Environment, Uncategorized

Fracking USA: A Post about the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, Governor Tom Corbett, C. Alan Walker, the Marcellus Shale, Polluted Drinking Water, and the Movie Gasland

Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger

Republican governors in Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, New Jersey, and Florida have been getting a lot of media and press attention lately because of their proposals for drastic budget cuts, big tax breaks for corporations, or for their attacks on public sector workers and their unions. One newly elected Republic governor who has remained pretty much under the radar is Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania. A few weeks ago, a story about Corbett at ProPublica caught my attention. I thought it was a story worth investigating.

Last December, Governor Corbett announced his very first political appointee—a man named C. Alan Walker. Walker, an energy executive, was chosen to head the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development. What’s particularly interesting about this appointment is that Corbett also gave Walker supreme authority over environmental permitting in the state of Pennsylvania.

One might ask why Corbett gave Walker such far-reaching authority. Could it be because Pennsylvania is home to a large portion of a vast underground rock formation known as the Marcellus Shale? Do you know what can be extracted from the Marcellus Shale? Natural gas. Do you know how natural gas is extracted from the shale? Through a process known as hydraulic fracturing—or “fracking.”

The Marcellus Shale

Now, as Corbett stakes much of the state’s economy on Marcellus Shale gas drilling, a paragraph tucked into the 1,184-page budget gives Walker unprecedented authority to “expedite any permit or action pending in any agency where the creation of jobs may be impacted.” That includes, presumably, coal, oil, gas and trucking. (ProPublica) 

FYI: Hydraulic fracturing is a process used in nine out of ten natural gas wells in the United States, where millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals are pumped underground to break apart the rock and release the gas. Scientists are worried that the chemicals used in fracturing may pose a threat either underground or when waste fluids are handled and sometimes spilled on the surface. (ProPublica) 

And, according to an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, that paragraph could enable Walker “to fast-track drilling permits if environmental regulators are balking.” The Inquirer article goes on to explain why Walker may be unsuited for his position as head of the Department of Community and Economic Development: “In 2002, he told the state he couldn’t afford to clean up polluted water flowing from 15 inactive mines that were operated by his companies. After the state won a court injunction, Walker agreed to a cleanup plan.” 

The authors of the ProPublica article say it remains unclear how Governor Corbett can bestow such authority on the Department of Community and Economic Development. They question how Pennsylvania would address any legal conflicts that might arise if Walker pushed for approval of permits that might conflict with the Clean Water Act or other federal laws.

A more recent ProPublica article reports that oil and gas inspectors who police the Marcellus Shale development in the state won’t be allowed to issue violations to drilling companies that they regulate any longer unless they get prior approval from top officials. Evidently, this has raised concerns that environmental inspectors in Pennsylvania won’t be able to act independently in the future—and that regulations could possibly be overridden by the governor.

Should people in Pennsylvania be concerned by what could happen in their state because of these recent developments? Well, the EPA is doing an investigation into whether fracking can have a detrimental effect on reservoirs—and some landowners have alleged that fracking is the cause of their polluted and flammable tap water and poisoned animals.

I’m posting some videos that will provide you with more information about what’s going on with hydraulic fracturing in Pennsylvania and other parts of this country. But first—I’d like to make note of a few things:

  • C. Alan Walker has donated $184,000 to Tom Corbett’s campaign efforts since 2004.
  • Business and industry representatives outnumber environmental advocates by more than 3 to 1 on Governor Corbett’s new 30-member Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission.
  • The Pennsylvania Office of Homeland Security has been tracking anti-gas drilling groups and their meetings — including a public screening of the film “Gasland,” a documentary about the environmental hazards of natural gas drilling. The office includes information about the groups in its weekly bulletins that are sent out to law enforcement agencies—and to companies that are drilling for gas in the Marcellus Shale.
  • Last November, the New York State Assembly voted to place a temporary moratorium on fracking in that state.

FRACKING 101

NEED TO KNOW | Actor Mark Ruffalo speaks out against fracking | PBS

Gov’t PA Homeland Security Monitors Fracking Victims

GASLAND Trailer 2010

Recommended Reading:

For those who care to learn more about drilling for natural gas in Pennsylvania, here’s a link to

Documents: Natural Gas’s Toxic Waste, which was published by the New York Times in February.

Quoting from NYT: Over the past nine months, The Times reviewed more than 30,000 pages of documents obtained through open records requests of state and federal agencies and by visiting various regional offices that oversee drilling in Pennsylvania. Some of the documents were leaked by state or federal officials. Here, the most significant documents are made available with annotations from The Times.

and

Pa. allows dumping of tainted waters from gas boom—an Associated Press article written by David B. Caruso. It was posted at the Marcellus Shale Protest website.

Sources

126 thoughts on “Fracking USA: A Post about the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, Governor Tom Corbett, C. Alan Walker, the Marcellus Shale, Polluted Drinking Water, and the Movie Gasland”

  1. Blouise,

    I’d been working on this story for a few weeks. I had hoped to post it earlier–but I just kept reading more and more about the subject. Then it became difficult deciding what to include in my post. There was a lot of information I didn’t use because the post would have been too long. I thought the videos covered material I didn’t include in the text.

  2. “But the public health risk associated with fracking doesn’t seem to bother Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) and state Republicans.” (from Article posted by Elaine @April 10, 2011 at 11:46 pm)

    We have a large group of people working on this and it will be another referendum for the ballot.

    As a strong supporter of teabagger philosophy, Kasich more than likely subscribes to the belief that god first created money and then followed up with people to worship money. Fracking is another method of making money and thus a religious obligation for republicans.

  3. Water wars will replace the wars we are now fighting for oil! Great links Elaine! The Nestle theory of drilling for water reminds me of the US theory for drilling for oil. How did their water end up under our ground?

  4. From Water Wars Worldwide

    Michigan
    http://www.worldwaterwars.com/UnitedStates/Michigan/index.htm

    Excerpt:
    The Ice Mountain Spring Water Bottling Factory is pumping hundreds of millions of gallons per year of Michigan water out of enormous bore hole deep wells — taking billions of dollars in corporate profit from water that belongs to the people of Michigan. We think this is wrong! We think Michigan water should not become the private property of a Swiss owned water mining factory. Ice Mountain Spring Water™ is a wholly owned division of Nestlé Waters North America, Inc. — which was formerly marketed as the Perrier Group of America Inc.

    **********

    Pennsylvania
    http://www.worldwaterwars.com/UnitedStates/Pennsylvania/index.htm

    Excerpt:
    Nestle’s neighbors remain worried Company wants more water from source in Washington Twp.

    Nestle will make amends to anyone whose wells run dry near the company’s Washington Township water source. It’s a promise the company made several years ago, and reiterated Wednesday afternoon at a meeting with township residents. But despite the company’s pledge to replace lost well water or dig new wells, and its detailed scientific studies, some residents left with the same concern that brought them to the meeting. They worry that if Nestle starts withdrawing more water, their wells will run dry.h Valley Local Links ”Nobody feels any more comfortable,” said Sherry Darr, who lives near Nestle’s water source and has her own well.

  5. Small Towns Tell a Cautionary Tale about the Private Control of Water
    by Tim Reiterman
    Published on Tuesday, May 30, 2006 by the Guardian / UK
    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0530-07.htm

    Excerpt:
    In San Jerardo, a tidy but poor farmworker cooperative encircled by the black earth of Salinas Valley fields, residents have been drinking bottled water for almost five years because the tap water they buy from a private company is unsafe.

    Nearby, families in the modest town of Chualar are still smarting over monthly water charges that in some instances ballooned by 1,000% or more.

    And about 40 miles to the northwest, the Santa Cruz Mountains hamlet of Felton voted last year to tax each household up to $700 a year to take control of the local for-profit water system after the new owner proposed a series of rate increases.

    These communities are fronts in a statewide battle over the price, quality and reliability of water that investor-owned utilities are supplying to nearly one in five Californians.

    In the late 19th century, private companies delivered water to most of the state’s homes and businesses. Today about 80% of the state’s people live in large cities and towns served by publicly owned utilities. About 140 for-profit companies provide water to more than 6 million people, mostly in suburbs and smaller communities.

    Supporters of government-run water systems point out that they, unlike investor-owned utilities, do not need to pay taxes or produce a profit. But big companies contend that they can operate with less overhead per customer.

    At the core of the dispute are philosophical differences over whether an indispensable resource should be controlled by private firms.

    **********

    WATERWORKS: THE STORY BEHIND LAWRENCE’S CONTROVERSIAL UTILITY CONTRACT
    Disputed water deal cut quickly, quietly
    Working without lawyers or council approval, then-Mayor Thomas Schneider handed over his city’s water system to 3 supporters and crafted rate hikes that doubled monthly bills
    From IndyStar, 11/21/2004
    http://www2.indystar.com/articles/1/196468-6091-092.html

    Excerpt:
    When then-Lawrence Mayor Thomas D. Schneider put together a deal giving several political supporters control of the city’s $14 million-a-year water operations, he says not a single lawyer was present, not a single note was taken.

    “Everything was pretty well verbal,” Schneider recalled during a court deposition in July regarding the controversial 2001 deal.

    Schneider said he had been in a hurry to protect the water utility from an outside buyer. And he trusted two ex-city officials who had approached him with a plan for letting their new company take over the city’s sewer and water operations.

    Schneider testified that he had ruled out taking bids, figuring no one else could have provided such a smooth transition.

    His haste would prove costly. The water deal helped drive Schneider from office, prompted an FBI-led investigation and left Lawrence residents paying some of Central Indiana’s highest water rates.

    Schneider awarded the contract to Lawrence Utilities LLC, a newly formed company run by two former Lawrence officials, Michael L. Lawson and Mark H. Branaman, and a local developer who had managed city construction projects, Micheal R. Couch.

    Schneider said he never checked the company’s finances or asked the men how much of their own money they intended to invest.

    He didn’t have to, because the contract Schneider wrote in mid-2001 gave the company almost everything it needed, including a $4.84 million infusion of start-up cash, vehicles and other assets from the city.

    And for all that, Lawrence Utilities’ owners had invested just $1,000 to get their company going

  6. Buddha,

    Water–the new oil…the next big commodity to be traded on the stock exchange???

    **********

    There Will Be Water
    T. Boone Pickens thinks water is the new oil—and he’s betting $100 million that he’s right
    Businessweek, 6/12/2008
    http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_25/b4089040017753.htm

    Excerpt:
    Roberts County is a neat square in a remote corner of the Texas Panhandle, a land of rolling hills, tall grass, oak trees, mesquite, and cattle. It has a desolate beauty, a striking sparseness. The county encompasses 924 square miles and is home to fewer than 900 people. One of them is T. Boone Pickens, the oilman and corporate raider, who first bought some property here in 1971 to hunt quail. He’s now the largest landowner in the county: His Mesa Vista ranch sprawls across some 68,000 acres. Pickens has also bought up the rights to a considerable amount of water that lies below this part of the High Plains in a vast aquifer that came into existence millions of years ago.

    If water is the new oil, T. Boone Pickens is a modern-day John D. Rockefeller. Pickens owns more water than any other individual in the U.S. and is looking to control even more. He hopes to sell the water he already has, some 65 billion gallons a year, to Dallas, transporting it over 250 miles, 11 counties, and about 650 tracts of private property. The electricity generated by an enormous wind farm he is setting up in the Panhandle would also flow along that corridor. As far as Pickens is concerned, he could be selling wind, water, natural gas, or uranium; it’s all a matter of supply and demand. “There are people who will buy the water when they need it. And the people who have the water want to sell it. That’s the blood, guts, and feathers of the thing,” he says.

    **********

    The New Oil
    Should private companies control our most precious natural resource?
    Newsweek 10/10/2008
    http://www.newsweek.com/2010/10/08/the-race-to-buy-up-the-world-s-water.html

    Excerpt:
    Sitka, Alaska, is home to one of the world’s most spectacular lakes. Nestled into a U-shaped valley of dense forests and majestic peaks, and fed by snowpack and glaciers, the reservoir, named Blue Lake for its deep blue hues, holds trillions of gallons of water so pure it requires no treatment. The city’s tiny population—fewer than 10,000 people spread across 5,000 square miles—makes this an embarrassment of riches. Every year, as countries around the world struggle to meet the water needs of their citizens, 6.2 billion gallons of Sitka’s reserves go unused. That could soon change. In a few months, if all goes according to plan, 80 million gallons of Blue Lake water will be siphoned into the kind of tankers normally reserved for oil—and shipped to a bulk bottling facility near Mumbai. From there it will be dispersed among several drought-plagued cities throughout the Middle East. The project is the brainchild of two American companies. One, True Alaska Bottling, has purchased the rights to transfer 3 billion gallons of water a year from Sitka’s bountiful reserves. The other, S2C Global, is building the water-processing facility in India. If the companies succeed, they will have brought what Sitka hopes will be a $90 million industry to their city, not to mention a solution to one of the world’s most pressing climate conundrums. They will also have turned life’s most essential molecule into a global commodity.

  9. At this point, I’d like to just remind everyone that when the water is broken, it’s game over.

    For everyone.

  10. Here is something that I had forgotten to include in my post. I had read so many articles and blog posts on the subject of fracking that I lost track of some of them. I apologize.

    **********

    REPORT: Seven States Where Republicans Are Ruining The Environment
    From Think Progress, 4/6/2011
    http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/06/seven-states-ruining-environment/

    Excerpt:
    As the budget standoff between the Republican controlled House of Representatives and the Democrats reaches a fever pitch, much of the media attention — and frustration — has been focused on reaching a solution to avert a government shutdown. But, under the radar, newly-elected Republicans across the country are proposing disastrous environmental legislation to achieve radical-right aims, such as opening state parks for fracking and exposing their citizens to industrial waste.

    OHIO: At the behest of then-Vice President Dick Cheney, an exemption was inserted into a 2005 energy bill — dubbed the “Haliburton loophole” — which stripped the EPA of its power to regulate a natural gas drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing. This method, named fracking, entails drilling a L-shaped well deep into shale and pumping millions of gallons of water laced with industrial chemicals — chemicals which the energy companies are not legally bound to disclose. The poisonous fluid fractures the shale and releases natural gas deposits for collection. But the public health risk associated with fracking doesn’t seem to bother Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) and state Republicans. The Ohio House introduced a bill early last month that would create a panel to open any state-owned land for oil and gas exploration to the highest bidder. Subsequently, in Kasich’s budget proposal, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources would be given authority to lease 200,000 acres of state park land for oil and gas exploration. Faced with a litany of problems related to fracking — even including a house exploding in Ohio — Kasich has fully endorsed drilling in Ohio state parks, saying, “Ohio is not going to walk away from a potential industry.” State Rep. John Adams (R), the House bill’s sponsor, said drilling in state parks can help erase a projected $8 billion budget deficit, and “keep our parks and our lakes up to the standards that the citizens of Ohio want.”

    PENNSYLVANIA: After injecting fracking fluid deep into the earth to extract natural gas, the waste that returns becomes a nasty byproduct of saltwater mixed with radioactive materials. Most states require energy companies to inject the waste thousands of feet deep back into the earth — a technique that caused earthquakes in Arkansas. But Pennsylvania, one of the major states at the center of the natural gas boom, dumps the radioactive leftovers directly into rivers and streams, where communities get their drinking water. As a result of the atrocious practice, Pennsylvanians have gotten sick from drinking tap water. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) doesn’t seem to be bothered whatsoever by releasing radioactive waste into rivers, recently saying that he wants to make Pennsylvania “the Texas of the natural gas boom.” In fact, Corbett’s draconian budget cuts funding for environmental oversight, and contains no increases in fines for environmental damages related to fracking. Corbett has even said that the regulation of the natural gas industry has been too aggressive. Not surprisingly, an analysis of Corbett’s campaign contributions has found that he has accepted more money from the natural gas industry than all other Pennsylvania candidates combined.

    NORTH CAROLINA: With moratoriums on fracking in Arkansas, New York, New Jersey, and potentially Maryland, state Rep. Mitch Gillespie (R) plans to introduce a bill that would permit fracking in North Carolina. Currently, dating back to rules and regulations put into law in the 1940s, fracking is illegal in North Carolina. But Gillespie wishes to change the law, saying to the House Environment Committee, “It’s my intention to move ahead” with legislation, and natural gas is “a resource” that “North Carolina should be compensated for.” Energy companies are seeking to drill in southern Granville County through Durham, Chatham and Lee counties. But Robin Smith, N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ assistant secretary, said that fracking will “endanger water sources in the area,” citing problems that have occurred in Pennsylvania.

  11. AY,

    Thanks for the link. I had read an article on Huffigton Post about the decline in the incedence of erathquakes in Arkansas after the closure of some injection wells.

    *****

    Randy,

    Thanks for your input and perspective.

  12. RE: Nal, April 10, 2011 at 10:20 pm

    Your house may be built on rock but where does you water come from? A well? An aquifer? Could it be polluted by the chemicals used in fracking?

    ###################################

    Our water appears to come from rain from mainly ocean water evaporation, though that does not completely solve the problem of where the ocean water comes from.

    Of course our water could be polluted by the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing of oil shale.

    The simplest way I can think of right now to accomplish that quickly is to get a supply of the chemicals used and install a small pressure-switch-controlled pump to add them to our drinking water, perhaps through the drain valve for the water system pressure tank in our basement.

  13. Your house may be built on rock but where does you water come from? A well? An aquifer? Could it be polluted by the chemicals used in fracking?

  14. People who cannot properly figure out where to live surely are to blame for their errors.

    Build a home on top of a nationally critical resource, and it is only fair and proper to suffer for being so stupid. Not knowing that a valuable resource is present is simply inexcusable ignorance.

    My wife and I bought a home on property which, after careful checking of subsurface geology factors prior to purchase, has not a shred of evidence of any valuable resource from the surface of the ground to the center of the earth.

    Our house is built on rock, not soil or sand. We knew better than to own a house built on sand.

    It is always best to have only worthless property. That way, no one else will want it.

    People who are truly foolish and so fail to do the needed research before choosing where to live deserve all the misery their failure of due diligence brings upon them.

    How else to rid the world of the defectives?

  16. anybody who stands in the way of extracting the last cubic foot of natural gas or the last drop of petroleum will be blamed for shortages when production slows. which it will. it is a finite resource.

    if you stand in their way they will run over you with the biggest suv made.

    this is the usa and this is their god given right

    just ask them, they’ll tell you

  18. I live in PA, and can attest to the fact that Governor Corbett has been bought lock, stock and barrel by the gas extraction industry. He is willing to cut 1.5B$ from education and willing to have our streams and rivers (including the Delaware) polluted by the frackers. The creek that runs behind my house was polluted by a firm that was supposed to clean up the water used for extraction, but decided just to dump it in the stream instead.

    I never thought I would live long enough to see the destruction of our habitat and environment by greedy businessmen and politicians, but I can’t blame them. The ignorant, uninvolved electorate that votes these people in is the real culprit here. I hope my daughter and my granddaughter get the hell out of here before they develop cancer from the pollution that will be pandemic throughout our state.

  19. Elaine,
    Great job. It amazes me how greedy these politicians are. This over nor is willing to destroy his state’s environment all for some money from natural gas companies. How do these people sleep at night?

  20. Fracking….They will tell you does not cause any harm….just had a talk 2 weeks ago with a site manager….if its improperly installed..then yes…problem can exist….my question was…that is based up standard drilling assumptions and projections, correct? and if each and every well is different in size and production can each well really be standard? For some reason he had to leave….

    Chesapeake Gas… is being held for causing the earthquake in Arkansas… There banker called…in notes for and wanted to have assets available for some expected 5 billion in claims…

    Chesapeake Energy Corp., the most active natural gas driller in the U.S., intends to raise $5 billion this year by selling its Fayetteville shale holdings and its stakes in two companies. It will use the proceeds to cut debt.

    Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/article.aspx?subjectid=49&articleid=20110208_49_E4_CUTLIN537874

    Elaine M.,

    Great article….The power of corruption are enormous…

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