WELL SITE SAFETY AND SECURITY IN PENNSYLVANIA     PART II  

By: Robert A. Young

Introduction

A cursory review of natural gas exploration and production in Bradford County Pennsylvania presently, ( June 2012), may give even casual observers the impression that such activity is slowing down on the local front.  Likewise the rhetoric published lately in some news media reports indicate a bit of a lull in the initial frenzy to capture and market the precious fuel here.   But, considering the current low market price for this type of energy, gas really doesn’t seem as valuable at this point, does it?            

In the months since my last article was published on well site safety and security, I don’t see any new and earth shattering, all encompassing local, state or national direction, public hearings, independent commissions or policies and procedural drafts in this area either.   In an election year, citizens should be very cautious in their assessments of any politically motivated promises freely offered to improve safety and security in and around these potentially volatile industrial locations.   As voting day approaches, assurances are cheap and plentiful.  Then what?

Amid the bare bones of a long winding parade of media exposes lately that seem to be patently weak in all the aspects of citizen advocacy, and some reporting even blatantly shows a brazen deference to oil and gas companies exclusively.  But, GOMARCELLUSSHALE.COM continues to serve as a welcome relief to objective truth seekers.    

This piece is not designed to impede or obstruct individual rights to develop private property or to get in the way of the free enterprise capitalistic system that is the historical hallmark of the American economy.   Granted, domestic oil and gas exploration and production, when done right, (that’s without incident), is a great asset to our country.   Contentious pontification really gets in the way of interactive discourse and thwarts actually reaching the goal of progress.

All of the partners engaged in this great endeavor to harness, own, sell and profit from our vast natural resources at home and abroad need,( now more than ever before), to completely ascribe  to a factual, evidentiary, analytical and empirical approach to reasonably answer two very significant and substantial issues:  

#1- How do we ensure that people, animals, air, water and land are not permanently damaged by oil and gas development,

And

 #2-How do we safely and securely extract and use these fuels to boost our American economy and distance ourselves from dependence on foreign sources of energy?

It truly boils down to a matter of policing, law, enforcement, fundamental regulatory fairness, industrial compliance, freedom, financing and lot’s of hard work.  The challenge is to meld all of these concerns together successfully with no or minimal harm done.

But, the confused and sometimes downright viscous partisan polarization that exists today in America is restricting oil and gas development and societal progress as a whole.  At this point in time , considering what’s happening globally, American energy independence should be regarded as a matter of national security and therefore treated as such;  a priority.      

                                                                Reigning In The News Media

Recently, I wrote a Twin Tiers Perspective editorial column that was published in the Daily Review Newspaper, in Towanda, Bradford County Pennsylvania and additionally featured in many formats on the internet including;  Times-Tribune.Com and The Blog For Social Responsibility (accessed by GOOGLE).  In this piece I: reflected on the fact that the news media should be advocating for the common good instead of  catering to the whims of special interests. (1)

Some of the same themes that I explored in this article on current public affairs, also apply to the literary treatment of oil and gas exploration and development by contemporary wordsmiths.  One of the less desirable elements of the press today however, (including the t. v. and digital formats), is that there is ample evidence of members of “Fourth Estate”,( the media; i.e.:  reporters and editors alike), who are freely taking editorial license and liberties to print, publish and/or broadcast the verbatim press releases of both environmentalists and the energy industry without interceding on the side of the truth.  Frequently there is a bit of a void in the once respected ethical schools of investigative journalism that focused on fact.    

What the American people really need from the news media presently is an unremitting and resolute scientific analysis of the facts instead of regurgitations of patent propaganda.  The public is seriously tiring of it.

The purpose of this article and the next blog submission, therefore; is not to have readers define their opinions by virtue of my writing or direct such opinions in any specific way.  To the contrary, My purpose here-in is to offer suggestions and contribute to the general dialogue, discourse and review of the issues in order to avert tragedy in our communities due to ignoring best practice standards which cause the kind of unwanted safety and security breaches that have the potential to be catastrophic in the oil and gas industrial operations now scattered about our communities.   So, with these qualifications firmly established, let’s move directly on to the “nuts and bolts” of the long-awaited Well Site Safety And Security In Pennsylvania- Part II….  By:  Robert A. Young

                                                The ” Sensational” Philadelphia Inquirer

Speaking of the news media; I read the Philadelphia Inquirer Newspaper the other day and major stories have been rolling off the presses and flashing onto computer screens from "The City Of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia, Broad and Spring Garden Streets, (Inquirer H.Q.), referring to Bradford County Pennsylvania as:  “Gas Land,” and I quote right from the Philly.com website titled;  “Deep Drill, Reports from Pennsylvania’s Gas Land.”  

One of the reporters whose writing is featured in Deep Drill is a gentleman who I personally serviced as a media relations cop when he contacted the Philadelphia Police Headquarters Public Affairs Office to seek information from me on law enforcement matters when I held that sensitive position in the early 90’s. Among a host of other subjects,   he is now writing about the minimal regulation of the energy development in the Pennsylvania hinterlands such as Bradford County where, after my retirement from law enforcement, I  now live, and of course, he won’t return my e-mail contacts despite the exemplary customer service that I rendered (as an active public affairs officer) when he contacted our public affairs office in the Philly PD many years ago.  

At the opposite extreme however, another reporter that I e-mailed regarding the site was very nice and responded to me in a timely and friendly fashion. I subsequently gleaned some information from him, and independently discovered that he originally hails from Bradford County, PA unlike the silent veteran reporter that I previously referenced.   The senior Inquirer employee who refuses to return my e-mail messages is closed mouthed with me, but real wordy on the page, and unlike yours truly;  he’s believed by some to be radically anti-gas and oil. Really? Just read DEEP DRILL yourself and find out.

A reasonable yet critical reading of the Inquirer’s DEEP DRILL would prompt anyone to wonder why this unsophisticated literary effort has made such a big splash that it professes to have made around the country.   

GOMARCELLUSSHALE. COM blog entries by ordinary people on the ground such as myself actually living  in the Keystone State’s oil and gas development areas have been reporting about generally the same concerns for months prior to DEEP DRILL’s arrival.  Now, the heavy weight and high paid journalists from the big city call the “Endless Mountain’s”( our home):  GAS LAND.

In DEEP DRILL there’s lots of intensive coverage of the activities of “The Marcellus Shale Play” a la “gee whiz journalism” by urban professionals who, according to the Inquirer’s publicity seeking machine, apparently  spent over a year researching the matters that they exposed in print and cyberspace.  It seems like someone’s looking for another Pulitzer Prize on the backs of the noble residents of Northeastern Pennsylvania, many of whom have local familial roots in these hills dating back hundreds of years.  The Inquirer hierarchy also needs to sell papers desperately, because they have a new set of owners to appease just to keep their lucrative jobs in their plush Center City Philadelphia penthouse offices.  Elite Inquirer news reporters have a history of garnering awards by exposing the pain, trials and tribulations of poor disenfranchised folks.  Stories that they usually piece together from their out of touch ivory towers.

Well, I don’t have a journalism degree, nor the proper credentials required to effectively run an oil and gas company, but I’ve handled enough critical safety and security issues on the streets of a major American city, including  thousands of investigations, acquired convictions on minor and serious offenses and contributed to the researching, planning and the reporting of vital law enforcement and public safety findings to police administrators over the years when I was a police officer.  So, I feel confident that any recommendations offered in this article or the up and coming published pieces scheduled in the future in various formats, ( hard copy and digital),  will interest most people in many ways, and I hope after experiencing these efforts readers feel the same way, because I really don’t see anyone in the public or private sector doing anything like this kind of stuff... 

I have alluded to the GAS LAND designation pinned on the good people of the “Endless Mountains”  as a derogatory, disrespectful slur and an inaccurate depiction of our beautiful rural Pennsylvania homeland.  The way the Inquirer uses it, the sub-heading would have you believe that all of Northeastern Pennsylvania is inundated with gas wells.   Residents and oil and gas industry workers know this is not the case.  The Inquirer is sensationalizing again, like it has done characteristically on many variant issues in the past when paper sales are down.   I personally know firsthand of the traditional modus operandi of the Philadelphia Inquirer with respect to their reporting of some events occurring in law enforcement during my two decade long police career in the Delaware Valley from which I am now retired.  Sensationalism adds to the hype; a news reporter's cheap trick that increases readership and possibly pulls in Pulitzers if presented in a crafty fashion.

In DEEP DRILL they’re now writing about “Battle Lines” drawn between environmentalists and the oil and gas companies and the people of GAS LAND, and they are explaining how regulators enter the mix and complicate the industrial endeavors altogether.  They're writing about the development of what they call “gas fields” throughout Northeast Pennsylvania, and what they view as indications that there is friction brewing between us up-country residents and those environmentally picky neighbors dwelling in the lower Susquehanna Valleys of Southeast Penn’s Woods, due to what they label as the unregulated spread of an out of control monster oil and gas industry up here that some have reported endangers the entire Susquehanna watershed from the Chemung in New York State to the mouth of the Chesapeake.   

A familiar theme and refrain re-emerges in the mix, and again there is another re-hashing of some of the same issues that have surfaced in the past when media reports once focused on the alleged sediment from Bradford County farming activity rolling down the Susquehanna River into the Chesapeake Bay and supposedly destroying the aquatic habitat down there along waterways at all points south and resulting in a long running harangue of complications for the already struggling dirt farmers of the Endless Mountains of Northeastern Pennsylvania. 

Now, let’s get something straight right here.   I’ve been in that tourist region, and I have stayed in hotels on the water down there and observed what’s routinely being dumped into the bay by their own local facilities from several different sources.    It’s important to note here-with the assistance of a socio-economic based observations- relative to the cherished Chesapeake Bay region that I now address, and most especially, in and around Washington D.C. specifically.    This region has been recently highlighted in news reports as the center of one of the wealthiest citizen populations in the nation, and it’s no accident or result of recent oil and gas activity  either .   The fact of the matter is that there are many federal government workers on the dole on Uncle Sam’s payroll residing down there that harbor sympathetic ties to the political establishment because they work within the system and have money and connections.  

According to Bloomberg.com, the nation’s greatest concentration of lawyers live in the D.C. area and  over 170,000 federal employee’s receive compensation down there (where GAS LAND’s sediment and toxins are allegedly landing).  These bureaucrats actually average raking in around $126,000 yearly income of U. S. taxpayers money.  It has been reported that the per-capita income in some of these areas of the Chesapeake Bay and surrounding counties is $84,000 per year.  Official figures as of now indicate that, Bradford County Pennsylvanians boast an average yearly income of slightly over $17,000 which in some cases is below the national poverty level.  

Now, who do you think is going to affect any changes in this reported environmental scenario;   “GAS LAND” dwellers or Chesapeake Bay folks?  Their complaints have and will result in regulation.

And furthermore, I wonder what an Inquirer DEEP DRILL reporter makes per year to stir up the pot and then go on to the next story without solving a thing before ordering out for their afternoon sushi in la-la land.  Their just intensly about the business of muck-raking sediments with sentiment from their insulated cubicles time and time again and they really don’t care about us in GAS LAND or the people of this country.

The essential point that I’m getting at here is that in many ways the news media is contributing to the polarization, and in some cases; the demonization of the American people which is causing contention and in-fighting among our ranks, when we really need cooperation to succeed especially in the adoption and maintenance of energy policies, procedures and practices that will ensure the safety and security of our citizens, communities, resources, economy and diverse ways of life.   It’s about time that the media backs off, stops riding the fence line and finally gets on the right side of the people and supports us. 

Now that I’ve got the “nuts and bolts” all lined up and grabbed a few wrenches, here’s the beginning of my feature presentation:   

Some More Suggestions For Ensuring Safety And Security At Oil and Gas Well Sites In Pennsylvania: 

I have the distinct inclination to write the stories no-one is writing about, and I think this one fits the bill. Through this piece and the next, I have purposefully laboriously struggled to go far beyond conventional wisdom in seeking the truth like the duty bound investigator who pounds the streets ferreting out facts and evidence to reach a conclusion that is consistent with the common good of the people.

Safety and security operations at Pennsylvania’s oil and gas well sites need the highest standards of policing, inspections and oversight applied equally and consistantly across the board in order to acquire compliance by the energy companies and safeguard our communities.   Let’s admit it; for the last 150 years these industrial giants have had full reign in Pennsylvania and other states virtually without regulation because of their well-lubricated  working relationships with political power brokers who conducted business at the expense of the general public. This lax arrangement between the high-stakes players has got to stop,now.  But, in reality in the great state of Pennsylvania the political scene does not look good recently.  According to the TIMES ONLINE.COM website, as of June 05,2012, in a five year period approaching this date, a grand total of seven (7) politicians from the KEYSTONE STATE have been convicted in criminal courts on various illegalities.

Steps should therefore be taken immediately to protect our communities from even the slightest possibilities of oil and gas development accidents, criminal activity and terrorism.   Most people would agree that safety and security is the collective responsibility of the people, the government, the energy companies and their contractors alike.    But, local, state and federal authorities should aggressively and lawfully handle oversight and compliance matters regarding permitting and policing the construction, operation and maintenance of well sites, pipelines, industrial equipment, buildings, vehicles, traffic safety and infrastructure.

Energy exploration and production is not successful, if the effort causes problems for the company and the communities in which the activity is staged.  The expressed mission of energy companies is; profit.  Causing accidents or lacking security measures that could lead to loss of life, damage or criminal activity are not the kind of results that profit- seeking companies want to incur on their watch.  Ensuring safety and security is the utmost priority on well sites, and I believe that the adoption and dedication to over-arching proactive measures will prove highly beneficial to the industry as well as all of the other stakeholders involved together in the system.  Initiating and managing a regime of regulation should foster voluntary compliance instead of requiring resorting to overbearing, illegal or unethical tactics simply to enforce the rules.  Likewise, to be effective, the consequences of any regulation should be taken seriously and handled as such.   

The time-honored and once valued "people-oriented"  precepts embedded in our democratic republic throughout American history is that, ideally;  government is supposed to work "for the people" and elected representatives are ultimately accountable to us.  Governments "of the people, by the people and for the people" should therefore accomplish the many tasks that are; "for the good of the people" and generally supportive of their best interests. 

Regulation espoused by governments in turn should not ineptly constrain development and progress, because this practice does not bode well for the acquisition of the end goals of success and profits.   In theory, regulation should improve energy exploration and production, not hamper it, because if accomplished the right way, (without incident), proceeds from the industry will eventually be absorbed by the populous and thus raise their standard of living and improve their lives.

Footnote 1:  The Daily and Sunday Review, editorial page, Twin Tiers Perspective, Sunday  June 10, 2012;  Robert A. Young-On Public Safety, National Security And The Economy ( The Importance Of Ensuring Media Accountability) Also appearing in Robert A. Young's Blog For Social Responsibility accessed via GOOGLE search on the internet at BlogSpot.com.  Search for SILOBREAKER Robert A. Young and see other articles by the author.        

Next time Robert A. Young will explore and offer some more specific suggestions for encouraging Well Site Safety and Security improvements and how to finance these recommendations .  The author will also reflect on challenging situations and circumstances in safety and security at the well sites that he has personally observed on the ground and in the “gas fields” of Bradford County, Northeastern Pennsylvania.     

Be sure to visit: Robert A. Young’s Blog For Social Responsibility accessed via GOOGLE search engines and read many of the author’s literature found on this very popular site and check out the other entries appearing on his GoMarcellusShale.com blog.