Honesdale’s Robson well: part 2

By SANDY LONG

HONESDALE, PA — Incomplete testing and inadequate staffing are two of the chief concerns raised by environmental attorney Jeff Zimmerman, in relation to the ongoing investigation of contamination at the Robson test well site in Honesdale, PA. The charges are leveled at the state agency with primary oversight of natural gas extraction. But the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) counters that its approach to testing is adequate and that it is adding additional staff to handle drilling issues.

On October 5, 2009, Zimmerman filed a complaint with the DEP on behalf of the Damascus Citizens for Sustainability (DCS) citing a possible contamination event at the site. The citizens group had secured an aircraft to photograph dying trees on the first exploratory natural gas well drilled in Wayne County last fall.

Neither the DEP, nor the drilling company, Chesapeake Appalachia, had noticed or reported the defoliated trees prior to receiving the aerial photos depicting the site, raising concerns about the adequacy of the monitoring process.

The DEP commenced a site investigation, in conjunction with Chesapeake, which resulted in the identification of a “weathered petroleum product” and which has led to additional testing.

Testing

The scope of that testing has alarmed Zimmerman, whose offer, on behalf of his clients, to do split sampling at the well site was rejected by the DEP. “A limited set of materials are tested for,” he said. “They should analyze for every chemical that was on the site. I’m concerned that we don’t have a very effective and properly funded enforcement inspection program.”

According to DEP Northcentral regional manager Robert Yowell, the state agency does not possess lists of all chemicals used at drilling sites. “We don’t have a Materials Safety and Data Sheet (MSDS) listing every chemical used at any particular site,” he said. “We don’t have any particular need to have that list at all times on every site. If it spills, we can get it, and it doesn’t necessarily direct the way we start testing for things.”

Yowell said the DEP has a long list of the chemical constituents of frac fluids. “They’re not all the same from one company to another. They have proportions and proprietary additions that they don’t want other people to know. If somebody spilled a whole truckload of Coke on a pad, I wouldn’t be able to get the MSDS sheet that told me the formula of every chemical that’s in Coke. Yes, we can get them if we have to have them, and no, they wouldn’t list every last single chemical anyway, and no, they don’t really have to,” he said.

Yowell said the general public lacks an understanding of how tests are conducted. “Tests are run in groups, for inorganics, organics and volatiles,” he said. When you run tests in those general categories, you discover a presence or an absence of those materials. To some extent, you get specific identification of what it is. If you ran an inorganic test on the soils of a spill, if it was a frac material, you would expect to find certain metals, strontium, barium, that are in frac water. If you didn’t find those things, you would know it wasn’t a frac spill.

“You don’t need to know every constituent to test for a petroleum spill or a frac water spill. Many times DEP goes out to sites and we don’t know what was spilled there, or by whom, yet. We do these tests and narrow it down. You do the tests to define the footprint and materials and then decide what you want to test for and where you want to test for it next.”

The ongoing process could lead to future water testing, Yowell said. “I can definitely see the likelihood of ground water testing, and surface water, if it gets that far.”

Staffing

There are two staff members—an oil and gas inspector and a water quality specialist—currently assigned to DEP’s Wilkes-Barre office, which oversees Wayne and surrounding counties such as Susquehanna, where the DEP is investigating ongoing gas migration problems that have affected private wells. Other DEP permitting staff, engineers, hydrologists, hydrogeologists and wetland biologists also work on projects related to gas pads, pipelines and inspections, according to Yowell.

Last week, Governor Edward Rendell announced that the agency will begin hiring an additional 68 staff to strengthen its enforcement capabilities.

“The industry’s projected growth in 2010 means that we need additional inspectors to ensure oil and gas companies follow environmental laws and regulations,” said Rendell. “We want to encourage the development of this resource because it’s a tremendous economic opportunity for the state, but we will not allow that to happen at the expense of our environment.”

Approximately two-thirds of the new staff will be field personnel directly involved in monitoring and compliance. The remainder will be program support including legal staff, including to DEP spokesman Tom Rathbun.

Ten staff will be assigned to a newly created Oil & Gas office based in Scranton. The remaining assignments are not finalized yet, but staff in the Williamsport regional office will double. Staff will also be added to the Pittsburgh and Meadville regional offices and to the central office in Harrisburg. The positions will be funded from money generated by new, higher permitting fees instituted in 2009.

DEP performed 14,544 drilling site inspections in 2009 and took 678 enforcement actions against drillers for violations. One third of the more than 6,200 oil and natural gas drilling permits DEP issued in 2009 were for drilling in the Marcellus Shale. Only four of the more than 6,000 permits issued in 2005 were for the Marcellus formation. “The industry has told us that they expect to apply for 5,200 permits to drill in the Marcellus Shale this year—nearly three times the number of permits we issued in all of 2009,” said Rendell.

Other unknowns

The absence of a site closure procedure at the Robson site is yet another issue raised by Zimmerman. “They shouldn’t be able to close up shop and walk away from a site,” he said.

Was there a final inspection done at the Robson site?

“The Robson site was not inspected at the time of completion and there is no requirement to do so,” said Spadoni.

Zimmerman remains concerned over other unanswered questions. “Were microbiosides used there; was a substance taken up by the roots; was it airborn or volatilized; did it only affect the swatch of trees in the area leading from the site or did a fluid flow off the site; did it make it to the pond or ultimately to the river; has it entered the groundwater? These are important things to know,” he said.

The agency maintains that it is pursuing answers through its ongoing investigation.

“We are conducting this investigation like many others to discover what happened at the Robson site, to determine if there is any long standing environmental damage, and what if anything needs to be done to clean up contamination at the site and mitigate the damage if appropriate. We have drawn no conclusions at this early stage of the investigation,” wrote DEP spokesman Daniel Spadoni in an email.

The only spill reported by Chesapeake at the site occurred in July, when a DEP inspector received a call from Chesapeake indicating that an incident occurred on the evening of July 3rd when the top of the rig collapsed and one man was injured.

“It was reported that a small amount of drilling mud was spilled on location,” wrote Spadoni. “He also indicated that a small amount of hydraulic fluid was spilled onto the rig floor and immediately cleaned up. The inspector discussed the incident with the emergency response manager and it was agreed that no immediate follow up was needed. The inspector followed up on July 7 and found no evidence of spillage of any material at the time of inspection.”

It is not yet clear whether the “weathered petroleum product” identified at the site, or something else, defoliated the trees. But it is clear that neither Chesapeake, nor the regulatory agency noticed the dying trees.

“The sad news is that it took a citizens group to bring attention to this,” he said. “Why didn’t DEP notice the trees? Why didn’t the operator do anything about them? It would appear that there are not adequate resources in place to support the regulatory process. Every enforcement program relies on tips and information from the public as extended eyes and ears of the agency. But you shouldn’t have to depend upon the public to call these things to your attention. This is only the first well in this area. The DEP shouldn’t be overwhelmed at this point.”

In a recent development, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced the establishment of a new “Eyes on Drilling” tipline for citizens to report “non-emergency suspicious activity related to oil and natural gas development.” See “Gas at a glance” for more information.

www.riverreporter.com/issues/10-01-28/head2-robson.html Click here for part 1 of this story.

UPCOMING DEP SAMPLING PARAMETERS

According to the DEP, the parameters that will be included in the next round of sampling are: Volatile organic compounds by EPA Method 8260B and Semi-volatile compounds by EPA Method 8270C (these include parameters associated with the Department's short list for petroleum compounds); Total metals-including aluminum, antimony, arsenic, barium (and compounds), beryllium, boron (and compounds), cadmium, chromium III, chromium VI, cobalt, copper, iron, lead, manganese, mercury, nickel, selenium, silver, thallium, tin, vanadium, and zinc by EPA Methods 6010/7470A; cyanide (free) by EPA Method 9010; and chloride by EPA Method 300. In addition to the above listed parameters, samples will also be submitted to Energy Laboratories, Inc. in College Station, Texas for comprehensive salinity analyses. An environmental laboratory must be accredited in Pennsylvania and be in compliance with all the provisions of DEP's requirements in order to generate data or perform analyses to be used to comply with an environmental statute. All testing and analysis requirements of an environmental statute shall be performed by an environmental laboratory accredited in Pennsylvania.