natural gas drilling story

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Drilling the Marcellus Shale

Felt-Soled Waders and Invasives

Apache Trout

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Fractured Landscape:The Appa

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Last July, as concern grew over the prospect that thousands of natural gas wells could appear in the upland forests and farms of Appalachia, Pennsylvania officials sought to reassure the public and the gas industry alike.

The news media had reported that the wells could potentially tap millions of gallons of water from streams, produce toxic waste water and disturb thousands of undeveloped areas in the Marcellus shale—a 600-mile sheet of sedimentary rock spanning Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York, Maryland and Ohio.

In an effort to alleviate fears on both sides of the issue, officials publicly emphasized that not only did the gas rush mean a huge economic opportunity for the state due Pennsylvania’s abundant water resources, gas companies were “all rising to the challenge” of drilling responsibly.

But by the time those assurances were made, four gas companies had already been caught withdrawing water without permission from Pennsylvania trout streams. Chief Oil & Gas had removed 3.5 million gallons from Mud Run, a tributary of Larry’s Creek, and Range Resources had taken 2.2 million gallons out of Big Sandy Run. Other streams affected by withdrawals were Meshoppen, Pine and Sugar Creeks.

The companies paid $1.7 million to settle the violations. But permits for hundreds of additional wells have already been filed, including many near cold, pristine streams—streams that may be adversely affected not only by developers tapping water for the drilling process, but also by the contaminants and runoff that natural gas drilling can produce.

lachians’ Energy Development Rush

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Last July, as concern grew over the prospect that thousands of natural gas wells could appear in the upland forests and farms of Appalachia, Pennsylvania officials sought to reassure the public and the gas industry alike.

The news media had reported that the wells could potentially tap millions of gallons of water from streams, produce toxic waste water and disturb thousands of undeveloped areas in the Marcellus shale—a 600-mile sheet of sedimentary rock spanning Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York, Maryland and Ohio.

In an effort to alleviate fears on both sides of the issue, officials publicly emphasized that not only did the gas rush mean a huge economic opportunity for the state due Pennsylvania’s abundant water resources, gas companies were “all rising to the challenge” of drilling responsibly.

But by the time those assurances were made, four gas companies had already been caught withdrawing water without permission from Pennsylvania trout streams. Chief Oil & Gas had removed 3.5 million gallons from Mud Run, a tributary of Larry’s Creek, and Range Resources had taken 2.2 million gallons out of Big Sandy Run. Other streams affected by withdrawals were Meshoppen, Pine and Sugar Creeks.

The companies paid $1.7 million to settle the violations. But permits for hundreds of additional wells have already been filed, including many near cold, pristine streams—streams that may be adversely affected not only by developers tapping water for the drilling process, but also by the contaminants and runoff that natural gas drilling can produce.

Last July, as concern grew over the prospect that

thousands of natural gas wells could appear in the upland

forests and farms of Appalachia, Pennsylvania officials

sought to reassure the public and the gas industry alike.

The news media had reported that the wells could potentially tap millions

of gallons of water from streams, produce toxic waste water and disturb

thousands of undeveloped areas in the Marcellus shale—a 600-mile sheet

of sedimentary rock spanning Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York,

Maryland and Ohio.

In an effort to alleviate fears on both sides of the issue, officials publicly

emphasized that not only did the gas rush mean a huge economic opportunity

for the state due to Pennsylvania’s abundant water resources, gas companies

were “all rising to the challenge” of drilling responsibly.

But by the time those assurances were made, four gas companies had already

been caught withdrawing water without permission from Pennsylvania trout

streams. Chief Oil & Gas had removed 3.5 million gallons from Mud Run,

a tributary of Larry’s Creek, and Range Resources had taken 2.2 million

gallons out of Big Sandy Run. Other streams affected by withdrawals were

Meshoppen, Pine and Sugar creeks.

The companies paid $1.7 million to settle the violations. But permits for

hundreds of additional wells have already been filed, including many near

cold, pristine streams—streams that may be adversely affected not only by

developers tapping water for the drilling process, but also by the contami-

nants and runoff that natural gas drilling can produce.


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T R O U T W I N T E R 2 0 0 9 36

in Pennsylvania is absolutely enforced and followed, which is highly unlikely, the damage to our streams and forests will be considerable.”

“It makes your head spin”A well costs as much as $3 million in the Marcellus shale region, and until recently no one bothered drilling for the estimated 50 trillion cubic feet of natural gas because it was too expensive to do so. But escalating gas prices have led to massive investment in the region.

Pennsylvania alone issued 493 well permits as of mid-September

“A runaway freight train”The rush to drill for natural gas in the Marcellus shale formation—encouraged, in part, by the government agencies responsible for protecting the environ-ment and made possible by hundreds of millions of dollars in leases with rural landowners—poses a vast challenge to the ecosystems, and especially trout habitats, of the Appalachian Plateau. Trout Unlimited volunteers and staff in the region have made the Marcellus gas rush a top conservation priority. From the grassroots to the national offices, TU is working to make sure the drilling is done responsibly, in spite of

inconsistent environmental laws and underfunded regulatory agencies.

“Right now the Marcellus shale drilling rush is coming at us like a runaway freight train. There is no stopping it. All we can hope to do is make sure the environmental damage is kept to a minimum,” says Ken Undercoffer, president of TU’s Pennsylvania Council.

“My biggest concern is the need for massive water withdrawals to fracture the wells, and where this water is going to be treated afterward to render it harmless to the environment. Even if every environmental law that exists

“ Even if every environmental law that exists is absolutely enforced and followed, which is highly unlikely, the damage to our streams and forests will be considerable.”


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Escalating gas prices have attracted investors in droves to the estimated 50 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the Marcellus shale region.

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For many local landowners, offers from the gas companies are simply too good to refuse. Tenders of as much as $2,500 an acre, and sometimes more, are common.

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2008, with more expected to fol-low. Dominion, an energy company from Richmond, Va., announced in September it holds leases on as much as 800,000 acres in the Appalachian region. Range Resources of Fort Worth, Texas announced in July it had locked up 1.4 million acres in northern West Virginia, southwestern Pennsylvania, northeastern Pennsylvania and south-ern New York. Atlas Energy Resources of Moon Township, Pa. controls more than half a million acres. And these companies are only the tip of the Marcellus-drilling iceberg.

For many local landowners, offers from the gas companies are simply too good to refuse. Tenders of as much as $2,500 an acre, and sometimes more, are common, as is a share of the profits on the production of the gas well itself, which could bring in thousands of additional dollars per month.

“When a guy comes along and offers you potentially $5 million, it makes your head spin,” says Fred Dorgler of Floral Park, N.Y., a member of a local field and stream club. The club owns 3,200 acres in the Catskills coveted by Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation of Charleston, W.V. In September, club members struggled over whether or not to lease their hunting lands.

“Some of these people are in their 80s and 90s and grew up scratching out a living. They now stand the chance of getting a substantial amount of money late in their lives,” says Al Conklin, a retired school teacher from Liverpool, N.Y. and member of the Iroquois Chapter of TU.

Like others, Conklin’s father faces the potential of leasing 80 acres near the West Branch of the Delaware River to natural gas developers. “My father has looked at it as somewhat of a godsend. But on the other hand, you don’t want something that’s going to spoil your drinking water.”

Natural gas development in the Marcellus region has reached dizzying proportions. Landowners have started to bargain in groups to increase their

buying power. To help facilitate title searches, a gas company asked for an office in the Clearfield, Pa. county courthouse. In September, the New York attorney general’s office began investigating dozens of complaints of misleading or deceptive tactics by gas company “land men.”

Says Dorgler, “whether we lease or don’t lease, we’ll never be the same.”

Drilling in irreplaceable trout habitatTo get gas out of the Marcellus shale, developers use a technique known as hydro-fracturing, which means drilling down thousands of feet to the shale and then blasting the shale with water—anywhere from 3 million to 9 million gallons per well. Even more water is used if the well needs to be re-fractured.

Trucking in water to meet the demand is expensive. It’s far cheaper to run a few hundred feet of fire hose to a nearby stream. And because drilling tends to be concentrated in undeveloped highlands, those nearby streams are often irreplaceable trout habitat.

“Where they’re drilling in the Marcellus is up in the hills—the Appalachian Mountains,” says

Well is turned horizontal

Marcellus Shale

Hydrofrac Zone

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Hydro-fracturing involves injecting over a mil-lion gallons of water, chemicals and sand at high pressure to crack the rock and release gas into the well.


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Mike Brownell, chief of the Water Resource Management Division of the Susquehanna River Basin Commission. “They’re not drilling down in the valleys.”

Of the 33 applications for gas well water withdrawals that came before the SRBC at its quarterly meeting in September 2008, 15 requested the right to draw water from streams classified as coldwater fisheries or high-quality coldwater fisheries. Several others were put-and-take trout streams.

After the unauthorized withdrawals by Range Resources, Chief Oil & Gas and others last spring, the SRBC tight-ened its rules. Before, permits were only needed when a certain volume of water was consumed, but now the SRBC requires a permit to withdraw

any amount of water for Marcellus shale drilling. Prior to permitting any withdrawal, the commission’s staff conducts field studies on the stream in question, counting fish and invertebrates and measuring flows. But not every trout stream is fortunate enough to be under the jurisdiction of the SRBC.

Regulations for withdrawing water vary widely from state to state. West Virginia lacks statewide rules govern-ing the withdrawal of water from sen-sitive trout habitat, says Larry Harris, TU’s National Leadership Council secretary from Morgantown, W.V. who also serves on a six-member advisory council to the state’s Department of Environmental Protection.

In New York, a TU report released in September found that current laws

and regulations don’t adequately pro-tect streams from natural gas drilling water withdrawals. The New York State Water Resources Institute at Cornell University also found that, due to the likelihood that many of the wells will be located in the upper reaches of watersheds, “there is legitimate concern regarding the over exploita-tion of water, even if this impact is temporary.”

Threats to water qualityThe water used in hydro-fracturing contains chemicals the industry is not required to disclose, but which reputable organizations describe as containing such highly toxic substances as arsenic, hydrogen sulfide, mercury and volatile organic compounds

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Of the 33 applications for gas well water withdrawals that came before the SRBC, 15 requested the right to draw water from streams classified as coldwater fisheries or high-quality coldwater fisheries.

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including benzene, toluene and xylene. The natural gas industry says the chemicals are kept out of water supplies during drilling, and that waste water is trucked away and ren-dered harmless at treatment plants. But chemicals have shown up in the groundwater in natural gas drilling sites in the western United States, and in reality there are very few treatment plants that can handle the contami-

nated water. Those that can are close to or already at capacity.

An additional worry is run-off. The wells sit on pads, typically five acres in size, linked by pipelines and accessed by new unpaved roads—all of which can cause increased sedi-mentation in nearby streams that, in turn, raises water temperatures, alters streambeds, impairs spawning and smothers aquatic insects.

Due to the magnitude of the Marcellus shale development, most might think that federal regulations would help address concerns over water withdrawals and water quality. Unfortunately, the 2005 Energy Policy Act specifically exempted the oil and gas industry from the provisions of the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act that apply to pollution caused by waste water as well as runoff.

“It’s critical that the natural gas industry’s exemption from federal clean water laws be repealed,” says Sara Tucker, TU’s director of government affairs. “It’s an unfortunate exemption and it never should have happened.”

Tucker says that for TU, the issue of balancing gas production on public and private land with fish and wildlife protection will be “one of our top priorities of 2009.” New York Sen. Hillary Clinton has expressed support for closing the loopholes.

Protecting the resource“Even if a state has the best laws in place and has the staff to ensure these laws are complied with, if these wells are developed in the numbers that are being talked about, the cumulative impact is going to be heavy,” says Elizabeth Maclin, TU’s vice president for eastern conservation. “We are not opposed to drilling in the Marcellus, but people and rivers—and our fishing and hunting spots—have got to be protected.”

Maclin says that TU is undertaking a campaign to bring its members and other sportsmen and women together to keep drilling out of public lands that are vital for fish and wildlife. They are also advocating for tighter state laws and regu-lations requiring setbacks from streams, water withdrawal standards, water treat-ment requirements, strict enforcement and steep penalties for non-compliance, and are identifying and working with responsible energy companies to develop a set of best practices.

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Locally, TU members and chapters are working to ensure that coldwa-ter habitats are protected from gas drilling. Last fall, the West Virginia Council reached out to representa-tives of the gas industry to meet and discuss ways of extracting natural gas without damaging the headwaters of trout streams.

In Pennsylvania, the state council is considering proposing a tax on gas company profits to be used to hire more inspectors to monitor drilling operations. Pennsylvania has just 36 water quality specialists and drilling inspectors, and despite the clear need for more, the commonwealth froze additional hiring due to a budget crunch.

Local TU members will undoubt-edly keep an eye on drilling operations near their home waters, offering a

measure of protection, at least on operations they can see. But with so much drilling occurring in so many places, it will be difficult to make sure every driller honors the terms of his or her permit and does not harm streams, especially since much of the exploration and extraction will take place in undeveloped areas.

“Some of the most intense interest in Marcellus shale exploration and extraction is taking place in the least developed areas of this state,” says Tim Ziegler of the Center for Dirt and Gravel Road Studies at Pennsylvania State University, an organization originally founded 11 years ago by TU’s Pennsylvania Council. “These areas contain the most miles of healthy trout streams—many of them headwater brook trout streams—and that does not bode well for our state fish or the anglers who enjoy pursu-ing them.”

Continued from page 42

Appalachian Energy

You can help…TU is working at the state and national level to help assure that valuable trout resources in the Northeast are protected from the Marcellus shale development. Whether it’s working to educate people as to the potential impacts of the development on trout, sharing your opinion with elected officials or monitoring energy exploration at the local level, you can play a vital role. Go to tu.org/marcellus, pro-vide us with your email and telephone number and we’ll contact you to discuss how you can protect your home waters from drilling.


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