In the Feb. 24 Butler Eagle article, “Pa. Lacks Water Well Regulations,” Shell representative Scott Bruner avoided answering a question about natural gas drilling and groundwater contamination by focusing instead on the article's headline topic. It was as if the lack of water well regulations in Pennsylvania somehow exonerates the gas industry from any groundwater contamination culpability in our state. A 2010 DEP report documents dozens of groundwater contamination incidents linked to natural gas drilling. Not one incident is blamed on poor water well construction. That and the numerous documented cases of drilling-related groundwater contamination in states like Wyoming, Colorado and Texas, all of which have water well regulations, make Bruner's deflection of the topic both irrelevant and irresponsible.
Which leads us to Rex Energy and its arguments regarding the groundwater issues in the Woodlands area of Connoquenessing Township.  The plethora of excuses and explanations as to why Rex Energy couldn't possibly be to blame for residents' water woes disintegrates quickly upon closer examination.

• “The affected water wells are uphill from our drilling operations.” Anyone with the most basic knowledge of hydraulic fracturing is familiar with the phenomenon of “flowback,” in which the mixture of water, sand and chemicals injected into the earth at high pressure returns to the surface at high pressure through the vertical wellbore. Sometimes this occurs so forcibly and uncontrollably as to result in a “blowout,” as has occurred in Clearfield and Bradford counties. In both those cases, the fluids were under sufficient pressure to keep them spewing forth for 12-16 hours from thousands of feet beneath the surface. That kind of pressure can also push fluids thousands of feet uphill through permeable bedrock to pollute an aquifer if the seals around the cement gas-well casings are flawed. A recent Associated Press investigation revealed previously undisclosed well-casing issues at Rex wells in the Woodlands area, just prior to the first complaints of water issues from Woodlands residents. (“Smoking gun” #1.)
  
  
• “There are other residents in the area who have had no water problems.” This is consistent with drilling-related contamination reports statewide and nationwide: some domestic water supplies are affected and others are not. I liken it to the well-known capricious damage patterns that can occur with tornadoes: one house can be demolished while one next to it escapes unscathed. This speaks to the well-documented unpredictability of migratory pathways for gases, fluids and pollutants underground.
  
  
• “Scientific tests show that natural gas development has not impacted water quality in the area.” Research that I have been engaged in for several months has yielded several statements from scientists and scientific organizations saying that high-volume hydraulic fracturing for natural gas extraction has not been adequately studied to understand all of its potential environmental impacts. If the DEP, Rex Energy and its hired laboratories are not finding a link between drilling and contamination in the Woodlands, it could be because they don't know what to look for. That sounds better than saying that they know what to look for and are intentionally not looking for it. Unfortunately, that seems to have occurred, also: pollutants that showed up in initial water testings were not tested for in follow-up testings. This also occurred in a contamination case in Washington County, resulting in a lawsuit: Voyles v. DEP.
  
  
• “There's been bad water out there for years.” This statement has been made repeatedly by Connoquenessing Township officials and area old-timers, and alluded to by Rex Energy in suggesting other causes for the area's water woes. While I can't speak to the “ancient history” of the Woodlands area, I can speak to the recent history of its impacted residents. For at least a decade, each of these families had good, clean water to drink, cook with and bathe in. Then Rex Energy began drilling in the area, and within a few months they had water that looked bad, smelled bad, tasted bad, made them sick and gave them rashes. Either that or they lost their water completely, and dependable natural springs on their properties dried up. Not just one family, but multiple residences, more or less simultaneously.
  

This is a “smoking gun” (#2) if ever there was one. At the very least, it seems that Rex Energy has “knocked something loose” out there with its drillings and fracturings, its high-pressure injections and subterranean explosions, to cause all this trouble. The circumstantial evidence alone warrants a follow-up investigation of the broadest scope. If Rex Energy and the DEP won't lower themselves to re-open this investigation, maybe the EPA will intervene, as it has elsewhere. Maybe a truly independent study will be conducted – one not contracted by Rex Energy or connected to a state government that is increasingly protective of the gas industry. Maybe then we'll learn the truth of what has happened in the Woodlands.

The gas industry likes to say that residents may be “inconvenienced” by natural gas drilling. The residents of the Woodlands have not been “inconvenienced.” Their lives have been severely disrupted and their health has been severely impacted. To unceremoniously “close the book” on investigations into their troubles when so many indicators point to the culpability of the gas industry for the disruption of their lives is unconscionable.

j.p.m.

The gas industry and the PA General Assembly have us right where they want us: blindfolded, ears plugged and bags of money in both hands.

The recently-passed HB 1950, the so-called “impact fee” bill, promises mucho dollars for Pennsylvania's local municipalities; all they have to do is surrender local zoning control of where drilling can take place in their communities to the Pennsylvania PUC.

Can you spell “extortion”?

Lawmakers claim this money will help communities pay for the damaging impacts that drilling will cause. Critics say that the formulas used to arrive at those figures have nothing to do with the actual total impacts of drilling on local communities.

That may be because, unlike New York state, a comprehensive environmental impact study of shale gas drilling was never required of the industry by the state of Pennsylvania. Nor has a health risk assessment ever been conducted in the state re: shale gas drilling.

Negative public health impacts related to drilling were definitely not a part of the impact-fee formula.

While some environmentalists are thrilled that the bill requires drillers to disclose the toxic chemicals they use to doctors treating victims of gas-field accidents and exposures, many doctors, notably Dr. Jerome Paulson, direc­tor for the Mid-Atlantic Cen­ter for Children’s Health & the Envi­ron­ment, claims the bill is unethical in that it prohibits doctors from informing the public of the toxic chemicals it is being exposed to. This provision of the bill protects the “trade secrets” of the gas industry.

If the industry's “trade secrets” are that toxic, that carcinogenic, that injurious to public health, and are part of operations being performed essentially in people's back yards, the industry has forfeited its rights to such “trade secrets.” Such substances in such close proximity to residences and water supplies should be banned, thus forcing the industry to adopt safer practices.

But, not to worry. We have the PA Department of Environmental Protection standing by to protect us in case anything should go wrong. Ah yes – that overworked, overwhelmed, underfunded, understaffed, sometimes seemingly under-motivated agency will certainly protect us from all harm. Its track record of late has been less than stellar, resulting in EPA intervention in both the northeast (Dimock Twp.) and southwest (Washington County) parts of the state. One wonders if Connoquenessing Township will be next.

Two state municipalities – Robinson and South Fayette townships in Washington County – are preparing to do legal battle with the state over HB 1950. Many other municipalities have expressed their strong displeasure and may soon be joining them. As of this writing, not a peep has been heard from any Butler County leaders re: objections to this bill.  It's all been about the money, as if that were the only issue associated with this industrial development.

That's the way it is, here in Butler County: blindfolded, ears plugged and bags of money in both hands...

j.p.m.