Frack damage in WV forest

A press release from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility:

Washington, DC — A new study has found that wastewater from natural gas hydrofracturing in a West Virginia national forest quickly wiped out all ground plants, killed more than half of the trees and caused radical changes in soil chemistry. These results argue for much tighter control over disposal of these “fracking fluids,” contends Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

The new study by Mary Beth Adams, a U.S. Forest Service researcher, appears in the July-August issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of Environmental Quality. She looked at the effects of land application of fracking fluids on a quarter-acre section of the Fernow Experimental Forest within the Monongahela National Forest. More than 75,000 gallons of fracking fluids, which are injected deep underground to free shale gas and then return to the surface, were applied to the assigned plot over a two day period during June 2008. The following effects were reported in the study:

- Within two days all ground plants were dead;
- Within 10 days, leaves of trees began to turn brown. Within two years more than half of the approximately 150 trees were dead; and
- “Surface soil concentrations of sodium and chloride increased 50-fold as a result of the land application of hydrofracturing fluids…” These elevated levels eventually declined as chemical leached off-site. The exact chemical composition of these fluids is not known because the chemical formula is classified as confidential proprietary information.

“The explosion of shale gas drilling in the East has the potential to turn large stretches of public lands into lifeless moonscapes,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that land disposal of fracking fluids is common and in the case of the Fernow was done pursuant to a state permit. “This study suggests that these fluids should be treated as toxic waste.”

For the past twenty-five years, the Forest Service has not applied any environmental restrictions on private extraction efforts, even in wilderness areas. As a result, forests, like the Monongahela, which sits astride the huge Marcellus Shale gas formation, have struggled with many adverse impacts of widespread drilling. By contrast, the nearby George Washington National Forest (NF) has recently proposed to ban horizontal drilling, a practice associated with hydrofracking, due to concern about both the ecosystem damage and also the huge amount of water required for the fracking process. Two subcommittees of the House of Representatives will hold a joint hearing this Friday to examine the George Washington NF’s singular pro-conservation stance.

“Unfortunately, the Forest Service has drilled its head deeply into the sand on oil and gas operations harming forest assets,” Ruch added, noting the National Wildlife Refuges also lack regulations to minimize drilling impacts. “The Forest Service needs to develop a broader approach than asking each forest supervisor to cast a lone profile in courage or cowardice.”

Gas industry hype

In its Sunday edition, the New York Times carried a story, based on a review of thousands of internal gas industry documents, which reports that some industry insiders think of the Marcellus boom as a "Ponzi scheme," similar to the Enron bubble. The report notes that many gas wells aren't producing, nor are they as profitable, as expected.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/us/26gas.html?ref=us

Her's a link to some of the industry documents:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/us/natural-gas-drilling-down-documents-4-intro.html?ref=us

Morgantown bans fracking

A little after midnight last night, the Morgantown WV city council passed an ordinance that bans the practice of fracking for Marcellus shale gas within the city, and within a one-mile radius of the city limits, making it the second city in the state to put the health of its citizens over industry profits. Wellsburg, in the northern panhandle, passed a similar ordinance last month.

http://www.wvmetronews.com/news.cfm?func=displayfullstory&storyid=46214

More fracking news

The Charleston Gazette had a pretty good synopsis by AP writer Larry Messina of the status of the Marcellus gas issue in the legislature, now that a joint committee has been formed to come up with a bill.
http://wvgazette.com/News/201106190662

Also, Pro Publica, the investigative group that has in many respects led the way in reporting on this issue, has a new article, with some good links, about gaps in state laws requiring disclosure of fracking chemicals (West Virginia, lacking any such law, isn't mentioned).
http://www.propublica.org/article/critics-find-gaps-in-state-laws-to-disclose-hydrofracking-chemicals

Marcellus committees bloom

This past week saw the creation of two new committees established in West Virginia to investigate the effects of Marcellus shale gas drilling.

On Thursday, the Morgan County Commission adopted a resolution creating a subcommittee within the county planning commission to research the Marcellus gas issue. The resolution was modeled on the one passed by the Hampshire County Commission in February.

Yesterday, acting Senate President Jeff Kessler announced the formation of a committee in the West Virginia legislature, made up of five members from the Senate and five from the House of Delegates, to come up with some compromise legislation on Marcellus shale drilling that can be passed in a special session of the legislature that he hopes will be held later this year. Here's a link to the brief story at WV Metro News:

http://www.wvmetronews.com/news.cfm?func=displayfullstory&storyid=46137

Negotiating drilling

Monroe County WV has taken an innovative path to dealing with the problem of fracking by making a deal with a gas company that wants to drill there.

The county commission has negotiated a Memorandom of Understanding with Gordy Oil, under the authority of Chapter 8 of the State Code, that creates a kind of partnership between the county and the company, involving training for county workers, special consideration for water testing in sensitive areas, and landowner rights to have a say in where the drilling is done.

The full story is at
http://wvgazette.com/ap/ApTopStories/201106060829

Monroe County citizens also have a website dealing with fracking:
http://savethewatertable.org/

Morgantown vs. fracking

A crowd so large it spilled out the door at the meeting last night heard the Morgantown WV City Council discuss a possible fracking ban, along the lines of what Wellsburg WV did a few weeks ago.

http://www.wvmetronews.com/news.cfm?func=displayfullstory&storyid=45803