Pitt Scientist Sounds Alarm On Natural Gas Drilling -- Marcellus
Shale Industry, DEP Respond To Talk Of 'Potentially Huge Problem'
WTAE-Team 4, Pittsburgh
9 March 9, 2010
PITTSBURGH -- A leading public health scientist told Team 4
investigator Jim Parsons that an explosion in natural gas drilling in
western Pennsylvania has him worried.
There's no question that the recent boom in Marcellus Shale gas
drilling has put money in the coffers of small towns across
Pennsylvania -- but in the words of Dr. Conrad Volz, at what price?
"This is a potentially huge public health problem," said Volz, of the
University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health.
Under normal circumstances, Volz does not talk in alarmed sound bites.
But Volz said these are not normal circumstances.
"This is the looming, coming problem for Pittsburgh water," Volz said.
He points to what happened to the water at Jenny Smitsky's house in
Hickory, Washington County.
Smitsky uses bottled water now, and she said the Environmental
Protection Agency has told her not to drink or even shower with her
well water.
"I feel like a prisoner in my own home," Smitsky said.
After three of her goats and an entire pond of fish died on her
property last fall, Smitsky's landlord had the water tested. What came
back in January were sky-high levels of manganese -- 100 times what the
EPA considers acceptable.
"It is an astronomical level of manganese," Volz said.
Smitsky's house is surrounded by Marcellus Shale gas wells, and new
ones are being drilled in Hickory all the time.
"I had good, clear, good-tasting water. I never had a problem until
drilling started," Smitsky said.
Volz said contaminated waste water from Marcellus drilling will have an
impact on all of us, since it is being discharged into the Monongahela
River.
"The total dissolved solid levels are going up. These problems are
occurring in our main stem river, where most of the population is
getting their water," Volz said.
"This just doesn't make sense, and it is a moral and ethical problem."
Department of Environmental Protection spokeswoman Helen Humphreys said
her agency is not convinced that the elevated levels of manganese in
Smitsky's water were caused by Marcellus Shale drilling. The DEP plans
to test Smitsky's water again.
An industry group called Marcellus Shale Coalition gave the following
statement to Team 4:
"Significant advances have been made since the DEP put forth its
strategy for TDS [Editor's Note: stands for "Total Dissolved Solids"]
in April 2009. First, misconceptions have been corrected. Analysis of
DEP's data shows that TDS is not a new component of our waterways, but
in fact has been detected above 500 ppm intermittently over the last 30
years. Simple flow level monitoring and discharge management is the
most environmentally responsible and economically feasible approach to
achieve consistent low TDS levels going forward. Most importantly the
Marcellus Shale industry has made innovative changes to its water
management processes to achieve very high levels of recycling of its
hydraulic fracturing fluids -- approaching or near 100 percent for most
wells in the state."