Disgusting. But unsurprising.
2011-02-24 13:51:48
14
Marcellus Shale and our governor.
I said before here that I thought the biggest problem with Marcellus Shaloe drilling was not the process itself, but the lack of adequit regulation and oversight of what was happening on the surface?
Our governor decided that we need LESS regulation on the surface. Specifically, in state parks.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11055/1127614-455.stm
Gov. Tom Corbett has repealed a 4-month-old policy designed to minimize the environmental impact of Marcellus Shale natural gas well drilling in Pennsylvania's parks.
The policy repeal could hurt recreation and the environment in Ohiopyle State Park and a number of other parks in the western part of the state where oil and gas companies are seeking drilling permits, according to the former director of the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, which manages the state's parks and forests.
Notice of the repeal was published last week in the Pennsylvania Bulletin. Michael Krancer, acting secretary of the state Department of Environmental Protection, and several Corbett spokesmen have termed the policy "unnecessary and redundant."
The DEP notice said the department, which has permitting responsibilities for oil and gas wells, would continue to review and consider comments about drilling on public lands from all interested parties.
Representatives for the two state departments over the past two days referred questions about the policy change to the governor's office.
Ed Shirk, a Corbett spokesman, said well drilling companies are required to mitigate environmental damage wherever they drill and the DCNR "can raise any concerns it has like any private landowner."
But John Quigley, who served as former Gov. Ed Rendell's DCNR secretary, said the repealed policy could have provided important safeguards for managing drilling impacts on many ecologically valuable and vulnerable public park lands.
"The policy wasn't redundant. In fact, quite the opposite situation exists. There are gaping holes in the state's ability and practice of considering well drilling applications on public park and forest lands," Mr. Quigley said. "The policy was just a common-sense approach to mitigating or avoiding any environmental, recreational and aesthetic impacts from the well drilling."
Mr. Quigley said the repeal of the policy could affect how, where and when Marcellus Shale drilling takes place in the state's parks.
"Ohiopyle gets 1 million visitors a year and the recreation opportunities it provides are very important to the economy of the region," he said. "Drilling has been proposed and the question is now how is the state going to manage that?"
Pennsylvania has 117 state parks, 61 of them in the two-thirds of the state lying above the Marcellus Shale, a 380 million-year-old formation that might contain more than 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
The mineral rights -- including Marcellus gas deposits -- under 85 percent of that park acreage are privately owned. Courts have ruled that the so-called "mineral estate" rights are superior to surface rights in Pennsylvania, and that the owners of underground mineral rights must be given reasonable access to develop those holdings, even when they lie under parks or other publicly owned land.
Mr. Quigley said the repealed policy required the DCNR to perform an environmental review of the drilling proposal and then negotiate a voluntary mitigation agreement with the drilling company, if possible. If the two sides couldn't reach agreement, the DEP was required to take into account the environmental review findings when issuing a drilling permit.
"It doesn't say DEP can't grant the permit. We thought it would be a positive thing to figure out areas of environmental concern so that we could maintain a balance between getting the gas and protecting the state's park resources," he said. "It's to everyone's advantage not to harm the public lands."
Mark Nicastre, a spokesman with the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, said the decision to end the policy is a payoff to oil and gas industry campaign contributors who donated more than $1 million to Mr. Corbett's election campaign.
"By making it easier for his donors to drill in state parks and forests, Tom Corbett is boosting his donors' profits while leaving Pennsylvanians with great uncertainty about the impact of the drilling," Mr. Nicastre said.
Jeff Schmidt, a lobbyist for the Sierra Club in Harrisburg, said the policy provided a much needed "extra level of scrutiny on drilling proposals for public lands used by millions of Pennsylvanians."
But State Sen. Mary Jo White, R-Venango, chair of the environmental resources and energy committee, issued a statement on Wednesday strongly supporting the governor's repeal. She called the policy "irresponsible" and said it could cost taxpayers "tens of millions of dollars from the impairment of existing [drilling] contracts."
Mr. Quigley said the policy only applied to new drilling permits on state park land, not state forest drilling leases.
Revoking the policy was widely seen as a prelude to Mr. Corbett's previously stated intention to lift a moratorium, imposed by Mr. Rendell in October, on leasing additional state forest land to Marcellus Shale gas drilling. Mr. Shirk said the governor has not decided when he will take that action.
The state has issued leases for a total of 660,000 acres of the state's 2.1 million-acre forest system for both shallow and deep gas and oil drilling. The state owns about 85 percent of the mineral rights under its forests.
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11055/1127614-455.stm#ixzz1Er50g8hU
2011-02-24 06:29:39
It's even more sad that this comes the day after an explosion in Washington county at a well that injured three workers: http://www.postgazette.com/pg/11055/1127660-503.stm
2011-02-24 13:57:17
Last night’s explosion in Washington county was only a few hundred yards away from a popular trout fishing stream that flows thru a state gameland.
The spokesperson from Chesapeake Energy would not confirm if fracking water had been spilled in the explosion: “It was natural gas liquids in a storage tank…It’s a natural substance that comes up out of the ground. It’s collected in the tanks, separated from the gas stream, but I don’t have any addition information in regards to that.” - Chesapeake Appalachia spokesperson Stacey Brodak
2011-02-24 14:36:26
they are going to leave this state looking like the top of a wv mountain.
2011-02-24 14:48:16
re: "It’s a natural substance that comes up out of the ground. It’s collected in the tanks, separated from the gas stream,.."
What a bunch of doublespeak. Comes up with the gas stream? Sounds like fracking liquids to me. Oil, asbestos, and uranium are also natural things that come up out of the ground, and I love those, I want some of that on my breakfast cereal!
2011-02-24 14:54:28
I think I just strained my eyeballs by rolling them so hard.
One of my favorite quotes along these lines "Hemlock is all natural too." I can't remember exactly who it was, but I think either James Randi or Martin Gardener.
I don't know when we got the impression that "natural" == "safe", but its just wrong as anyone who has taken even an inkling of survival skills knows well.
I'm not Grizzly Adams by any stretch, but even I know you don't want to munch on 'all natural' poison ivy....
2011-02-24 15:15:42
so, when is corbett's trial for corruption scheduled?
2011-02-24 16:21:27
@nick so, when is corbett's trial for corruption scheduled?
Right after Dick Cheney's.
You gotta understand that in Tea-speak, both these guys are, like the governor of Wisconsin, fighting for freedoms.
And truthiness.
Would you rather have a kenyan-born, socialist moslem in office?
2011-02-24 16:30:06
That's Muslin, Mick. 
2011-02-24 17:05:45
heh... the "natural substance" argument.
I saw a comment on a news article about CO2 being a pollutant the way water is a pollutant. I was tempted to respond that "pollutant", like all things in life, depends on quantity and location. In a lake, H2O is not a pollutant. In a basement, in say a six drop quantity, it's not a pollutant. In a basement in the quantity of a lake, pure crystal clear potable H2O is a catastrohpic pollutant to the owner of the basement and its contents.
Same goes for these "natural" substances (many of which are about as natural as Pam Anderson's chest). The few substances that were not manufactured in a lab that are in those liquids, including the water, are pollutants - in the quantities concerned, they did not previously exist in the locations humans are putting them (under or above the ground). The long term ramifications are poorly understood.
In Oil City, petroleum bubbles up from the ground, naturally. Fantastic. Its been going on for longer than we've been around, and the environment has adapted. In the gulf, petroleum bubbled up from the ocean floor. Horrible. It was a huge almost instantaneous shock to the ecosystems in and around the water which they may never recover from. We can't stop Oil City from being oily, any more than we can stop the desert from being sandy. That doesn't mean that we don't have to do anything a natural substance suddenly acquiring a new home.
Quantity and Location. These are the factors that money and irresponsibly, actively cultivated stupidity totally ignore when it comes to "debating" environmental stewardship. That's the problem with defining corporations as citizens - until you can put the corporation in jail for violating laws, cost will determine action, and they will pay for the laws that suit them. Joe Schmoe can't afford the same treatment, though he could go to jail or be employed by the corporation. Ergo we have a corporate ogliarchy, not a democracy.
Just because we can, doesn't mean we should.
2011-02-24 18:40:31
@ejwme That's the problem with defining corporations as citizens - until you can put the corporation in jail for violating laws, cost will determine action, and they will pay for the laws that suit them.
+1
2011-02-24 18:43:57
Corbett received >$500k donations from the PA mining industry this past election. The mining industry will set policy for the next cycle.
Corbett politicized the Attorney General's office, to the benefit of the Republicans. The Republicans are in power. Investigations will not happen.
2011-02-24 18:53:28
A small, but clear bright spot:
Residents given training to spot drilling violations
Environmental activists met Thursday at the Quality Inn in Somerset to rally support for a program that empowers citizens to help police Marcellus Shale drilling.
The Marcellus Citizen Stewardship Project — hosted by the Mountain Watershed Association in Fayette County — gives training on how to spot pollution and other violations associated with the industry.
Pittsburgh attorney Ned Mulcahy of the Three Rivers Waterkeeper group told the crowd that some of the state’s regulatory lapses are simply frightening.
“It’s citizens who tend to point these (violations) out,” Mulcahy said. “These are things the DEP (Department of Environmental Protection) needs to know about.”
Water usage and pollution are among the primary concerns about the growing Pennsylvania industry. Each Marcellus Shale gas well requires a few million gallons during the hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” phase of drilling.
According to Mulcahy, the state agency requires drilling companies to prove where water is taken for fracking — but not where it eventually ends up.
“Because Pennsylvania is considered water rich (compared to western states), they don’t regulate it very well,” he said.
Mulcahy said residents can keep track of local drilling activity by visiting sites including www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/efacts and www.dep.state.pa.us/enotice.
“It’s a very good way to know what’s been moving within DEP,” he said.
The presentation also went into reporting suspected violations and health hazards. Veronica Coptis of Mountain Watershed advised residents to watch for illegal dumping by trucks hauling polluted water.
To tell if a truck is dumping instead of withdrawing water, she said, take notice whether the pump is off and the stream is bubbled where the hose is inserted. These are likely signs that the truck is dumping water. The causes and symptoms of air pollution were discussed as well.
Coptis said residents can report findings using online data sheets at mtwatershed.com. All information submitted to the group will be posted on fractracker.org, an informational platform that maps sites of alleged violations across the state.
Group members encouraged residents to report serious infractions to the appropriate state agencies.
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To me this sounds like the greatest thing. I made sure I forwarded to a friend wtih a house in Somerset Co.
I'm so touched by this story that I had to move my sarcastic comments about our political situation to another thread.
2011-02-25 04:45:17