Water Problems From Drilling Are More Frequent Than PA Officials
Said
ProPublica
31 July 2009
by Abrahm Lustgarten
A drill site is seen from the back of Dimock
resident Ronald Carter's home. Carter was told the methane coming from
his pipes shouldn't be a problem as long as he cracked a window while
running the tap. (Abrahm Lustgarten/ProPublica)
When methane began bubbling out of kitchen taps near a gas
drilling site in Pennsylvania last winter, a state regulator described
the problem as "an anomaly." But at the time he made that statement to
ProPublica, that same official was investigating a similar case
affecting more than a dozen homes near gas wells halfway across the
state.
In fact, methane related to the natural gas industry has contaminated
water wells in at least seven Pennsylvania counties since 2004 and is
common enough that the state hired a full-time inspector dedicated to
the issue in 2006. In one case, methane was detected in water sampled
over 15 square miles. In another, a methane leak led to an explosion
that killed a couple and their 17-month-old grandson.
Methane is the largest component of natural gas. Since it evaporates
out of drinking water, it is not considered toxic, but in the air it
can lead to explosions. When methane is found in water supplies, it can
also signal that deeply drilled gas wells are linked with drinking
water systems.
In many cases the methane seepage comes from thousands of old abandoned
gas wells that riddle Pennsylvania's geology, state inspectors say. But
other cases, including several this year and the 2004 disaster that
left three people dead, were linked to problems with newly drilled,
active natural gas wells.
The issue came to the forefront in January when methane was found in
the water at 16 homes in the small town of Dimock, in northeastern
Pennsylvania. State officials cited Cabot Oil & Gas for several
violations they say allowed the gas to seep out of the well structures
and into water supplies there. The Department of Environmental
Protection asked the company to encase its lower well pipes completely
in concrete — a process known in the industry as "cementing" — and
assured the public that the contamination in Dimock was rare.
But according to a department spokeswoman, there have been at least 52
separate cases of what the state calls "methane migration" in the past
five years. In two of the 2009 cases, regulators responded to
complaints from more than 32 households and asked gas companies to
supply clean water to at least a dozen homes with contaminated wells.
An undated report from the Pittsburgh Geological Society posted to the
DEP's Web site makes it clear that old wells and new drilling can lead
to stray gas problems. "Although it rarely makes headlines," the report
reads, "damage or threats caused by gas migration is a common problem
in Western Pennsylvania."
Craig Lobins, the DEP regional oil and gas manager who initially
described the Dimock case as an anomaly in interviews with ProPublica,
said he still believes the frequency of contamination incidents is
statistically insignificant.
Records show there are roughly 58,000 active gas wells in Pennsylvania.
"We are just dealing with a very small percentage," he said in a
follow-up interview.
The case Lobins was investigating at the same time as the Dimock case
concerned a string of problems in Bradford, a rural town 200 miles west
of Dimock along the state's northern border. Shortly after a contractor
for Schreiner Oil and Gas drilled several dozen wells in the area last
spring, residents began complaining of murky and foul-smelling tap
water. When the DEP investigated, it found methane in three water wells
and metals in six others. It asked Schreiner to supply water to eight
homes, and the company has begun installing water treatment systems at
each house. While no new gas wells have been drilled in the Bradford
area, according to the DEP, the existing ones continue to operate.
Michael Schreiner, Schreiner's president, declined to comment for this
article.
Lobins said the problems in Bradford — as in many of the contamination
cases across the state — stem from a bad cementing job around the core
of the well. In most gas drilling, the well pipe is encased in layers
of concrete to keep it isolated from surrounding groundwater. The
concrete also contains the enormous pressure exerted on the system
during the process of hydraulic fracturing, which pumps water, sand and
chemicals to the well bottom to break up rock.
In Bradford, Lobins said, concrete was poured into the space around the
wells but never filled the space — a sign of a possible leak. Because
Pennsylvania does not have regulations that require inspections or
testing of the concrete casing, the state didn't notice the problem
until methane began showing up in water wells. By then, the suspected
concrete error had been repeated in as many as 27 different places,
Lobins said.
In most gas drilling, the well pipe is encased in
layers of concrete to keep it isolated from groundwater. This practice
of encasing the well is seen as key to protecting water supplies.
(Graphic by Al Granberg/ProPublica)
Controlling the quality of cementing and well casing is widely
viewed as the most important factor in protecting water supplies and
ensuring the integrity of a well. A recent federally funded study of
state regulations across the country, published by the Ground Water
Protection Council, a consortium of state oil and gas regulators,
industry representatives, and some environmental consultants, said that
proper concrete casing is critical to environmental protection. While
96 percent of states, including Pennsylvania, have standards specifying
that concrete be used to protect aquifers, the report found that one in
five, also including Pennsylvania, do not require testing to confirm
that the concrete used is strong enough for the job. That means that
until water problems arose as a result of the casing problems in
Bradford, the state had little recourse.
"What they are doing is not a violation until the gas is leaving the
borehole," Lobins said. "We don't know that until it manifests itself
somewhere else."
Lobins said the state is reviewing its regulations and that changes are
planned to address both well casing and methane migration issues. But
when asked what specific changes were being discussed, Lobins said he
did not know. Similar questions went unanswered by Ron Gilius, the
DEP's oil and gas director, after they were submitted by ProPublica
both in interviews and in writing.
For their part, Bradford residents were surprised to learn that their
problems were not unique.
"They didn't say that there were other problems similar to this," said
Lori Trumbull, who complained about her water but later found that it
was OK. "They said that the odds of having water contamination from
drilling operations is very rare."
Fred Baldassare, the state's dedicated methane migration investigator,
said he has investigated water contaminated with drilling-related
methane in numerous places across the state in recent years. In
Bridgeville, two homes exploded when a well casing failed and methane
seeped into their basements, he said. In Dayton, he said, residents
were evacuated after a well casing failed and methane migrated into an
adjacent abandoned well, blowing out its casing and travelling a third
of a mile underground.
In Vandergrift, drillers stumbled across an old gas well that no one
knew was there. Baldassare said that when the new well was
hydraulically fractured, the intense pressure forced gas into the
adjacent wells. It then percolated up through water and mud until it
surfaced just feet from homes in a heavily populated neighborhood.
The most tragic Pennsylvania methane case began on March 5, 2004, in
Jefferson County, about 80 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. According to
Baldassare, gas seeped into the home of 64-year-old Charles Harper and
his 53-year-old wife, Dorothy, from one of several adjacent wells being
drilled by Snyder Brothers. The gas collected until it exploded and,
according to court records and news reports at the time, reduced the
home to "a pile of rubble." Debris was found across the road, and
insulation hung from trees 30 feet in the air. The bodies of the
Harpers and their grandson, Baelee, were found buried in the debris.
Executives from Snyder Brothers did not return calls for comment. The
company was sued in state court in Jefferson County and reached an
undisclosed settlement with the Harper family.
State officials traced the methane's geochemical fingerprint and
determined it had come from one of three Snyder wells nearby. The
investigation, however, remains open in part because Snyder has yet to
comply with state orders to conduct pressure tests on the wells —
orders delivered in 2005, according to Baldassare. But that doesn't
mean state officials aren't sure about what happened.
According to Baldassare, the Snyder methane caused the explosion.
"In my view," he said, "there was no uncertainty."