PA Environment Digest

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Feature: 60 Years Of Fracking, 20 Years Of Shale Gas: Pennsylvania’s Oil & Gas Infrastructure Is Hiding In Plain Sight

The first commercial oil well was drilled in Pennsylvania in 1859. The first oil or gas well hydraulically fracked was a conventional well in 1963 in Warren County.

2023 is the 20th anniversary of the drilling of the first shale gas well in Pennsylvania that was also the first shale gas well fracked in 2004.

It seems like a good time to review how the vast network of industrial oil and gas facilities has spread out over Pennsylvania’s landscape.

Like the parable of the blind men and the elephant, we each only see one part of the creature and cannot imagine, based on our limited perspective, what it is that we are seeing and what the collective impact of those facilities are on our lives, health and the environment.

If you use natural gas in your home or business, you are connected directly to this sprawling infrastructure and are personally responsible for supporting it.

Not Pretty Or Idyllic

Do you believe drilling oil and natural gas wells is a clean business? Obviously not. It’s a dirty, loud and sometimes dangerous industrial process for its workers and neighbors.

While the work is honorable, the people who run the conventional and unconventional oil and natural gas companies have created an industrial machine that cuts through farms and forests-- even Pennsylvania’s only national forest-- punching holes in the ground, generating and spreading pollution, creating waste dumps and new brownfields, producing wastewater that has to be managed for decades to come and imposing legal liabilities for plugging those wells on well owners and state taxpayers with every new well they drill.

DEP reports there have now been 202,188 conventional oil and gas wells drilled and 23,130 unconventional shale gas wells permitted in Pennsylvania.

There are also about 250,000 abandoned conventional wells, although no one is really sure how many.

But oil and gas wells are just the beginning--

-- Distribution Pipelines-- 81,000 miles gas distribution pipelines (100,000 miles of most unmapped gathering pipelines) and growing

-- Compressor Stations: over 600 and counting

-- Natural Gas Processing Plants - 10 industrial natural gas processing plants and expanding

-- Underground Gas Storage Facilities - 51 active facilities based on conventional oil and gas well fields.

Click Here to find oil and natural gas facilities near you.

Description Of Gas Industry Infrastructure

The Environmental Health Project put together a description with photos of each stage of developing natural gas industrial infrastructure from the well pad to your local natural gas utility that delivers gas to your home or business.

The factsheet also provides a description of the environmental, health and community impact of each step.

The steps include--

-- Initial Exploration - Seismic Testing

-- Leasing & Permitting

-- Well Pad Development - Drilling, Casing

-- Preparation for Hydraulic Fracturing -Trucking Water, Frac Fluids, Sand

-- Production - Flaring, Condensate Tanks, Glycol Dehydrators, Wellheads

-- Pipelines & Processing - Compressor Stations, Metering Stations, Pig Launchers, Processing and cryogenic plants

-- Storage Facilities

-- Waste Disposal - Injection wells, solid waste landfills, wastewater treatment forever

[Note: One update to the fact sheet-- spreading wastewater on roads from unconventional shale gas wells was outlawed by DEP in 2016 regulations.

[Spreading wastewater on roads from conventional oil and gas wells is illegal because it does not meet the requirements of DEP’s Residual Waste Regulations, but it’s still going on. Read more here.]

Click Here to read through the EHP industry description.

Well pads and access roads are miles from water withdrawals requiring trucks and pipelines to connect the two.

Drilling and fracking is a very loud business that happens at all hours of the day and night. Imagine living next to a jet engine at times.

If you happen to be the minimum setback of 500 feet away from a well pad-- maybe five houses or so-- many people just temporarily leave their homes to avoid the noise and the dirt and try to take care of their farm animals the best they can.

Gathering pipelines for natural gas are connected to compressor stations that burn fuel that causes air pollution to push natural gas dozens of more miles further across the landscape.

Pipeline routes that cross streams and wetlands have to be cleared of trees, dug up and restored as best they can.

Dewatering and natural gas processing facilities that connect to pipelines with more compressor stations are dozens of miles and more from where the gas comes out of the ground.

Storage tanks and impoundments with freshwater and production wastewater at well sites and gathering points are dozens or hundreds of miles from wastewater treatment facilities or injection wells where the waste is disposed of.

Networks of huge natural gas storage facilities that are hidden underground use decades old conventional oil or gas wells to operate.

A vast network of hundreds of miles of pipeline with more compressor stations deliver natural gas to utilities that in turn deliver it to homes, businesses and factories.

Click Here for more on this industrial process moving across Pennsylvania’s landscape.

20 Year Review

In December, DEP completed its first-ever review of how well the conventional oil and gas industry complies with environmental laws and regulations and concluded “(the) conventional oil and gas industry’s recent record of compliance with Pennsylvania law is simply not good, particularly with regard to improper abandonment of wells.”

“A significant change in the culture of non-compliance as an acceptable norm in the conventional oil and gas industry will need to occur before meaningful improvement can happen.” Read more here.

The report makes recommendations on how to improve enforcement of state laws, in particular to deal with the most frequent environmental violation-- routinely abandoning wells without plugging them. Read more here on abandonments.

DEP is in the middle of updating its environmental regulations covering the conventional oil and gas industry, something the industry has bitterly opposed, and we hope the new Shapiro-Davis Administration will follow through on.

2022 turned out to be a record year for the unconventional shale gas industry in Pennsylvania-- and not just the record jump in natural gas prices for consumers--

-- The most criminal convictions for environmental violations;

-- A record number of environmental violations issued by DEP;

-- Creating hundreds of new brownfields and waste dumps on well pads wherever they drill and work; and

-- More evidence of the negative public health and environmental impacts of oil and gas facilities. Read more here.

The estimated 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas that leaked from a Cambria County gas storage area in November [Read more here]; the ongoing pollution episodes caused by pipeline and water withdrawal construction in the Exceptional Value Loyalsock Creek Watershed in Lycoming County [Read more here]; the recent explosion and 9.5 hour uncontrolled leak of ethane from a Washington County cryogenic processing facility [Read more here]; dozens of families being without clean drinking water since June as a result of a “frack-out” of a shale gas well in Greene County [Read more here]; the continued illegal dumping of conventional wastewater on roads [Read more here]; both unconventional and conventional operators creating hundreds of new brownfield sites with soil and water contamination from their industrial operations [Read more here]; unresolved impacts from Mariner East Pipeline on the homes of people like Navy Veterans Patrick and Helen Robinson in Indiana County [Read more here]; the investigation into rare childhood cancers in Southwest PA [Read more here]; allowing the resumption of shale gas development near Dimock, Susquehanna County an area notoriously difficult to frack without contaminating groundwater [Read more here]; and DEP’s shrinking financial resources to fund the Oil and Gas Regulatory Program [Read more here] are just the tip of the iceberg. [Check out more Related Articles below.]

After 20 years of experience and a new Governor coming into office, now would be a logical time for a comprehensive review of the unconventional shale gas industry and its impact on Pennsylvania’s environment and our people.

A growing body of information on environmental and health impacts of the sprawling shale gas and conventional industry has been accumulating over the last 20 years and cannot be ignored by continuing the “happy talk” from the industry and their supporters.

Pennsylvania needs a reality check.

We need to take advantage of Gov. Shapiro’s record of both holding the industry accountable as Attorney General and working with stakeholders to address the real and difficult issues we face.

We hope that’s exactly what the new Shapiro-Davis Administration has in mind.

(Photos from Environmental Health Project: Top: Seismic testing; developing well pads; trucking in water supplies; building water impoundments; 2nd Row: Fracking wells; wastewater impoundments; routine flaring of gas; developing pipelines; 3rd Row: Gas metering stations; pipeline compressor stations; natural gas processing plants; pipeline pig launching facilities; 4th Row: Cryogenic gas processing plants to separate out natural gas liquids; liquid waste disposal at injection wells; solid waste disposal at landfills; underground gas storage areas.)

Resource Links:

-- What Can We Expect From Gov. Shapiro, Lt. Gov. Davis On Environmental, Energy Issues? [PaEN]

-- Sen. Yaw Looks For Common Ground With New Governor On Energy, Environmental Issues [PaEN]

NewsClips:

-- Capital & Main - Audrey Carleton: In PA, Hopes Rise But Questions Remain About New Governor’s Environmental Agenda

-- The Daily Item Guest Essay: The Challenge For New Governor On Energy, Environment - Karen Feridun, Better Path Coalition

-- Scranton Times Editorial: Shapiro Should Commit To RGGI Carbon Pollution Reduction Plan

PA DEP Public Notice Dashboards:

-- Pennsylvania Oil & Gas Weekly Compliance Dashboard - Jan. 14 to 20 [PaEN]

-- PA Oil & Gas Industrial Facilities: Permit Notices/Opportunities To Comment - Jan. 21 [PaEN]

-- Susquehanna River Basin Commission Sets Feb. 2 Hearing On A 4.5 MGD Out-Of-Basin Diversion For Ironwood Natural Gas Power Plant In Lebanon County, 6 Other Natural Gas Drilling Water Uses [PaEN]

-- DEP Posted 34 Pages Of Permit-Related Notices In Jan. 21 PA Bulletin [PaEN]