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Commentary: Shale Seminar Did Not Provide Whole Truth
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- The Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber hosted a presentation, “The Real Truth About Oil and Gas Development and Its Effects on Communities” Feb. 19, which it advertised as a presentation about the economic advantages of shale gas development in Arlington, Texas’ Barnett shale play and Washington County, Pa.’s Marcellus shale play.
The “Real Truth” was intriguing because it implies that there must be a “nonreal truth” or falsehood about oil and gas development. I was interested in hearing what the speakers had to say, especially in light of Chevron’s shale-gas well explosion in neighboring Greene County, Pa., the week before.
That explosion and well fire resulted in the death of Ian McKee, a 27-year-old oilfield worker. The well burned out of control for four days and continued to release toxic gases even after the fire was extinguished.
Moreover, the day before the presentation, a major study on air pollution was released about the Eagle Ford shale play in Texas. That study documented numerous complaints and violations with minimal enforcement by the state regulators. Neither was mentioned and, in fact, the main speaker from Arlington was not aware of the Texas study until I mentioned it to him afterward.
The speakers from Arlington were Walter “Buzz” Pishkur, its director of water utilities, and Jim Parajon, its community development and planning director. The 99-square-mile city of Arlington has 300 shale gas wells within its limits at 56 drilling sites.
Activity started in 2006 with two permits, reached a maximum of 81 in 2010 and tapered off to just 11 in 2013. Royalties from the gas wells on city land, along with fees and water sales, provide the city with a source of revenue for an economic development fund of nearly $100 million. The fund supports, through a grant-application process, local projects.
Unlike cities such as Youngstown, the city of Arlington has local control over most aspects of shale gas development – except air quality. Arlington does not permit injection disposal wells within city limits. Its officials decided that injection wells are not in their city’s interest.
Using its control, the city focuses its attention at the drilling pad. This includes zoning, permitting, setbacks, noise and traffic restrictions and water use constraints, as well as aesthetics. According to desmogblog.com, this is accomplished by building berms to hide producing wells and compressor stations from view as well as temporary walls around active drill sites for noise abatement.
The speakers expressed little concern about the tens of wells drilled under the reservoirs that provide their residents’ drinking water. The map showing the numerous horizontal wells under one of the reservoirs within Arlington drew a gasp from the pro-business audience.
I wondered how many of them knew that the Ohio Department of Natural Resources has already permitted shale gas wells to be fracked in the safe-drinking water source protection area of the Meander Reservoir, the water supply for Youngstown and Niles.
There are about 100 shallower Clinton gas wells in the “protected” area as well, all potential pathways for groundwater contamination.
In 2012, the Bearkamp orphaned well, three feet from the bank of Meander Creek, was leaking oil into that creek until it was plugged at taxpayers’ cost of over $30,000.
Nothing was said about Arlington’s local issues concerning health, pollution and declining property values near inner-city well sites as documented by Arlington blogger Kim Feil at her blog, barnettshalehell.wordpress.com.
Jeff Kotula, president of the Washington County (Pa.) Chamber of Commerce, spoke about the economic impact from shale gas industry drilling of 971 wells since 2005. Hotels are full, the restaurant business has increased 10% to 20% and jewelry stores have seen a 70% increase in sales because, according to Kotula, of the influx of mostly-male transient oilfield workers sending gifts to their wives and girlfriends back home.
Kotula mentioned shale gas helping U.S. energy independence more than once, even though the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission lists 25 industry proposed/potential liquefied natural gas export terminals on its website. Kotula claimed that each well has $5 million to $7 million in impact spread over 40 to 50 companies at the well sites.
Kotula mentioned Youngstown’s proposed charter amendment that would ban fracking and injection wells within the city, stating “not one natural gas company has located in the city of Pittsburgh” since that city’s community rights ordinance was enacted.
According to Doug Shields, former president of Pittsburgh City Council, Colliers International, a leader in global real estate, ranks Pittsburgh as the No. 1 business real-estate market in the nation. The occupancy rate of Class A office space is close to 94%. The city’s diversified and sustainable economy, based on education, medicine, technology and advanced manufacturing, is doing fine without an energy company headquarters.
In fact, three decades ago, when Gulf Oil Corp. was headquartered in Pittsburgh, its downtown real estate had a 20% vacancy rate. Also, Pittsburgh’s community rights ordinance has not stopped the industry from holding conferences on developing unconventional gas, including one that featured former oilman and President George W. Bush addressing 3,000 at the David Lawrence Convention Center.
These misleading statements suggest a more factual title for the chamber event should have been “Incomplete, Convenient and Non-Real-Truths About Oil and Gas Development and Its Effects on Communities.”
The question-and-answer session consisted of written questions submitted on index cards that Tony Paglia, chamber vice president for government affairs, first reviewed. I submitted three questions. None was selected of the eight Paglia chose. Of those eight, four were pro-fracking, three neutral and one anti-fracking or pro-environment. That question was about the impact of shale gas on the supply of water.
The Washington County response was that golf courses use millions of gallons of water with no complaints. The Arlington response was that the five million gallons used per well that either remains in the Barnett shale or is trucked outside the city to be disposed of, via deep-well injection, was not found to be a problem for a city that uses 172 million gallons a day. The contrast between nonconsumptive municipal use that returns the water to the system and the fracking water, used once and lost forever, was not mentioned.
My first question was, “Since Arlington has some level of local control, except air contamination, do you think it is a good idea for Ohio cities like Youngstown to regain local control?”
Ohio is supposed to be a home rule state, not a home rule state regarding every industry except oil and gas. Companies cannot place industrial operations in residential communities unless it is a fracking site or injection well site. The setbacks in Ohio are 100 feet – useless as protection from explosions, fire and toxic emissions such as what occurred in Greene County.
My next unanswered question asked both speakers what contingencies were in place to deal with issues that will arise 30 years into the future when the industry’s own data show that half of the wells will be leaking via seepage through the degraded cement, or when hazardous exposure to neurotoxins and carcinogenic gases, such as benzene – even if nothing goes wrong – results in diseases such as leukemia.
It may not even take 30 years for health problems to arise as indicated by a recent study from Colorado, based on almost 125,000 births, which showed a correlation between proximity to fracking drill sites and birth defects. Mothers who lived within a 10-mile radius of natural gas development gave birth to a higher number of babies with congenital heart defects. Women living in proximity to the highest concentration of wells had a 30% greater prevalence of babies with congenital heart defects.
This is in addition to studies from Pennsylvania that have correlated fracking with low birth weights. I suspect that the air pollution from fracking is the cause of both of these health impacts, which was the subject of my final unanswered question: Why did the Arlington director of community development and planning mention zoning, permitting, set backs, noise and traffic restrictions, water use and aesthetics, but fail to mention anything about air pollution?
The just-released Eagle Ford shale play air quality study, conducted by the Center for Public Integrity, Inside Climate News and The Weather Channel, reveals a flawed air-monitoring system in Texas, thousands of oil and gas facilities that do not have to report their “self-audited” emissions, and the lack of enforcement.
On a somewhat humorous note, given that the event was held at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church’s banquet hall, local environmentalists, concerned over the well-documented health and environmental harm that fracking has caused, held up a life-sized cut-out photo of Pope Francis taken in Argentina. It shows the pope holding up an anti-fracking T-shirt. This happened outside the hall because at least one of the group was denied access to the “free and open to the public” event.
Editor’s Note: The author, Ray Beiersdorfer, Ph.D., is a professor of geological and environmental sciences at Youngstown Stare University, which he joined as an assistant professor in 1993. Before entering academia, “Dr. Ray” as he has become known, was a petroleum geologist for Gulf Oil Exploration and Production Co. in California. His commentary was submitted with 11 footnotes to document his arguments.
This commentary first appeared in Mid-March edition of The Business Journal.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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