Residents Fear Drilling Causing Well Contamination
Public Meeting in Pendleton County to Focus on Gas LeasesBy JOAN ASHLEY, For The Inter-Mountain
Article Photos
Several North Fork residents are questioning the possibility of water contamination and air pollution caused by the drilling of two natural gas wells in this small community near the Seneca Rocks area of Pendleton County.
Answers might be available at a public meeting on gas leases at the Clinton Hedrick Community Center at 7 p.m. Thursday.
Oil and gas industry experts will answer questions after discussing negotiating leases. The meeting is sponsored by Mike Ross, an oil and gas businessman and a former state senator seeking for re-election this fall.
Local people, who live near the well company's drainage pit, lined with black plastic to contain the effluent from a hydrofracing (water-driven hydraulic fracturing) method of drilling for gas, are concerned the pit has overflowed or sprung leaks allowing seepage.
They fear local wells and the nearby Mallow Drain, a small run fed by springs, that joins Bennett Gap Run and flows into the North Fork of the South Branch of the Potomac River, might have been contaminated.
One person, who does not want to be identified, said he saw the pond when it was filled to the brim with a white substance and a grayish sludge. He saw some of the white substance was seeping out in the springs along the bank and accumulating along the edges of Mallow Drain below the pit.
The holding pit now has slabs of gray rock-like material in the bottom of it. The surrounding orange animal-control fencing is mostly down on the ground.
Over the past months and, formerly, in the 1960s and 1970s, local landowners have been contacted by a variety of companies interested in leasing mineral rights so the companies could drill in the gas-rich Marcellus shale layer found deep underground from New York through Pennsylvania and into West Virginia. A thin belt of Marcellus shale is found in Pendleton County.
Hydrofracing involves forcing great quantities of water, proppants (sand or ceramic beads), and chemicals 9,000 or more feet down to fracture the rock to release pockets of gas. The proppants hold the cracks open so the gas can flow to the well.
Some of the fracturing fluids are then pumped out of the well and may be stored in a plastic-lined pit to evaporate or to be hauled away to disposal sites. According to EPA studies, about 20 to 40 percent of the fracing fluids may stay underground.
When the drilling is finished, the plastic is rolled into itself and buried in the pit when the site is restored to "normal."
Companies do not need to release the identity of cracking chemicals due to the proprietary information or "trade secrets" business exemption. Some common fracing chemicals may contain substances that can be toxic to humans and wild life. These could include diesel fuel, which contains benzene, ethylbenzene, toluene, xylene, naphthalene and other chemicals; polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons; methanol; formaldehyde; ethylene glycol; glycol ethers; hydrochloric acid; and sodium hydroxide.
According to the EPA, fracking wastewater may contain a variety of these including salts, metals and naturally occurring radioactive materials such as radium.
The EPA stated possible health issues could involve asthma, respiratory and cardio/vascular illnesses, auto-immune diseases, liver failure, cancer, and other ailments, such as skin diseases, headaches, nausea and sleeplessness.
The North Fork residents would like the drilling companies to make full disclosure of the chemicals that are injected during the fracing process and also the chemicals that could be released into the water, air and soil of a gas site. They want rules or restrictions to limit the oil and gas industry emissions.
State Delegate Harold Michael wrote Randy Huffman, cabinet secretary in the state Department of Environmental Protection, on Aug. 11 saying "Concerned citizens have called the DEP with questions, but have not received much response or assistance with their concerns."
Michael wants the EPA to answer the following:
- When a company is drilling for gas and needs a large amount of water, is the company required to have a permit to pump water from a stream? If so, what is the process for notifying the public?
- When drilling a well, apparently chemicals are injected into the well. How is the waste from well drilling handled?
- Also, drilling sometimes produces an odor that is offensive to neighboring property owners. Are there any permits or requirements for the drillers? What is the process for the neighbors to file a complaint?
State Sen. Clark Barnes said the Legislature cannot pass regulations to invalidate previous contracts, "but if we find that we do not have adequate regulations dealing with these environmental concerns of the Marcellus shale drilling, then first, the DEP has the right to impose emergency rules and second, the Legislature has the right to confirm the appropriate rules. Then the agency and the Legislature have the right to impose water quality regulations which supersede any private contract.
"The streams belong to the people," Barnes said.
