New technology finds huge methane plumes around shale gas drilling and processing facilities

Technology is new arrow in quiver of shale gas impacted communities nationwide

DISH, TX,  March 4, 2010 Yesterday a team of environmental scientists presented findings from a novel two day emissions gas detection project showing methane levels as much as 20 times above normal background levels in the air around several counties in the greater Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.

“These findings raise troubling questions about shale gas industry pollution not only in Texas but for states nationwide where shale gas drilling and production is planned or underway,” said Wilma Subra, EARTHWORKS board member, environmental chemist and MacArthur grant recipient.

The results were collected over the past two days by an undercover team driving an unmarked white van around the metroplex to test a new measurement technology that enables drive-by emissions testing on shale gas drilling and pumping facilities — without leaving the vehicle or slowing down from normal driving speeds.

Methane is a surrogate gas for benzene, xylene and other toxic and carcinogenic volatile organic compounds (VOCs). As a greenhouse gas that is roughly four-times more potent than CO2, methane is also a significant contributor to the ongoing climate crisis.

The results were presented to an overflow crowd at the DISH town hall where Mayor Calvin Tilman had called a special meeting to discuss the findings. DISH and other metroplex residents are concerned shale gas industry pollution are behind serious health problems in the area.

The sampling team, which included Wilma Subra and environmental testing firm Wolf Eagle Environmental, was able to approach and circle the pumping facilities without detection. Previously, companies that own and operate the shale gas installations had spotted sampling teams and turned off compressor and other production operations that produce emissions gases.

In one area, concentrations of methane from emissions plumes were so high that the instruments — manufactured by Picarro Inc. — reached the higher end of its detection range at 40-50 parts per million. When Subra and Wolf Eagle Environmental CEO Alisa Rich contacted air quality regulators, they learned that the Flower Mound facility had failed to report an emissions event, as required by state and federal law.

“These jaw-dropping results show that the shale gas industry is not to be trusted with public health”, said Sharon Wilson, organizer for the Texas Oil & Gas Accountability Project. “Texas OGAP and EARTHWORKS are considering ways to bring unannounced emissions detection to other shale gas regions — and other mining, digging and drilling facilities — around the country.”

Texas OGAP works with communities statewide to prevent and minimize the impacts caused by energy development. EARTHWORKS has 29,000 members nationwide, and offices in California, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Texas and Washington, D.C.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

DISH methane emissions information — authored by Wilma Subra, EARTHWORKS board member

Flower Mound methane emissions mapping — authored by Alisa Rich, Wolf Eagle Environmental

DISH / Flower Mound findings and technical information on Picarro technology — authored by Chris Rella, Picarro, Inc.

texasogap.earthworksaction.org

Read the original article at earthworksaction.org

Of course lease-signers like to believe they are “against big government,” and of course they want to close their eyes to the fact that crooked, deregulated government is the only way that predatory natural gas companies can do business as they do.

It’s amazing what you can’t see if you don’t want to.

Tell Paterson to Remove Grannis!

Under Commissioner Pete Grannis, the NYS DEC has concealed the Department’s shoddy safety record and misled the public about what’s really in fracking fluid.which is found on the home page of the website:  http://catskillcitizens.org/.

Throughout 2008, when the gas industry was actively leasing land for shale gas extraction, the DEC misled the public by refusing to acknowledge that high-volume hydraulic fracturing of horizontal shale gas wells would be significantly different than previous gas drilling operations in New York State. Director Field’s mantra that hydraulic fracturing “has been going on in New York for decades”1 seemed deliberately designed to lull the public into thinking that the Marcellus Shale gas play would resemble the low-volume fracturing operations that we had seen in the past.  Numerous inquiries to the Division of Mineral Resources prompted unsigned responses claiming that nothing new or different would be involved.

Also in 2008, the DEC succeeded in pushing a new well-spacing bill though the state legislature with little debate and scant public scrutiny. Although this “departmental” bill”2 was explicitly designed to facilitate the drilling of gigantic horizontal wells  which threaten to radically alter the landscape of western New York, Commissioner  Grannis  disingenuously characterized it as “a technical program bill [that] had nothing to do with anything related to environmental protections.”3   Instead he claimed it was “designed to protect adjacent landowners”.4

This bill was quickly moved out of Committee and passed late at night, on the last day of the legislative session.  Some lawmakers later complained that they weren’t even aware of the bill’s existence until hours before they were to vote on it. 5   Elected officials in New York City, and the NYC Department of Environmental Protection, also felt blindsided by the swift enactment of this law which had enormous implications for the integrity of the city’s watershed.6

At a time when New Yorkers were just becoming aware of the dangers posed by toxic chemicals used in fracking fluid, the DEC misled the public by asserting that “Marcellus shale fracing operations in New York State use fresh water, sand, nitrogen and a diluted soapy solution to fracture the shale. These frac fluids do not contain benzene, toluene or xylene.“7   This May 2008 email from the DEC failed to mention any of the toxic chemicals used in fracking fluids except to say three dangerous chemicals were not used in New York.  Of course we now know that the DEC was not telling the truth – fracking fluids contain dozens of chemicals including benzene, toluene and xylene.8

Perhaps most frustrating of all, New Yorkers have had to listen to Commissioner Grannis and Director Field parrot the industry line that there has not been “one instance of drinking water contamination in over one million frack jobs”.9

All over the country water wells have exploded or been rendered unusable because they have been contaminated by fracking fluid, methane or total dissolved solids due to nearby fracking operations. It’s bad enough to hear industry flacks claim that none of these case count as contamination, but it’s outrageous to hear this absurd claim coming from the very people who should be studying these environmental disasters, and trying to find a way to avoid repeating them in New York.

This manifest indifference to the harm caused by drilling accidents is infuriating.  On at least one occasion, Mr. Field falsely dismissed an accident in Brookfield, New York as one where “a bit got stuck and muddied up a bunch of water wells.”10   This is a false and remarkably insensitive description of an incident in which some water wells were completely destroyed and others were left unusable for months on end.11

1. Director Field speaking at a public meeting in Liberty, New York July 1, 2008.

2. Commissioner Grannis testifying before the New York City Council Commission on Environmental Protection.  September 10, 2008.  Page 44 of the transcript.

3. Ibid.  Page 45 of the transcript.

4. Ibid.  Page 47 of the transcript.

5.  ”This issue came to my attention when a bill regarding well spacing appeared before the Assembly for a vote with very little time to review the issue.”  Testimony of Assembly Member Deborah Glick before the New York City Council Commission on Environmental Protection.  September 10, 2008.  Page 87 of the transcript.

6. See the remarks of Committee on Environmental Protection Chair James Gennaro.  Transcript of hearing, September 10, 2008.

7.   In a email message dated 5/28/2008 2:50:28 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,

dmnog@gw.dec.state.ny.us wrote:   “Industry has used horizontal well drilling in New York since the late 1980s. Hydraulic fracturing has been commonly and safely used in New York State for decades. Marcellus shale fracing operations in New York State use fresh water, sand, nitrogen and a diluted soapy solution to fracture the shale. These frac fluids do not contain benzene, toluene or xylene.”

8. Draft SGEIS pp 5.34-5.66.

9. Director Field speaking at a public meeting in Liberty, New York July 1, 2008.

See also this exchange between Commissioner Grannis and Assemblyman Jim Bacalles before the New York State Assembly Committee on Environmental Conservation, October 15, 2009

ASSEMBLYMAN JIM BACALLES:  Pete, you mentioned that we have been fracing gas wells for a long time …But are you aware of anywhere where a drinking well or any kind of watershed has been affected by that drilling that’s been going on for 20 years or so?

MR. GRANNIS: We are not Jim. We have no reports of, you know, there are accidental spills that take place on the sites, but we have no reports of water contamination associated with.

Page 79 of transcript

10.  Director Field speaking at a public meeting in Liberty, New York July 1, 2008.

11. The following articles originally appeared in the Syracuse Post:

SOME STILL WAIT FOR THEIR WATER BROOKFIELD SUPERVISOR SAYS MANY PROBLEMS WITH WELLS REMAIN UNSOLVED.  Alaina Potrikus Staff writer

Nearly three months after an accident at a natural gas drilling site caused some backyard water wells to turn into geysers, some North Brookfield residents are still relying on bottled water to meet their daily needs.

Tell Paterson to Remove Grannis!

Under Commissioner Pete Grannis, the NYS DEC has concealed the Department’s shoddy safety record and misled the public about what’s really in fracking fluid.

Note from Brian: I’ve written about the lies about “vertical is the same as horizontal,” and “they’ve been doing this for years,” and “there has never been any contamination.” You’d really have to be as dense as a fence post to still buy that stuff, but still people will believe anything if they are offered “free money” to believe it. It’s like the tooth fairy.

You can read more about it at these posts:

http://otegony.com/they-dont-even-lie-well

http://otegony.com/spinning-the-truth-about-horizontal-fracturing

Tuesday, Feb. 16th 7 pm
12 Ford Avenue, Oneonta
Hosted by the Unitarian Universalist Society of Oneonta Gas Drilling Task Force

Calvin Tillman of Dish, Texas, will speak about the challenges his town faces as gas pipelines and compressors have come to his area. The town of Dish hosts eleven massive natural gas compressors, four metering stations, eleven high-pressure gas lines, and numerous gas wells and gathering lines, which have created extraordinary emission levels and serious health problems in the community.

There has been a massive campaign by less-than-scrupulous people to discredit this man. You can read about it at Drilling Reform for Texas

Why is it that people who are doing the wrong thing have to use false logic to attack the people are trying to prevent them from hurting themselves and others?

Here is an example of a person who either ignorantly or willfully would have you believe that the kind of drilling that is being proposed  NY is the relatively benign kind that has already been done for years :

Besides her attempt to mislead people about that, she also insists that, “Drilling methods have been used in New York and across the country for years with no significant problems.”

Really? As far as horizontal fracking, “…no significant problems” is a subjective. If you are not one of the many people who’s well has been poisoned by spills, who’s air is polluted to the point of 25% of your town having asthma, who’s running faucet can be lighted with a match, or who’s house has been blown up by gas leaks (among many other things) then, sure, there have been no significant problems.

On the other hand, if you care at all about anything other than the possibility of getting some money from an industry with no respect for individuals at the expense of your community, public health and safety, then sure, no problem.

That article starts with, “I have been an environmentalist my whole life.” She is using the wrong tense, it should have read, “I had been an environmentalist my whole life, but now…“

You don’t have to be Nostradamus to predict what happens to an area once a predatory industry decides it’s worth plundering. See the Donnan.com article about what Marcellus Shale Gas Drilling is doing to Hickory, Pennsylvania.

Here’s an except:

They say “fools rush in.” Are the good folks of Pennsylvania being caught unawares by all this? Will the citizens of New York State be the next to jeopardize their precious water resources? Whatever those answers are, they probably won’t be very long in coming.

Who wants to be next?

A telling article by Rona Kobell in the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay’s “Bay Journal” describes the bitter disappointment of communities who’ve been duped by the illusion of the “Natural Gas Boom.”

Excerpts:

When the natural gas companies descended on Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale two years ago, it felt like a Gold Rush. And everyone seemed to be hitting pay dirt…

But now, with nearly 700 Marcellus wells drilled throughout the state, the environmental costs of drilling are becoming clear… It has transformed some of the state’s most beautiful landscapes into industrial zones and brought hardship to some who thought it was their lifeline.

“The regular folk out here will never see the compensation they deserve, and their original water supply is forever gone,” Switzer said. “I’m never going to make any money on this. All I’ve lost is my soul.”

Read the entire “Bay Journal” article here.

Candace Mingins – Gas Drilling: Stories From the Front Line

“We had sold the land out from under our children and their children, and no amount of money is worth that.

“Unconventional gas drilling is a nasty business, and I venture to guess that there are hundreds, maybe thousands of lease landowner’s who as they learn what this new gas drilling entails wish that they had never signed.

“A contract between an individual and a multinational corporation is never on an even playing field.”

Link to the entire story

One thing we can do is let our friends know about the predicament the gas industry and it’s cronies are putting us in, and how that predicament will soon be coming to a town near them.

A good way is to cut and paste the following message into an e-mail and send it to your intelligent out-of-state friends and family:

Dear Friends and Family,

The legislation below has critical implications for the gas drilling safety situation that I have spoken with you about. As this will be coming before the U.S. Senate, and because you live in a state other than NY, we desperately need your help in bringing this to the national level.

I would immensely appreciate it if you would take a moment to phone the offices of the Senators from your state and simply say: I am calling to strongly urge you to support the Provision that has passed the House, requiring the EPA to conduct new studies on the risks hydraulic fracturing poses to drinking water supplies.

There is growing evidence that the toxic chemicals that are used in this process, are causing cancer, neurological, endocrine disorders to mention just a few of those documented. Thank you.”

Then please forward this to everyone in your mailing lists. This is a national problem, as it already affects the states of WV, PA, CO, TX, WY where drilling has already been done.

But it affects every state, because research shows that the wind can blow these toxic chemicals two hundred miles from a site. That means these toxins may be coming your way too.

In addition, each well uses one to four million gallons of our water. The gas companies take it out from under us as if it is theirs. The world is in a critical state of water shortage.

Other countries are using their investments in renewable, sustainable energy. At this time there is actually an oversupply of natural gas, and we are subsidizing the gas industry when we could be giving that money to moving forward in forms of energy that do not destroy our health, water supply and earth.

I’ll be working on a version of this for your New York State friends, complete with all the contact info for our state’s legislators.

You may have noticed that there is a lot more momentum on this issue, and one gas company has even admitted that hydrofracturing is so unsafe that they will not risk the watershed  that supplies New York City by drilling in it. I don’t know why anyone would think any area is “more expendable” than NYC, but apparently the gas companies and some landowners do.

Let’s keep the momentum going, so we can save the rest of the state, and the other states from this terrible mistake.

P.S. Thanks to Karen for creating and forwarding that letter.

For a lot of people, the promise of “free money” doesn’t raise the red flags that it should. People want to believe in Santa Claus, and that they can win the lottery, even if they lose thousands of dollars buying lottery tickets year after year.

If someone offered those people all the thousands back that they had squandered, they’d take them in a minute (and probably throw them away again on more lottery tickets!)

The point is, that early on, people find all the reasons they can to convince themselves that something is good, even though they really know better.

After awhile, though, they see that they have made a huge mistake. It takes time. It takes experience with the thing. It takes maturity.

The huge problem is that after the mistake is made, there is no taking it back. Once our area is ruined, the bust begins, the housing values are in the toilet, the land is unusable for agriculture, the water is compromised, and the “free money” turns out to be a pittance and does not make up for the costs, we will be very sorry. So will all the people who thought “landowners coalitions” or the impotent regulatory agencies like the DEC would protect them.

Nobody is coming with a check to pay back all the money they lost in the lottery. The free money was and is a lie.
The “bonds” that companies put up to insure against tragedies are a drop in the bucket that will never cover the devastation that they create.

We can use our mature minds now to see the problems that the proposed drilling in the Marcellus shale will bring. The evidence is clear. We just have to look to see what those same promises have brought to people who have had the same process ruin their communities and rip them off.

Here’s an article someone sent me (as soon as I get the original site for this reference I will post the link to it). It has to do with the Barnett Shale, which is in Texas and is similar deposit the Marcellus Shale in NY:

Local Leaders’ Perceptions of Energy Development in the Barnett Shale

Brooklynn J. Andersonm Mississippi State University Extension Service

and Gene L. Theodori, Sam Houston State University
Southern Rural Sociology, 24(1), 2009, Pp. 113–129.
Read the Full Article Here

After itemizing the positive and negative consequences of energy development, informants in Johnson and Wise Counties were asked to give their overall impressions. Specifically, respondents were asked whether the benefits of energy development outweighed the costs.

In Johnson County, the county where the massive, large-scale development was just beginning to occur, respondents unanimously agreed that the benefits of production would outweigh the costs. In contrast, Wise County respondents unanimously reported that the costs outweighed the benefits.

These responses may reflect differences in site maturity between Johnson County, where the massive development has only recently begun, and Wise County, where citizens have been exposed to intense development efforts for over a decade.

While respondents from both counties acknowledged the benefits of energy development, the enthusiasm of the Wise County respondents may be overshadowed by the daily presence of, and exposure to, the associated costs in relation to health and safety, resource use, and quality of life. It also appeared that respondents in Wise County are well aware that their local resources are finite, as
expressed by one concerned citizen: “We need energy, but we need water, too. If  you had to choose, would you rather be cold or thirsty?”