Comment

Comment by CJK on April 29, 2010 at 3:27am

Various Comments, with important statements, from other sources with regards to Dr Engelders article:

I appreciate the fact that you only get 800 words with an op-ed, so
maybe you had more to say, but I found it disingenuous for you to
dismiss the arsenic claim so curtly. No, arsenic isn't used in Fracking:

but it does come up in flowback because it's in the ground. So it's
quite legitimate to site a spike in arsenic levels as potentially caused
by natural gas drilling.

What do you say to that?

And what do you say to the fact that in the many cases where there have
been cause for concern in the state so far, DEP and EPA have never done
a rigorous battery of tests on water to see whether or not industrial
contaminants are there?

Further, how do you respond to Michel Boufadel's research suggesting
that the hydrology of spilled or leaked flowback water is not the same
as freshwater and therefore our monitoring protocols will fail to detect
a contamination for many years?

Lastly, on the issue of natural gas as a greenhouse gas agent: this was
also disingenuous. You and I both know that released methane is a much worse global warming agent than CO2. You and I both know that a lot (and I mean A LOT) of methane escapes over the course of the drilling, treatment and transporting process. A whole lot. When you look at the process as a whole, the case for natural gas as a cleaner alternative really diminishes. It's much too simplistic for you, as a scientist, to dismiss this argument as simply untrue. Maybe natural gas isn't "just" as bad as coal, but maybe it's 75% as bad? Or 50%? Maybe it's much closer than we think?

I applaud you, however, for acknowledging in your piece that your work
is supported by the gas drilling industry. That's a disclosure that I
would submit your peers at PennState would do well in the long run to
admit to more often. As academics, I would argue, that it's really
essential.


Second set of comments:

Mr Engelder here gives a good demonstration of disingenuousness himself.

While he attempts to scapegoat Cabot as a bad operator, he fails to note
that problems with water and health are common where gas drilling takes
place, across the continent and likely the world, and Cabot isn't the
driller in all those instances.
DEP's recent action is of course not clear evidence that "the state
Department of Environmental Protection is also working with the industry to make sure groundwater is protected." That water was not protected, because DEP has put the desires of industry ahead of the needs of the environment and the people who live in it. I would like to encourage Mr Engelder to drink some of that "protected" water and see how "protected" it has been for the last two years.
Finally, the New York academic, Robert Howarth, has not claimed "that
exploiting Marcellus Shale gas is comparable to burning coal in terms of
greenhouse-gas emissions." The title of Professor Howarths' paper is
"Preliminary Assessment of the Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Natural Gas
Obtained by Hydraulic Fracturing.
"
http://www.damascuscitizens.org/GHGemissions_Cornell.pdf "Preliminary," as Mr Engelder surely knows, means, 'these are the indications so far, and they are worth considering, but we don't have the final answer yet.' Mr Howarth recently wrote to me, "We ...continue to work hard to put the best science we can into the analysis." Since such an analysis has not been done before, and this one is not yet complete, therefore Mr Engelder cannot truthfully say about the possibility that natural gas is worse for greenhouse gas emissions than coal, "This is simply not the case."


My point is all of us need to read between the lines when anyone is reporting, as you all know there are many ways to interpret things.

Comment by Robin Fehrenbach Scala on April 28, 2010 at 10:55am

Be sure to report suspicious VW vans with peace signs and flowers carrying barrels marked with skulls and crossbones, and also having cable cutters, cans of spray paint and various other implements of destruction.
(just kiddin")

Comment by daniel cohen on April 28, 2010 at 10:39am

With special thanks to Peacegirl, the following ought to be posted around the sites as we surf:

Report a Spill or Dumping
EPA Eyes On Drilling
Report non-emergency dumping, illegal & suspicious hauling, disposal:
1-877-919-4372
eyesondrilling@epa.gov

To report a spill in NY state:
1-800-457-7362

To report an emergency spill or release of hazardous material to the National Response Center:
1-800-424-8802

Dan

Comment by Robin Fehrenbach Scala on April 28, 2010 at 8:53am

Excellent!
You beat me to it.

Comment by John Reed on April 28, 2010 at 7:58am

Below is a very balanced articel written by Terry Engelder. This is a must read.

Gas drilling yields a gusher of hogwash
Both sides of shale debate could be more forthright.

By Terry Engelder
The exploitation of natural resources often spawns two camps, the industrialists and the environmentalists, each of which engages in disingenuous arguments - the bigger the resource, the more disingenuous the arguments. The debate over extracting natural gas from the Marcellus Shale has followed that pattern.

A pocket of gas may have exploded within 1,300 feet of a Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. well near Dimock, Pa., on Jan. 1, 2009. In a recent Associated Press story about a state shutdown of Cabot's drilling near Dimock, a company spokesman said, "It just isn't scientifically fair to say in any short period of time that Cabot's activities did or did not cause the methane in the groundwater."

This statement doesn't reflect well on Cabot for a couple of reasons. While it is true that methane naturally seeps into groundwater throughout much of the state, potentially leading to such accidents, drilling activity is known to accelerate the process.

Many private wells in the state have dissolved methane in their water, and people drink this water all the time with no ill effects. But if the volume of methane in the water is near saturation, it can collect in pockets of gas when underground pressure is released by water pumps that aren't properly vented.

In the course of our research, my colleagues and students at Penn State have drilled into pockets of methane gas at depths of 500 to 2,000 feet. When such a pocket is penetrated, gas rushes up to the surface, blowing foaming, white water out of the well - much as carbon dioxide drives soda out of a shaken bottle. Fourteen families in the Dimock area have described milky-looking water in their wells.

Penn State's research on the Marcellus Shale is supported by nearly a dozen leaders in the shale gas industry. More than one of these companies have engaged us in trying to solve problems associated with drilling through and isolating shallow gas pockets. Cabot's denials of culpability seem disingenuous given that other industry leaders have recognized the issue and are working with Penn State to address it.

The state Department of Environmental Protection is also working with the industry to make sure groundwater is protected, and the Cabot shutdown is clear evidence of this. Yet, in a long letter to the Centre Daily Times in State College, an environmentalist recently wrote that gas drillers and DEP regulators "can and do destroy communities and ecosystems, even when the people in those places don't want to be destroyed and say so." This is an equally disingenuous statement from the other side of the debate.

Whether groundwater is contaminated by chemicals employed in deep hydraulic fracturing - the process used to retrieve shale gas - is a controversial question. The industry claims there have been one to two million uses of the technology without a single report of such contamination. The physics of groundwater flow give some credence to that contention. (Surface spills are a different issue, but they are relatively easy to manage.)

One environmentalist recently pointed to alleged cases of contamination in Pennsylvania. But one was a clear case of methane migration from shallow pockets, not from hydraulic fracturing. Another involved the presence of arsenic at 2,600 times the federal standard for drinking water, but arsenic isn't used in fracturing.

As disingenuously, one New York academic recently wrote that exploiting Marcellus Shale gas is comparable to burning coal in terms of greenhouse-gas emissions. This is simply not the case.

The Marcellus Shale is too important to America's energy future to be the subject of disingenuous arguments from either side. It is a gift to the people of Pennsylvania and the greatest opportunity they will ever have to move away from foreign oil and toward a fuel with a smaller global-warming footprint. It is an opportunity that requires clear thinking on both sides of the debate.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terry Engelder is a professor of geoscience at Pennsylvania State University. He can be reached at jte2@psu.edu.

Comment by Keith Mauck (Site Publisher) on April 28, 2010 at 3:12am

http://www.gomarcellusshale.com/page/marcellus-landowner-groups

Comment by Tom Mackey on April 24, 2010 at 3:00am

Does western Pennsylvania have a land owners coalition setup and if so what's their name?

Comment by Robin Fehrenbach Scala on April 22, 2010 at 10:25am

The companies can negotiate for fair value, just as they have done in the past. No one is AGAINST the pipelines, just against the way they want to go about getting the rights.
In this case they don't want to be bothered and feel they should be able to take whatever they want. WRONG!

Comment by William Ladd on April 22, 2010 at 7:58am

How are the gas companies going to move any gas that is produced from wells on your property except by pipeline? And why is there a big fuss over it anyway. Once a pipeline is in there should be no further problem.

Comment by CJK on April 22, 2010 at 7:38am

It is my opinion that the gas companies will be bargaining for eminent domain in exchange for allowing the severance tax without lobbying hard against it. I am not against the severance tax but I DO NOT want the funds to be allocated to the General Fund, it needs to be allocated to the localities in which the drilling is occuring so they can use funds to improve infrastructure and keep funds in escrow for posssible environmental damages that occur, etc.

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