DEP disputes claims that wells are not protected

By Amanda Cregan, Intelligencer, October 8, 2008

Nancy Janyszeski called it a light bulb moment when she realized that a detail left out of a recent state document could leave Nockamixon wide open to potential water damage caused by gas drilling.

 

Janyszeski, who serves as Nockamixon supervisor chairwoman and co-chairwoman of the Wild & Scenic Lower Delaware River Management Committee, says communities could be put at risk because recent drilling permit amendments do not apply to the rock that lies beneath Upper Bucks.

 

The new regulations require natural gas and oil drilling companies to submit a plan to Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection outlining their proposal for water usage and disposal involving each gas well in the area known as the Marcellus Shale.

“They put amendments in place that would expedite the permitting process as long as the drillers could show that they could protect the water,” said Janyszeski.

 

The Marcellus Shale rock formation extends down the East Coast from New York, cuts through portions of northern Pennsylvania and Ohio and makes up most of West Virginia.

 

In recent years, it has been increasingly popular with companies who want to extract natural gas from the vastly untouched reserves within the rock.

 

There are already more than 300 gas leases signed by property owners in Nockamixon to Arbor Resources, a drilling company based in Michigan.

 

Janyszeski says the DEP left out a key detail in the amendments adopted in August, the Stockton and Passaic rock formations that make up Nockamixon and surrounding communities.

 

“Certainly it would seem to me if you've included Marcellus Shale why would you exclude us? We've got important water issues here and we're on the Delaware River,” she said. “Just respect us and give us what is due everyone else.”

 

Janyszeski fears Upper Bucks groundwater could become contaminated during fracing, an advanced drilling method used to extract gas from underground rock.

 

In the process, a large amount of water is mixed with chemicals and injected as much as 7,000 feet underground and flushed out again.

Drilling opponents fear the concoction could poison groundwater aquifers.

 

The wild and scenic group voted last month to spend $25,000 to have parts of the Delaware River Basin tested before gas drilling begins in Upper Bucks, a move it says is needed to provide comparison data should drilling contaminate the waterways.

 

Janyszeski co-authored a letter to the secretary of Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection on behalf of the wild and scenic committee requesting that the omission of Nockamixon's rock be corrected.

 

But DEP representatives Tom Rathbun and Teresa Candori say Janyszeski and members of the wild and scenic committee misunderstand the regulations.

 

Rathbun says the gas wells in Upper Bucks only involve vertical drilling, a method that does not include the amount of water needed as in horizontal drilling into the Marcellus Shale.

 

“Arbor has permits to drill vertical wells in the state,” said Rathbun. “They have not applied for horizontal permits and haven't shown any intention to.”

 

“As far as the thousands and thousands of vertical wells in the state, there are no specific water regulations,” he said.

 

Rathbun noted that the since drilling for oil began in Pennsylvania in 1859 and officials began regulating it in the 1930s, the state requirements in the oil and gas acts have evolved and provide plenty of existing resource protection.

 

“If there is concern over groundwater, then yes, they don't understand what the amendments are,” said Candori.

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