence over the operator, and the landowner, because once you give them exclusive rights to negotiate for you then you are tied to the hip with them and have very little choice who they lease to. Since they want a retainer fee and commission sales agreement to advocate, that is why I asked for how long they held the corporation accountable, because the lease should stipulate that if there is water well contamination or anything that would affect the quality of life for the landowner, will they advocate for them.

I suspect the answer is no, they just want to lease and profit from the leasing. When the advocating is over, the landowner has no way to recover from a home that may now be uninhabitable with no potable water, etc. They will not advocate when the landowners property value drops or the quality of life is destroyed. If they stipulated or factored this into the lease then it is possible, but no operator in the world would go for it.

It could be, in the end, the only person they are really advocating for is themselves and their bank accounts, negotiating the lease never to be heard from again once the ink dries on the paper.

>>> NOTE: LAMMA above is one of a number of “Lawyers and Experts for Surface and Small Mineral Owners” listed by the WV Surface Owner’s Rights Organization.

Fracking’s Impacts on Water

This report is from the article by David Beard for the Morgantown Dominion Post on November 1st.

The global shale gas boom has people questioning how hydrofracking might affect water supplies. Two experts at a water conference Wednesday in Morgantown said there’s not enough data to decide yet. Shikha Sharma, an assistant professor in WVU’s geology and geography department, and Marc Glass, a principal in the environmental consulting firm Downstream Strategies, talked about fracking’s impact on water supplies, during a session of the 2102 West Virginia Water Research Conference, put on by WVU’s West Virginia Water Research Institute at the Waterfront Place Hotel.

Sharma explored the problem of dissolved methane — called stray gas — migrating into public drinking water supplies. She said studies of methane in West Virginia groundwater show no correlation between abandoned wells or coal mines and gas migration into the groundwater. There does seem to be a tie to topography though — the methane accumulates in low lying valleys. In coal mining areas, she said, methane can leak from shallow gas strata, coalbeds and gas storage fields.

With a significant lack of data to work with, she said, researchers need to keep monitoring aquifers to understand any possible ties to fracking. They need a good baseline of current dissolved methane for subsequent measurements, and well-established dissolved-gas sampling protocols, she said. The protocols would include natural geochemical tracers that can track stray gas sources. “Unfortunately, this is still not well studied,” she said.

Marc Glass said the chief known hazard associated with natural gas production is surface spills. “We see the highest quantities [of potential pollutants] and highest risks for that to happen.” He cited an example of a water well situated 1000 feet from a gas well. The well showed elevated levels of pollutants. At the well pad, an impoundment liner was torn and compromised.

This suggested the likelihood chemicals migrated from the site — but not definitive proof. Given the regulatory environment at the time, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) fined the producer for the liner problems, but didn’t investigate the water contamination. It’s unclear, Glass said, how or if natural and artificial geologic conduits — cracks and fissures and so on — may permit gas migration from the shale layers thousands of feet down up to the shallow aquifers. “What we lack is conclusive data,” he said.

The DEP does know about one certain problem, though, he said. In its recent State of the Environment report, the DEP wrote, “Unplugged wells or improperly plugged wells can lead to groundwater contamination with crude oil, salt water and natural gas.”

While the DEP has spent $6.2 million during the past 10 years to plug or reclaim 252 wells or well sites, there remain 13,000 permitted abandoned wells. The legislative auditor’s office criticized the DEP for this problem in a September audit, saying, “The [DEP’s] Office of Oil and Gas is not enforcing statutory requirements as they concern abandoned oil and gas wells, which is causing the number of abandoned wells to Increase.”

A Morgantown success story: At the same conference, Morgantown Utility Board (MUB) General Manager Tim Ball described a success story — how it worked with a driller to protect the city’s water supply.

In May 2011, The Dominion Post became aware of and notified MUB that the DEP had permitted two gas wells in March — with no public notice — for the Morgantown Industrial Park, across the Monongahela River and just 1,500 feet upstream from MUB’s public water intake. This was before the passage of the Natural Gas Horizontal Well Control Act and the regulatory environment was uncertain. “We felt like we were in the Wild, Wild West,” Ball said.

Within two weeks, MUB had negotiated an extensive set of precautions with the developer, Northeast Natural Energy, which Northeast agreed to incorporate into modified permits. DEP did everything required, Ball said. “The problem was the regulations didn’t require much of them.” Northeast’s cooperation, however, smoothed the way for DEP to allow the modifications. “We accomplished more than most expected we would,” he said.

Since then, MUB has been conducting regular water testing at several sites on the well pads and in the river. “We’ve not found anything to cause any suspicion we’ve had a release.”  If he had one do-over, he said, he would have asked Northeast to share the testing expense: 47 tests so far at $3,000 each, totaling $141,000. But it’s been worth it. “The bottom line is this: public confidence. You can’t put a price on public confidence.”

Ball said that while MUB was working to manage and minimize risks from a technical approach, the city was taking a public policy approach — a drilling and fracking ban extending a mile beyond city limits, which ultimately failed in court. Although the ban failed, Ball said he thinks the twopronged approach — policy and technical — contributed to the success of MUB’s efforts. “We didn’t put all our eggs in one basket.”