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The Times-Tribune

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NYC BOMB SUSPECT ADMITS GUILT, VOWS ‘WAR’ Nation, A12

NEWSSTAND 75¢HOME-DELIVERED 43¢

BY LAURA LEGERE

STAFF WRITER

Range Resourcesdug a pit the sizeof a football field

in the grassy acres justbeyond June Chappel’sproperty line last year,yards from the pen whereshe keeps her beaglesand past the trees thatshade the porch on herfamily’s small southwest-ern Pennsylvania home.

Range used it, at first,to store the fresh waterneeded to produce gasfrom the seven MarcellusShale natural gas wells itdrilled next door.

But when the companybegan to fill it with thesalt- and metals-ladenwaste fluids that cameback up from the wells,Mrs. Chappel found odorslike that of gasoline andkerosene forced herinside. The rising dew lefta greasy film on her win-dows, she said, and oneNovember day a whitedust fell over the yard.

She called the compa-ny to complain about thesmell, and workers came

to skim booms across thepit, sopping up odor-caus-ing residue and bacteria.

Throughout all of it,her husband, David,was inside the house,sick with andlater dyingof cancer atage 54.

“ W e ’ v egone with-out,” she saidin January,standing bythe pit with ah o o d ove rher head andher beaglesn e a r by i ncoats. “Wedon’t have alot here. Now,I feel like it’sruined.”

Like thewastewaterpits increas-ingly used bythe gas indus-try in Penn-sylvania —the largest ofwhich canh o l d t h eequivalent of 22 Olympic-

BY LAURA LEGERE

STAFF WRITER

Three times on twodays in Septem-ber, diluted chem-

icals used to coax natu-ral gas from the

M a r c e l l u sShale spilledfrom brokenpipes and hos-es in Susque-hanna Countya n d l e a ke dinto a wetlandand creek.

Safety docu-ments kept atthe well site forthe concentrat-ed fluid, a Hal-liburton prod-uct that lowersthe friction ofwater, listedtwo ingredi-e n t s w i t hgeneric namesand no uniquechemical iden-t i f i c a t i o nnumbers.

The docu-ments, whichare meant to

detail a product’s haz-ards, did not specify thechemicals in the fluid

and provided virtuallynone of the informationenvironmental regula-tors needed to evaluatethe spills.

Instead, before inspec-tors with the state Depart-ment of EnvironmentalProtection could begin todetermine the extent ofthe contamination in thesoil and stream, theyasked Halliburton if theycould take a sample ofthe raw gel in order totrack down its chemicalfingerprint — an analysisthat was not finalizeduntil more than twoweeks after the first spill.

The prolonged investi-gation into the spills,which is detailed in morethan 100 pages of DEPdocuments reviewed byThe Times-Tribune,shows the stakes of apush in Congress and inseveral states to forcedrilling companies to ful-ly disclose the chemicalsthey use to break apartgas-bearing rock often amile underground.

To release the gas from

AN OCEANOCEANOF TROUBLEDrillers struggle to safely move, store and treat millionsof gallons of toxic water at each of thousands of wells

MICHAEL J. MULLEN / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

A drilling rig bores into the natural gas-rich Marcellus Shale from a pad in Springville on May 21.

HOPEWELL TWP. —

Operators stillrefining process

Chemicals usedcan be mystery

TODAYIndustry’s huge

water use.

West Virginia DEPscrambles to keepup with drilling. A7

WEDNESDAYWoes in western Pa.offer lessons here.

For past storiesabout gas drilling

and DEP violationsdatabase, visit: the

times-tribune.com/gas

Continued on Page A6

Please see CHEMICALS,

Page A7

BY ERIN L. NISSLEY

STAFF WRITER

For months, AbingtonHeights School Superinten-dent Michael Mahon, Ph.D.,has been occupied with a cal-culator and pages of finan-cial projections.

School board membersresisted a tax hike for 2010-11,but balancing the budget anyother way proved nearly

impossible. Eventually,school district officials pre-sented a budget of $44.1million that includes a 2-mill tax increase and a$1.4 million deficit.The budget alsoeliminates fourteaching positionsand puts offr e p l a c i n gsome text-

books and upgrading com-puter equipment. The schoolboard will vote on the final

budget Wednesday.Abington Heights is

not alone when itcomes to school bud-get woes. School dis-tricts collectively lost

$343 millionin local reve-nues because

of the recession, according toa survey this spring by thePennsylvania Association ofSchool Business Officialsand the Pennsylvania Associ-ation of School Administra-tors. Two-thirds of the state’sschool districts are planningto cut teaching staff in 2010-11, and 69 percent will be dip-ping into reserve funds to bal-ance the 2010-11 budgets, the

survey also found.Western Wayne, Lakeland,

Mountain View, Dunmore,Old Forge, Riverside and Wal-lenpaupack Area are amongthe Northeast Pennsylvaniaschool districts that are plan-ning to use money fromreserves to stay in the black.Lackawanna Trail might alsouse $350,000 from reserves tobalance its budget if the

school board rejects a propos-al to increase its millage rate,said the district’s businessmanager, David Homish.

Using reserve funds isextremely risky, warned JayHimes, executive director ofthe PASBO, since there areconcerns about soaring pen-sion contributions and cuts

Economy forcing schools to tap reserves

An ongoing lookSHOWDOWN

Please see SCHOOLS, Page A8

Legislator says thegas industry ismoving too fast.

BY BOB KALINOWSKI

STAFF WRITER

JACKSON TWP. — Stand-ing at a reservoir that pro-vides drinking water to 30,000residents in Luzerne County,state Rep. Phyllis Mundy, D-120, Kingston, on Mondaycalled for a one-year morato-rium on new natural gas drill-ing permits in Pennsylvania.

“We are allowing thisindustry to move ahead toofast,” Ms. Mundy said from

the Hunts-ville Reser-voir in frontof about 75concer nedcitizens. “Weneed to takea step backand give our-

selves the necessary time todo this right. The risks ofdoing it wrong are simply toogreat and long-lasting.”

Ms. Mundy plans to intro-duce the moratorium propos-al later this week in Harris-burg, along with two otherbills designed to protectdrinking water from contam-ination due to MarcellusShale gas drilling.

One bill would prohibit gascompanies from drillingwithin 2,500 feet of a primarysource of public drinking

Mundy:No newdrillingfor year

MUNDY

BY JEREMY G. BURTON

STAFF WRITER

After two months of inves-tigation, a Scranton HighSchool teacher has beencharged with having a sexualrelationship with a 17-year-old male student.

Joseph P. Voyt, 33, of 613Beech St., was arraigned Fri-day on a single count of cor-ruption of minors, which is afirst-degree misdemeanor. Hewas released on $25,000 unse-cured bail and scheduled for apreliminary hearing Monday.

Mr. Voyt is accused of hav-ing oral sex with the teenageboy after they watched amovie and ate dinner togeth-er at the Shoppes at Montagein November.

The alleged abuse did notrise to a more serious chargeof involuntary deviate sexbecause the boy was notforced and he was older than16, Deputy District AttorneyMaryann Grippo said.

Mr. Voyt faces up to five

Teacherchargedwith sexwith teen

Please see TEACHER, Page A9

Please see MUNDY, Page A7

TreatingpredatorsdrainingbudgetsStates using ‘civilcommitments’see costs soar to$96G per yearper offender.

BY MARTIGA LOHN

ASSOCIATED PRESS

MOOSE LAKE, Minn. —Keeping sex offenderslocked up in treatment afterthey finish their prison sen-tences emerged as a popularget-tough tactic in the 1990s,when states were flush withcash. But the costs havesoared far beyond what any-one envisioned.

AnAssociatedPressanal-ysis found that the 20 stateswith so-called “civil com-mitment” programs willspend nearly $500 millionthis year alone to confineand treat 5,200 offenders stillconsidered too dangerous toput back on the streets.

The annual costs peroffender topped out at$175,000 in New York and$173,000 in California, andaveraged $96,000 a year,about double what it wouldcost to send them to an IvyLeague university. In somestates, like Minnesota, sexoffender treatment costsmore than five times morethan keeping offenders inprison. And those estimatesdo not include the consider-able legal expenses neces-sary to commit someone.

The programs have creat-ed a political quandary forlawmakers who desperately

INSIDE

Spill claims chiefvows quick action

Kenneth Feinberg, theadministrator of a $20billion fund to compen-sate Gulf oil spill victims,pledged to get money toclaimants as quickly aspossible. A12

Board changesschool dress code

The Scranton SchoolBoard on Monday unani-mously changed the dresscode for the city’s two highschools, taking sharperaim at skinny jeans, hood-ed sweatshirts and cloth-ing that’s deemed “gang-related.” Local, A3

Please see PREDATORS,

Page A8

■ Valley View spending$1.5M from reserve fund. A4

TUESDAY, JUNE 22, 2010

SC_TIMES_TRIB/TIMES_PAGES [A06] | 06/21/10 22:54 | SUPERIMPSC

DEEP IMPACT

FROM PAGE A1

size swimming pools full ofcontaminated fluid — theproblem of what to do withthe liquid waste from Mar-cellus Shale drilling isenormous.

The average MarcellusShale well requires 4 milliongallons of water mixed withsand and chemicals to breakapart — or hydraulically frac-ture — the rock formationand release the gas.

About 1 million gallons ofthat fluid, now saturated withthe salts, metals and natural-ly occurring radiation thathad been trapped in theshale, returns to the surfaceto be treated, diluted, reusedor pumped underground indeep disposal wells.

There has been significantprogress in determiningwhat exactly is in the wasteand how to reuse it over thelast two years — from whenthe state’s environmentalregulatory agency belatedlydiscovered that drillers weresending the fluids to publiclyowned sewer systems incapa-ble of treating it, to last week,when the state IndependentRegulatory Review Commis-sion endorsed strict restric-tions on how much of thewaste can be discharged intoPennsylvania’s streams.

There has also been asurge in entrepreneurialactivity from companies pro-posing to treat the waste,which can be up to 10 timessaltier than seawater.

Locally, Scranton attorneyJohn Minora is helping theWyoming Valley SanitaryAuthority look for companiesinterested in designing,building and operating atreatment system adjacent tothe Hanover Twp. authoritythat would blend the saltywaste with the sewer plant’streated flow and then bereused by drillers to fracturenew wells.

A use for acidmine water?

State Rep. Jim Wansacz, D-114, Old Forge, has been

working with a Texas-basedcompany that wants to cap-ture, treat and sell acid minedrainage to the gas industryeven as it cleans the constant,poisonous flow into the Lack-awanna River, either at theOld Forge borehole or atanother major dischargepoint in Dupont.

And two companies, Wyo-ming Somerset RegionalWater Resources Corp. andNorth Branch Processing,have applied to build new gaswastewater treatment facili-ties in Lemon Twp. andEaton Twp. in WyomingCounty, both of which couldbe permitted only if theyremoved enough salt to makethe finished flow safe for peo-ple to drink.

But even as the state triesto push the stricter treatmentstandards into law, there arenot enough treatment plantsin Pennsylvania to removethe salt from the more than ahalf-million gallons of waste-water that is produced fromMarcellus Shale drillingevery day.

Those challenges raisewhat Conrad Dan Volz, direc-tor of the Center for HealthyEnvironments and Commu-nities at the University ofPittsburgh, said is the mostobvious of the unansweredquestions about the currentscale of Marcellus Shale gasproduction in the state: “Whywould we ever start doingthis drilling in this kind ofintensive way if we didn’thave some way to handle andproperly dispose of the brinewaters?”

Promise, problemswith recycling

T he problematic pitbehind Mrs. Chappel’s

home was also part of a pio-neering development in theearly life of Marcellus Shalegas extraction.

In October, Range Resourc-es was the first company in

the commonwealth to claimto be able to reuse all of thewaste that flowed back froma well after it was hydrauli-cally fractured. Using thepits, called centralizedimpoundments, Range dis-covered that it could diluteMarcellus Shale wastewaterwith fresh water and reuse itin the next well.

The seemingly simple solu-tion had a dramatic impact:As Range doubled the num-ber of gas wells it drilledbetween 2008 and 2009, it cutthe amount of water it need-ed to discharge in halfbecause of its reuse program,a spokesman said.

The company shared theinformation with the otherMarcellus operators, andnow 60 percent of the waste-water produced in the state isbeing reused, according tothe Marcellus Shale Coali-tion, a cooperative of thestate’s Marcellus drillers.

But recycling alone willnot cure the industry of aneed to dispose of the waste.

In defining the need forstrict discharge rules forMarcellus Shale wastewaterin April, the Department ofEnvironmental Protectionwrote that even with recy-cling and reuse, “it is clearthat the future wastewaterreturn flows and treatmentneeds will be substantial.”

Because the gas develop-ment is so new, it is stillunclear how much wastewa-ter will be created immedi-ately and over time by the50,000 new wells that areexpected to be drilled in thenext two decades.

The waste that flows backslowly and continuously overthe 20- to 30-year life of eachgas well could produce 27tons of salt per year, thedepartment wrote. “Multiplythis amount by tens of thou-sands of Marcellus gas wells,and the potential pollutionaleffects ... are tremendous.”

Recycling using central-ized pits also has its down-sides, from the intrusive tothe dangerous:

■ Mrs. Chappel and herneighbors lived with the nox-ious odors from the pitbehind their homes untilthey hired an attorney andRange agreed to remove it.

■ Two of the MarcellusShale violations for whichRange has been cited andfined by DEP have been forfailures of the lines thattransfer the waste fluids,sometimes up to 7 milesbetween a wastewater pit anda well site.

■ And the potential for thepits to emit chemicals or haz-

ardous elements called vola-tile organic compounds intothe air has been cited in stud-ies in other states and isbeing monitored by DEP atsites throughout WashingtonCounty.

Matt Pitzarella, a RangeResources spokesman, admit-ted the decision to put the pitbehind Mrs. Chappel’s housewas “not a good choice” andthe company has workedhard to correct it, includingremoving the pit, reclaimingthe hill and even paintingMrs. Chappel’s house.

The company’s eight ornine other impoundments inWashington County werebuilt for longer-term use, hesaid, in areas farther awayfrom people’s homes.

Another Range spokesmanat an April meeting withneighbors upset about thepit’s smells said the impound-ments hold “a lot of hydro-carbons,” brine, and bacteria“from the water just sittingout there” and that can cre-ate odors.

“The warmer it gets, themore putrid it’s going to get,”he said.

The smell is “not dangerousor harmful. It’s annoying.”

But complaints of odorsfrom pits helped spur DEP toconduct an air quality studyaround gas well sites in theregion that is expected to becompleted this month.

And in its review of theenvironmental implicationsof Marcellus Shale gas drill-ing, New York state deter-

mined that the threat posedby the pits may go far beyondannoyance.

An environmental impactstatement under reviewthere describes a “worstcase scenario” for hazard-ous air pollutants — espe-cially methanol used bydrillers in fracturing fluidsand as an antifreeze —escaping from large waste-water impoundments.

According to the report, acentralized impoundmentthat holds the wastewaterfrom 10 wells could theoreti-cally release 32.5 tons ofmethanol into the air eachyear — meaning it couldqualify as a “major” sourceof toxic air pollutants underfederal rules.

Because of the risk ofleaks and other failures, NewYork also proposed to ban theuse of such centralizedimpoundments within theboundaries of its most pro-ductive aquifers, whichunderlie about 15 percent ofthe state.

Pipes susceptibleto leaks

T he sheer volume of thewastewater and the

number of trucks, pits, pipesand people necessary to moveit over often long distanceshas also increased the proba-bility of leaks and spills,which have already occurredin Pennsylvania. Accidentsdescribed in DEP documentsreviewed by The Times-Tri-bune show that the above-

ground lines used to pipe thewastewater to and fromimpoundments and tanks aresusceptible to leaks, evenwhen companies take care toprevent them.

In October, an elbow jointcame unglued in a PVC linecarrying diluted wastewaterfrom one of Range’s pits andspilled about 10,500 gallonsinto a high-quality stream,killing about 170 small fishand salamanders.

According to Range, thecompany successfully testedthe line with fresh water inthe week before the wastewa-ter transfer to make sure itcould hold the pressure. Itwas the second transfer linefailure for the company infive months.

In a separate incident, awater transfer line used byChesapeake Appalachia inBradford County failed fivetimes in five places over fivedays in December. On oneoccasion, the pipe burstwhere it had been weakenedfrom being dragged on theground.

Another time it failedbecause of a faulty weld, andanother because bolts wereloose on a valve.

In correspondence withDEP, Chesapeake said it wasits policy to transfer only freshwater in its above-groundlines and to use only a moreexpensive “fused poly pipe” tominimize the risk of spills.

But an estimated 67,000total gallons of the water didspill and DEP tests of the

water found that it was notfresh. Instead, it had elevatedlevels of salts, barium andstrontium — indicators ofMarcellus wastewater thatthe company suspected mayhave mixed with its freshwater in one of its contrac-tor’s tanks, which may havebeen improperly cleanedbetween uses.

Brian Grove, Chesapeake’sdirector of corporate devel-opment, said the incident didnot pose a threat to the publicand did not result in any neg-ative environmental impact.The company has sinceadopted new procedures forhandling, storing and trans-porting water, he said, andheld a meeting with all of itsemployees and contractors toreiterate its “commitment tosafety and environmentalstewardship.”

Scott Perry, the director ofDEP’s Oil and Gas Bureau,said the above-ground pipe-lines might be addressed inupcoming revisions to thestate’s oil and gas regula-tions, which may alsoinclude an evaluation of theconstruction standards forcentralized impoundmentsand other elements of theindustry’s handling ofwastewater.

The current regulatorystandard for the pipelines isthat they cannot leak, hesaid.

“ M ay b e t h at ’s g o o denough,” he said. “There’s anabsolute prohibition againstgetting a single drop of it onthe ground.”

He emphasized that theregulatory agency has to finda way to permit the pipelinesso it both protects the envi-ronment and encouragestheir use in order to removeexcessive truck traffic fromrural roads.

“In a practical sense, if youwant to eliminate 100,000trucks, this is the way to doit,” he said.

Solution: Moveless water

Radisav Vidic, chairmanof the Department of

Civil and EnvironmentalEngineering at the Universi-ty of Pittsburgh, said a betterway to minimize the risk ofenvironmental damage is forcompanies to stop movingthe wastewater so much.

Current industry practicefor recycling the waste is tofracture a well and then driveor pipe the water to animpoundment or tanks, overand over, he said, “until theymove 6 million gallons ofwater back and forth” to frac-ture multiple wells on onepad, creating an opportunityfor spills with each trip.

Dr. Vidic is studying howto take the wastewater fromone well, mix it with acidmine drainage, and use it tofracture subsequent wells onthe same multi-well pad —research that is being fundedin part by a grant from theU.S. Department of Energy.

He has found that the sul-fates in acid mine drainage— one of the biggest sourc-es of pollution in currentand former coal miningregions of the state — inter-act with problem metalslike barium and strontiumin the wastewater and turnthem into solids that can bediscarded.

An obstacle to research,though, is how little some gascompanies are willing to col-laborate, both with him andeach other, to solve the waste-water problem, he said.

“Every company thinksthey know it best, and theykeep it to themselves, andthey think they’re going toget a competitive advantage,”he said.

“I’m thinking, who cares?We can all sink togetherbecause we’re hiding theinformation, or we can allswim together and every-body’s going to get a little bitrich in the process, not filthyrich.”

Contact the writer:

llegere@timesshamrock.com

‘THE WARMER IT GETS, THEMORE PUTRID IT’S GOING TO GET’

Spokesman for Range Resources gas drilling company speaking about wastewater containment ponds at a public meeting in Washington County

On the Web

Visit our online data-bases of local gas leas-es and DEP violationsat thetimes-tribune.

com/gas

COURTESY MARCELLUSSHALE.US

An aerial view shows June Chappel’s property in southwestern Pennsylvania. The huge area in the foreground

is the Range Resources wastewater containment pond that became such a problem. Her house is to the left.

MICHAEL J. MULLEN / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

A gas drilling rig stands amid the lush green of Springville, Susquehanna County.

A6 THE TIMES-TRIBUNE TUESDAY, JUNE 22, 2010

SC_TIMES_TRIB/TIMES_PAGES [A07] | 06/21/10 22:39 | SUPERIMPSC

DEEP IMPACT

W.Va. regulators scramble to keep pace

BY VICKI SMITH

ASSOCIATED PRESS

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. —The number of natural gaswells being permitted inWest Virginia’s portion ofthe vast Marcellus Shalefield is growing faster thanthe Department of Environ-mental Protection’s ability tokeep pace, Secretary RandyHuffman said.

While the number of per-mits issued for unconven-tional drilling operationsmore than tripled between2007 and 2009, the number ofinspectors increased by onlyone, DEP records show. Fourmore inspectors are on the

payroll this year, but Mr.Huffman acknowledges 18people are not enough to han-dle not only more than 1,000new Marcellus wells, but alsotens of thousands of tradi-tional, shallow gas wells.

“We simply do not have thenumber of people necessaryto do the job,” Mr. Huffmansaid in an interview with TheAssociated Press. “It’s easy toissue a permit. What I thinkwe’re doing is issuing per-mits faster than we have theability to keep up with themon the ground.”

How to address the short-age of inspectors and howgreat a workload each inspec-

tor can handle are among thequestions the DEP hopes toanswer in an ongoing reviewof its Division of Oil andGas. Mr. Huffman said hewants the “comprehensive,top-down look” completedwithin the next few monthsso he can brief Gov. Joe Man-chin by November. He wantsto offer any necessary policychanges — and perhaps leg-islation — by January.

“We’ve got to give the peo-ple in the state a comfort lev-el that ... we’re not selling thefarm in exchange for thegas,” he said.

But Charlie Burd, executivedirector of the IndependentOil and Gas Association ofWest Virginia, calls the DEPtimeline “very aggressive.”

“Any rush to judgmentwould be a mistake,” he cau-

tioned. “It’s not like there’ssome tremendously criticalissue out there that shouldbe driving this. I think every-one concerned will be betteroff if we take our time anddo it right as opposed toreacting quickly.”

An explosion earlier thismonth at a gas well site nearMoundsville did not triggerthe review but verified theneed for it, Mr. Huffman said.

Seven workers wereinjured when Texas-basedUnion Drilling Inc. drilledthrough an abandoned coalmine and struck a pocket ofmethane gas that ignited. Theresulting fire burned for fivedays, and the DEP issued twoviolations against the permitholder, AB Resources PA LLCof Brecksville, Ohio. The stateshut down all AB Resources

operations in the state while itreviews the company’s permitcompliance.

“We don’t know if a newregulatory scheme wouldhave made a bit of differ-ence,” Mr. Huffman said.

The Marcellus Shale fieldis a vast, rich reserve the sizeof Greece that underliesOhio, West Virginia, Pennsyl-vania and New York. The gasis locked in tightly compact-ed rock a mile underground,and freeing it requires uncon-ventional horizontal drillingtechnolo gies and vastamounts of water.

How to handle millions ofgallons of chemical-taintedwastewater remains a ques-tion, but Scott Mandirola ofthe DEP’s Division of Waterand Waste Management saidmost companies now realize

it makes environmental andeconomic sense to recycle.Some larger companies havetold the DEP they’re recy-cling 95 percent or morebecause it’s cheaper thanbuying, hauling and dispos-ing of water with each newwell, Mr. Mandirola said.

Still, water concer nsremain part of the review.

Mr. Huffman said wide-spread change in the state’sregulatory structure may notbe necessary, but the DEPdoes need a better way tofund inspectors, whose sala-ries come from permit fees.

In 2007, the DEP issued 147new permits for Marcelluswells. In 2008, the numberjumped to 387, and then to 397last year. As of June 1, 122permits had been issued sofar this year.

CHEMICALS: Few studies done to show risks to human healthFROM PAGE A1

the Marcellus Shale, compa-nies inject millions of gal-lons of water, silica sand andchemicals into the formationat high pressure to breakapart, or hydraulically frac-ture, the rock. Full disclosureof those hydraulic fracturingchemicals, which make upabout 1 percent of what isinjected underground, hasbeen at the heart of the drill-ing debate.

The precise identity andconcentration of the chemi-cals is considered chiefamong the unknowns bysome researchers, landown-ers and lawmakers who havefound that vague identifica-tion of the chemicals inter-feres with spill investiga-tions, emergency responseand drinking-water testing.

It is the subject of legisla-tion proposed in Congressand in the PennsylvaniaHouse of Representatives,and it is addressed in updat-ed well reporting rules pro-posed by the Department ofEnvironmental Protectionthat will likely go into effectthis fall.

‘Well known, wellunderstood’

The natural gas industrysays it already offers full

disclosure.The national organization

Energy In Depth, the state-based Marcellus Shale Coali-tion, and individual companyspokesmen consistently cite alist of 33 different fracturingchemicals DEP posts online toprove that complete informa-tion about the chemicals isreadily available to the public.

“The entire universe ofchemical information is outthere,” said Chris Tucker, aspokesman for Energy inDepth.

DEP officials have repeat-edly maintained they knowwhat is in the hydraulic frac-turing fluids because compa-nies must submit safety docu-ments, called Material SafetyData Sheets, for the chemi-cals they use at their wellsites as part of the permittingprocess — documents likethose kept at the spill site inSusquehanna County.

In May, DEP SecretaryJohn Hanger testified athearings that the safetysheets reveal “all the chemi-cals” used by the fracturingcontractors. He said the onlyunknown is the exact propor-tions of the chemicals thatare used, which the compa-nies protect as trade secrets.

Kathryn Klaber, executivedirector of the MarcellusShale Coalition, said theindustry is “absolutely sup-portive of full disclosure”and already offers it throughthe Material Safety DataSheets.

“These chemicals are wellknown, well understood,highly diluted when they’rebeing used, but neverthelessavailable.”

DEP not ready tomake ‘leap of faith’

But the analysis of thefracturing gel that spilled

at the Heitsman farm inDimock Twp. on Sept. 16 and22 identified 10 compounds,none of which is included onDEP’s online summary ofchemicals drilling companiestold the department they useto fracture natural gas wellsin the Marcellus Shale.

The list also does notinclude the Halliburtonproduct used during thespill and does not name thegeneric ingredient “paraf-finic solvent” listed by Halli-burton on the chemical safe-ty document.

One of the chemicals DEPidentified in the gel — 1,2,4trimethylbenzene — wasfound in the soil in amountsabove the state’s health limit.Several other chemicals werefound in a swale and thestream after the spill.

Those chemicals, likemany used in hydraulic frac-turing, have undergone fewstudies to determine theirrisks to human health.Because Pennsylvania has

not developed rules on thelimits of those chemicals thatare safe in streams, DEPinstructed Cabot Oil and GasCorp., the driller deemedresponsible for the spill, todetermine how toxic they areto aquatic life and humans.

In an e-mail response toquestions about DEP’s pro-cess of investigating thespills, the agency would notaddress whether its investiga-tion would have been expedit-ed or changed if inspectorsknew the precise chemicalcomposition of the gel at thetime of the incidents, callingit a “speculative question.”

The department did statethat it takes samples “atmany spill sites to confirm oridentify the material spilled.”

Records from the investi-gation also show that even asstate regulators publiclydeclare the usefulness of theMaterial Safety Data Sheetsfor characterizing the drill-ing chemicals and their risks,officials with the departmenthave expressed doubts aboutthe sheets’ reliability.

After the first fracturing flu-id spill on the Heitsman site,Cabot submitted a revisedsafety sheet to DEP sayingthat although a first documentsaid the product was a poten-tial carcinogen, follow-up testsby Halliburton showed itposed no cancer risk.

In an internal e-mail, aregionalDEPmanagersaidthedepartment was “not ready tomake that leap of faith” until itfinished its own lab analysis ofthe fluid, “especially in light ofthe facts” that the sheet classi-fies the gel as a combustible liq-uid “and our UV-IR scanshowed it contains diesel fuel”— a component Cabot hasdeniedwasinthefluid.

Disclosureand regulation

Told of the spill investiga-tion, Ms. Klaber said

Material Safety Data Sheetsare “not perfect” but havelong served as a “very impor-tant data point” in manyindustries.

“If it were so bad, weshould go to OSHA, not theindustry, to fix it,” she said,referring to the federal jobsafety agency that regulatesthe forms.

She added that the indus-try “wholeheartedly” sup-ports the increased disclosurerules put forward by DEP,which would require drillersto report the names and totalvolume of chemicals used tofracture a well within 30 daysafter it is completed.

The new rules will notrequire drillers to report thevolume of each chemicalused, DEP’s Oil and GasBureau director has said.

Last year, U.S. Sen. BobCasey joined with three oth-er members of Congress tointroduce legislation thatwould bring the hydraulicfracturing process under theregulatory control of thefederal Environmental Pro-tection Agency and wouldalso force drilling compa-nies to disclose all of thechemicals they use duringthe process.

The oil and gas industrysays the legislation, if passed,would cripple domestic gasproduction because they sayit amounts to a ban onhydraulic fracturing — thetechnique that has madeunconventional sources ofgas, like the Marcellus Shale,accessible and affordable forthe first time.

When similar disclosurerequirements were consid-ered and later rejected inanother energy bill in May,the industry pushed back.

Lee Fuller, executive direc-tor of Energy in Depth, wroteto the committee chairmansaying the reporting require-ments could squelch compa-nies’ efforts to develop lesstoxic fracturing fluids,

“The release of informa-tion to competitors — bothforeign and domestic — oninitiatives such as the devel-opment of ‘green’ chemicalscould have the perverse effectof forcing companies to cuttheir investment in this

important research, or aban-don it altogether,” he wrote.

Mr. Casey said his bill,called the FRAC Act, is notgoing to stop hydraulic frac-

turing. “It’s about disclosureand regulation, and we needmore of both,” he said.

Contact the writer:

llegere@timesshamrock.com

Surge in drilling leaves stateshort on inspectors, policies

“These chemicals are well known, wellunderstood, highly diluted when they’rebeing used, but (data on them are)

nevertheless available.”Kathryn Klaber

Executive director, Marcellus Shale Coalition

FROM PAGE A1

water, such as the Huntsvilleand Ceasetown reservoirs inthe Back Mountain and LakeScranton. The current dis-tance is only 100 feet, Ms.Mundy said.

The other bill calls for aresolution to urge Congressto repeal a provision in thefederal Safe Drinking WaterAct, known as the “Hallibur-ton loophole,” that exemptsoil and gas drilling industriesfrom restrictions on hydrau-lic fracturing near drinking-water sources.

The Huntsville Reservoiris the drinking-water sourcefor 30,000 people in LuzerneCounty, and the nearby Cease-town reservoir serves 70,000residents. Much of the landsurrounding the reservoirshas already been leased togas drilling companies, Ms.Mundy said.

“The cost and the effect onhuman health if either orboth of these reservoirs were

to become contaminated …is unimaginable,” Ms. Mun-dy said.

More than 3,100 gas drill-ing permits have alreadybeen issued by the stateDepartment of Environmen-tal Protection, including fourin Luzerne County. Ms. Mun-dy conceded her proposedlegislation would not affectpermits already granted. Shethinks a moratorium willallow state officials to moni-tor the industry before itexpands further and “wouldallow us to recover groundlost while the industry hasgathered momentum.”

“The current economic cli-mate makes us very vulnera-ble to promises of easy mon-ey and good jobs. But we mustask ourselves — will this eco-nomic boon come at theexpense of our infrastruc-ture, our quality of life, ourwater supply, our safety, andour health?” Ms. Mundy said.

State Rep. Eddie Day Pash-

inski, D-121, Wilkes-Barre,attended the news conferenceand said he will support Ms.Mundy’s bills.

A spokesman for HouseMajority Leader Todd Eachus,D-116, Hazleton, said Mr.Eachus wanted to review theproposed legislation beforedeciding on whether to sup-port a moratorium.

“Rep. Eachus supports Rep.Mundy’s passion and com-mitment to protecting thepublic and environment fromthe dangers of natural gasdrilling. He stands with herin making sure they are heldaccountable,” said Eachusspokesman Bill Thomas.

Tom Jiunta, a member ofGas Drilling AwarenessCoalition, said many legisla-tors openly admit they haveconcerns about the currentregulation of the gas indus-try, but don’t do anything tocease the expansion.

Contact the writer:

bkalinowski@citizensvoice.com

MUNDY: Eachus studying bills

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TUESDAY, JUNE 22, 2010 THE TIMES-TRIBUNE A7