Source : Charleston Gazette By Ken Ward Jr., January 23, 2012

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Federal government analysts on Monday slashed their estimate of the natural gas reserves in the Marcellus Shale formation, and at least one major producer announced plans to cut in half its expenditures on new gas leases in the wake of dropping prices.

The U.S. Department of Energy cut its estimate of the Marcellus reserves from 410 trillion cubic feet of natural gas to 141 trillion cubic feet, citing better production information that emerges as drilling operations in the region mature and the exclusion of data from the pre-shale area.

“Drilling in the Marcellus accelerated rapidly in 2010 and 2011, so that there is far more information available today than a year ago,” said the DOE’s Energy Information Administration.

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We the undersigned unanimously agree that the Executive Order issued by acting Governor Earl Ray Tomblin is inadequate and leaves communities vulnerable, while continuing to let the gas industry run roughshod over West Virginia.

The Senate should not be using the Executive Order as an excuse for stalling.  Instead, the Senate should impose a moratorium on permits until a comprehensive bill becomes effective.

Many people, including Senate members of the Select Committee on Marcellus Shale, are under the illusion that the Executive Order and the resulting emergency rules are adequate enough to ensure safe, responsible development of the Marcellus Shale.

However, a number of important issues remain unaddressed.

• Nothing in the Executive Order addresses protection from air pollution, noise, truck traffic destroying roads, radiation, or the cumulative impact of multiple wells in a community.
• While the Executive Order does require public notice of well permits inside a municipality, it does not provide an opportunity for the public to comment on such permits and influence the permit conditions, nor does it require public notice and comment for well permits in rural areas.
• Surface owners remain at risk from unilateral decisions by the gas companies. There is no requirement for drillers to negotiate with surface owners on the location of well sites and access roads or that drillers accommodate surface owners’ concerns, plans for or uses of their property.

Other items missing from the Executive Order include:

• Protection for karst (limestone) areas.
• Protection for parks or other public lands.
• A TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) standard for water.
• Elimination of the industry-influenced Oil and Gas Inspectors Examining Board in favor of a civil service type of hiring procedure.
• Protective/adequate distances between large drill sites and homes, schools, hospitals and other sensitive places.
• Expanded water well testing requirements.
• Improvements to bonding requirements.
• Disposal of toxic waste from well sites restricted to landfills designed to accept hazardous waste.

Additionally, regulations are only as good as their enforcement and with only 15 inspectors for 59,000 active gas wells, we remain concerned about the DEP’s ability to  adequately protect citizens and the environment from the threats Marcellus development poses to human health and our land, air and water. Unfortunately, the emergency rules filed as a result of the Executive Order will not raise permit fees and will not provide money for more inspectors to enforce even those emergency rules.

DEP has already permitted 1,602 Marcellus wells in West Virginia. Of those, 942 of those are completed and producing and the agency is on track to issue another 400 permits this year.

We believe it is irresponsible for the acting Governor and the Legislature to allow the DEP to continue to issue new permits without having a comprehensive regulatory structure in place and without having enough inspectors on staff to ensure adequate enforcement.  We appreciate that acting Governor Tomblin has recognized that there are problems, but the Executive Order does not go far enough.

It remains imperative for the Legislature to act.

Until that time there should be a moratorium on new permits.

In conclusion, acting Governor Tomblin’s Executive Order and the resulting emergency rules should not be construed as a solution to the many problems related to Marcellus Shale and other gas well drilling.

Far from it.

The Select Committee assigned to craft meaningful legislation, especially the Senators, need to step up to address these problems, and they must do so quickly — next year is unacceptable. Although the draft legislation the committee is using as a starting point is also deficient in terms of addressing several issues of concern, a number of strengthening amendments were offered and adopted when the committee met earlier this month.  We want to see the committee reconvene to continue its work and make the needed improvements to the bill.

Greenbrier River Watershed Association

Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition

Sierra Club West Virginia Chapter

West Virginia Citizens Action Group

West Virginia Highlands Conservancy

West Virginia Surface Owners Rights Organization

SavetheWaterTable.org

Source : New York Times

Natural gas companies have been placing enormous bets on the wells they are drilling, saying they will deliver big profits and provide a vast new source of energy for the United States.

But the gas may not be as easy and cheap to extract from shale formations deep underground as the companies are saying, according to hundreds of industry e-mails and internal documents and an analysis of data from thousands of wells.

In the e-mails, energy executives, industry lawyers, state geologists and market analysts voice skepticism about lofty forecasts and question whether companies are intentionally, and even illegally, overstating the productivity of their wells and the size of their reserves. Many of these e-mails also suggest a view that is in stark contrast to more bullish public comments made by the industry, in much the same way that insiders have raised doubts about previous financial bubbles.

“Money is pouring in” from investors even though shale gas is “inherently unprofitable,” an analyst from PNC Wealth Management, an investment company, wrote to a contractor in a February e-mail. “Reminds you of dot-coms.”

“The word in the world of independents is that the shale plays are just giant Ponzi schemes and the economics just do not work,” an analyst from IHS Drilling Data, an energy research company, wrote in an e-mail on Aug. 28, 2009.

Company data for more than 10,000 wells in three major shale gas formations raise further questions about the industry’s prospects. There is undoubtedly a vast amount of gas in the formations. The question remains how affordably it can be extracted.

The data show that while there are some very active wells, they are often surrounded by vast zones of less-productive wells that in some cases cost more to drill and operate than the gas they produce is worth. Also, the amount of gas produced by many of the successful wells is falling much faster than initially predicted by energy companies, making it more difficult for them to turn a profit over the long run.

If the industry does not live up to expectations, the impact will be felt widely. Federal and state lawmakers are considering drastically increasing subsidies for the natural gas business in the hope that it will provide low-cost energy for decades to come.

But if natural gas ultimately proves more expensive to extract from the ground than has been predicted, landowners, investors and lenders could see their investments falter, while consumers will pay a price in higher electricity and home heating bills.

There are implications for the environment, too. The technology used to get gas flowing out of the ground — called hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking — can require over a million gallons of water per well, and some of that water must be disposed of because it becomes contaminated by the process. If shale gas wells fade faster than expected, energy companies will have to drill more wells or hydrofrack them more often, resulting in more toxic waste.

The e-mails were obtained through open-records requests or provided to The New York Times by industry consultants and analysts who say they believe that the public perception of shale gas does not match reality; names and identifying information were redacted to protect these people, who were not authorized to communicate publicly. In the e-mails, some people within the industry voice grave concerns.

“And now these corporate giants are having an Enron moment,” a retired geologist from a major oil and gas company wrote in a February e-mail about other companies invested in shale gas. “They want to bend light to hide the truth.”

Others within the industry remain optimistic. They argue that shale gas economics will improve as the price of gas rises, technology evolves and demand for gas grows with help from increased federal subsidies being considered by Congress. “Shale gas supply is only going to increase,” Steven C. Dixon, executive vice president of Chesapeake Energy, said at an energy industry conference in April in response to skepticism about well performance.

Studying the Data

“I think we have a big problem.”

Deborah Rogers, a member of the advisory committee of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, recalled saying that in a May 2010 conversation with a senior economist at the Reserve, Mine K. Yucel. “We need to take a close look at this right away,” she added.

A former stockbroker with Merrill Lynch, Ms. Rogers said she started studying well data from shale companies in October 2009 after attending a speech by the chief executive of Chesapeake, Aubrey K. McClendon. The math was not adding up, Ms. Rogers said. Her research showed that wells were petering out faster than expected.

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Source: Scientific American

A recent study shows that hydraulic fracturing the Marcellus Shale for natural gas is contaminating drinking water wells.

By David Biello | May 9, 2011 HYDRAULIC FRACTURING: A new technique for releasing natural gas in shale rock has contaminated at least some drinking water wells in Pennsylvania and New York State.

Drilling for natural gas is booming in Pennsylvania—thanks to fracturing shale rock with a water and chemical cocktail paired with the ability to drill in any direction. Despite homeowner complaints, however, research on how such hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is impacting local water wells has not kept pace. Now a new study that sampled water from 60 such wells has found evidence for natural gas–contamination in those within a kilometer of a new natural gas well.

“Methane concentrations in drinking water were much higher if the homeowner was near an active gas well,” explains environmental scientist Robert Jackson of Duke University, who led the study published online May 9 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “We wanted to try and separate fact from emotion.”

The researchers discovered methane in 51 of the 60 wells tested—that is not out of the ordinary. A small amount of methane from both deep and biological sources is present in most of the aquifers in this region of Pennsylvania and New York State. By measuring the ratio of radioactive carbon present in the methane contamination, however, the researchers determined that in drinking water wells near active natural gas wells, the methane was old and therefore fossil natural gas from the Marcellus Shale, rather than more freshly produced methane. This marks the first time that drinking water contamination has been definitively linked to fracking.

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Source : CBS Pittsburgh

April 19, 2011 2:17 PM

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – Officials with the Marcellus Shale drilling industry made a shocking admission Tuesday morning.

The president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, which represents natural gas companies, said the group now believes the natural gas exploration industry is partly responsible for rising levels of contaminants found in area drinking water.

The group came to the conclusion after reviewing research from Carnegie Mellon University and the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority.

One of the major factors that led to the conclusion was the discovery of bromide in the water. It’s a salt that is also found in drilling wastewater.

Now, the DEP is calling on Marcellus Shale drillers to stop taking wastewater to 15 treatment plants in the state.

OK, so New York has a moratorium, so does New Jersey.  Buffalo and Pittsburgh have banned it, and now our neighbor, Lewisburg, WV has called for a statewide moratorium.  Is this not enough!   People are waking up, this is dangerous, and it must be stopped until regulations are ON THE BOOKS!

Well – if it was not enough, here is one more – a little ditty from Morgantown, WV:

RESOLUTION FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A STATE MORATORIUM ON ISSUANCE OF ADDITIONAL PERMITS FOR HORIZONTAL DRILLING IN MARCELLUS SHALE UNTIL ADEQUATE STATE REGULATIONS ARE PROMULGATED TO PROTECT THE DRINKING WATER SUPPLIES, PUBLIC HEALTH, AND…PUBLIC SAFETY.

Whereas, the mile deep drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale utilizes horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing techniques which involve the use of millions of gallons of fresh water for each frac job, and the transport, storage and use of hazardous chemicals, and the production of drill tailings and waste water which contain heavy metals and naturally occurring radioactive materials, and

Whereas, the harmful large and sometimes untimely withdrawals of water from streams, the mismanagement of the construction of cement drilling casings, and the mismanagement of spills and disposal of large quantities of used brine chemical solutions can pose serious damage to drinking water supplies, public health, and public safety as well as to fish, livestock, wildlife and other living organisms, and

Whereas, the present State regulations for governing the management of Marcellus Shale and other lower formations are inadequate to protect water resources throughout the State including the Monongahela River watershed, and

Whereas, state regulations do not adequately protect the sources of water for public water supply from contaminations by chemicals used in drilling and fracking and from total dissolved solids (TDS) which cannot be filtered by municipal water and sewer treatment systems, and

Whereas, in its 2011 regular session, the State Legislature did not support additional funding for the State Department of Environmental Protection to increase its number of inspectors to safely and adequately monitor development of 900 permitted Marcellus Shale wells as well as to manage the existing 59,000 operating oil and gas wells and the approximately 20,000 abandoned oil an gas wells in the State, and

Whereas, in its 2011 regular session, the State Legislature did not complete its work to safely and effectively establish guidelines for the protection of State water resources, air quality, nor roadways in the development of Marcellus Shale, and

Whereas, the City Council of Morgantown wishes to join with 23 or more Delegates and other cities to halt permits being issued to drill in the Marcellus Shale and to encourage the Governor to call a special session of the State Legislature to address these issues in a timely manner:

Now, Therefore, Be It Resolved, the City Council of Morgantown urges the State Department of Environmental Protection to use its emergency authority to temporarily freeze the issuance of drilling permits until comprehensive legislation and inspection resources for horizontal well drilling are established to effectively protect public water resources, public health and public safety. Mayor, City of Morgantown Attest: City Clerk

The city of Lewisburg (Greenbrier County), WV, population 3,624 has banned “any further drilling” in the city limits with respect to the Marcellus Shale. Lewisburg City Mayor John Manchester said Tuesday the city council passed two things concerning drilling from Marcellus Shale. The city of Lewisburg has banned any further drilling from Marcellus Shale into…

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