Water seminar offers advice to property owners

Regulating agencies taking firm stand

By TOM KANE

HONESDALE, PA — Water and its preservation are becoming a major issue with regard to gas drilling companies that are swarming over the land in northeast Pennsylvania, including Wayne County.

A June 9 workshop on “Natural Gas Wells and Drinking Water,” sponsored by the Penn State Extension of Wayne County, drew over 250 people.

Just this week, the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) closed down two drilling companies which had not gotten the necessary permits before withdrawing water needed to drill a well. Estimates are that it requires several million gallons to drill a well.

“Companies operating without prior water use approval for these and other water-related activities will be considered in willful noncompliance if they continue to operate after receiving SRBC’s notice,” said a June 6 memo to the industry.

More than 72 percent of the tri-state Susquehanna watershed falls within the Marcellus Shale formation.

On the same day, the Delaware River Basin Commission notified the Stone Energy Corporation that it would need to apply for and receive approval from the commission before it can extract natural gas in Wayne County. The company had neglected to do so.

At the seminar, water specialist Bryan Swistock, from Penn State’s School of Forest Resources, instructed property owners on what measures they must take before drilling begins if they want to protect their water supply in the face of extensive gas drilling activity.

“Test your water, period,” Swistock said. “We know that only 25 percent of property owners ever have their wells tested, and 20 percent of those others have only had their wells tested by a non-certified water treatment company. This is not acceptable. If your water is affected by gas drilling, you need to have your water tested by a certified independent company so that you can prove that any contamination was caused by the drilling operation and not by any other circumstance.”

“The gas well operator is presumed to be responsible for pollution of any water supply within 1,000 feet of the gas well if it occurs within six months of the completion of the gas well operation,” he said.

Water testing can cost as much as $1,000 if all parameters are included.

Swistock projected on the screen the results of an average concentration of various water quality parameters in a gas drilling operation that occurred in Indiana County recently. He showed that there were unacceptable quantities of chlorine, barium, iron, pH, total dissolved solids, manganese, lead and arsenic.

“These pollutants cause serious health problems,” he said.

Other water quality parameters that can be affected by a gas drilling operation are: alkalinity, total suspended solids (turbidity), hardness, calcium, magnesium, coliform bacteria, strontium, surfactants/detergents, sulfate and oil/grease.

Swistock indicated that only three to five percent of current gas well operations in the state have shown the appearance of these substances.

Everyone who attended the meeting was offered the opportunity of having their water tested by Penn State gratis, if they brought the bottles they received at the end of the meeting to the Extension office at the Wayne County Courthouse the next day.

For more information on the testing of water, call the Wayne County Extension Office at 570/253-5970. To learn more about natural gas leasing and exploration in Pennsylvania, consult naturalgaslease.pbwiki.com.