Range Resources To Pay $4.15M Fine, Close Old Gas Drilling Impoundments

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Washington County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Range Resources Corp. will pay the largest state fine levied against a Pennsylvania shale gas driller and close five drilling wastewater impoundments in Washington County because of leaks into soil and groundwater, officials said on Thursday.

The Fort Worth-based company signed an agreement with the state Department of Environmental Protection that requires paying a $4.15 million fine, closing the troubled facilities and rebuilding two impoundments using what regulators call “next generation” technology.

“There are two messages we are sending today. One is we take these kinds of situations very seriously and there are going to be consequences even when a company is a good corporate neighbor,” department Secretary E. Christopher Abruzzo told the Tribune-Review. “And to the citizens, the message is we’re going to handle these matters.”

Davitt Woodwell, president of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council said, “I commend Range for coming forward. And it appears DEP has taken this as an opportunity to leverage better standards.”

Read more: http://triblive.com/business/headlines/6819985-74/range-impoundments-department#ixzz3DmCmQVOQ
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Shell Touts Utica Gas Wells In Northern Pa.

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Tioga County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Energy companies might have another sweet spot for gas drilling in Pennsylvania.

Royal Dutch Shell on Wednesday said two wells it drilled in the Utica shale below Tioga County are producing at levels comparable to the most successful wells in Southeastern Ohio.

“This opens a new potential for other drillers to follow Shell’s act,” said Tom Gellrich, founder of TopLine Analytics, a manufacturing consultant specializing in shale gas plays.

The energy giant drilled the wells in one of the top-producing Marcellus shale counties, north of Williamsport. But Shell’s Gee and Neal wells are tapping a formation several thousand feet below the better-known Marcellus and were drilled about 100 miles northeast of the closest producing Utica well.

Read more: http://triblive.com/business/headlines/6727554-74/wells-shell-producing#ixzz3CMn9NtUh
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Greensburg City Council Resolves To Seek Grant Applications For Projects

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Westmoreland County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Greensburg City Council on Monday unanimously approved resolutions seeking grant applications to fund two projects.

The city will seek a Multimodal Transportation Fund grant for a proposed health care district for the Fifth and Sixth wards.

The written resolution seeks a $2 million grant application through the state Department of Community and Economic Development and PennDOT.

Consultant Urban Design Associates of Pittsburgh and others put together the plan with the intent to enhance the two wards and spark development.

Read more: http://triblive.com/news/westmoreland/6252872-74/council-grant-project#ixzz34I3PAQtR
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Train Carrying Crude Oil Derails In Vandergrift

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Westmoreland County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Twenty-one cars of a freight train hauling oil and gas derailed this morning in Vandergrift, striking a building that houses a specialty metals firm, authorities said. No one was injured.

Hazmat crews responded to MSI Corp. in the 200 block of First Street in Vandergrift, and the state Department of Environmental Protection was sending a three-member emergency response team after reports that oil was leaking from overturned cars.

The 120-car Norfolk Southern Railway train with three locomotives was headed east around 8 a.m. when it derailed. Nineteen of the 21 derailed cars overturned.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/local/westmoreland/2014/02/13/Train-carrying-crude-oil-derails-in-Vandergrift/stories/201402130275#ixzz2tF0xF5Zs

Legislator Wants Action On Mine Fires

Locator map of the Scranton-Wilkes-Barre Metropolitan Statistical Area in the northeastern part of the of . (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

OLYPHANT, PA — Coal heated up the Lackawanna and Wyoming valleys’ job market decades ago, and today it’s still making the region hot as no fewer than eight underground mine fires are burning from Carbondale to Newport Township.

The issue has not been taken seriously enough by the state Department of Environmental Protection, according to Rep. Kevin Haggerty, D-Dunmore, and officials in Olyphant, where one of the fires has been burning for nearly a decade.

During a public meeting Haggerty organized in Olyphant on Thursday, he said he has written a letter to Gov. Tom Corbett urging him to declare Luzerne and Lackawanna counties “disaster areas” so federal and state funding could be freed up to help extinguish the fires.

Three of those fires, all in Luzerne County, are designated as serious by the state Department of Environmental Protection, meaning occupied structures are less than 1,000 feet away. The other five are classified as moderate, meaning occupied structures are at least 1,000 feet away.

Read more: http://timesleader.com/news/local-news/1156029/Legislator-wants-action-on-mine-fires

Water Ban Lifted For Parts Of West Virginia After Spill

West Virginia counties map (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

CHARLESTON, WV — The ban on tap water for parts of West Virginia was lifted on Monday, ending a crisis for some of the 300,000 people who were told not to drink, wash or cook with water after a chemical spill tainted the water supply.

Gov. Earl Tomblin made the announcement at a news conference, five days after people were told to use the water only to flush their toilets.

“The numbers we have today look good and we are finally at a point where the ‘do not use order’ has been lifted,” he said.

Officials are lifting the ban in a strict, methodical manner to help ensure the water system is not overwhelmed by excessive demand, which could cause more water quality and service issues. Customers are being asked to flush out their systems before using the water again, and officials cautioned that the water could still have an odor, but it is safe.

Read more: http://triblive.com/news/editorspicks/5409651-74/state-chemical-officials#ixzz2qJIsJ9gm
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Chemical Spill Shuts Down Much Of West Virginia Capital

Map of Charleston and vicinity. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

CHARLESTON, WV – (AP) — Schools and restaurants closed, grocery stores sold out of bottled water, and state legislators who had just started their session canceled the day’s business after a chemical spill in the Elk River in Charleston shut down much of the city and surrounding counties even as the extent of the danger remained unclear.

The federal government joined the state early Friday in declaring a disaster, and the West Virginia National Guard planned to distribute bottled drinking water to emergency services agencies in the nine affected counties. In requesting the federal declaration, which makes federal resources available to the state, state officials said about 300,000 people were affected.

Federal authorities are also launching an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the spill and what caused it, U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin said in a news release Friday.

Shortly after the Thursday spill from Freedom Industries hit the river and a nearby treatment plant, a licorice-like smell enveloped parts of the city, and Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin issued an order to customers of West Virginia American Water: Do not drink, bathe, cook or wash clothes with tap water.

Read more: http://hosted2.ap.org/PAWIC/140fe8300e9c43bab097b794ca7594c6/Article_2014-01-10-Chemical%20Spill-WVa/id-2310b0b7a3654ebf911d3ee5fc84f854

Air Quality Alerts Issued Across Broad Swath Of Pennsylvania

Stagnant weather patterns in recent days have caused high air pollution levels in the southwest corner of Pennsylvania and nearly all of the eastern half of the state, prompting health concerns and the issuance of air quality alerts that more commonly occur in the summer.

The state Department of Environmental Protection has declared Air Quality Action Day alerts due to high concentrations of airborne particles over a broad swath of the eastern half of Pennsylvania this week, and predicted lesser but still elevated air pollution levels for Pittsburgh and the southwestern corner of the state.

Eric Shirk, a DEP spokesman, said the high pollution readings have been caused by a stationary front that has controlled the state’s weather for most of the week.

“The winter tends to have much more wind, which prevents the stagnation of the often damp air,” he said. “When there is less or no wind, as has been the case in the past several days, it allows the moisture and particulate matter to build to a level that warrants an Air Quality Action Day.”

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/local/region/2013/12/05/Air-quality-alerts-issued-across-broad-swath-of-Pa/stories/201312050220#ixzz2md5redaD

Pennsylvania Pushes Drillers To Frack With Coal Mine Water

English: Cropped portion of image from USGS report showing extent of Marcellus Formation shale (in gray shading). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Each day, 300 million gallons of polluted mine water enters Pennsylvania streams and rivers, turning many of them into dead zones unable to support aquatic life. At the same time, drilling companies use up to 5 million gallons of fresh water for every natural-gas well they frack.

State environmental officials and coal region lawmakers are hoping that the state’s newest extractive industry can help clean up a giant mess left by the last one. They are encouraging drillers to use tainted coal mine water to hydraulically fracture gas wells in the Marcellus Shale formation, with the twin goals of diverting pollution from streams and rivers that now run orange with mine drainage and reducing the drillers’ reliance on fresh sources of water.

Drainage from abandoned mines is one of the state’s worst environmental headaches, impairing 5,500 miles of waterways.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=461598

PA Marcellus Topped 2 Trillion Cubic Feet Of Gas In 2012

English: Cropped portion of image from USGS report showing extent of Marcellus Formation shale (in gray shading). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Pennsylvania’s Marcellus and other shale wells produced more than 2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in 2012, continuing a trend of production growth despite fewer drilling rigs in the field.

New production data reported by natural gas drilling companies and released by the state Department of Environmental Protection on Tuesday showed that 1.1 trillion cubic feet of gas flowed from unconventional wells in the state during the second half of 2012.

The wells produced an average of 6.2 billion cubic feet of gas per day between July and December, or enough to fulfill about 9 percent of the nation’s daily natural gas demand.  The U.S. consumed about 70 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day in 2012, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Read more:  http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/pa-marcellus-topped-2-trillion-cubic-feet-of-gas-in-2012-1.1447325

Marcellus Shale Yield Skyrockets In Allegheny County

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Allegheny County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The amount of Marcellus Shale gas produced in Allegheny County more than doubled in the first half of 2012, with nine online wells concentrated in Frazer and Fawn producing more than 3.6 billion cubic feet of gas, according to new data released by the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Even with the increase, the county still contributed a pittance to total statewide production figures.

Gas production across the state climbed from January to June, with 704 billion cubic feet of gas produced, up from the 630 billion cubic feet reported from July to December 2011.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/marcellusshale/county-marcellus-shale-yield-skyrockets-649379/#ixzz246GMjMrr

Manure Pits, Gas They Give Off Claim Lives

Editor’s note:  Very dangerous!

 

On the afternoon of May 23, a quiet 14-year-old Peach Bottom boy named Cleason Nolt somehow slipped into a liquid manure pit where he was working on a large Kennedyville, Md., dairy farm and died.Cleason’s 18-year-old brother, Kelvin, and 48-year-old father, Glenn, also vanished into the pit.

A family member who drove to the scene that evening after the Nolts failed to respond to cellphone calls found only a parked pickup truck and two tractors, their engines switched on.

The three bodies were recovered the next day.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/670915_Manure-pits–gas-they-give-off-claim-lives.html#ixzz1yHHGBbMa

Pennsylvania Counties Cashing In On Marcellus Shale Drilling Revenues

English: Cropped portion of image from USGS report showing extent of Marcellus Formation shale (in gray shading). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When the state Legislature passed Act 13 in February, county and local officials across the state expressed some excitement and more than a little trepidation over whether impact fees for Marcellus Shale gas well drilling would go far enough to compensate for the disruptions and damage blamed on drilling for the valuable resource over the past five or so years.

But now, county officials are finding themselves scrambling to figure out how they will maintain human services, such as those aimed at children, the poor and elderly, in the face of a 10 to 20 percent cut in the state budget.

The impact fee?

No longer the big deal that it was a year ago in the discussion stages, many county officials say.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/neighborhoods-south/local-counties-cashing-in-on-marcellus-shale-drilling-revenues-639308/#ixzz1xDrwMu3a