The information in any 3rd party baseline test is valuable. 

However...

The tests may not include everything they should be testing for to detect impacts from drilling activity.

AND

In a future court case, you don't necessarily have access to their tests, the laboratory personnel or the people who collected the samples if a problem does arise now or in the future. You cannot compel expert testimony - and a contractor for a gas company are likely protect and support their client.

AND

How likely are they to return to test your water after drilling is completed.  Unless it's in your lease, the chances are minimal.  Follow-up testing will be up to the homeowner.

Information on well specifications is often hard to come by, particularly if you were not the original homeowner.

Two options:

The well cap may indicate who drilled the well, and the well driller may have the drill logs prepared when the well was constructed

An imperfect and incomplete database called PaGWIS allows you to search for wells by county and municipality, or by well driller.

 

 

Under President Bush and Vice President Cheney, fracking was exempted from significant EPA regulation

Hydraulic fracturing, an increasingly common aspect of the oil and gas production process, is not subject to the same standards as other industries when it comes to protecting underground sources of drinking water

Hydraulic fracturing involves the injection of fluids including toxic chemicals into oil or gas wells at very high pressure

Other forms of underground injection are regulated to protect drinking water, but in 2005 Congress created exemptions for hydraulic fracturing to benefit Halliburton and other oil and gas companies

 

The Safe Drinking Water Act excludes Fracking

See it in the ENERGY POLICY ACT OF 2005.  Go to Page 102, Section 322. HYDRAULIC FRACTURING.

SEC. 322. HYDRAULIC FRACTURING.
Paragraph (1) of section 1421(d) of the Safe Drinking Water Act (42 U.S.C. 300h(d)) is amended to read as follows:
‘‘(1) UNDERGROUND INJECTION.—The term ‘underground injection’—
‘‘(A) means the subsurface emplacement of fluids by well injection; and
‘‘(B) EXCLUDES—
‘‘(i) the underground injection of natural gas for purposes of storage; and
‘‘(ii) the underground injection of fluids or propping agents (other than diesel fuels) pursuant to hydraulic fracturing operations related to oil, gas, or geothermal production activities.’’

 

 

The Clean Water Act changes the definition of pollutant

The word "Pollutant."  What it means.  And what it does NOT mean.

(6) The term "pollutant" means dredged spoil, solid waste, incinerator residue, sewage, garbage, sewage sludge, munitions, chemical wastes, biological materials, radioactive materials, heat, wrecked or discarded equipment, rock, sand, cellar dirt and industrial, municipal, and agricultural waste discharged into water. This TERM DOES NOT MEAN (A) "sewage from vessels" within the meaning of section 312 of this Act; or (B) water, gas, or other material which is injected into a well to facilitate production of oil or gas, or water derived in association with oil or gas production and disposed of in a well, if the well used either to facilitate production or for disposal purposes is approved by authority of the State in which the well is located, and if such State determines that such injection or disposal will not result in the degradation of ground or surface water resources.

See it in the Clean Water Act. SEC. 502 [33 U.S.C. 1362] General Definitions

 

 

P.S. Halliburton did not live up to its voluntary commitment to frack without diesel fuel anyhow

Despite agreeing to stop using diesel fuel when fracking in this agreeement with the EPA, between 2005 and 2007, Halliburton used 807,000 gallons of diesel fuel as a fracturing fluid.

Because of Presumed Responsibility, the gas company is responsible for any water contamination that occurs within 1,000 feet of their gas well.  They are "guilty until proven innocent" unless they can prove:

• The pollution was already there (so they test to be sure)
• You turned them away when they came to test (please let them in)
• Your well is outside 1,000 feet (only within that small radius)
• The pollution occurred more than six months after drilling stopped (don't wait too long to make a claim)
• Something else caused the pollution (It wasn't us...)

See it in the actual law: Pennsylvania’s Oil And Gas Act

Keep in mind that the law does not prevent a landowner who claims pollution or reduction in water supply from seeking any other legal remedy.

No.  Neither organization tests your water.  EPA rules don't apply to water from private wells.  And as far as the PA DEP is concerned, protecting and maintaining a private well is the responsibility of the homeowner.

No.  They are not required to test your water.  However, there is huge incentive to test any water well within a 1,000 feet of their gas well.  In that zone, the gas company is “Presumed Responsible”  (i.e.,  guilty until proven innocent) for drinking water contamination unless they have conducted a pre-drill test that clears them.  Testing a well outside of 1,000 feet would be at their discretion.

The law also does not require the driller to:

• Test for particular contaminants (their test might not cover contaminants you should test for)
• Test your water after drilling (there is NO INCENTIVE after they finish drilling)

Conflict: if the gas company tests your water, they're better off if your water is dirty

Consider a water test with a split sample.  Your independent representative takes a sample at the same time as the gas drilling company, verifying the accuracy of their test results.

[Cabot] does not want to release the 2008 water tests because they contain private information about landowners -- Cabot spokesman George Stark, September 16, 2010

• Let them conduct their sampling and testing. If you don't allow them to do their pre-drill testing, they get off the hook from their Presumed Responsibility.
• Request ID.  The individual should work for an independent lab, not the gas company.
• Request a copy of the report.  If the gas company does not provide the results, you can get a copy from the PA DEP by calling the local DEP office.

If you are unable to get a copy of the results from the gas company, you can get a copy from the PA DEP by calling the local DEP office.

No.  We have made a conscious decision to limit our services to the individual home and business owner.  Gas companies spend hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars with many labs that conduct homeowner testing.  We view this as a real conflict of interest.

We recommend testing no more than one year before drilling begins. Testing earlier may raise doubts about what caused any future contamination.  Permitting for a gas well is an excellent indicator of forthcoming drilling.  We can help monitor permitting activity in your area via our map application, or you can use PA DEP's dedicated Marcellus website.  If you know of ground disturbing activity that may affect your well water, e.g., construction or excavation unrelated to gas drilling, you should wait until those activities have ended.

We draw on the work completed by the Penn State Cooperative Extension and test for contaminants that we believe will effectively identify contamination from gas well drilling.  We want to assure you and your family that your water is safe from the full range of contaminants the industry uses and believe that a full series of tests will maximize your protection against gas company lawyers looking to blame someone else.

No. Do not collect your own water sample if you want the test results to stand up in court. To be legally-defensible, samples must be collected by an unbiased third party who uses accepted procedures and verifies the chain of custody for the sample.

A written record of individuals who had physical possession of the sample.  The Chain of Custody is prepared when the sample is taken and follows the sample to the lab.  Whomever relinquishes the sample and whomever accepts the sample must acknowledge doing so with their signature, time and date.

Without a Chain of Custody, your lab results are not going to stand up in court.  Who can say where the sample came from or whether someone with a vested interest in the results handled it. 

 

A sample taken from a single source (e.g., kitchen tap) is divided in two, with each sample analyzed by a separate lab.  This type of sampling verifies the accuracy of each lab.   In cases where a third party takes a sample at the same time as the agent of the gas drilling company, the sampling time, place, technique, weather, etc will be identical, minimizing variables that attorneys could exploit in the future.

First, under Pennsylvania law, a gas driller is not Presumed Responsible for a reduction in your water supply. That does not mean, however, that the gas driller cannot be held accountable, and a "well yield test" before drilling begins will determine up front how much water your well produces.

A water volume test (aka pump test) can be expensive.   The test requires the continuous pumping of the well for an extended period of time (8-24 hours). During the pumping period, measurements are made of 1) the rate at which water is being pumped out of the well and 2) the distance the water level is lowered in the well as a result of the pumping, known as the drawdown.

When gas drilling affects water volumes, it is more likely to be a catastrophic and more obvious change ((i.e., you lose all your water) rather than a gradual decline in water volume.  In such circumstances, there is much less doubt about the cause of the changes to your well.

We can make a recommendation for and experienced and reputable water well driller who can conduct this type of testing for you.

• Changes in drinking water taste including salty or metallic tastes
• Changes in water odor such as a rotten egg odor, fuel or oily smell
• Changes in the appearance of drinking water such as sediment, foaming, bubbling or spurting faucets
• Reduction or loss of water quantity
• Increased sediment in nearby streams and ponds

Establishing the value of your property in advance of drilling is a useful way to protect that value in event of a contamination event.  The value of property with a contaminated water supply will be significantly impaired.

 

Every well is fracked once.  Did you know that the first frack may only release 10-20% of the trapped gas.  Expect each well to be re-fracked multiple times over the life of the well.  That means aside from the drill rig, the frack tanks, trucks and pumps will all be back.  Another 5 million gallons of water and thousands of gallons of fracking chemicals.

It's likely that re-fracking will not occur until most of the property with leases are drilled once.    But it will happen.  Stephen Ingram, technology manager for Halliburton said a majority of wells are re-fracked in three to five years, and that just as much, if not more, water is used for that process because there must be enough fluid to fill the existing fractures, as well as create new ones.

Drilling muds are used in the drilling process to:

• Cool and lubricate the drill bit
• Remove the rock fragments, or drill cuttings, from the drilling area and bring them to the surface
• Counterbalance pressure to prevent gas, brines, water, etc from entering the well prematurely (which can lead to a blowout)
• Prevent the open (uncased) wellbore from caving in

Drilling muds typically have several additives:

• Barite (barium sulfate) is used to increase the density of the mud in order to equilibrate the pressure between the wellbore and surrounding formation. Hematite is also used for this purpose
• Corrosion inhibitors such as iron oxide, aluminum bisulfate, zinc carbonate, and zinc chromate protect pipes and other metallic components
• Dispersants, including iron lignosulfonates, break up solid clusters into small particles so they can be carried by the fluid
• Flocculants, primarily acrylic polymers, cause suspended particles to group together so they can be removed from the fluid at the surface
• Surfactants, like fatty acids and soaps, defoam and emulsify the mud
• Biocides, typically organic amines, chlorophenols, or formaldehydes, kill bacteria
• Fluid loss reducers include starch and organic polymers and limit the loss of drilling mud to under-pressurized or high-permeability formations

Source: OSHA

Depending on the fracking chemical, they can arrive by tanker truck or on pallets for dilution onsite.  Hydrochloric acid is one of the largest by volume ingredients in frack water.  If a tanker truck on the road has a diamond-shaped placard with "1789", that's hydrochloric acid.  See this Department of Transportation link for other listings.

 

The EPA has an "Eyes on Drilling" line at 1-877-919-4372 and an e-mail address This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it where you can report non-emergency well development actions that appear to be illegal.  For emergencies related to a well drilling operation, the EPA advises individuals to call the National Response Center at 1-800-424-8802. Individuals may leave tips anonymously.

PA DEP’s Emergency Response Contact Numbers are here. 

 

Contact the PA DEP and file a notice requesting that an investigation be conducted.

Information you need to provide:

• Your name, address and telephone number
• The type, location and use of the water supply
• Any available background quality and quantity data regarding the water supply.  For example, a copy of your pre-drilling water testing
• Well depth, pump setting and water level, if known
• Description of the pollution or diminution.

The DEP has to investigate your claim within 10 days and make a determination with 45 days following notification.

Keep a diary and any other records you can of the problems you experience to help you claim damages later. 

• If you notice changes in color, taste, odor or quantity of water
• Penn State Cooperative Extension recommends testing "soon after drilling is completed to allow time to receive the results and take action before six months has passed. This will maintain the burden of proof on the gas company rather than the homeowner."
• The Community Science Institute, a non-profit entity, recommends that “the full set of certified baselines tests be repeated every time the well is hydraulically fractured or every two years, whichever comes first.”

• Comprehensive water testing BEFORE drilling
• Comprehensive water testing AFTER drilling (or even after each fracking event)
• Comprehensive water testing every 2 years during production
• Water volume: conduct a well yield test before drilling begins to determine the amount of water your well is producing
• Appropriate setbacks: How far the drilling is away from your water supply.  As written in the law, gas wells must be at least 200 feet from any drinking water supplies. Consider widening the perimeter around your well
• Well Plugging: After a well stops producing, be sure it is decommissioned and plugged

As the surface owner,  you cannot prevent the mineral owner's reasonable access for development and production

Some things you should do:

• Promptly consult an attorney who knows oil and gas law
• Contact the driller and negotiate a reasonable location for the facilities - well site, access road, gathering pipeline, etc.
• Negotiate a reasonable price for damage to roads, crops, cropland, timber, etc., before work begins at the well site
• The law does not require it, but you should request that the well driller conduct a test prior to drilling on quality of any source of water used as a water supply for people, animals or crops

You will receive a  notice of the well permit application. You may file an objection with DEP to the proposed location within 15 days of receiving the permit application.  Be prepared to present the facts and reasons for objection to DEP.  Consider retaining an attorney for a permit objection

Forced Pooling aka Fair Pooling aka Conservation Pooling is similar to eminent domain.  Your land serves a greater good by being drilled for gas and is forced into gas production because enough of your neighbors have signed leases.  This is not yet law in Pennsylvania.  However, at the request of industry lobbyists, Representatives Marc Gergely (D, Allegheny County) and Garth Everett (R, Lycoming County) are looking for sponsors of such legislation.  

The gas industry describes this provision as allowing the most efficient and complete extraction of the gas while minimizing the surface impacts that could come with an unnecessary proliferation of wells.

 

 

Most don't do it.  The costs for litigation and experts are too high to justify it.  Attorney’s fees and litigation costs are generally not covered even when they win the case. 

Attorneys are only likely to take toxic tort cases on contingency.  Toxic torts are different; that is where someone gets sick from an environmental condition.  Cancer from poisoned water like in the movies "A Civil Action" and "Erin Brockovich."

There is no single water treatment device that will at a reasonable price efficiently and effectively remove all contaminants.  Though many devices can remove multiple contaminants, beware of claims of your device maker.

 

[Link to Independent Product and How to find the right water treatment specialist?]

 

Because methane—and therefore, natural gas—does not have any odor, the gas company adds a warning “rotten-egg” smell (mercaptan or a similar sulfur-based compound) that can be easily detected by most people.

Parts per million and milligrams per liter are units of measurement like an ounce or a pound. They are equivalent so 1 ppm = 1 mg/L.  When measuring extremely small quantities, they help provide precision.  How small is 1 ppm or 1 mg/L?

30 seconds in a year
1 penny in $10,000
1 drop in 40 gallons

Parts per billion (ppb) -- 1,000 times smaller than ppm -- are used to measure more minute quantities of cancer-causing agents used by the gas industry. Benzene is an example, and 5 ppb of benzene is the maximum amount allowed in drinking water.  Or 5¢ in $10,000,000.

These test methods are EPA-approved procedures for measuring the presence and concentration pollutants. The EPA does not release test methods for all chemicals, but only those that it regulates.

When the EPA does not regulate a chemical, Standard Methods, a joint publication of the American Public Health Association (APHA), the American Water Works Association (AWWA), and the Water Environment Federation (WEF), covers all aspects of water and wastewater analysis techniques.

The Pennsylvania Farmland and Forest Land Assessment Act of 1974, better known as “Clean and Green” or Act 319,  provides a real estate tax benefit to owners who have land in “agricultural use,” “agricultural reserve,” or “forest reserve” and are enrolled in the “Clean and Green Program.” In essence, Clean and Green enables their land to be assessed according to its use rather than its prevailing market value.

Depending on the county you live in, you may have to pay back taxes if you allow gas exploration and drilling on your land. If your land is assessed under Clean and Green, you’ll want an addendum in your lease stating that the gas company will reimburse you for any back taxes you have to pay as a result of gas leasing and/or exploration.

 See the attached Clean & Green summary for eligibility, penalties and other information.

The Department of Conservation and Natural Resources maintains the Pennsylvania Groundwater Information System (PaGWIS) which is a searchable database of well logs provided by drillers.  Availability and quality of information is often limited.

 

EPA and/or PA DEP require municipal water systems to conduct periodic monitoring and reporting

Rules and regulations, however, have not been updated to reflect the influx of gas drilling and potential impacts on public drinking water supplies

Existing rules presume that conditions are unlikely to change rapidly.  If past tests show no contamination, then new contamination is less likely in the short term and the next required test may be years off.

Monitoring Requirements in the Pennsylvania Code - See Subchapter C

 

There is nothing unique about a public drinking water system that would protect it from gas drilling contamination.  Check in with your system operator to see what they are doing to address these risks.

 

Here are some resources to check in on drinking water systems

PA DEP Drinking Water Reporting System (DWRS)

The DWRS allows public access to public drinking water systems' sample history, inventory information and recent violation history

 

Privately operated systems in Pennsylvania:

PA American Water

Aqua America

United Water

 

Nationwide Database:

Environmental Working Group

EWG assembled a database of 20 million drinking water quality tests performed by water utilities since 2004