WV Residents and Group Against Smog and Pollution Appeal
Chesapeake Energy Marcellus Shale Permits
Group Against Smog and Pollution release
14 October 2010
Contact: Joe Osborne, Legal Director, Group Against Smog &
Pollution, office: (412) 325-7382, cell: (617) 909-8365,
joe@gasp-pgh.org
CHARLESTON, West Virginia – On Tuesday West Virginia residents filed an
appeal before the West Virginia Air Quality Board challenging two air
permits recently issued to Chesapeake Energy for a large—and
growing—Marcellus Shale operation in West Virginia’s northern
panhandle.
The new permits allow Chesapeake Energy to construct two new natural
gas compressor stations. With these two facilities included, the
Chesapeake project will expand to include 3 compressor stations; over
25 well pads; and a complex, interconnected network of pipes, storage
tanks, and flares all five miles or less from each other on a patch of
land straddling Wetzel and Marshall Counties. (This project
includes the McDowell B well, where a late-September well explosion
resulted in a fire emergency crews battled for 8 days.)
The compressors themselves produce significant quantities of air
pollution, and the many flares, storage tanks, gas processing
activities, and equipment leaks produce air pollution as well. “When
you add it all up, it’s hundreds of tons of pollution.” said Bill
Hughes, a Wetzel County resident and the named appellant in this case.
The appeal challenges the West Virginia Department of Environmental
Protection’s decision to treat each of these air pollution-emitting
activities as separate sources for permitting purposes. The Clean
Air Act establishes tougher air pollution control requirements for
major sources of air pollution. WVDEP has permitted these
compressor stations under less-protective minor source permits, and
Chesapeake’s other emissions sources avoid permitting requirements
entirely.
When asked to comment on the importance of this appeal, Ed Wade, Jr. of
the Wetzel County Action Group (WCAG) stated, “there have been many
complaints about noxious gas releases over the past few years by
residents who have wells on all sides of their homes. Regulating
emissions at just the new compressor stations will not eliminate those
problems.”
“Rather than considering total air pollution from the Chesapeake
project, WVDEP is dividing these related activities up piecemeal.
As it stands right now, air pollution from the Chesapeake project isn’t
adequately monitored or controlled to satisfy the requirements of the
Clean Air Act. Left unaddressed, this would be bad news for our
air quality and bad news for our health,” said Joe Osborne, Legal
Director of the Group Against Smog and Pollution, the organization
filing the appeal on behalf of Mr. Hughes.
The most significant pollutants generated by Marcellus Shale operations
like Chesapeake’s are volatile organic compounds (VOCs), nitrogen
oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), and a variety of air toxics such
benzene, toluene, and hydrogen sulfide. The amount of pollution
oil and gas extraction and processing creates is hard to believe.
In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, located in the Barnett Shale gas play,
annual NOx and VOC emissions from the oil and gas sector exceed
emissions from all motor vehicles. A 2008 analysis by the
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment concluded that VOC
and NOx emissions from Colorado’s oil and gas operations exceed motor
vehicle emissions for the entire state.
In addition to being unhealthy in their own right, NOx and VOCs react
with other compounds in the atmosphere to produce ozone and particulate
matter. Much of the Northeastern U.S. already fails to meet federal
health-based standards for ozone and particulate matter. The
Chesapeake project is less than 10 miles from the Pennsylvania
border. Southwestern Pennsylvania fails to meet federal standards
for ozone and particulate matter. Marshall County, WV fails to
meet federal standards for particulate matter.
“Because so many areas in or downwind of the Marcellus Shale region
fail to meet these standards, it’s all the more important that the air
impacts of operations like Chesapeake’s are minimized. One way to
help do that is by making sure permitting authorities like WVDEP are
properly aggregating air emissions from Marcellus operations,” Osborne
said.
“I’ve told people from neighboring counties in Pennsylvania that tons
of air pollution are being sent your way, we don’t want them, you can’t
return them and they are marked ‘do not return to sender’ it’s your
problem now,” Hughes added.