Chesapeake Energy Officials Pledge to Maintain Roads

Wheeling Intelligencer
29 October 2010
By Paul Giannamore

Chesapeake Energy is willing to maintain or even strengthen roads before hauling equipment for Marcellus Shale drilling over them, company officials told members of the Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce on Thursday.

Stacey R. Brodak, manager of corporate development, and Ryan Dean, senior coordinator of corporate development, responded to a question from Salem Township Trustee Terry Bell, who has been leading a statewide grassroots effort to have townships protected from road damage by heavy hauling.

Dean said an agreement is expected to be signed today covering Archer Township Road 17 in Harrison County, after talks between the company and township officials. Bell said he has been encouraged by the response of the Marcellus drillers in Pennsylvania to sign township road maintenance agreements or strengthen roads before using them.

"We're hard on roads," Brodak said. "There's no getting around that. But we fix what we damage, and we address that during and prior to using the roads where possible. We will meet with supervisors and tour the roads and address issues before using them, or even accept using a different road. We don't see this as we damage them and fix them later. We are partners together."

After the meeting, Matthew J. DeTemple, executive director of the Ohio Township Association, said it is encouraging the gas industry is willing to participate, but the association still wants legislation to address a longstanding problem that far predates the Marcellus push.

"Our position is that on the one hand, it is a wonderful economic opportunity and we don't want to be a roadblock to that, but we are concerned about roads, which are often the primary function of townships. Our position, and Ohio law says, that if you damage a road, there is a potential liability," DeTemple said. "If they're willing to work with our townships and do work up front, we like to see that happen. But if we can get legislation done, we would prefer that. It's been part of our platform for years, and we will continue to fight for that."

Bell said he has learned Mark Oakey, the 61st District representative in the Ohio House, is penning legislation he plans to introduce after the upcoming election to address township road maintenance agreements.

Brodak also outlined the use of water and fracturing fluid in the horizontal drilling process. She said 99.5 percent of the high-pressure injection into the well to break the shale layer is water and sand. The remaining 0.5 percent is chemicals.

"It's an incredibly minute portion of that mixture," she said.

The average well takes as much as 5 million gallons of injected water, sand and fluid, and if 0.5 percent of that is chemicals, it's about 25,000 gallons of chemicals. Brodak said the industry is not trying to hide the chemical composition of fracturing fluid, and Chesapeake lists contents on its websites, http://www.hydraulicfracturing.com and http://www.askchesapeake.com.

Among ingredients listed on hydraulicfracturing.com are items such as isopropanol, used in glass cleaners, antiperspirants and hair coloring; petroleum distillates used in cosmetics; guar gum, used in baked goods and ice cream; citric acid; potassium chloride; sodium or potassium carbonate; as well as chemicals such as glutaradldehyde, used in disinfectants; ammonium persulfate, used in hair coloring and in plastics; formamide, used in pharmaceuticals and plastics; and borate salts, which are part of laundry detergents.

She said as much as 20 percent, or 1 million gallons, of fluid rises back through the well. Chesapeake captures the fluid, treats it and reuses it on site or trucks it to another drilling site. She said some companies do impound used fluid on site and take it away to approved disposal sites.

Brodak said Chesapeake believes in using local workers for its drilling operations. She said when the Marcellus drilling began a couple years ago, expertise from experienced employees was needed, so workers were brought from other drilling areas. Now, she said, the company has experienced workers locally and hires more local workers as they learn their jobs.

"These are $70,000 a year jobs for the average rig worker. They are really great jobs. It's hard work, outdoors, and it's two weeks on and two weeks off," she said. Further, she said local hotels and restaurants benefit, as do local vendors and suppliers doing business to keep the drilling rigs supplied and operating.