Comment

Comment by John Reed on April 7, 2010 at 1:28pm

Daniel, do you see what I mean ? Marie is dead set against drilling period. No matter what you say she will absolutely 100% disagree. I bet she is continuing to dump cleaning sollutions down her drains at home polluting the aquifiers. She is probably burning her oil boiler or furnace on cold nights this spring, or burning coal or worse yet firewood.

Comment by John Reed on April 7, 2010 at 1:24pm

Marie, what are these facilities in Williamsport and Sunbury ?


WVSA sees profit in treating drill water
By Rory Sweeney rsweeney@timesleader.com
Staff Writer


The Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority is looking to join the ranks of regional sewer authorities profiting from natural gas drilling.


Read more Natural Gas Leases - Marcellus Shale articles


Following Williamsport and Sunbury, where authorities are already treating drilling wastewater, the WVSA is requesting proposals to build a closed-loop pretreatment plant on its land in Hanover Township.

The plant would accept wastewater only within certain pollution parameters, and the treated water would need to be reused for other gas drilling.

Proposals are due by March 29, and the authority hopes to have the plant built within a year, pending necessary permitting.

“I think this thing can get built in seven, eight, nine months or quicker, so again, when will it be permitted?” said John Minora, president of PA NE Aqua Resources, which is consulting on the project.

The plant would be able to treat 800 gallons a minute with a daily flow of 1 million gallons, plus storage and a filling station. The system could utilize any of several techniques that could include separation and disposal of waste in a landfill, evaporation and land application of the minerals or treatment and dilution, Minora said.

Dilution would require the same amount of water, plus about 10 percent more, he said, which would come from the plant’s treated sewage water.

Removing the solids and chemicals is easy, he said, but extracting the dissolved salts is not, which is why dilution might be the most economical option.

“Honestly, we’re open,” he said. “We’ll consider any system that does that job.”

Unlike at Williamsport or Sunbury, however, the resulting Hanover Township water won’t be sent to the existing treatment facility and would need to be purchased by gas companies for use in drilling.

“We want a system that isn’t going to discharge (into a waterway, such as the Susquehanna River), whether or not there’s a byproduct we have to dispose of in another fashion,” he said.

There is an old rail spur at the site that could be reconditioned. Rail is the preferred transportation method, he said, because it’s faster and less disturbing to the community. However, a trucking route is being considered utilizing a second entrance that passes only a few homes, he said.

That route requires the rebuilding of a washed-out bridge.

“We’ve looked at some alternatives, where really the impact on the neighborhood is minimal,” he said.

All proposals require a bid bond of 10 percent of the total bid. Minora declined to offer an estimated cost.

Comment by John Reed on April 7, 2010 at 12:52pm

There is one in Hanover Township. They treated frack water a couple of months ago. This is a very poulated area. I used to live right next to this place. In the summer the smell was terrible. They mentioned no ill effects of processing the frack waste and guess what ? Nobody got sick or died lol. I'll do some reseacrh and see if I can find the article. I read it a month or so ago. Also, I'll create a listing of facilities who can potentially handle the frack waste.

Comment by John Reed on April 7, 2010 at 10:53am

It's a good start. I like common sense. Using it is the best road.

Comment by John Reed on April 7, 2010 at 10:28am

No, you seem to show balance. I would be willing to work with you.

I would never sign a lease that allows a frac pond on my property. None of us have to. I've stated before deep well injection is being looked into. Also, waster water disposal through transportation to a treatment facility is a better option in my mind. Both of these options still pose risks but I believe less than a frac pond. Frac ponds give the gas co's the easy and most economical way out. It's all in the lease agreement.

Comment by daniel cohen on April 7, 2010 at 10:26am

Dear All,
John & I are trying to put together a broad outline for landowner groups to consider in order to protect themselves, the environment,their property values and their health. Please feel free to jump in and add/question anything & everything. The focus here is to try to accomplish a partnering with the O & G companies. We can hope for the best, but let's prepare for the worst.

Tentative Suggestions:
1) If you don't have a landowners group yet, consider forming one.
2) Regardless of the actual deal/lease you made, you may still have rights that need addressing
3) Consider having a knowledgeable attorney to represent the groups interests
4) A comprehensive water analysis ought to be a prime consideration for the group members
5) The handling of the frac water needs careful review to be certain that it is treated with intelligence and concern for the environment.
6) The storage and transportation of the frac water needs careful review to be certain that it is treated with intelligence and concern for the environment.
7) The responsibility to ensure that things are done properly is in your hands. You cannot rely on the government to look out for you.
8) A watch committee ought to be formed to keep tabs on the water quality and the extent of the aquifer. Keep in mind that pollution of the aquifer becomes everybody's concern.
9) Noise, atmospheric pollution, leakage from holding pools becomes everybody's concern
10) The Golden Rule for an economic interest is not the Golden Rule we learned as children and good neighbors. For business, Those Who Have The Gold, Make The Rule!

What do you think, have we begun to put together anything of value for us all yet, or are we still too common sense focused without anything new?
Dan

Comment by CJK on April 7, 2010 at 10:16am

John:
Am I one of the people that you are not willing to work with? I will supply you with logical and factual information. DId you see the article I posted earlier about the fire in the wastewater ponds. What is your position about these frac ponds the companies are allowed to set up? Some are setting up as many as three ponds per pad so that they can keep below the minimum acreage for when regulation steps in? You talk about the surface issues being the most problematic, what can we do about that, shouldn't the gas companies be required to stop this practice?

Comment by John Reed on April 7, 2010 at 9:56am

I am more than willing to contribute. But I will not work with a few individuals who are dedicated to scaring people. If I can contribute in any way let me know. I'll wait for your direction. Whatever we come up with needs to be logical and factual.

Comment by daniel cohen on April 7, 2010 at 9:02am

Dear John,
Very interesting stuff, and many thanks for pursuing it to the right source. Dr. Engelder was indeed kind to respond as he did. Apparently there is an academic difference of opinion between Engelder and Howarth, but we need not get bogged down with that.

Our path, yours & mine, is perhaps better spent in addressing your following comments:
"You should be having this conversation with the anti drilling people. They don't seem to be open to talking about ways to make things better. It is my opinion they are out to completely tarnish and abolish drilling period. What they write gives me no indication their motives are to the contrary. "

I can see why one might think that, but I attribute it to fear of the unknown rather than a desire to abolish something entirely. That's why we (you & I) need to shed as much light upon this as possible, and to avoid the heat that might come along with it.

You have helped considerably in bringing light to the conversation, now to address the fears/concerns that are being expressed by the anti drilling group. I believe that we are in agreement about the need to be vigilant, to protect ourselves/property/health and to try to partner up with the O & G folk to make it a win/win situation for all.

I believe we also agree that economic interests being what they are, we can't expect the O & G companies not to try to cut corners and to increase their potential profits without primary regard for the landowner. That the landowner should look out for himself just as the O & G folk are looking out for their own bottom line.

If the above is more or less where we're both at, then we need to put together the kind of protections to answer the anti drilling groups concerns. I believe that if we can do that, there will not be the opposition that currently exists.

I suspect that much of your earlier comments/posts dealing with the need to form landowner groups, have good legal representation, have many addendums to the standard lease and how to approach water issues all make for exactly the needed approach to protect us all.

If we're in agreement here, let's work on putting together a recommended list/approach for landowner groups to consider- of course it would only be a start, and a rough outline at that, but the direction would be correct don't you think?
Dan

Comment by John Reed on April 7, 2010 at 7:47am

Below is a response from Dr Terry Engelder to an email I sent to him yesterday afternoon. He was very kind to respond. It's interesting he mentions the life of methane is far less than tha of C02. This is not factored in to Howarths caclulations either.


John:

Howarth is not an expert on the Marcellus and is, in fact, quite disingenuous.



Let me take on just one of his statements! Howarth states, “Natural gas is mostly methane, a greenhouse gas with 72 times more potential than carbon dioxide to warm our planet (per molecule, averaged over the 20 years following emission). I estimate that extraction, transport and combustion of Marcellus gas — together with leakage of methane — makes this gas at least 60 percent more damaging for greenhouse warming than crude oil and similar in impact to coal.” Let’s assume he is referring to just to replacing oil and coal by gas equivalences from the Marcellus.



Global warming potential GWP of methane is defined as the ratio of the time-integrated radiative forcing from the instantaneous release of 1 kg of a trace substance (CH4) relative to that of 1 kg of CO2. This definition comes from the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Radiative forcing is a measure of the influence a gas has in altering the balance of incoming and outgoing energy in the Earth –atmosphere system. As the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere increases, the ratio of incoming to outgoing energy increases. The same amount of CH4 has a much larger effect which is implied by Howarth’s statement. What Howarth does not tell the reader is that methane is easily oxidized in the atmosphere and has a half life of only 7 years. CO2 is very stable in the atmosphere once it is released. This is why the atmosphere is Venus is mainly CO2.



Because of the oxidation of CH4 in the Earth’s atmosphere, methane’s GWP drops rapidly from 72 times CO2 after 20 years to 21 times after 100 years CO2. In fact, it is this rapid decay that will limit the amount of methane in the Earth’s atmosphere to a few parts per million under the present rate of gas production in the world. Note that the concentration of CO2 is presently about 400 parts per million (ppm) and this will continue to climb because it is NOT being systematically removed at the rate of CH4 removal by oxidization. What this means is the CO2 is presently king in terms of radiative forcing and its influence will continue to grow.



Here is the kicker! According to DOE EIA, the US uses about 25 trillion cubic feet of methane per year (25 Tcf/yr). Converting to mass this is 552 Tg/y (teragrams/year). According to US EPA figures, the methane production industry releases 104 TgCO2 Eq. The US EPA uses the 100 year equivalence between CO2 and CH4 (not the 20 year equivalence used by Howarth) which was calculated to be 21 within the IPCC 2nd Assessment Report. So, methane emission by the gas industry is 4.9 Tg/y which means that 0.9% of all methane produced gets into the atmosphere. Note also that total methane emission is just above 578 TgCO2 Eq which means that gas production is responsible for 18% of all methane fed to the atmosphere by the USA. Obviously, these numbers are larger if this tranche of methane is tracked for a shorter period. It should be noted that methane production by the USA has stabilized over the past several years and the measured concentration of methane in the atmosphere has not increased because of its short half life. Presumably it has stabilized by somewhat less than 2 ppm.



Suppose that all coal fired power plants were converted to methane power plants tomorrow. The USA uses about 25 Quads (quadrillion BTU) annually from both coal and natural gas. Coal production would stop and natural gas production would double. Methane emits half the CO2 as coal on a BTU basis. Presently coal releases 2,000 TgCO2 Eq. Burning CH4 would release 1000 TgCO2 Eq for a net savings of 1000 TgCO2 Eq. At the same time, this additional methane production would release 104 TgCO2 Eq worth of methane emissions. The USA emits about 5800 Tg in CO2. A complete conversion from coal to natural gas saves the USA about 900 Tg or roughly 15% in greenhouse gas emissions. Converting vehicles to natural gas would save an additional 15% in CO2 loading. This is calculated using the US EPA standard of a 100 year oxidation period for CH4.



I don’t have any idea what Howarth means when he says that Marcellus methane is as damaging as coal but to my way of thinking he is clearly out to foil Marcellus production for reasons that he does not make clear!



Terry







Terry Engelder

Professor of Geosciences

Department of Geosciences

334 A Deike Building

The Pennsylvania State University

University Park, PA 16802



Phone: 814-865-3620



From: John [mailto:nightrgr@ptd.net]
Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2010 5:56 PM
To: Terry Engelder
Subject: Re: Marcellus



Good afternoon Dr Engelder,



I know you are very busy but I have a question about natural gas that I would really like answered. There are many people out there who are trying to stop natural gas exploration and attempting to scare land owners into believing half truths at best. Can you read the first few sentences below and let me know your opinion ? Basically the writer of the text below is saying overall natural gas consumption with extraction factored in, is as detrimental to the environment as coal. Please, please let me know what you think.



Thanks for any guidance.



John Reed









The point that one needs to understand is that the process of extractng the gas needs to be taken into consideration. This is the key point that is never addressed "I estimate that extraction, transport and combustion of Marcellus gas — together with leakage of methane — makes this gas at least 60 percent more damaging for greenhouse warming than crude oil and similar in impact to coal. " The whole picture needs to be discussed and considered also he is talking about the leakage of methane that occurs with the extraction process. This is huge and is not discussed. This is the whole article:
HYPERLINK "http://www.theithacajournal.com/article/20100328/VIEWPOINTS/3280320/" http://www.theithacajournal.com/article/20100328/VIEWPOINTS/3280320/ Gas and drilling not clean choices
Environmental risks too great; alternative fuels a better option
Robert Howarth
March 28, 2010 Natural gas is marketed as a clean fuel with less impact on global warming than oil or coal, a transitional fuel to replace other fossil fuels until some distant future with renewable energy. Some argue that we have an obligation to develop Marcellus Shale gas, despite environmental concerns. I strongly disagree. Natural gas as a clean fuel is a myth. While less carbon dioxide is emitted from burning natural gas than oil or coal, emissions during combustion are only part of the concern. Natural gas is mostly methane, a greenhouse gas with 72 times more potential than carbon dioxide to warm our planet (per molecule, averaged over the 20 years following emission). I estimate that extraction, transport and combustion of Marcellus gas — together with leakage of methane — makes this gas at least 60 percent more damaging for greenhouse warming than crude oil and similar in impact to coal. The most recent method of hydro-fracking is relatively new technology, massive in scope and far from clean in ways beyond greenhouse gas emissions. The landscape could be dotted with thousands of drilling pads, spaced as closely as one every 40 acres. Compacted gravel would cover three to five acres for each. New pipelines and access roads crisscrossing the landscape would connect the pads. Ten or more wells per pad are expected. Every time a well is “fracked,” 1,200 truck trips will carry the needed water. Drillers will inject several million gallons of water and tens of thousands of pounds of chemicals into each well. Some of this mixture will stay deep in the shale, but cumulatively, billions of gallons of waste fluids will surface. Under current law, drillers can use absolutely any chemical additive or waste, with no restrictions and no disclosure. Recent experience in Pennsylvania indicates regular use of toxic, mutagenic and carcinogenic substances. Out of 24 wells sampled there, flow-back wastes from every one contained high levels of 4-Nitroquinoline-1-oxide (according to the New York Department of Environmental Conservation). It is one of the most mutagenic compounds known. Flow-back wastes also contain toxic metals and high levels of radioactivity extracted from the shale, in addition to the materials used by drillers. Industry tells us that surface and groundwater contamination is unlikely, since gas is deep in the ground and drilling operations are designed to minimize leakage. Nonsense. The technology is new and understudied, but early evidence shows high levels of contamination in some drinking water wells and rivers in other states. Accidents happen, and well casings and cementing can fail. The geology of our region is complex, and water and materials under high pressure can move quickly to aquifers, rivers and lakes along fissures and fractures. Flow-back waters and associated chemical and radioactive wastes must be handled and stored at the surface, some in open pits and ponds unless government regulation prevents this. What will keep birds and wildlife away from it? What happens downstream if a heavy rain causes the toxic soup to overflow the dam? What happens to these wastes? Adequate treatment technologies and facilities do not exist. What about government regulation and oversight? The DEC is understaffed, underfunded and has no history with the scale and scope of exploitation now envisioned. Federal oversight is almost completely gone, due to Congress exempting gas development from most environmental laws, including the Safe Drinking Water Act, in 2005. We can be independent of fossil fuels within 20 years and rely on renewable green technologies, such as wind and solar. The constraints on this are mostly political, not technical. We do not need to sacrifice a healthy environment to industrial gas development. Rather, we need to mobilize and have our region provide some badly needed national leadership toward a sustainable energy future. Robert Howarth is the David R. Atkinson Professor of Ecology & Environmental Biology at Cornell University. An internationally known expert on environmental issues and water quality, he has worked on the consequences of oil and gas development for more than 30 years. The viewpoint is his own and should not be construed as a position of Cornell University.

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