New Threats to Spring CreeK

[salmo]

I just read that exploration for natural gas in Pennsylvania may be a serious threat to Spring Creek and other mountain stream in the state. What can we to prevent this?

Salmo

 

[tomgamber]

and this should get you worrying even more..

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_640424.html

 

[troutbert]

Do you have a link to the article? I live near Spring Creek.

 

[Brownout]

2-butoyethanol, or 2-BE found in the wells. 11 of 39 contaminated. Seems to be leading towards the fact that it was natural gas drilling that caused it. I saw somewhere that the clean water act was altered to make the use of fracking fluid more acceptable. How long does it take to build a nuclear power plant?, haha.

 

[jayL]

As long as people scream "NIMBY", nuclear will have problems. Everyone's got ideas, then scream when someone actually tries to implement them.

Fickle, self-centered public = drilling in the middle of isolated forests instead of much more reasonable nuclear solutions.

That's my uneducated opinion on the subject.

 

[tomgamber]

And those of us that consider those isolated forests our back yards are called enviro-wackos when we take out turn to protest.

 

[pcray1231]

True, but its those same enviro-wackos who sink the more environmentally friendly solutions, like nuclear!

Thats my semi-educated opinion (yes, I work on the periphery of, and interface with the engineers directly involved in the nuclear industry, as well as gas, oil, wind, etc.).

All of them have negatives, your simply looking for the lesser evils. In order from best to worst, they are nuclear, hydro, gas, oil, coal. Geo could sneak in there near the top if it works out to be big enough. Solar and wind are great for a lot of things, but they belong on a local level, not big enough to make a splash in centralized production. i.e. more energy conservation than production....

 

[JackM]

I think we need better technology on energy storage and portability-- a better "battery" if you will. then we can get the production away from people and precious places and bring the energy in to where it is used neatly stored in a compact and portable form.

 

[pcray1231]

While its possible we will invent a better battery, the likelihood of the matter is that it will be made of extremely expensive materials. For cars, thats the hold-up now. The processing may get cheaper, but the materials won't, theirs just not enough of it on the planet. And mining these materials brings with it the same issues as drilling for oil or mining for coal. Plus, the reason our power gen plants are near people has little to do with transmission, our transmission system is already the most efficient part of it all.

 

[troutbert]

The original post made reference to Spring Creek? Any info in regard to that?

 

[tomgamber]

found these after a 1 minute google search.

http://troutrageous.blogspot.com/2009/08/field-stream-pa-natural-gas-drilling.html

http://www.scipa.org/governmental_affairs.html

 

[riverwhy]

Glad to see that "guilty" is the verdict inside 6 months (provided there is a baseline), but with drilling that deep seems it might take longer to see the negative results. Once the burden of proof is on the landowner particularly in rural Pa (unless there is 3rd party help financially) it seems like there is little recourse. This is just a guess but maybe PCray or others could comment on this?
Jay P

 

[pcray1231]

Recourse? I doubt it, other than monetarily. Most interesting is if they can figure out what caused the contamination, as all of the available engineering says it shouldn't happen. Was there a spill on the surface? Was the groundwater protection barrier cracked, and if so, can we make a better one? Is there a certain, very porous type of rock we need to avoid?

While, overall, contamination has been, percentage wise, very rare, it has happened, and this was one case. We've linked over time, 8 or 9 examples, in the hundreds of thousands of gas wells in the U.S. Pennsylvania has probably in the vicinity of 100,000 already installed, and most of them have been there for 10+ years, so this isn't all new to us. Its very important to keep holding them accountable for the few cases of contamination, not just for the money, but also to make them keep looking at the type of questions I posed above, so that it doesn't repeat itself.

 

[TimMurphy]

Dear pcray,

With all due respect, quit apologizing in advance for how all of this will turn out. Those of us without connections to the industry or who aren't burying our heads in the sand and hoping it all goes away, already know.

Natural Gas is worth 1/2 of what it was worth at the beginning of this year and worth far less than what it was worth at the beginning of the "Marcellus Shale Rush."

That's the thing about Natural Gas, it's only worth something when you don't have it, once it's found it ain't worth shiite. It cannot be stored or conveyed in the quantities that match the discoveries so they just pack their stuff up and go home to await a new place to rape.

You are from all I've ever read from you, a smart man.

Holy Mary Mother of God! Start thinking that way for Chrissakes!

We are going to be left holding the bag once again.

At this point, I'm done with bag holding and looking to kick azz and take some names.

Regards,
Tim Murphy

 

[pcray1231]

Tim, you strike me as a mover and shaker, and we need more like you!

I'm just fair minded, and look at things from a logical, rather than a emotional, point of view. Both styles have their place. I'm all for doing away with gas, oil, and coal completely and going all out on nuclear, put the money where the least damage is. But you can't be against everything unless we all decide to not use any source of external power or any items which require power to make. Unfortunately, the environmental movement has the nuclear industry in a bind. And while it sucks (for us) that its local, gas is the next best thing.

There is no way gas drilling can be totally harmless, but the degree of "badness" can be controlled somewhat. You're not gonna stop it altogether, and its useless to try that approach; you gain nothing but the satisfaction of griping about it. Sure, you may keep it out of stream X's drainage, but that just puts an extra well on stream Y. The only thing we can do is ask for protective rules and enforce those rules. Make them accountable for screw ups, and I mean seriously accountable. For groundwater contamination issues, Marcellus is no different than the gas wells we've had for years. They were frac'ed just the same, and most of that was at a much shallower depth. That doesn't mean the requirements shouldn't be tighter now than they were then. Yeah, its likely there will be a couple of cases of groundwater contamination, and we should limit that as much as possible. Most of these will be due to equipment failure, a cracked pipe or barrier, etc. The question is whether they could be using better equipment, they often cut corners to save on cost and end up taking a bigger risk. When something happens, they also have a tendency to cover things up to avoid fines, so the monitoring has to be there. If the penalty is stiff enough, the cost/benefit factor favors the better equipment, and we'll have less "incidents."

The new issue with Marcellus is the volume of water used. The permit process, and whether or not its enforced, is where the lion's share of the focus should be. I'm not talking slap on the wrist enforcement. I'm saying make violators go bankrupt, and the next company will make sure it follows the rules. I also find it worrisome that, as far as I know, the permits only state the drainage, not the individual streams or time of year/flow rates, etc.

 

[TimMurphy]

Dear pcray,

Yeah I'm a mover and shaker but only because I'm fat and I shake when I move. ;-)

I have big concerns for what this whole process is doing to the roads and bridges in these rural areas. Most of those roads were not designed and built to handle hundreds of 80,000 pound water tankers running for days and weeks at a time.

I can show you places in Lycoming county where the roads have been absolutely destroyed. Even if no fracking fluid is spilled and no chemicals are released in the air or onto the ground they have still done some very expensive damage that the rest of us are going to have to pay to fix.

I hope it's not to late to start holding the drilling companies responsbile for that damage. As it stands now it doesn't appear that much thought went into the process? The drillers should have to post bonds and repair the roads they destroyed before they can start drawing gas and selling it for profit.

I hope I'm proven wrong but I don't trust them to do the right thing in the end and repair what they have broken? I've seen them come and go from too many places in the Southern Tier of NY and Northern Tier of PA to think otherwise.

Regards,
Tim Murphy

 

[salmo]

When I submitted my original post I did not have all of the information at my immediate disposal. The September 2009 issue of Fly Fisherman had an article on the Marcellus Shale Formation, which runs north - south across the entire western part of Pennsylvania and a significant part of the Poconos. The PADEP has issued 800 deep drilling permits with more on the way. Thirty 0ne percent of Pennsylvania state forests have been opened to gas drilling and exploration. This will increase road building, run off and use of huge volumes of water for the "fracking" process. At risk are Spring Creek, Big Fishiness Creek and may other wild trout waters in the state. Dave Rothrock is the President of Pennsylvania TU and is leading an effort to mitigate the damage from this process. Ima not a scientist and suggest you read copies of the Fly Fisherman article. I will try to get contact information for Dave Rothrock.

Salmo

 

[TimMurphy]

Dear Salmo,

I'm pretty sure Dave Rothrock is a member of this message board who posts under the name of "ol Lefty?" If you find out something different please let us know.

Regards,
Tim Murphy

 

[salmo]

For the Trout Unlimited position on this threat to fish habitat please follow this link: http://www.patrout.org/Marcellus_White_Paper.html

 

[pcray1231]

salmo,

Thanks for the link. The TU whitepaper kind of sums up my personal opinion on the matter. Fair and informative.