Current regulations set in 1989, state says industry is meeting expectations

BY ERIC LIDJI FOR GREENING OF OIL 

Opponents of hydraulic fracturing blame it for spoiling water supplies. Proponents say the technology is separated from drinking water supplies by thousands of feet of impermeable rock. One possible link between those contradictory statements is well construction. In a poorly designed well, gas from below escapes into water from above.

That’s not the only way gas can migrate into water supplies, but it’s the main one the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is targeting with proposed changes to the regulations for oil and gas wells, recently released for public comments.

Many of the current regulations haven’t been updated since July 1989, according to the state. While Pennsylvania isn’t new to drilling — in fact, it’s been producing oil and gas longer than any other state — the current drilling boom in the Marcellus Shale is new.

The revisions would change how wells are constructed and inspected, and set guidelines for responding to gas migration and replacing water supplies spoiled by drilling.

“It was determined that many, if not all, Marcellus well operators met or exceeded the current well casing and cementing regulations,” the DEP said in its proposed regulations. “However, it was also determined that the current regulations were not specific enough in detailing the Department's expectations of a properly cased and cemented well.”

The new standards would bring Pennsylvania in line with other producing states, like Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, particularly for the amount of pressure allowed on surface casing, the shallow length of pipe that protects underground drinking water sources.

The standards require operators to inspect wells for pressure, corrosion and signs of escaping gas every three months and report the results to the DEP for five years.

If gas were believed to have migrated into nearby soils and waters, the proposed regulations would require the operator to immediately notify the state and begin an investigation, filing a report by phone within 12 hours and in writing within three days.

The proposed regulations also codify current case law on water supplies damaged by drilling. The regulations would require drillers to replace polluted water supplies to safe drinking water standards, unless the supplies didn’t meet those standards in the first place. It also requires drillers to pay for any increased operations and maintenance costs.

The Environmental Quality Board, an agency within the DEP, held five public hearings across the state on the proposed regulations and is taking comments through Aug. 9. 

Follows well explosion

The DEP began drafting the regulations late last year in the wake of increasing concerns about water quality around new and old wells. The DEP took comments on an early version this past spring and issued the current version of the revised regulations in May.

Since then, several events have drawn attention to well construction, particularly a June 3 incident where gas, fracturing fluid and brine shot from a well in Clearfield County in central Pennsylvania. A report released earlier this month by an independent investigator concluded that the well operator, EOG Resources, only had one pressure barrier in place, without a backup system, and that the barrier wasn’t properly maintained or tested.

Also this past week, the DEP gave Cabot Oil & Gas another 60 days to fix water supplies damaged by drilling operations in Dimock, a city in Susquehanna County.

During an Allegheny County Council meeting on July 21, Richard Weber, CEO of Atlas Energy, said incidents like Clearfield were “generally avoidable” and that his company supported regulations based on best management practices and fines for companies that fell short.

Contact Eric Lidji at ericlidji@mac.com

Shale news in brief

An analysis from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources shows “that no additional leasing involving surface disturbance can occur without significantly altering the ecological integrity and wild character of our state forest system.” Lawmakers are considering a moratorium on leasing in state forests.

Packers Plus sells technology for completing several fractures in a single operation. “We can now effectively isolate and successfully stimulate as many as 20 stages,” President Dan Themig said in a statement. “This gives us a tremendous opportunity in this economy to meet the needs of our customers. It is our focus to continually create leading-edge technology in multi-stage completions.”

Developing the Marcellus Shale would require “substantive change to multiple Pennsylvania regulatory programs, including statutory amendment,” according to a July report from the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, based on a May policy conference.

The Financial Times speaks to Penn State University Geologist Terry Engelder about the ups and down of shale gas. On groundwater contamination: “There are a number of factors that make this unlikely, and one of these is density stratification… If this density stratification were commonly upset in the earth, a lot of fresh groundwater would become salty. The fact that people using water wells for drinking water do not report their wells becoming salty is a testimony to the stability of the earth’s density stratification.”

Critics are questioning whether the Ohio River needs a multistate basin commission similar to the ones charged with overseeing the Susquehanna and Delaware rivers.

The U.S. Geologic Survey recently got $1 million to “conduct a cumulative impact study on water withdrawals for hydraulic fracturing of Marcellus Shale natural gas wells in the Delaware River Basin,” a water resource for more than 15 million people.

A video tour of a Cabot Oil & Gas drilling site and reclamation work in Dimock, Pa.