13,000 Gallon Frack Fluid Spill in Penn Township, Lycoming

David

David

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http://www.northcentralpa.com/feeditem/2010-11-22_dep-investigating-13000-gallon-frack-water-spill-lycoming-county

The accidents keep lining up it seems... I can only wait until the new governor gets in and opens the whole thing up again.

Dave's wife
 
How any conservation minded sportsman could have voted for him is beyond me.
 
I completely agree!
 
I've said it before, I'll say it again, this is only the beginning. our new governor is up the gas companies *** already. the next 20 years are gonna be ugly unless our ELECTED OFFICIALS grow some balls and stand up to these companies. I've repeatly asked my reps their opinions on the subject, only get a rehearsed response.
it's all about the money. if I had the money, I'd pay people NOT to drill, just to **** the gas companies off!
 
A DEP inspector discovered the spill while inspecting the well pad. The inspector found that the bottom valve on a 21,000-gallon fracking fluid tank was open and discharging fluid off the well pad. No one else was present at the pad, which has one producing Marcellus well.

Note that the VERY short staffed DEP inspector found this incident and it would have continued for how long had he not came by? I don't understand why the fracking fluid was in a tank? I thought that recovered fluid was held in ponds (that of course will eventually overflow or otherwise spill when, say a hurricane, tornado, flood, etc comes through)? If it is a producing well the drilling was over. Why was the fluid there in a tank?
 
The ponds are for flowback, which is re-used. Before fracking, they use tanks.

One pad may have up to 12 wells drilled from it, they go down and then out horizontally in a star like pattern. On any given site, they drill one, recover the flowback, then start the next one reusing whatever frack fluid is left. So this particular site had one working well and they were in the process of drilling/fracking the 2nd.

I'm not anti-drilling, but this is the kind of stuff that has to be watched real closely. Throw the book at em for stuff like this, and then watch as all of the other companies get a lot more careful about following SOP's.
 
"Here it comes, Here is comes, Here comes your 19th fracking accident."
 
I just have to laugh, I saw a news article about fracking in WV, their dep is inacting tougher regs and the gas companies are saying those regs will "cripple" or even collapse the industry!! yeah right. so what they are saying is, if we take the time to do things right and act with common sense and work carefully, we might as well not even do it. and this is in wv, where taking the entire top off a mountain is considered ok!!
I'm really starting to dislike these gas companies. ruthless is one word that comes to mind.
I'll try to find the link to the article.
 
JackM=The M=Mick? The automation you posted of the Marcellus site is almost identical to the one on RT30 near Roxbury in Somerset county , i had to laugh at how much it looks like what you posted. Those square/rectangle metal boxes (they lind of look like dumpster containers) are where they store alot of the fracking fluids , on this site where we watch and talk to the crews almost daily the number of boxes is different so they are constantly moving them around from site to site and some of the concoctions get prepared at Haliburtons shop in Indiana PA , this info came from having breakfast with the crews and BS'ing with them. Everybody will take the time to talk with the one legged guy.
 
Simple solution-- tax them and dedicate as much of the money as needed to regulating and monitoring the operations. Work with the industry to develop these regs, but keep in mind, the interest of the general public is not likely to be the same interest of the industry when it comes to use of our natural resources. I just read recently that the water draws required are sometimes being satisfied from new wells sunk into the aquifer at or near the drill site.
 
I agree with Jack here, with one small change.

While I'm ok with a straight tax (provided the money goes to enforcement of regs on the industry), I'd opt for a lower tax with the remainder of the money to be collected in fines. You've gotta make it cheaper for them to follow proper procedures. Do it right, and you can make a nice profit. Screw up on easily preventable crap like this, and it's gonna get a whole lot more expensive in a hurry...

The key to making any industry responsible is making it profitable to be responsible.
 
Here is three of us in a row that promote the idea of a stiff fine for the infraction in Lycoming couty , an accident like that is just stupid and should be treated as such. Here is THE opportunity for the enforcement folks to show how WE THE PEOPLE feel about stupid mistakes that endanger OUR wildlife. I don't want to say , make an example out of them 'cause that implies in a way that yeah they will fine that company while 10 other ones get away with it NO!!!! if someone does it tomorrow the same set of rules apply , zero tolerance on infractions , I also support the idea of a tax on the companies to be used for beefing up the inspection , TU article in TROUT magazine says we are severely undermanned on the inspection end. Interesting to see how this shakes out.
 
pcray1231 wrote:
The key to making any industry responsible is making it profitable to be responsible.

Well, I look at that differently-- the key to being fair in allowing people to exploit natural resources for profit is to make the true cost of the operations be reflected in the cost the person exploiting the resource has to pay to do so, rather than letting most of that cost fall upon the general public or government.

If you want to leave some room for innovation by the company, by all means, then their profit motive will lead to innovation. But if you leave room for avoidance of responsibility, then the profit motive will lead to avoidance of responsibility.
 
JackM wrote:
pcray1231 wrote:
The key to making any industry responsible is making it profitable to be responsible.

Well, I look at that differently-- the key to being fair in allowing people to exploit natural resources for profit is to make the true cost of the operations be reflected in the cost the person exploiting the resource has to pay to do so, rather than letting most of that cost fall upon the general public or government.

If you want to leave some room for innovation by the company, by all means, then their profit motive will lead to innovation. But if you leave room for avoidance of responsibility, then the profit motive will lead to avoidance of responsibility.


I agree with Jack. In PA you don't have to look far to see all the mining operations that mined out all the coal, took all their profits, and moved on leaving us, still to this day with an environmental mess to clean up.
 

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Yikes , those are some ugly photos and bring back ugly memories , the wind farm on rt30 east just past Reels Corner used to be a Berwin White strip mine now it's a small forest again with windmills on it and a 4 wheeler/RV campground , a great before and after site but it took 50 years to come back , i don't want my kids to lose 50 years ya know what i mean?
 
Everyone is jumping all over the drilling company, but a vandal could of opened the valve. I'm not letting the company off the hook, they should have their sites secured. If someone wanted to make the drilling companies look bad then it wouldn't take much to open the valve and create a "disaster".
 
But if you leave room for avoidance of responsibility, then the profit motive will lead to avoidance of responsibility.

I agree with your "true cost" analysis. However, you are missing a huge point here. The government IS a company, and works the same way. You have to set up incentives for both company and government to achieve the end result we want, which is environmentally responsible extraction of natural resources.

Straight tax - ok, the gas companies pay more money. However, we don't solve any problems related to drilling. The companies have to pay it whether they behave or not, so they annie up, and continue on with the cheapest procedures from that point on. If anything, they cheapen up their procedures since their bottom line is now tighter. The government gets the money whether it enforces those regs or not, thus, it has no incentive to enforce those regs, and is free to use that money elsewhere if it finds other things politically more important (and it will). Lots of $ for state coffers, but not much of it will end up being used to prevent or repair environmental damage from drilling activities. In the end, its just a tax grab thats not designed to solve the very problem that justifies its existence.

Fines - The companies see a very real monetary incentive to follow the rules. If they follow the rules and act responsibly, they pay less money. But they pay enormous fines for screw ups that could lead to damage, and if it actually does lead to damage, they pay full cleanup in addition to those fines. Like you said, make them pay for the "real" cost of their activities, but not the cost of other gas companies, and suddenly the "cheap" option is the responsible one. On the other side of the coin, the government has a very real incentive to enforce the regulations. If they don't find anything wrong, they don't get any money. I want them scrutinizing these companies and looking for mistakes.
 
Both.........Tax , to be used first and foremost to beef up the inspection TU says it would take the current workforce of inspectors 9 wells a day 7 days a week 365 days a year to keep up with the amount of leases already given. Thankfully there is a moratorium on leases according to bikerfishs' post. And heavy fines for accidents like the one in Lycoming county and remember it was a DEP inspector who found the leak there. A good six figure fine could put another couple inspectors on the payroll.
 
6 figures likely not enough. The question isn't how to put a couple of more inspectors on the payroll. The goal is to make sure the only way for a company to turn a profit is to adjust its operating procedures so that these things are exceedingly rare. You want the company to feel strongly enough about it so that they employ their own inspectors, audit their own procedures, etc.
 
pcray writes:
The government gets the money whether it enforces those regs or not, thus, it has no incentive to enforce those regs, and is free to use that money elsewhere if it finds other things politically more important (and it will). Lots of $ for state coffers, but not much of it will end up being used to prevent or repair environmental damage from drilling activities. In the end, its just a tax grab thats not designed to solve the very problem that justifies its existence.

I hate to say it, but you are letting your bias against government and in favor of free enterprise color and distort your thinking here. The tax can be structured to require it to go ONLY into the fund that supports vigilant oversight and remediation. Getting funds through fines alone does not provide the government the means to investigate and monitor. Thus, no company gets caught damaging the environment until it is too late, in which case, they have siphoned all the profits, folded up shop and will leave the public holding the bag like they did with coal mining and other industrial pollution that we have trying to clean up with tax dollars for half a century or more.

The tax should be based upon the reasonable liklihoods, which I would bet can be estimated by economists and scientists in the field to a reasonable degree of engineering and statistical certainty. I say make the estimate and impose the tax, then provide tax rebates to companies that take and discharge responsibility as they should.

I am done trusting these knights in shining armor that we call growth industries. We have every reason to believe they will use every leverage they have to avoid responsibility and in light of that, I say verify before trust, and not the other way around.
 
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