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Marcellus Commission Hears Presentations On Environmental Impact Of Drilling
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The full Governor's Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission met this week to hear progress reports from its individual work groups and several presentations on the environmental impact of drilling on Pennsylvania's State Forests, water resources and habitats. The Commission meeting was chaired by Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley along with Patrick Henderson, the Governor's Energy Executive, and Michael Krancer, Secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection.
Here's a quick summary of the presentations on the environmental impact of drilling.
Water Quality Impacts
Dr. Jerry Mead, from the Patrick Center for Environmental Research, Academy of Natural Sciences, gave an overview of a pilot study the Center did in 2010 to begin to document the impacts Marcellus Shale drilling was having in southwestern Susquehanna County.
Acknowledging that water and macroinvertebrate samples were small, the study suggested an association between increases in natural gas well density with decreases in water quality indicators like total dissolved solids, algae presence and numbers of macroinvertebrates. There was also a correlation between increasing well density and the loss of certain physical characteristics like forest cover and riparian canopy.
The study concluded: "Increased well density is associated with elevated levels of chemical contaminants (specific conductance and total dissolved solids) and the degradation of macroinvertebrate community structure. Moreover, the negative impacts were only evident in sites with high drilling densities; there were no statistically discernable differences between sites in catchments with low drilling densities and those with none.
"This last finding suggests that there is an operational threshold of drilling intensity below which the impacts on surface waters are sustainable. Increasing well density increases the cumulative impacts of extraction as well as increases the probability of an environmentally damaging event like a blowout or large volume leak occurring in a given watershed."
A copy of the presentation is available online.
Habitat Impacts Nels Johnson, Deputy State Director of The Nature Conservancy Pennsylvania Chapter, gave a presentation on the results of a study TNC released in November outlining some of the potential impacts Marcellus Shale and wind energy development could have on wildlife habitats in the state. The study concluded some of Pennsylvania's most valuable ecological resources lie squarely in the path of this development.
“We can no longer protect nature without thinking about energy development,” said Nels Johnson, Deputy Director for The Nature Conservancy’s Pennsylvania Chapter and lead author of the energy analysis.
About 3,500 acres of forest have been cleared and an estimated 8,500 additional acres of habitat degraded because of the energy development that has spread through Pennsylvania’s forests in recent years, according to a Conservancy analysis of aerial photographs. Without action to improve planning for energy development, many times that amount could be lost, Johnson said.
Because of the scale of Marcellus development, about 40 percent of the state’s largest and most ecologically valuable forest areas in Pennsylvania could see serious impacts from energy development.
These impacts could include degradation of Pennsylvania breeding habitat for vulnerable species such as northern goshawk, wood thrush and Northern flying squirrel, as well as development within most of the watersheds of the state’s remaining healthy brook trout streams.
“If energy companies, regulators, and the conservation community don’t take this information into account, some of the special places that we’re working so hard to protect may not long exist,” Johnson said. “Pennsylvanians have the tools to make a difference, but if we don’t act soon, there are going to be serious conflicts between energy and habitat conservation, and conservation is likely to lose.”
A copy of the presentation is available online.
State Forest Land
Dan Devlin, Director of the Bureau of Forestry in DCNR, gave a detailed presentation on how the state manages its Marcellus Shale natural gas leasing program to protect sensitive areas and avoid, minimize and mitigate negative impacts on the environment.
DCNR has leased over 138,000 acres of State Forest land for Marcellus Shale development bringing in over $413 million in upfront payments. Most of those monies were re-appropriated from DCNR's Oil and Gas Fund to help balance the state budget over the last three years.
He noted DCNR has been leasing oil and gas rights under State Forest land for 60 years, but Marcellus Shale has allowed them to bring in more money in just the first three major leases than the agency collected between 1955 and 2008.
DCNR just completed a comprehensive 156-page set of Oil and Gas Guidelines which will guide the agency in managing gas drilling activities in State Forests. Those guidelines were posted just this week on the agency's website. Devlin described the efforts taken by DCNR before, during and after drilling to avoid or minimize the impacts of drilling, including doing an environmental assessment of drilling pad locations, access roads and related infrastructure and requiring buffers from streams, sensitive habitats or recreation facilities. More details are available online.
DCNR has put together a special webpage to answer questions about how the agency manages oil and gas operations.
Copies of all presentations and handouts from this and other Commission meetings are available on the Commission meetings webpage. In the afternoon, the Commission opened the floor for comments for about 2 hours as more than 60 individuals offered comments to the Commission members.
The next full meeting of the Commission will be May 20. Additional Work Group conference calls will be scheduled in the coming week.
For more information, visit the Marcellus Shale Commission webpage.
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5/2/2011 |
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