Drilling Spills and Hydrofracking

The one-year anniversary of the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig and subsequent massive oil spill was marked by yet another drilling accident. This time, the accident occurred at a drilling site for natural gas in Pennsylvania when a well blew out and started spewing toxic fluids.

Chesapeake Energy officials said a piece of equipment on the well failed.

Now a major response is underway to stop the leak of frack fluid and get control of the well.

Water is gushing from the earth at the Chesapeake well pad.  It has been all hands on deck to put a stop to the leak of fracking fluid that, according to company officials, spilled thousands and thousands of gallons into nearby land and waterways.

"We've been able to limit the flow. We're still doing additional work to regain full control," said Brian Grove of Chesapeake Energy. He added there is no telling yet how much of that extremely salty water mixed with chemicals and sand has impacted the nearby Towanda Creek, but no gas has escaped into the air....

Officials with DEP said the flow of frack fluid has stopped flowing into the nearby creek and its tributary.

Public safety officials in Bradford County said they, along with DEP, will continue to monitor the Towanda Creek which empties into the Susquehanna River. According to officials with Chesapeake Energy, the fluids that spilled all over farm land and into the creek have a very high salt content and contain numerous chemicals used to fracture the rock below.

Environmentalists have been warning about the potential dangers of fracking for quite some time. "Fracking" refers to a drilling process formally called "hydraulic fracturing," which involves injecting fluids into underground rock formations to break up the rocks and release the natural gas they contain. The major concern is that the fluids used for fracking – which often contain toxic chemicals – may leak from gas wells into aquifers and render the groundwater undrinkable for the people who depended on it. Another concern is that fluids from such wells are diverted to wastewater treatment plants, even though the plants are not equipped to process and remove the toxic chemicals found in fracking fluids. Only some of these chemicals are known to the public due to a lack of transparency on the part of energy companies. According to a recent government report:

Some ingredients mixed into the hydraulic fracturing fluids were common and generally harmless, like salt and citric acid. Others were unexpected, like instant coffee and walnut hulls, the report said. Many ingredients were “extremely toxic,” including benzene, a known human carcinogen, and lead.

Companies injected large amounts of other hazardous chemicals, including 11.4 million gallons of fluids containing at least one of the toxic or carcinogenic B.T.E.X. chemicals — benzene, toluene, xylene and ethylbenzene. The companies used the highest volume of fluids containing one or more carcinogens in Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas.

The report comes two and a half months after an initial report by the same three lawmakers that found that 32.2 millions of gallons of fluids containing diesel, considered an especially hazardous pollutant because it contains benzene, were injected into the ground during hydrofracking by a dozen companies from 2005 to 2009, in possible violation of the drinking water act.

As yesterday's incident illustrates, blowouts and the resulting contamination of farmland and watersheds are serious concerns as well.

The blowout occurred just as Pennsylvania was beginning closer oversight of the fracking operations.

The DEP and the industry appear to have been influenced by complaints from public water suppliers in Western Pennsylvania, which say they are challenged by bromide levels whose concentrations have increased concurrently with the drilling boom.

The bromides themselves are not a public health risk - they account for a tiny part of the salty dissolved solids that create an unpleasant taste in water at elevated levels.

But bromides react with the chlorine disinfectants used by drinking water to form brominated trihalomethanes (THMs), a volatile organic compound. Studies have linked the prolonged ingestion of high levels of THMs to several types of cancer and birth defects.

Officials at several water authorities in the Pittsburgh area say their facilities have failed several tests for trihalomethanes in recent years....

Bromides, chlorides, and some heavy metals occur naturally in deep rock formations such as the Marcellus Shale, the massive deposit that underlies much of Pennsylvania and parts of several surrounding states.

In other regions where shale production has taken off, operators dispose of the wastewater in deep, federally regulated injection wells. But Pennsylvania's geology is insufficiently porous to accept large volumes of wastewater.

This week's incident ought to prompt closer examination and oversight of fracking operations, whether in the form of voluntary programs like Pennsylvania's or stronger regulations. Aquifers and watersheds are too important to risk contamination.

Bird-Smart Wind Power

Wind energy holds some potential for reducing the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by our power sources, but this environmental benefit comes at a cost. Wind farms may harm birds and bats, either by creating obstacles for them to strike or by habitat degradation. The American Bird Conservancy is circulating a petition calling for mandatory standards for the wind industry to reduce the threat to birds and bats. The petition reads as follows:

Wind power is the fastest developing source of energy in the United States and can be an important part of the solution to climate change. However, wind farms can harm birds through collisions with turbines and associated structures, and through loss of habitat birds need for survival. These losses are largely avoidable. The solutions are within our reach.
I support bird-smart wind power that includes mandatory standards to minimize bird deaths and habitat impacts.
Bird-smart wind power:
1. Is carefully sited to avoid harm to birds
2. Uses best technology and best management practices to minimize harm to birds
3. Employs effective, federally reviewed and approved, site-specific, pre- and post-construction studies/assessments to assist with improved siting and operation, and to properly quantify impacts.
4. Compensates fully for unavoidable harm to birds caused by collisions with wind turbines or associated structures, and lost or degraded habitat.

If you agree with this, you can sign onto the petition here. The petition is a shortened version of ABC's policy statement on wind power, which provides more information about what they mean by each of those four points.

(via the ABA blog)

EPA to Revoke Mountaintop Mine Permit

An EPA regulator has recommended revoking the permit for a planned mountaintop strip mine in West Virginia, on the basis of wildlife impacts.

In a report submitted last month and made public on Friday, Shawn M. Garvin, the Environmental Protection Agency’s regional administrator for the Mid-Atlantic, said that Arch Coal’s proposed Spruce No. 1 Mine in Logan County should be stopped because it “would likely have unacceptable adverse effects on wildlife.”

In 2007, the Bush administration approved the project, which would involve dynamiting the tops off mountains over 2,278 acres to get at the coal beneath while dumping the resulting rubble, known as spoil, into nearby valleys and streams. The Obama administration announced last year that it would review the decision, prompting the mine owner, Arch Coal, based in St. Louis, to sue.

In its review, the E.P.A. found that the project would bury more than seven miles of the Pigeonroost Branch and Oldhouse Branch streams under 110 million cubic yards of spoil, killing everything in them and sending downstream a flood of contaminants, toxic substances and life-choking algae....

The E.P.A. said the construction of waste ponds as well as other discharges from the Spruce No. 1 mining operation would spread pollutants beyond the boundaries of the mine itself, causing further damage to wildlife and the environment.

Arch Coal had proposed to construct new streams to replace the buried rivers, but the E.P.A. said they could not reproduce the numbers and variety of fish and plant life supported by the indigenous streams.

The company plans to sue, so this may not be the last word on the subject.