In what can only be described as a mighty blow against industry hubris and governmental malfeasance, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has rescinded a permit it had previously issued to XTO for a proposed well site in Franklin Township. It would be wonderful if this act of sanity could be attributed to corporate conscience or governmental due diligence, but that is not the case. This amazing turn of events came about because a mighty band of residents pooled their pluckiness, their resources and their expertise and felled Goliath - XTO is a subsidiary of the richest company on the planet - ExxonMobil.

Time and again, XTO assured the residents that they knew Franklin Township better than the folks that live there. Time and again, XTO, its apologists and sock puppets crowed about meeting or exceeding DEP's "stringent" regulations. Time and again, governmental bodies soothed the concerned residents, "DEP will take care of you."

XTO's permit application failed to address, didn't even fill out, important parts of the application. Other parts were merely boilerplate, failing to address facts on the ground. This put the Lake Arthur watershed in harm's way, it endangered the drinking water supply of Harmony Borough and the private wells of nearby residents. And how did DEP respond? It approved this woefully inadequate and dangerously deficient plan - living up to a moniker many of us now use to describe the agency, Don't Expect Protection.

Using thousands of dollars of their own money, Save Lake Arthur Watershed (SLAW), the aforementioned mighty band, mobilized. These, mostly retired, residents did what XTO and DEP should have done. They poured over maps, studied run-off patterns, read regulations, examined documents,read research, and implored company and government officials to pay attention. All to no avail. Finally, they filed suit - at great cost. And then, XTO and DEP took notice.

The system is broken. We, the residents of the Commonwealth, pay taxes to fund an agency that doesn't do its job. Worse, that agency is held up as an impediment to business and, contradictorily, a protector of the Commonwealth. It's neither. DEP is a sham. Residents of the Commonwealth shouldn't have to pay more money just so DEP will pay attention to us.

If XTO can't fill out paperwork properly, even when it knows that people are watching, how can we trust them to do infinitely more complex things when no one is watching? And how do we know that no one is watching? Because DEP rubber stamps documents that leave entire critical sections blank.

A while ago, a Butler County resident found that a driller located a well too close to his house (the driller was XTO). He told me that he notified DEP and was told, "XTO would never make a mistake like that." The homeowner insisted that DEP measure and, sure enough, the well was too close.

If XTO and DEP can't take care of the little things, they have no business conducting or regulating big and complex things.

What would we do without plucky residents?

Michael Bagdes-Canning

In his Butler Eagle, May 29 editorial, JLW III expressed great hope that scientists at General Electric (GE) will improve the resource extraction method known as fracking and make it safe.

Let me get this straight.
When people first started expressing concerns about fracking, the gas industry told them that they were “alarmists,” that fracking had been used for over 60 years and was “perfectly safe.”

Then came the slick TV ads saying that the gas industry was going to “get it right” regarding hydraulic fracturing for shale gas extraction.   Oh?   I thought they said it was “right” to begin with.  What happened?

A couple months ago the “sustainable shale” initiative was launched in Pittsburgh by a handful of drilling companies and a handful of environmental groups with the goal of “getting it right.”   (Oh?)   They came up with a series of non-binding “performance standards” which actually differ very little from state and federal environmental laws which the industry ignores much too often.   (To wit, MarkWest, whose natural gas operations in Butler County violated federal clean air laws for two years while the company disputed EPA citations in court.)

Now the latest savior of the shale gas industry (which was perfectly fine and safe to begin with, you may recall) is on the scene: GE.  GE is going to make fracking “all better.”   Oh, how I long to believe!  But what “problems” will GE be willing to acknowledge, and which problems will continue to be ignored, as they were before the industry decided it had to “get it right”?

If anti-fracking activists and investigative journalists hadn't been continually bringing the problems with fracking into the light, GE would not have its glorious mission to embark upon.  Only when these problems become too well-known and uncomfortable to be ignored, often at great human cost, does the industry begin to address them.

I hope that GE will begin its illustrious crusade to “make fracking safe” by acknowledging all those who have been harmed by it when it was “not safe” (i.e., from the beginning of its use in unconventional shale plays to the present).  It would be to the gas industry's credit to make such an acknowledgment as well.

In his editorial, JLW III mentioned the massive BP oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico as an example of the inevitability of “risk” involved in energy extraction.   He neglected to mention the massive amount of deception that accompanied this accident, regarding the extent of the damage and who was to blame.   Perhaps corporate dishonesty is an inevitable part of the equation as well.

The lack of honesty by the gas industry regarding the problems of fracking for shale gas extraction was the main reason for my becoming a “fracktivist.”  With all the lies, from “it's perfectly safe” to “we're getting it right” and so on, why should I now believe that GE will suddenly “make it all better”?   And how much destruction and damage to health and property will continue to happen while GE scientists endeavor to “get it right”?

I hope that GE will “aim high” and attempt to persuade fracking's harshest critics in the scientific community that it has indeed made fracking a safe and benign process.   I hope that GE will dedicate its efforts publicly to the many who have been harmed by this toxic industrial process before it was thus “perfected.”   Anything less will be, or at least will appear to be, just one multi-billion dollar conglomerate scratching the back of another for profit.

And haven't we had enough of that?

j.p.m.

On Aug. 23, the PA DEP issued an “environmental health and safety” violation to Rex Energy for “failure to properly store, transport, process or dispose of a residual waste” in Lancaster Township, Butler County. (Note: “Residual waste” from hydraulic fracturing is generally toxic.) And on Oct. 24, another violation of the same type occurred at a Rex Energy well in Penn Township, Butler County.

I know this because my wife and I subscribe to an online service that continuously monitors the DEP violations database and sends us notifications of violations in our area.

This online service is a valuable resource, because the DEP is not legally required to report drilling violations to the public, nor to local officials, and so, for the most part, it doesn't. If I wanted to learn more about this violation, I would need to apply to DEP for a “file review” – a rather involved process which would include a trip to the Northwest District office in Meadville.

An in-depth analysis of DEP data by the PennEnvironment Research and Policy Center, “Risky Business: An Analysis of Marcellus Shale Gas Drilling Violations in Pennsylvania 2008-2011,” identified a total of 3,355 violations of environmental laws by 64 different Marcellus Shale gas drilling companies between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2011. Of these violations, the Center identified 2,392 violations that likely posed a direct threat to the environment and were not reporting or paperwork violations. Of these thousands of violations, perhaps a handful have received any media attention.

In March, the supervisors of Center Township, Greene County, learned of a 480-gallon diesel spill into a local stream. The spill occurred in December. They learned about it because a reporter from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review did a violations file review. The supervisors were upset, saying that DEP should have notified them. Department officials told them that they wouldn't want to know about “every little spill.” “It isn't clear that DEP officials should be making that judgment if a 480-gallon spill went unreported to the public,” said Edward “Butch” Deter, chairman of the township's board of supervisors and president of the Center Township Volunteer Fire Department, Company 91.

Ed Barale, a supervisor in Amwell Township, Washington County, is also dissatisfied with DEP's lack of notification. DEP officials “don't tell us any more than they have to. I think we have a right to know. DEP keeps you in the dark, so I don't have much faith in them.” Eight Amwell residents are suing Range Resources and DEP over environmental problems they claim stem from violations committed by Range that the DEP did not report to the public.

Online services such as skytruth.org, epa-echo.gov and fractracker.org can help local residents to stay abreast of drilling violations in our area, and also, via skytruth, of new drilling permits that have been issued by the DEP for our area.

But wouldn't it be nice if the DEP would issue regular detailed drilling violation reports to all state media outlets, and especially to local officials and all residents within a mile or two of violation sites? One would think DEP would do this out of a sense of moral responsibility, or that state lawmakers would make it a legal requirement. If these violations were made public, maybe local residents would have a clearer, more realistic perception of the “safe and responsible drilling” taking place in their communities.  

j.p.m.

Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a national environmental group, contacted MOB in August with a request to visit Butler County to see what is happening with unconventional well drilling.   The President, Frances Brenenke, brought two board members and 6 staff members to Butler to see the impact toxic fracking is having on people and communities. 

Two members of Marcellus Outreach Butler, Ping Pirrung and Dennis McCann, hosted a lunch at their home in Middlesex Township on August 27 for our visitors.  Janet and Fred McIntyre shared how their lives have been turned upside down and their health compromised  since drilling began in the Connoquenessing.  Woodlands.

At the end of the luncheon, Raina Ripple, Director of the Southwest Health Center,  told the visitors that the stories of people impacted in Butler County are the same as the stories she is hearing in Washington, Greene and Fayette Counties.  People are sick and living with contaminated water and breathing air that forces them to stay indoors.  And what is so upsetting to her is that “no one is doing anything to help these people – not the state or local governments, not the medical profession.”

The NRDC visitors were visibly moved by what they heard and this was reinforced when they piled into cars and took a tour of the shalefields in Butler County.  With Janet McIntyre and John Stolz as guides, a caravan of cars traveled down Brownsdale Road where there are 4 drilling sites within a  mile radius from one another.   At one site in the Woodlands,  the liner from a pond which had held contaminated flowback water had been carelessly left by the side of the road.  After visiting several drilling sites, a compression station and the gas processing plant,  our guests had to travel south to Washington County where Ron Gulla was hosting a similar event for them the following day to show them the impacts in Southwestern PA.

What were the results of NRDC’s tours of fracking sites, like their visit to Butler County?   Check out the impressions of  Frances Brenenke’s, President of NRDC, tour of western PA as captured in her blog.

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/fbeinecke/calling_for_national_fracking.html

On September 19th, NRDC launched the Community Fracking Defense Project. This new project, which is launching in five states—New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, and North Carolina—will provide assistance to towns and other local governments that want added control over the siting of and/or protections against the harms of fracking in their communities.

For example, NRDC legal and policy staff, together with local partners, will:

•    Assist in drafting local laws and land use plans that control the extent of fracking within their borders and/or limit the harmful effects of fracking.

•    Work to re-assert communities’ rights to protect themselves under state law.

•    Defend relevant zoning provisions and other local laws that are challenged in court.

Kate Sidding, a NRDC attorney, filed an amicus brief in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on behalf of a number of municipalities in support of a lower court decision striking down portions of Act 13, a recently enacted Pennsylvania law that severely limits the ability of local governments to use their zoning powers to control where fracking occurs.

MOB was happy to host NRDC’s visit and is encouraged by their response and actions.  We need more powerful organizations to step forward and take a stand like NRDC is doing.  As more people and organizations stand up and make their voices heard, we increase our chances of stopping this destruction and getting permanent solutions for the people whose lives have been so negatively impacted.

-Dianne Arnold

On Aug. 23, the PA DEP issued an “environmental health and safety” violation to Rex Energy for “failure to properly store, transport, process or dispose of a residual waste” in Lancaster Township, Butler County. I know this because my wife and I subscribe to an online service that continuously monitors the DEP violations database and sends us notifications of violations in our area. (Note: “Residual waste” from hydraulic fracturing is generally toxic.)

This online service is a valuable resource, because the DEP is not legally required to report drilling violations to the public, nor to local officials, and so, for the most part, it doesn't. If I wanted to learn more about this violation, I would need to apply to DEP for a “file review” – a rather involved process which would include a trip to the Northwest District office in Meadville.

An in-depth analysis of DEP data by the PennEnvironment Research and Policy Center, “Risky Business: An Analysis of Marcellus Shale Gas Drilling Violations in Pennsylvania 2008-2011,” identified a total of 3,355 violations of environmental laws by 64 different Marcellus Shale gas drilling companies between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2011. Of these violations, the Center identified 2,392 violations that likely posed a direct threat to the environment and were not reporting or paperwork violations. Of these thousands of violations, perhaps a handful have received any media attention.

In March, the supervisors of Center Township, Greene County, learned of a 480-gallon diesel spill into a local stream. The spill occurred in December. They learned about it because a reporter from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review did a violations file review. The supervisors were upset, saying that DEP should have notified them. Department officials told them that they wouldn't want to know about “every little spill.” “It isn't clear that DEP officials should be making that judgment if a 480-gallon spill went unreported to the public,” said Edward “Butch” Deter, chairman of the township's board of supervisors and president of the Center Township Volunteer Fire Department, Company 91.

Ed Barale, a supervisor in Amwell Township, Washington County, is also dissatisfied with DEP's lack of notification. DEP officials “don't tell us any more than they have to. I think we have a right to know. DEP keeps you in the dark, so I don't have much faith in them.” Three Amwell families are suing Range Resources and DEP over environmental problems they claim stem from violations committed by Range that the DEP did not report to the public.

Online services such as skytruth.org, epa-echo.gov and fractracker.org can help local residents to stay abreast of drilling violations in our area, and also, via skytruth, of new drilling permits that have been issued by the DEP for our area.

But wouldn't it be nice if the DEP would issue regular detailed drilling violation reports to all state media outlets, and especially to local officials and all residents within a mile or two of violation sites? One would think DEP would do this out of a sense of moral responsibility, or that state lawmakers would make it a legal requirement. If these violations were made public, maybe local residents would have a clearer, more realistic perception of the “safe and responsible drilling” taking place in their communities.


j.p.m.