West Virginia Highlands Voice

Coalition members:

The shale workshop has been working to ensure the million+ acres of George Washington National Forest is protected from shale gas drilling in its new 15-year forest management plan.

Despite tremendous public comment in support of the proposed ban on horizontal drilling in the GWNF draft plan, the Forest Service appears to be reconsidering.  Ugh.

So, to provide a counterweight to the heavy industry pressure, we are generating letters to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack asking the Forest Service to stand firm on the proposed ban.

Please consider sending an action alert to your members to help generate letters.  To make it easy, a draft template for the action alert is attached and pasted below for you to edit as you like. Sarah Francisco from SELC or I will be back in touch beginning of next week with the appropriate email address to use for Vilsack.

Thanks a million for your help!

Kate Wofford

____________________

Kate Giese Wofford

Shenandoah Valley Network

PO Box 186

Luray, VA 22835

(o) 540.987.8155

(c) 540.303.7404

kwofford@svnva.org

http://www.svnva.org

DRAFT TEXT FOR ALERT:

Email Subject line:  Keep the Limits on Fracking in George Washington National Forest

Body Copy

Dear XXX,

We need your help to protect healthy forests and drinking water in Virginia and West Virginia by keeping a proposed ban on natural gas fracking on the George Washington National Forest.

The US Forest Service is under intense pressure by the gas industry to abandon its proposal to prohibit horizontal drilling on more than one million acres on the George Washington National Forest.  This ban is intended to limit or prevent the riskiest fracking, with large volumes of water and chemicals, on any future federal oil and gas leases on this Forest.

Please tell Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who oversees the Forest Service, that the agency must stand firm. Let him know the well-considered ban was supported by 10 local governments and the great majority (95 percent) of more than 53,000 public comments on the new GW National Forest management plan, which will guide forest land uses for the next 15 years.

The George Washington National Forest hosts more than a million visitors each year, supplies drinking water to more than 260,000 local residents, and is headwaters of the Potomac and the James River, the drinking water sources for millions in cities such as Washington, DC and Richmond, VA. The Forest Service decision to prohibit horizontal drilling for natural gas in the George Washington National Forest is a well-justified and sensible precaution in light of the well-documented environmental impacts of hydrofracking.

Please also ask Secretary Vilsack to limit vertical gas drilling.  The Forest Service proposed to make nearly the entire GW Forest available for vertical drilling in the draft plan.  Since vertical gas wells are usually fracked, too, and since they can disturb fish and wildlife habitat, recreation, and other resources, the potential impacts of vertical gas drilling on the GW need to be more thoroughly studied, with public input, before opening these lands to drilling.

Click here to send a letter directly to Secretary Vilsack to ask him to encourage the Forest Service to stand firm on the GW Forest ban on fracking. The Secretary of Agriculture needs to hear from each of us who values the integrity of our national forest lands.

Thank you for your support on this critical issue!

————————————————

Copy for Vilsack Comment

Dear Secretary Vilsack,

I support the US Forest Service’s sensible proposal to protect forest resources and drinking water on the George Washington National Forest by prohibiting horizontal drilling on any future federal oil and gas leases in the new Forest Plan.

The Forest Service should stand firm. The well-considered ban, which is intended to limit or prevent high-volume hydraulic fracturing, was supported by the great majority (95 percent) of more than 53,000 public comments, as well as by many local governments adjacent to the Forest.

The proposed ban on horizontal drilling will protect the direct drinking water source for 260,000 local residents and the headwaters of the James and Potomac Rivers which supply water to millions in cities in Virginia, West Virginia, Washington, DC, and Maryland, safeguard fish and wildlife habitat, and preserve the forest recreation experience for the more than 1 million people who visit the George Washington National Forest each year.

The draft forest plan also proposed to make nearly the entire GW Forest available for vertical gas drilling.  The potential impacts of vertical gas drilling on the GW should be more thoroughly studied, with public input, before a decision is made.  At a minimum, local drinking water supply watersheds, priority watersheds, and other sensitive natural, scenic and recreation areas should be made unavailable to drilling.

Thank you for your support on this critical issue.

July 28, 2012 at the U.S. Capital, Washington, DC.

Rally at 2:00pm – March to follow

For information about the event see: http://www.stopthefrackattack.org

From California to New York, from North Dakota to Texas, people
across the country are converging on the U.S. Capitol to tell
Congress, the President and the world to end the rush to drill and
*STOP THE FRACK  ATTACK*

This is a great opportunity to use our collective power to end oil
and gas drilling that harms public health, water and air quality, and
the climate.

Buses from WV are being organized.
To join a bus from Morgantown contact Jim Sconyers
jimscon@gmail.com

To join a bus from Beckley/Lewisburg contact Beth Little
blittle@citynet.net

Two United Country Offices to Conduct Live Events on June 8, 9

Canaan Valley Properties included in the June 9th auction….

Seven commercial and residential tracts, as well as Marcellus Shale natural gas rights, will be sold during two live events on Friday, June 8 and Saturday, June 9.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/5/prweb9557389.htm

Interested buyers will have the opportunity to purchase one or more West Virginia parcels at auction prices. Seven commercial and residential tracts, as well as Marcellus Shale natural gas rights, will be sold during two live events on Friday, June 8 and Saturday, June 9.

These two auctions will be conducted by United Country – Redfield Group Auctions, Inc., of Gadsden, Ala., in conjunction with Randy Burdette, auctioneer and broker with United Country – Riverbend USA, LLC, of Alderson, W.V.

Read more…

http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/26666-1

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – People living near a state wildlife preserve are complaining that it is being torn up by natural gas exploration operations (fracking). The state of West Virginia does not own the mineral rights for the Lewis Wetzel Wildlife Management Area. Therefore, like a private landowner, the state has limited ability to control activities by the three drilling companies operating on 12 large well-pads located in the game and hiking preserve.

Longtime Wetzel County resident Bill Hughes says he has repeatedly complained about problems, including runaway erosion and heavy truck traffic.

Read more…

The Environment News Service has distributed the following story, which is excerpted below:

Institutional investors in the United States, Europe and Australia with nearly $1 trillion in assets under management have united to support a set of best practices for the hydraulic fracturing of shale rock to harvest natural gas.

Boston Common Asset Management, the Investor Environmental Health Network and the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility announced Wednesday that 55 major investors are part of their growing coalition seeking industry action to reduce and disclose all chemicals used in fracking, among other practices.

Steven Heim, managing director and director of Boston Common’s environmental, social and governance research and shareholder engagement division, said, “Assuming that hydraulic fracturing is going to continue to be used in some form, investors need to have greater certainty in the marketplace as to industry practices and government regulation. Currently there is no such certainty and that is really why investors are speaking up.”  In December 2011, two of the coalition organizations published “Extracting the Facts: An Investor Guide to Disclosing Risks from Hydraulic Fracturing Operations.”

The guide is organized around 12 core goals and supporting practices and indicators:

• Manage risks transparently and at board level
• Reduce surface footprint
• Assure well integrity
• Reduce and disclose all toxic chemicals
• Protect water quality by rigorous monitoring
• Minimize fresh water use
• Prevent contamination from waste water
• Minimize and disclose air emissions
• Prevent contamination from solid waste and sludge residuals
• Assure best in class contractor performance
• Secure community consent
• Disclose fines, penalties and litigation

Investors are seeking action from the industry due to the increasing level of uncertainty about the impacts of fracking on human health and the environment.

The Delaware River Basin Commission has a moratorium in place and has proposed regulations to protect water resources during the development and operation of natural gas projects. The Marcellus Shale formation underlies about 36 percent of the Delaware River Basin, which includes portions of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware.

The province of Quebec, Canada has imposed a fracking moratorium. Outright bans in France and Bulgaria. Chevron’s exploration license in Bulgaria has been cancelled.

Investor concern is evident in the high levels of shareholder votes supporting requests for more fracking disclosure. In the 2010 and 2011 proxy seasons, 21 shareholder resolutions at 16 companies received strong support, averaging 30 percent votes on six resolutions going to votes in 2010, and an average 40 percent votes on five resolutions voted on in 2011.

Sister Nora Nash is director of corporate social responsibility with Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, a member of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, the other organization behind the guide. “Local communities have been seriously impacted by lifecycle of shale gas fracturing,” she told reporters. “What is not known is whether impacts are being adequately addressed by gas companies.” “We’ve heard all sorts of horror stories, but we’re still woefully under educated about this process. When adequate protections are not in place, communities on the front lines clearly suffer.”

See also the report in Scientific American entitled “The Future of Energy.”

On April 17, 2012, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued regulations, required by the Clean Air Act, to reduce harmful air pollution from the oil and natural gas industry. The include the first federal air standards for natural gas wells that are hydraulically fractured, along with requirements for several other sources of pollution in the oil and gas industry that currently are not regulated at the federal level.

The Environmental Protection Agency predicts that the new rules will result in a nearly 95 percent reduction in volatile organic compounds emitted from more than 11,000 new hydraulically fractured gas wells each year.

EPA estimates the following combined annual emission reductions when the rules are fully implemented :

• Volatile organic compounds: 190,000 to 290,000 tons;
• Air Toxics: 12,000 to 20.000 tons; and
• Methane 1.0 to 1.7 million short tons [about 19 to 33 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent (CO2e)]

EPA predicts that the volatile organic compounds and air toxics reductions in the rules will improve outdoor air quality, protect against cancer risk from air toxics emissions and reduce health effects associated with exposure to ground-level ozone (smog). Air toxics are pollutants known or suspected of causing cancer and other serious health effects.

Exposure to ozone is linked to increased asthma attacks, hospital admissions and emergency room visits, and premature death.

The rules also would yield significant reductions in methane, a potent greenhouse gas. EPA’s Regulatory Impact Analysis for the rule estimates the value of the climate co-benefits that would result from this reduction at $440 million annually by 2015. This includes the value of climate-related benefits such as avoided health impacts, crop damage and damage to coastal properties.

This significant reduction would be accomplished primarily through the use of a proven process – known as a “reduced emissions completion” or “green completion” — to capture natural gas that currently escapes to the air. The rule would also would protect against potential cancer risks from emissions of several air toxics, including benzene.

Flareless or “green” completions reduce flaring and venting of natural gas. Before natural gas and coalbed methane wells begin producing gas for sale, the well bore and surrounding reservoir must be “cleaned up” (i.e., any fluids, sand, coal particles, or drill cuttings within the well bore must be removed). The conventional method for doing this is to pump air down the well bore, which lifts the waste fluids and solids out. The solid and liquid waste materials are then dumped into a pit or tank, and any gas that is removed is flared or vented to the atmosphere. In some flareless or green completions, natural gas, rather than air, is pumped down the well bore to clean it out.

In flareless or green completions the gas that comes to the surface is separated from fluids and solids using a series of heavyduty separators (sometimes referred to as “flowback units”). The water is discharged to tanks to be reused, the sand is sent to a reserve pit, and the gas is either cycled back through the well bore, or sent to a pipeline to be sold rather than vented or flared. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency , benefits of this system include the elimination or reduction in venting or flaring of natural gas; sale of the gas and condensate provides the operator with an immediate revenue stream; there is a reduction in solid waste and water pollution; and the system enables safer operating practices.

Green completion systems have a potential cost savings. By using portable equipment to process gas and condensate, the recovered gas can be directed to a pipeline and sold. These truck or trailer mounted systems can typically recover more than half of the total gas produced. Industry results have shown that investment in portable three phase separators, sand traps and tanks can be recovered in 2 years or less.

Some advocates have suggested that West Virginia adopt rules that would require green completion. While West Virginia has not adopted such rules, other states have done so. It is already standard practice in some formations in some states.

EPA estimates that the net cost of compliance with these new rules will be less than zero. Under current practice, a substantial volume of marketable gas either escapes into the atmosphere or is burned. By using “green completion” techniques, companies capture and sell this product. The value of the product is expected to offset the costs of compliance with the new rule. EPA’s analysis of the rules shows a cost savings of $11 to $19 million when the rules are fully implemented in 2015.

The George Washington National Forest is in the process of banning horizontal drilling for gas in the Forest. This is the technique used in tapping the Marcellus shale formation; banning it would effectively ban drilling in that formation.

The Forest is currently nearing the end of the process of revising its forest plan. This is the same process that the Monongahela National Forest went through in the mid 2000s, resulting in the major plan revision of 2006.

In its draft Environmental Impact Statement, the Forest Service cited “concerns about the impacts of extensive hydraulic fracturing associated with horizontal drilling on water quality, the unknown potential for developing the Marcellus shale formation on the GWNF, and the limited experience with horizontal drilling in the immediate vicinity of the GWNF.”

The draft Land and Resource Management Plan contained the ban. The public comments submitted on the draft Plan supported it. Approximately 70% of the Virginia residents who commented supported the ban.

The ban is in sharp contrast to the policy of the Monongahela National Forest. At the time of its Plan in 2006, Marcellus shale drilling, hydraulic fracturing, etc. was uncommon if not completely unknown. The Forest Service has declined to modify its Plan to account for the new information contemplating the possibility of Marcellus shale drilling. For more details, see The Highlands Voice, March, 2012, p. 15).

The Forest Service employees for Environmental Ethics has called for a ban on Marcellus shale drilling and the associated hydraulic fracturing in all the national forests where the formation is found. It cites concerns that such drilling “will contaminate surface and subsurface waters, kill forest vegetation and create health hazards for the American public.”

http://www.wvgazette.com/News/201204180288

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The Obama administration on Wednesday finalized new standards aimed at sharply reducing dangerous air emissions from the nation’s rapidly expanding natural gas drilling and production industry.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials said the standards are “flexible, affordable and achievable,” but still delayed their complete implementation in the face of industry lobbying and fierce political criticism that the agency is costing jobs and slowing energy production.

“The president has been clear that he wants to continue to expand production of important domestic resources like natural gas, and today’s standard supports that goal while making sure these fuels are produced without threatening the health of the American people,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson.

Read more…

BY NANCY BEVINS

I’m sure most people in West Virginia have heard the words fracking and Marcellus shale. To some, the words bring on visions of jobs, prosperity and new horizons for our state. But for others, these words bring one thought: Water.

The gas industry has been accused of inadvertently poisoning aquifers its drilling practices. Allegations of fracking wastewater being dumped on roads, in streams and in wooded areas are numerous. But what most people don’t realize is that in the words of one biologist, Sandra Steingraber, hydraulic fracturing “makes fresh water disappear.”

Think back to your science texts: Groundwater evaporates to become clouds, clouds bring rain, rain refills rivers, lakes and oceans, groundwater is evaporated again to become clouds … and so goes the water cycle. Water from the aquifers is brought to the surface, used, put into the same cycle, and rainwater seeps into the ground to refill the aquifers. So far so good.

But what will happen when a huge amount of that water is lost? Each time a gas well is drilled and fracked, somewhere between 4-6 million gallons of fresh water is used. Approximately 60 percent to 80 percent of that now toxic water will stay about a mile or so underground, hopefully entombed well below the water tables. The rest comes up as flow back or wastewater poisoned by chemicals used in the fracking process and various elements it encountered deep underground: Brine, radioactive elements and heavy metals, among others. This flowback water is toxic, and cannot be fixed.

At this time, most of it is being re-injected into deep underground disposal wells in the hopes it won’t resurface.

But that’s the amount used for one well. In New York state, for example, the gas industries are proposing more than 77,000 new wells. Do the math — 77,000 times the average of 5 million is 385 billion gallons of fresh water, gone forever. No one in our state could give me a number (or wanted to) of wells proposed for West Virginia. But even if it were a third as many, the amount of water lost would be devastating.

Where does all this water come from? Is it trucked in from another state? Is it brought to us from China? Is it magically brought into existence by the gas industry? Unfortunately, no. This water is being sucked out of West Virginia’s streams, creeks, lakes and aquifers. It is taken from your water, my water, our water. In our neighboring state, the “Water Management Plan for the Southwestern Pennsylvania Region” allows gas corporations to withdraw water from 10 counties in the Ohio River watershed, totaling more than 48 million gallons per day to be used in fracking. Are we headed down the same path?

West Virginia is the most beautiful state in the nation. It is like a secret garden, its ancient paths and waterways and hidden woods — unseen to many from the outside. The best kept secret in the nation. To lose the water that sustains this Eden so that a few corporations can get rich would be criminal.

Protect what we have. Take pictures of a stream, river or creek that runs through your property. If you have a favorite fishing spot or swimming hole, get the water levels on film now. Measure and note levels in all four seasons.

If you see a truck withdrawing water from an unmarked site, do some amateur investigating and find out if they are doing it legally. If you have a well, get it tested for common drilling chemicals by an independent company as soon as possible, before drilling commences in your area. Report things that don’t look kosher — discolored streams, stains on river banks, oily sheens on water surfaces, dead zones in grasses and woods.

Work to elect representatives in our state who care about the health, safety and environment of West Virginia and its people. And work to unseat politicians whose interests in our state are split between the protection of the people and the funds they are receiving from gas corporations.

Until then it will be up to all of us to save this slice of heaven.

NANCY BEVINS grows organic produce and raises sheep on a farm in Upshur County. She is also a fiber artist, the mother of four children and a foster parent to five others.

http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2012/04/04/u-s-geological-survey-links-man-made-earthquakes-to-gas-drilling/

Under­ground injec­tion of frack waste water “almost cer­tainly” caused a wave of earth­quakes from Alabama to Col­orado, accord­ing to a new report issued by the U.S. Geo­log­i­cal Sur­vey. The researchers looked at a spike in unusual seis­mic activ­ity that began in 2001.

A remark­able increase in the rate of M 3 and greater earth­quakes is cur­rently in progress in the US mid­con­ti­nent. The aver­age num­ber of M >= 3 earthquakes/year increased start­ing in 2001, cul­mi­nat­ing in a six-fold increase over 20th cen­tury lev­els in 2001. Is this increase nat­ural or manmade?

The report says the use of deep injec­tion wells to dis­pose of the waste water is the likely source of the increase in seis­mic activity.

A naturally-occurring rate change of this mag­ni­tude is unprece­dented out­side of vol­canic set­tings or in the absence of a main shock, of which there were nei­ther in this region. While the seis­mic­ity rate changes described here are almost cer­tainly man­made, it remains to be deter­mined how they are related to either changes in extrac­tion method­olo­gies or the rate of oil and gas production.

The Envi­ron­men­tal Work­ing Group has more on the USGS study.

he USGS authors said they do not know why oil and gas activ­ity might cause an increase in earth­quakes but a pos­si­ble expla­na­tion is the increase in the num­ber of wells drilled over the past decade and the increase in fluid used in the hydraulic frac­tur­ing of each well. The com­bi­na­tion of fac­tors is likely cre­at­ing far larger amounts of waste­water that com­pa­nies often inject into under­ground dis­posal wells. Sci­en­tists have linked these dis­posal wells to earth­quakes since as early as the 1960s. The injec­tions can induce seis­mic­ity by chang­ing pres­sure and adding lubri­ca­tion along faults.

WVHC Members Invited to Attend

By Dave Cooper

While combating dirty fossil-fuel energy, we can sometimes find ourselves so intensely focused on one issue that we lose track of important developments in other related fossil fuel campaigns. Success often seems to come from focus – for example, the historic campaign against the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline has quickly vaulted this issue into the national spotlight by maintaining an impressive, laser-like focus on opposition to the pipeline.

But if we aren’t careful, single-focus activists can find themselves wearing blinders, and inadvertently create problems in other campaigns.

Mountain Justice Spring Break (MJSB), March 21-28 in northern West Virginia (near Clarksburg) seeks to build bridges between the long-established anti-mountaintop removal (MTR) campaign in Appalachia and the newer, fast-growing anti-fracking campaign. College students and young people on their spring breaks from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, Virginia, New York and other states will attend Mountain Justice Spring Break (MJSB) for a week of trainings, skill-sharings, workshops, documentary films, speakers from the mountains and the hollows – learning about Appalachian music and culture through bluegrass, folk and old-time music in the evenings. A special emphasis at MJSB is connecting activists in the anti-MTR campaign with the “Fracktivists” in the anti-fracking campaign.

Mountain Justice Spring Break will offer site tours to see mountaintop removal on Kayford Mountain with Julian Martin of the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy and Larry Gibson with Keepers of the Mountains, and fracking sites in Wetzel County, West Virginia with Ed Wade of the Wetzel County Action Group; plus tours of a coal slurry impoundment and a strip mine near Morgantown, West Virginia.

Mountain Justice Spring Break participants will also hear from citizens who live close to coal-burning power plants, including Elisa Young of Meigs County, Ohio who has to deal with air pollution and ground water contamination from multiple large power plants with large coal ash impoundments in her county.

Other MJSB workshops will focus on anti-oppression, community grassroots and campus organizing, listening projects, coal slurry impoundments, non-violent direct action, tree-sits, media skills with Viv Stockman of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (OVEC), fundraising, citizen air monitoring, and coal ash.

The MJSB camp location in northern West Virginia is surrounded by drilling sites for oil and natural gas, and large fracking equipment and tanker trucks constantly thunder up and down the main highway.

Moving Beyond Coal

The dual focus of MJSB 2012 is significant, because while natural gas drilling is booming in places like northern West Virginia, coal continues to decline as a source for America’s electricity: According to the US government’s Energy Information Authority (EIA), from 2007 to 2011 coal declined from 49% to 43% as a share of the nation’s electricity supply. The EIA projects that coal will continue to decline over the next 25 years to 39%.

Yet the Sierra Club’s Bruce Nilles, Senior Director of the club’s Beyond Coal campaign, calls these numbers conservative and predicts that the percentage of electricity supplied by coal will fall even farther. “For many years the EIA has exaggerated coal’s prospects for the future, and every year has had to downgrade its projections,” said Nilles. “We know coal’s future is even darker than EIA is predicting.” For example, in 2010 the EIA predicted it would take 25 years for coal to drop to 44% of the electricity supply – it actually took only two years.

The EIA attributes this decline in coal to “slow growth in electricity demand, continued competition from natural gas and renewable plants, and the need to comply with new environmental regulations.”

While the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign has been very successful in opposing new coal plants and helping shut down dirty, older power plants, the club formerly referred to natural gas as a “bridge fuel” – a transitional source of energy until more renewable sources of energy come on line.

A February 2 story in Time magazine’s Eccocentric blog points out that the club had in the past accepted donations from the natural gas industry and notes that “mainstream environmental groups have struggled to find the right line on shale natural gas and the hydraulic fracturing or fracking process.” Since 2010, the Sierra Club has refused any further donations from the natural gas industry, even turning down a promised $30 million donation, but the issue has caused concern among club members in states where fracking is underway. The Sierra Club no longer uses the term “bridge fuel,” and in 2010 launched a Natural Gas Reform priority campaign.

Environmental groups combating fossil fuels are facing titanic energy industries and a congress that is deeply indebted to them for big campaign contributions. There are many difficult choices and difficult decisions. No one has all the answers, but building stronger bridges between the campaigns against coal and fracking – as Mountain Justice Spring Break seeks to do – seems like a good start.

For more information about Mountain Justice Spring Break, go to www.mjsb.org

By John McFerrin

The West Virginia Highlands Conservancy and the West Virginia chapter of The Sierra Club have written a letter to the United States Forest Service questioning how carefully it is prepared to scrutinize any proposal to drill for gas in the Marcellus Shale on the Monongahela National Forest.

As The Highlands Voice has reported (September, 2011), there are some indications that drilling for gas in the Marcellus Shall may be coming to the Monongahela National Forest. Although there have been no formal announcements of proposals to drill, the indications are that such a proposal may well be on the way. The question is how carefully the Forest Service is prepared to scrutinize such proposals.

Management of the Monongahela National Forest is currently guided by the management plan which the Forest Service adopted in 2006. In 2006, drilling for Marcellus shale gas was unknown. While the Forest Service considered more conventional gas drilling in developing the Plan, Marcellus drilling was not part of its considerations.

Because of this, and in response to inquiries on the subject, the Forest Service considered whether it should reopen the 2006 Plan because of the new information and the new drilling techniques involved in Marcellus shale wells.

In March, 2011, Forest Supervisor Clyde Thompson signed a Review of New Information concerning Marcellus shale gas drilling in the Mon. To read the whole thing, go to http://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5288559.pdf . The summary says: “Based on this review, the MNF Forest Supervisor has determined that new information related to gas exploration and development in the Marcellus shale does not require correction, supplementation or revision of the Environmental Impact Statement prepared for the 2006 Forest Plan or the environmental analysis of any ongoing project.”

In the letter, the two groups disagreed with that assessment. They also urged amendment of the Environmental Impact Statement prepared for the 2006 Forest Plan and the 2006 Forest Plan to address the impacts of shale gas drilling which uses high volume slickwater hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” in the Monongahela National Forest.

The letter questioned the authorities relied upon. The Forest Service cited no scientific studies. Instead, in determining that no further study of the environmental impact of fracking was necessary, the Forest Service relied upon the West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey and the West Department of Environmental Protection. While the West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey may have geological information, it is not a reliable source on environmental impacts.

Because the technology is new, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection does not yet have much, if any, information or expertise on its impacts. It is not appropriate to base a decision on likely impacts upon the opinion of an agency that is only now developing its expertise.

The groups also challenged the Review’s assumption that the Marcellus drilling and fracking would be similar to the drilling of vertical wells that was done in the past. While there are some similarities, the differences are striking. Marcellus drilling includes both vertical and horizontal drilling. Marcellus drilling requires more of everything-more land, more equipment, more water, more pipe, more trucks, more supplies (drill bits, sand, chemicals, fuel). It turns the Forest into an industrial zone. While the drilling of a conventional vertical well would have this effect as well, with Marcellus drilling the effects are greater and they last longer.

The pipeline rights of way made necessary by Marcellus drilling would also be larger than the 2006 Forest Plan anticipated. The Plan assumed gas line rights of way would be 15 to 40 feet. Those associated with Marcellus wells are often 100 feet wide.

Of particular concern is water use. There are no big rivers on the Monongahela National Forest. On the contrary, most of its streams are headwater streams. Marcellus drilling requires an enormous amount of water. There is no effective system in place for controlling or monitoring water withdrawals. Neither does the 2006 Plan anticipate the sediment that would come from something as substantial as a Marcellus drilling operation.

The letter also pointed out the problems with water disposal. Water which has been used for fracking and water produced during drilling contains mineral salts, heavy metals and radioactive materials, as well as the drilling waste itself. The 2006 planning document did not anticipate the issues arising out of such disposal, particularly disposal of the volumes of fluids produced by a Marcellus well.

The groups also questioned the Forest Service’s assumptions that air quality impacts would be minimal. A Marcellus drilling operation requires increased truck traffic and increased equipment activity on the wellpad, as well as compressor stations and flaring and venting. In deciding, in the Review of New Information, that the new activity would not require and additional study, the Forest Service ignored just how extensive the new activity and its impact upon air quality would be.

In arguing that the new activity of Marcellus drilling should require additional environmental impact study and revision of the 2006 management Plan, the groups pointed to the assumptions about gas drilling made in the 2006 Plan. The section of the Plan dedicated to mineral extraction repeatedly refers to “current conditions.” It assumes that those conditions would continue and that the Forest should be managed with those conditions in mind.

The drilling in the Marcellus shale is a new condition, unknown in 2006. The “current conditions” which the 2006 Plan addressed no longer exist.

The change in conditions is really another way of summarizing the groups’ entire argument. The 2006 Plan (and the environmental impact studies that preceded it) was a response to the conditions that existed in 2006. The Plan is designed to manage the Forest in light of those conditions.

Those conditions did not include Marcellus shale drilling. The conditions that exist today require new planning and a revision of the Plan to account for this new technology and new impacts in the Forest.

http://protectingourwaters.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/the-coloradoan-reports-fracking-depletes-water-supply/

Last week, reporter Bobby Magill opened his article, “Experts: Fracking Depletes Water Supply,” with the strong declaration that “when water is used for fracking, it’s used to extinction.”

Magill writes:

“It’s taken out of the hydrological cycle, never used again,” Phillip Doe, a former environmental compliance officer for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, said Thursday. “When they say 5 million gallons for a frack, they’re talking about 5 million gallons that will never see light again, and that’s if they’re lucky.”

Speaking during a League of Women Voters Cross Currents forum on hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” for oil and gas drilling, Doe said one of the biggest challenges facing the Front Range today is the amount of water used for drilling for oil and natural gas. That’s because water used for agriculture and most other uses is returned into the hydrological cycle and used again.

Read more…