Water quality the issue in gas explortation

Wednesday July 23, 2008
Water quality the issue in gas explortation
Article is copyrighted and used by permission
Pamela Pritt
Editor

While county residents may be divided on several issues, a Mill Point woman told county commissioners Tuesday that one issue unites everyone here.

Water.

Joanna Burt-Kinderman, who said she got involved because she’s returned to her home to raise her infant daughter where it’s “quiet and beautiful and clean and healthy,” said commissioners should be aware that water quality, both ground and surface, could be affected by potential oil and gas drilling in the county.

Over the past several months, land men have been leasing mineral rights in Pocahontas County so companies can drill in the Marcellus shale, which according to geology.com “might contain more than 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.” The shale can be found from New York, through Pennsylvania and in West Virginia.

Drilling for gas in Marcellus shale was not thought profitable until a process called hydrofracturing was developed. “Hydrofracing” forces water and other fluids into the possibly 6,000-8,000 foot hole to cause cracks in the rock to release the gas, according to the Delaware Riverkeeper. The process can take millions of gallons of water, which is then extracted from the hole and may be stored in a plastic lined pond or hauled off-site, depending on the terms of the landowner’s lease.

In addition, the DR said drilling companies do not have to reveal specific fracing chemicals under the “trade secrets” exemption; however, common fracing fluids and chemicals include liquid carbon dioxide, liquid nitrogen, crude oil, kerosene and various lubricants, friction reducers, gels, surfactants, defoamers, biocides, polymers and proppants, the DR said.

Burt-Kinderman said it seems drilling here is “inevitable” and that she thinks everyone has the right to do what they see fit with their property; however, she said, the water quality issue affects everyone.

“The water issue is one where all the people in Pocahontas County are on one side and the people who want to make money from us are on the other side,” she said. “I don’t think there is anyone who would say, ‘I want to have my well dried or I want to see the Greenbrier River polluted.’”

Further, she said, West Virginia’s water laws are not as strict as some surrounding states, meaning that underground sources can be depleted if the use of the water is “reasonable,” according to the American Rule. The state has more liability for surface water, she said.

Burt-Kinderman said often uranium is found in the shale, along with gas.

Some places in Pennsylvania have imposed rules that don’t allow storing the leftover fracing fluid or treating the wastewater.

She asked for the commission to set up voluntary water testing, which, she said, would send a message to gas drillers that Pocahontas County people won’t have their waters polluted and if anything goes wrong, baseline test results are available.

“Folks are saying Pocahontas County is going to change forever and there’s nothing any of us can do,” she said.

Commissioner Reta Griffith said she wanted drilling companies to educate residents about the procedures they use to extract gas and to find out what current regulations govern those drillers.

“I’ve been told there’s even more regulation for gas wells than there is for coal,” Griffith said. “We should check with the health department to see what is available, what are those resources, what are the costs involved (in water testing).”

Commissioner Martin Saffer said the use of property will have an affect on neighbors and people should be aware of that.

“It’s the business of the entire community,” he said.

Saffer called potential gas drilling here a crisis greater than “second homeowners or sewer systems.” He said the county is on a collison course with potential radical change in our communty.

“We could never be home again and be strangers in a strange land,” he said. “What is it we want at the end of the day?”

Saffer said he hoped “not a cubic inch [of gas] is found” in Pocahontas County.

“When they pay you serious money, they’re going to do serious things to your property,” he said, “because they bought you. You have to ask yourself, ‘is it worth it?’ Do we want to look like Midland, Texas, or do we want to look like Pocahontas County?”

“We can decide what we want and what we have the courage to keep,” he said.

Griffith said that reason should prevail.

Landowners have already signed leases, she reminded Saffer, and alienating them would not be productive. She said Saffer should consider that the country is looking for energy sources other than oil and gas, as well.

“We need to keep doors open and not alienate each other,” she said. “We need to go into it with a balance.”

Burt-Kinderman’s husband, Josh Hardy, said he didn’t think gas companies would come here to educate residents about hydrofracing.

A lot of people have already leased their property, Burt-Kinderman pointed out. And while the leases cannot be undone, the battle is between the people who want to make money and the rest of us, she said. Acknowledging that fact, she said making local regulations to restrict the storage of fracing fluids would be a start to protecting water resources.

“It’s going to be noisy, it’s going to be ugly,” she said. “But we don’t have to have all of our underground caves filled with chemicals, we don’t have to have our wells run dry, we don’t have to have a pipe in the Greenbrier River sucking the water out.

“If we wait until the first well is drilled, it’s going to be too late.”