Katy Dunlap was the guest speaker at April’s Al Hazzard Trout Unlimited chapter meeting. The Eastern Water Project Director for TU gave an excellent presentation on gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale. While she expressed grave concerns regarding the environmental impact to the local area, she balanced that point by showing that things can be better if New York takes heed to the lessons learned in Pennsylvania.
The issue has been a lightning rod for debate in NY. Land owners stand to gain significant financial return from gas drilling leases and royalties, however, conservation groups and environmentalists, among others, worry about the negative impacts of drilling.In between the extremes are governmental regulatory agencies, charged with ensuring the best use of the land for the common good.
Ironically, just hours after Dunlap’s April 20th presentation, a natural gas well drilled by Chesapeake Energy in Leroy Township in nearby Bradford County, PA, experienced problems that quickly escalated out of control. A wellhead connection failed in the process of fracking the well, and natural gas and thousands of gallons of fracking fluid escaped containment and flowed across adjacent fields and into a tributary of Towanda Creek. Several homes in the immediate area were evacuated as a precaution, and drillers, well control specialists, and the DEP responded by trying to cap the well, divert the stream of wastewater away from the nearby tributary, and assess the environmental impact.
Drilling company officials were quick to report initial tests of area waterways had shown minimal environmental impact, if any. While no fish kills have been reported to date,DEP personnel remained on the scene of the spill this week, testing the water of Towanda Creek.
Soon after the spill occurred, some positive news developed on what’s been a very negative topic in the past. Chesapeake Energy suspended fracking and completion operations in the Marcellus Shale in order to inspect wellheads currently in use in those operations. And government officials called for an initiative to change wastewater rules in Pennsylvania, setting a goal of May 19th for drillers to stop using wastewater treatment plants. After the May deadline, drillers will have to either use deep disposal wells for wastewater or recycle it into new well projects.
The proper disposal of drilling wastewater has been a controversial topic. Wastewater is currently trucked to sewage treatment plants where contaminants are removed before water is returned to nearby streams and rivers. Recent reports by scientists, however, indicate evidence of an increase in bromide in rivers that were being used for gas drilling wastewater disposal. Bromide is reported to be harmless, but when combined with the chlorine used to sanitize drinking water supplies, it can produce substances called trihalomethanes that have been linked in some studies to increased human cancer rates after years of exposure or consumption.
The spill in Bradford County is just one more unfortunate example of what can go wrong with gas drilling. Along with other drilling incidents in Pennsylvania, it’s another warning shot for states like NY, where drilling has yet to start. But recent corrective actions by drillers and regulators may be signs of hope that will someday validate TU’s position; that if carefully planned, correctly executed, and properly controlled, natural gas drilling can be managed for the common good of all.
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