Council Members Take Tour of Gas Wells
Spencer, Selin find more reasons to pass drilling ban
Morgantown Dominion Post
21 June 2011
By David Beard
Morgantown council members Don Spencer and Jenny Selin toured Wetzel
County’s Marcellus shale gas fields Monday in advance of the city’s
horizontal drilling and fracking ban vote. What they saw, they said,
opened their eyes to issues and community impacts they never
considered, and makes the potential ban all the more urgent.
“The thing that surprised me,” Spencer said, “is how much I didn’t know
and how much impact the industry did have that isn’t even on our radar.”
If council approves the ban tonight, it won’t halt work on the two
wells being drilled at the Morgantown industrial park by Northeast
Natural Energy.
But city and Northeast officials have said it could stop Northeast from
fracking the wells.
Residents Rose Baker and Ed Wade, members of the Wetzel County Action
Group, guided the tour, which included Pocahontas County resident Brynn
Kusac and a few members of the press.
Baker and Wade described problems they’ve wrestled with — problems
Spencer ticked off that he fears could come to Morgantown: Destroyed
and blocked roads, gas pipelines, traffic, additional burdens on
emergency services, transient workers, and increased crime rates and
surfaceowner issues.
Spencer said he has two meetings left before he leaves Council. And he
has goals.
“We hope to pass the ban. That’s the first step. [Then] council has got
to be vigilant” for all the ancillary problems. “There’s so many things
that are going to jump up and bite us that we’re not aware of.”
There will be long-term impacts, as the wells near Morgantown need
ongoing servicing. For instance, condensate tanks, which collect water
and hydrocarbons from the raw gas, will have to be emptied.
“Everyone is so reluctant to be protective about this,” Spencer said.
“It’s just a fatalism that we’ve seen do us in before.”
Baker and Wade took the group on a circuit of the Victory Field area —
situated in Wetzel County’s Silver Hill area and in a small portion of
Marshall County. They said there are 32 gas pads, each with two or more
wells, in an eight-mile radius.
The group visited the Rine well pad, where crews are beginning to erect
condensate tanks; a land slip at the edge of a well pad; and a
compressor station with six compressor engines. They drove up and down
narrow, crumbling roads.
Baker and Wade pointed out some positives. For instance, when residents
complained, Chesapeake responded with some solutions: A staging area on
W.Va. 7 to eliminate congestion at the foot of Brock Ridge Road, the
main route into Silver Hill and Victory Field; escort vehicles for
buses; reduced daytime traffic.
“You can work with these companies and make agreements between them and
the DOH,” Baker said.
S e l i n observed that earlier conventional vertical wells had smaller
footprints and less overall impact. “This situation is so completely
different. We need to take an entire system-wide view of it in making
sure that when we’re doing this, it’s done right.”
Right now, it’s all unfolding too fast, she said. “I’m jut hoping that
all across the state, we take a really careful look at this, and take
all the effects under consideration.”
Northeast President Michael John said he met with Spencer later Monday
at the Morgantown well pad. He said they agree the state needs
additional regulation. And he addressed some of Spencer’s concerns:
Fresh water for fracking will be piped up; trucks will not travel
through Morgantown; no compressor engines will be on site.
John is not pleased, though, that council is considering the ban. He
said Northeast has been talking with MUB since 2010 and has gone the
extra mile with safety measures.
“I’m taken aback that now we’re put in a position that come Wednesday
morning, we could be illegal.”
A chance encounter
The tour paused at the Silver Hill Volunteer Fire Department, where
Selin and Spencer got to meet Sarah Wood, a resident passing by with
her young son.
Wood’s father owns two farms, one near the VFD, of 100 acres. Three
wells — one vertical, two horizontal — sit on what was once their
hayfield, bringing in 1,000 bales a year. Now, they said, it’s unusable.
They moved from there to the other tract, 155 acres near the Rine pad
on Johnson Ridge.
The worst part, though, is the loss of the use of their 100-acre farm,
Wood said. Now they have to pay $3,000 or more a year to buy hay for
their 100 head of sheep. Her dad turned down a flat $15,000 damages
offer for the lifetime of the wells.
Her dad has four children, Wood said, and planned to give land to one
of them to build a home.
“It’s pretty well destroyed what we wanted out of life.” But they’re
surface owners, not mineral owners. “We don’t want them there. We
haven’t wanted them there from the beginning. There’s nothing we can do
about it. ... That was the American dream. That’ll never happen now.
There will never be a house there.”
Chesapeake said that Wood’s parents, Martin and Lisa Whiteman, are in
litigation against Chesapeake concerning allegations of drilling waste
deposited on their property and declined comment. The company also said
it has invited Morgantown Council members on a drilling rig tour, and
they have declined.
Wood works as a registered nurse at Ruby Memorial Hospital, and had
words of sympathy for Selin and Spencer.
“I really hope you guys don’t have to deal with it.”