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You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Don't Mourn, Organize / Long Read: Tracking the Forgotten Fracking

Long Read: Tracking the Forgotten Fracking

by Anne Laurie|  October 12, 201411:06 am| 43 Comments

This post is in: Don't Mourn, Organize, Science & Technology

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Just found a draft I’d forgotten to post in the wake of this year’s MacArthur fellowships, from commentor Xboxershorts:

Laurie’s (my wife) ability to research both the legacy history of PA’s 155 years of drilling activity as well as PA’s byzantine legal and policy maze has gotten to the point that she can exceed that of the PA DEPs own staff. She is on a first name basis with the head of the DEPs oil and gas management and she has had DEP’s own field staff refer problem wells that residents have complained about for decades to Laurie and our organization and we have forced the state to take action on them!

I love being a constant thorn in the side of political appointees…heh heh heh heh heh heh heh

As reported in the Guardian:

Laurie Barr spent a recent Saturday like she spends a lot of her weekends: trodding through the thorny and damp woodlands of rural north-western Pennsylvania, juggling a point-and-shoot camera, a GPS navigator, a cell phone, and, most importantly for the mission at hand, a methane detector…

“Here’s the spot they killed the last abandoned well hunter,” Barr joked from somewhere deep in the woods. Then Barr did something she’s done hundreds of times in the last three years – she leaned over a foot-wide hole in the ground and waved around the gas detector until it began beeping. First the beeps were slow, then rapid.

“I haven’t met a well that hasn’t leaked some amount,” she said, taking a picture of the hole, marking the location on her GPS device, and walking back towards the path. “Some are high emitters, some are low emitters, but they all leak.”…

No one knows exactly how many abandoned oil and gas wells litter Pennsylvania or the US. The state’s Department of Environmental Protection estimates the number is close to 200,000. Some estimates are a little lower, some much higher. Across the country, the number could be more than a million. Most of the wells are relic of of a time when states didn’t bother to regulate much of what happened on private land, including oil and gas drilling, and when most Americans didn’t think twice about a seemingly esoteric issue like the environment.

But hindsight has proven that losing track of hundreds of thousands of oil and gas wells can lead to some problems. For decades, many of the wells have leaked methane into the air, soil and water.

Now, as the state makes its way through the seventh year of a new drilling boom, thanks to the technology of hydraulic fracturing, the old wells are posing an increasing threat. The more companies drill in the state’s Marcellus Shale, the more likely it becomes that the old wells will act as a pathways for newly-released gas to make its way into the earth, streams, and even people’s homes, with potentially deadly results…

In seemingly pristine places like the Allegheny forest the wells are so densely packed together and so prone to leaking that the EPA determined in the 1980s that the forest was essentially experiencing a slow-motion environmental disaster. The EPA spent millions to help plug some of the wells, but not without opposition from the industry and the local residents who support it. One EPA inspector even claimed he was shot at while walking through the forest…

Not knowing where the vast majority of the wells are obviously makes determining their cumulative effects difficult. Studies are scarce. But according to several experts, the wells could account for about 10% of the state’s total methane emissions. Methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas, several dozen more times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide…

Every crime connected to every other crime:

Since 2007, Pennsylvania has issued nearly 45,000 new well permits. About a third of those are for “unconventional” wells. That means they’re often thousands of feet deep and hydraulically fracked, a process which requires myriad chemicals and leaves holes significantly more complicated to plug than traditional wells.

State leaders like Republican Governor Tom Corbett have made the case that regulations today are much more strict than in the past. Before 1956, oil and gas wells on private property didn’t even require permits. Now companies must go through mountains of paperwork to drill a well. The current regulatory system means newly drilled wells likely won’t go missing like their predecessors did. But they might still be abandoned.

The state currently requires companies to put down a bond of $4,000 for shallow wells and $10,000 for deeper ones. The state can (but is not required to) use that money to plug the wells if the companies abandon them.

The problem, according to experts, is that hiring plugging companies and buying enough concrete to fill many thousands of feet will almost always costs more than the price of the state’s bonds, especially for unconventional wells. That may give companies disincentive to plug their wells, and the state with the bill.

“It’s definitely not $10,000. Even $50,000 is a very optimistic number,” said Austin Mitchell, a postdoctoral fellow in the engineering department at Carnegie Mellon University who co-authored a study on the economics of abandoned wells. “Usually you want either the carrot or the stick to be big enough, but that doesn’t seem to be the case in Pennsylvania.”

It will be decades before anyone knows whether today’s oil and gas companies will pay for their wells or leave that burden to the state. Neither of Pennsylvania’s main industry groups – the Marcellus Shale Coalition and the Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association – responded to comments for this story…

Yeah, they may not have bothered with a written statement, but it’s pretty clearly a “response”.

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43Comments

  1. 1.

    Jerzy Russian

    October 12, 2014 at 11:19 am

    They just leave holes in the ground? Hopefully they have fences, but I would not be surprised if they did not. Gas emission aside, having thousands of deep holes in the ground seems like a safety hazard.

  2. 2.

    Jack the Second

    October 12, 2014 at 11:27 am

    @Jerzy Russian: Once enough small animals and children fall down them, the problem sort of takes care of itself.

  3. 3.

    Violet

    October 12, 2014 at 11:36 am

    From the article, this gave me a good laugh:

    It will be decades before anyone knows whether today’s oil and gas companies will pay for their wells or leave that burden to the state.

    Ha ha ha ha ha ha! No, it won’t be decades. We know right now the oil and gas companies won’t pay for anything. Hello, taxpayers!

  4. 4.

    Ruckus

    October 12, 2014 at 11:46 am

    @Violet:
    No kidding.
    Gas companies paying? It is to laugh. Or cry, can never tell which is more appropriate.

  5. 5.

    Violet

    October 12, 2014 at 11:48 am

    @Ruckus: Might as well laugh–it’s easier on the body. Neither laughing nor crying will change a damn thing.

  6. 6.

    Ronzoni Rigatoni

    October 12, 2014 at 12:01 pm

    Years ago, around the Erie area, gas was really cheap since the county sat atop a bubble of gas and homeowners could just drill a well in their backyards. I still remember many old farm houses equipped with gas jets for light before electricity took over (some of these places still survive). But nowadays I guess the gas petered out and the Pennsylvania Gas Company is charging astronomical rates for home heating. I almost bought a place just outside of the city a coupla years ago primarily because it still had a working gas well on the property. But if you need that kind of home heating I figgered I best stay in Florida.

  7. 7.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    October 12, 2014 at 12:01 pm

    @Violet: Ain’t that the truth.

  8. 8.

    gelfling545

    October 12, 2014 at 12:06 pm

    She spends weekends treading, not trodding. Sorry, that’s a word that gets used incorrectly fairly regularly I will abruptly interrupt my concentration; it just sounds soooo wrong. If the author doesn’t know how to use it appropriately, s/he should substitute a synonym. Gah!

  9. 9.

    Ruckus

    October 12, 2014 at 12:09 pm

    @Violet:
    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
    A wish decision. It’s just that I’m really burnt out laughing at dangerous, stupid things, I like laugh at funny stuff.

  10. 10.

    Amir Khalid

    October 12, 2014 at 12:10 pm

    @gelfling545:
    Sloppy copy editing is a long-established tradition at the Grauniad.

  11. 11.

    Bruuuuce

    October 12, 2014 at 12:14 pm

    And, in California, fracking is destroying the water that’s left in the aquifers.

  12. 12.

    Baud

    October 12, 2014 at 12:27 pm

    Richard M. had a post the other day about externalities, and I made this point:

    I find externalities interesting. The conventional wisdom is that conservatives value the free market and liberals hate it. But an idealized efficient free market is one in which there are no externalities, and such a market would be far more in line with liberal policy objectives than the actual market we currently have.

    The same comment holds true here. The true cost of fracking isn’t reflected in the price of the products of fracking, so you have a negative externality, which, as Violet points out, will be borne by the residents and/or taxpayers.

  13. 13.

    Violet

    October 12, 2014 at 12:40 pm

    I was clearing out my spam folder and the subject line of one of them caught my eye: “Are you safe from ebolavirus?” So Ebola has made it to spam emails. The fear mongering has definitely gone mainstream.

  14. 14.

    john fremont

    October 12, 2014 at 12:43 pm

    @Violet: Just like how across the border in New Jersey, how all those toxic waste dumps got cleaned up in the 1980’s and 90’s, hello Superfund!

  15. 15.

    Violet

    October 12, 2014 at 12:45 pm

    @john fremont: Yep. That capitalism is all good when the companies are reaping the profits. They’re all for soshulism when it’s time for cleanup. Lather, rinse, repeat.

  16. 16.

    Roger Moore

    October 12, 2014 at 12:52 pm

    @Baud:
    I think the big problem is that people have been taught to think of unfettered capitalism as being the same thing as free markets, when in practice they are almost antithetical concepts. Free markets are about how we set prices, and they require things like perfect information, equal market power, and a whole host of other conditions that are difficult to achieve in the real world. Unfettered capitalism is about the economy being run by a small number of big businesses who are free to do WTFTW, and one of the first things they want to do is to undermine free markets. They’ll use market power, denial of critical information, discriminatory pricing, etc. to make sure that buyers get screwed.

  17. 17.

    MomSense

    October 12, 2014 at 12:58 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    I think the big problem is that people have been taught to think of unfettered capitalism as being the same thing as free markets,

    That is exactly the problem. The 1970s Powell memo was followed by an intentional plan by big moneyed Republicans to fund think tanks and chaired professorships at every college and university to push conservative ideology and framing. This is why it is so challenging to counter all the BS that people believe about “free markets”, “job creators” etc.

  18. 18.

    Baud

    October 12, 2014 at 12:59 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    Right. The way I usually think of it is that there is a difference between being pro-existing-businesses and pro-market.

  19. 19.

    Villago Delenda Est

    October 12, 2014 at 1:16 pm

    The executives of these criminal operations need to be punished, in two ways:

    1. Total asset forfeiture

    2. Drowning in their own toxic soup

  20. 20.

    Villago Delenda Est

    October 12, 2014 at 1:17 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    I think the big problem is that people have been taught to think of unfettered capitalism as being the same thing as free markets,

    Pretty much the opposite of what Adam Smith was writing about.

    Of course, no one reads Adam Smith, so how the fuck would they know that?

  21. 21.

    Iowa Old Lady

    October 12, 2014 at 1:21 pm

    I’m thinking about this in connection to last night’s Iowa Senate candidate debate in which Joni Ernst repeated her assertion that the EPA should be abolished and states should set their own pollution regulations.

    That’s either deliberately pandering to business or astoundingly naïve. I vote for pandering.

  22. 22.

    Amir Khalid

    October 12, 2014 at 1:32 pm

    @Iowa Old Lady:
    What about the environmental laws and regulations that only the EPA is competent to enforce? Is she advocating their repeal as well? And given her name, I would also ask: Ist das ihr Ernst?

  23. 23.

    Iowa Old Lady

    October 12, 2014 at 1:36 pm

    @Amir Khalid: She’s crazy.

    Mr. IOL is a Phd mechanical engineer who’s spent his entire career on looking to reduce engine emissions and increase fuel mileage. He occasionally rolls his eyes over regulations he thinks are misguided (though he also calls them job security), but he says no car company can afford to be environmentally conscious on its own because they have to match prices with their competitors. You need national regulations.

    And that’s just one small area. Pollution is not a local issue.

  24. 24.

    trollhattan

    October 12, 2014 at 1:38 pm

    @Iowa Old Lady:
    Clearly getting her political chops from the master, Rick Perry.

    “And, also, too, I will also abolish the Department of Ed-You-Kashun and The Fed, whatever that is, which I will audit before abolishing. And that fourth thing, which better stay away from me during castration season.”

    Somebody should ask her about the delicious free nitrates in Iowa’s groundwater, from which springs the next generation of Blue Man Group members.

  25. 25.

    Violet

    October 12, 2014 at 1:43 pm

    @Iowa Old Lady: Whoever the Dem candidate is should find some pollution creating business just across a state border from Iowa. Best if it’s one that has runoff into a river that is used in Iowa or the prevailing winds blow the pollution into Iowa. That kind of thing. Then create an ad talking about how Ernst wants to let South Dakota or Minnesota determine what kind of pollution comes into Iowa. Because that’s where the EPA comes in–helping in situations that have national impact. Only Soshulists talk like that unless it’s real to people and they can see how it impacts them. All of a sudden they’re pro Big Government.

  26. 26.

    Iowa Old Lady

    October 12, 2014 at 1:44 pm

    @trollhattan: I didn’t watch last night’s debate, just heard the highlight quotes on the news. The one from Braley accused Ernst of wanted to abolish the EPA which she doubled down on. The one from her quote Braley about Chuck Grassley being unfit to chair the judiciary committee because he was just a farmer from Iowa.

    To which I say, Bruce Braley, you are an idiot. But also, his stupid comment is not the equivalent of her advocating things like no federal minimum wage or personhood, which are actual policy suggestions that could affect the rest of us and farmers too.

    (Btw, completely OT, but there’s a TV ad here for a dating service called Farmers Only.com. To me, the ads look like a parody)

  27. 27.

    Violet

    October 12, 2014 at 1:49 pm

    @Iowa Old Lady: I’ve seen that TV commercial. It plays on lots of stations and during programs that would seem entirely unrelated to farming. It does look like a parody.

    BTW, the next Bachelor (ABC “The Bachelor” show) is a farmer from Iowa. I’d expect the “Farmer’s Only” dating business would try to piggyback on that. Great marketing.

  28. 28.

    PurpleGirl

    October 12, 2014 at 1:55 pm

    WRT companies paying to remediate wells or any industrial site, just two words: LOVE CANAL.

  29. 29.

    SRW1

    October 12, 2014 at 2:13 pm

    Apparently PA isn’t the US epicenter of methane leaking into the atmosphere, though. That ‘honor’ belongs to the Four Corners region in the southwestern US where the leaking is so pronounced that it is detectable from space.

    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL061503/abstract

    Apart from the abstract, the paper is behind a paywall, but Der Spiegel had a copy of the map.

    I wonder how that might compare to the methane the Siberian permafrost areas apparently have started to leak.

  30. 30.

    kc

    October 12, 2014 at 2:20 pm

    We’re GASSING OUR OWN PEOPLE!

  31. 31.

    Juju

    October 12, 2014 at 2:42 pm

    @Iowa Old Lady: Why can’t it be both?

  32. 32.

    bumper

    October 12, 2014 at 2:51 pm

    Why doesn’t someone invent a small machine that could capture the methane and use it. My Grandpa from PA had two oil wells on his land. They would use it to heat their house.

  33. 33.

    Iowa Old Lady

    October 12, 2014 at 3:00 pm

    @Juju: Good point!

  34. 34.

    Xboxershorts

    October 12, 2014 at 3:05 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    What about the environmental laws and regulations that only the EPA is competent to enforce? Is she advocating their repeal as well? And given her name, I would also ask: Ist das ihr Ernst?

    In case you haven’t been paying attention for the past decade, the 2005 Energy Policy Act exempted the unconventional drilling industry from the Clean Air act, The Clean Water act, the Superfund act and more…

    The EPA was told to go fuck themselves by Cheney and Congress.

    We’re trying to be apolitical, because they’ll pull your tax exempt status in a NY Minute if you get into politics.

    Instead, we’re trying to highlight that the State’s are horribly unprepared to regulate unconventional shale drilling and after the crash of 2008,. PA DEP is so desperately understaffed that that they can’t possibly properly oversee the drillers. What’s evolved in place of personnel in the field is an environment of self reporting that still generates fines for failures but only well after they’ve happened and gone unreported by the drillers…

    Our focus is on the (at a minimum) 250,000 abandoned orphaned wells in PA alone and the states complete lack of awareness of how these old wells damage the environment, hurt our citizens and cost the taxpayers.

    We go to Harrisburg for the public meetings and we find out we’re the only civilians there…..the industry wins all the time because the meetings our law makers hold for public comment are held in a shit city during shit hours and no one but the industry attends.

  35. 35.

    Xboxershorts

    October 12, 2014 at 3:08 pm

    @bumper:

    Why doesn’t someone invent a small machine that could capture the methane and use it. My Grandpa from PA had two oil wells on his land. They would use it to heat their house

    This is exactly what a Princeton Study we assisted as field guides is suggesting.

    http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp019s1616326

    They’re also trying to quantify just how much methane and other gasses are venting to the atmosphere from these old wells.

  36. 36.

    Violet

    October 12, 2014 at 3:15 pm

    @Xboxershorts: I’m very impressed by the work you’re doing. The article is really interesting and your dedication is admirable. Glad AL highlighted it.

  37. 37.

    Xboxershorts

    October 12, 2014 at 3:33 pm

    @Violet: Thank you, this is a previously unquantified risk.

    All the PhDs and well monied environmental outfits out there were pretty much unaware of the risks and damages associated with the estimated 1.5 million abandoned and orphaned wells in America alone….

    Laurie is on a first name basis with such anti-fracking lumniaries such as Dr Anthony Ingraffia.

    She gave a presentation and lead a sample well hunting exhibition in Montrose, PA this weekend. Everyone there has PhDs.

  38. 38.

    Violet

    October 12, 2014 at 4:29 pm

    @Xboxershorts: That’s really cool. Every time we think “What can I do? I’m just one person.” people like your wife show us what one person can do. And the answer is, “A lot.”

  39. 39.

    Roger Moore

    October 12, 2014 at 4:47 pm

    @bumper:
    The basic problem is that these are wells that people have given up on because they don’t produce enough gas to justify continuing to collect it. But if you add it up over tens or hundreds of thousands of wells, it turns out to be significant. Its the kind of problem that really requires government action to force drillers to behave responsibly.

  40. 40.

    JD Kahler

    October 13, 2014 at 12:36 am

    @Iowa Old Lady: such a great idea since we can just shut off any pollution form crossing state lines. Not just pandering, but ignoring simple reality. IOKIYAR.

  41. 41.

    JR in WV

    October 13, 2014 at 7:51 am

    @Jerzy Russian: The holes are quite small around, usually a foot or so, too small for kids or deer, plenty big for methane etc to escape.

    WV has between 70,000 and 90.000 lost abandoned wells, been drilling since before 1900 here. There’s a hunt on to ID and GPS every well known, we were told that the local production company would have staff and contractors (when you want a job done, but not right!!) wandering around the O&G patch with gps tools looking for all the wells they can find. “Yeh, right!”

    It’s amazing what other gases come up with the methane. Hydrogen sulfides, helium, butane, propane, they get to charge extra for “hot” gas that contains higher proportions of butane, it has more BTUs per MCF than methane, so industrial facilities will buy it to speed processes.

  42. 42.

    brantl

    October 13, 2014 at 8:10 am

    @gelfling545: Trotting, for humans, is walking relatively quickly, it’s perfectly reasonable in that usage.

  43. 43.

    brantl

    October 13, 2014 at 8:13 am

    @Iowa Old Lady: It’s two! Two! Two schmucks in one!

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