Are you interested in knowing why we at CHEC started this hairbrained project with the Foundation for PA Watersheds and Rhiza Labs to develop FracTracker? Check out the presentation below to learn more:
If you’re having trouble viewing the presentation, click play at the bottom of the screen twice. Prezi will move you from one “slide” to the next. And if you’re still having trouble, visit Prezi to learn more.
We have posted a new FracTracker Forum to help encourage participation from the community of our readers here at fractracker.org. While it is possible to leave comments on this site and at the DataTool, we haven’t been getting very many. We want to hear your feedback, but more than that, we want to hear your stories, questions, and concerns related to the natural gas industry. The FracTracker Forum is an informal setting where you can tell us what is on your mind.
You can answer polls, make one of your own, or post links to websites that you want to share. There are other features, too, so go check it out and let us know what you think.
On behalf of the Center for Healthy Environments and Communities (CHEC) of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and the Foundation for Pennsylvania Watersheds, you are invited to participate in a FracTracker training on Monday, October 25, 2010 in Morgantown, WV.
During this training, CHEC will introduce participants to FracTracker, a combination of an interactive blog (https://www.fractracker.org) and the DataTool [link removed] , that is serving as a vital data-sharing tool in the Marcellus Shale play and beyond. Click here to learn more about CHEC and this project.
Meeting Details:
Important — In order to fully interact with FracTracker’s DataTool during the training, you must be registered with the DataTool. It is free to register, but please do this online as soon as possible. If you run into problems registering for the tool please contact: malone@fractracker.org.
In addition to registering for the DataTool online, please also register to attend the training by emailing me at malone@fractracker.org as soon as possible. We have limited space in the present venue, so don’t delay! In that email, please let me know whether CHEC can distribute your contact information to all attendees of the training for networking purposes. Once we receive your RSVP we will send you a confirmation email with more details about the training.
To give you some background on our previous trainings and the use of FracTracker, to-date we have held four trainings across PA and NY:
The previous meetings we held were all-day affairs with two purposes. The first was to get groups together so that we could talk and network. Because drilling is occurring across a large geographic area, it is important to bring together stakeholders to improve communication and decision-making. The second purpose was to introduce the availability of FracTracker and provide a training on it. For the WV meeting, we decided that three hours is plenty of time in order to train attendees to load datasets, visualize geo-located data, and share snapshots. If a significant number of people (e.g. more than 50 people) express an interest in participating in this training, we will likely host another training in WV some time down the road.
FracTracker was launched on June 29, 2010. In less than 3 months, we have had almost 33,638 visits to the DataTool from 69 countries (even though we’ve only had trainings in 2 states so far.) Most of those users come from the U.S. (32,418), but there have been visitors from other countries including (in decreasing order): Canada, India, and the United Kingdom. Of the visitors from the U.S., most come from PA (20,064) where the most training has occurred, but we have had significant interest from people in NY, and somewhat less from (in decreasing order) Texas, California, Ohio, New Jersey, DC, and Louisiana.
As of today, we have 919 registered user on the DataTool. FracTracker just eclipsed the 100 mark for the number of datasets available for download!
Academic and Research Institutions
Industry
Environmental Organizations
Private Citizens
Public Safety
Regulatory
Local Government
Media & Media Relations
Yesterday, October 11th, Charles Christen, DrPH, MEd gave his testimony about some public health concerns associated with Marcellus Shale drilling to an audience of engaged community members. Click here to read his testimony (PDF).
At the same time, it makes one wonder what violations occur that the DEP is not aware of.
The 9,370 violations came from a total of 3,661 wells. Of that total, 2,075 violations are flagged as Marcellus Shale, from 592 distinct wells. And of the Marcellus wells total, there were 1,497 violations from 399 wells that were flagged as horizontal wells. All horizontal wells in this dataset are also Marcellus Shale wells.
That means that for non-Marcellus Shale wells, there were 7,295 violations from 3,069 wells, for a frequency of just 2.38 violations per well. The highest frequency of violations per well was 37, for API# 131-20020, a horizontally drilled Marcellus Shale well in the town of Washington in Wyoming County, PA.
In terms of average violations per well, the reported data indicates 2.38 violations per non-Marcellus well, and 3.51 violations per Marcellus well, for an overall average of 2.56 violations per well.
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This graph shows the mean number of violations per well type in
Pennsylvania. This is based on a list of 9,370 violations provided by the PA DEP from 1-1-2007 through 9-30-2010. Please note that this reflects only wells where violations occurred,not every well of this type within Pennsylvania. |
Please keep in mind that all of these values only represent wells that have violations, and therefore it should not be construed that the average Marcellus well will have three and a half DEP violations. This certainly does, however, raise the question of why an offending horizontal Marcellus Shale well would have an average of 1.37 more violations per well than its non-Marcellus counterpart, but it does not provide the answer. Perhaps it reflects that more can go wrong on horizontal Marcellus Shale wells, or that they are more tightly regulated. Perhaps a handful of individual sites like the one in Washington have so many violations that they skew the data in some way. There could be numerous scenarios to explain the discrepancy.
To date, the primary means of linking oil and gas data to a geographic location has been using the dataset compiled by PASDA, which includes the information of over 123,000 oil and gas locations within the state. Unfortunately, the PASDA data was insufficient for the violation data, as there were thousands of records that did not match. I have reduced that number significantly to by adding the list of known permits since 2007 (which also includes geographic information) to the PASDA list. This process created duplicate entries, which was worked around by obtaining the average longitude and average latitude of each API number.
This process does not eliminate any errors inherent in the data. In one example that I looked at, there were three listings for one unique well number, one of which was off by 0.3 degrees of latitude, or about 20 miles. In this scenario, it would be tempting to correct the one to conform to the other two, but in reality, it isn’t clear which one is correct. And for that reason, auditing the dataset—which is now over 128,000—for errors is not especially productive. For the moment, it is sufficient to say that there are some errors present in the location data, which are hopefully minimal in scope.
FracTracker’s blog and DataTool are at their strongest when people contribute to them and comment on the content. In line with that mission, Leslie Avakian of ProtectMyRightsPA has provided the following frequently asked questions on the issue of forced pooling. (Please keep in mind that these are the opinions of ProtectMyRights, not CHEC.) If there are topics or events you would like to see posted on this blog or if you want to share a great snapshot you created on the DataTool, just send us an email with the details.
ProtectMyRightsPA – September 27, 2010
Forced pooling would allow natural gas companies to take gas from underneath landowners who have not agreed to it. It would apply in situations where enough of the land around a property is leased. The definition of “enough” is being negotiated. For landowners who choose not to sign a lease, rights to control their property would, in effect, be turned over to their leased neighbors, the State and the gas company. Forced pooling violates the PA Constitution which protects PA citizens’ private property rights. It would be a state law taking control of private property and offering it for sale to a selected industry. Is this not Socialism? These important concerns, coupled with the possibility of legislation being developed without reasonable opportunity for proper public input, gives citizens good reason to be upset.
No. These shale gas plays aren’t free-flowing “pools.” The gas is in the pores of the shale, that’s why it needs to be fractured. Forced pooling in PA’s unconventional shales is a way for gas companies to acquire acreage without landowner consent and without having to make upfront lease payments in areas where they intend to drill, and to expand the acreage they can drill under. It is a way to get around negotiating price with landowners, a way to acquire gas rights at below-market rates, and a way to force people into leases or lease terms they don’t want.
Certainly. The right answer to the risk of having gas taken from property owners without consent or compensation is not to strip property owner rights and force them to accept drilling under their property and the extraction of all their gas. The right answer is to enact legislation to protect the private property rights expressly granted by the PA Constitution.
There are many possible ideas. For example, legislators could develop protections such as fracturing setback requirements, monitoring and stiff penalties to assist landowners beyond the existing legal remedies for subsurface trespass, property damage and theft of gas through fracturing across mineral rights boundaries. If needed, legislators could protect the mineral rights of neighboring landowners through pro-rata compensation formulas based on the permeability of the shale and the location of the nearest operating gas wells. These formulas could be used to pay landowners who have chosen not to lease, but are having some of their gas drawn out unavoidably by a well in the area. Legislators should open these issues to public dialog for ideas on how to best address these concerns, not simply implement forced pooling.
Forced pooling is not the same as gas well spacing requirements. Gas well spacing requirements can exist completely independent of forced pooling, and vice-versa. Forced pooling does not protect the environment. And the only spacing requirements publicly suggested so far have been arbitrary distances. They do not help determine appropriate places for gas drilling. They simply spread gas wells evenly throughout all land areas in the state – through neighborhoods, cities, next to schools and shopping centers – as long as they are spaced a minimum distance apart.
Not really. The Conservation Law includes forced pooling below the geologic strata called the Onondaga Horizon — this is beneath the Marcellus, Utica and Newark Basin shales. Forced pooling as per the Conservation Law has never been applied and has never been challenged in court, and it expressly excludes all strata above the Onondaga. It also differs in many ways from the forced pooling currently proposed. Furthermore, a key purpose of the Conservation Law is to protect correlative rights when gas or oil is extracted from a common pool. The notion of a common pool does not similarly apply to the Marcellus. Correlative rights can be protected in other ways without violating private property rights.
The PA Constitution contains no provision that allows for a forced pooling law. Further, Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution states that PA citizens have certain indefeasible rights, including the rights to acquire, possess, and protect property. Forced pooling would be an illegal legislative taking of private property.
No. Gas drilling is not a “use by right” or exempt from local zoning in PA. This was affirmed in Feb. 2009 by the PA Supreme Court in two landmark decisions (Huntley vs. Oakmont and Range Resources vs. Salem). These rulings clearly articulate that the traditional land use and community planning functions of zoning ordinances are not pre-empted by the Oil and Gas Act and are governed by the PA Municipal Planning Code. Only gas drilling processes and practices are governed by the Oil and Gas Act.
But Beware – industry material widely circulated in Harrisburg and elsewhere has repeatedly and incorrectly stated that drilling is already a use by right and pre-empts all local zoning. This is false – the Gas Act does not supersede local zoning for municipal planning purposes, only for drilling processes and techniques. One industry strategy has been to seek a language adjustment to “clarify” legislative intent – but this is really an attempt to fundamentally change the legislative intent – and should not be implemented.
Taxpayers in local communities have invested significant time and money developing community plans and zoning ordinances to provide for the orderly growth and development of their communities. Use by right for gas drilling would override local government and make gas drilling a “principal permitted use” in every zoning district in the State of PA. Gas wells are noisy, brightly lit, operate 24/7/365, and require thousands of truck trips for each multi-well pad. It is not an insignificant land use. Municipal planning was developed to manage land use, is not superseded by the Gas Act and should not be compromised.
If use by right (zoning exemption) legislation is passed, or the Gas Act language modified to effectively strip communities of their local powers, it will spur litigation by citizens, this time in the Federal court system on the grounds that it is an abuse of the State’s “police powers” in that it fails to promote/protect the health, safety and welfare of PA citizens and directly interferes with and substantially disturbs PA citizens’ use and enjoyment of their property.
By Matt Kelso – Data Manager, Center for Healthy Environments & Communities (CHEC), University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health
A new dataset of drilled oil and gas locations in Utah has been added to FracTracker’s DataTool (click on the snapshot of that dataset to the left to see more detail). This dataset was pursued in order to obtain more data from other shale gas fields throughout the United States. However, despite the fact that there are shale gas fields in the state, a correspondence with Utah’s Oil and Gas Permitting Manager/Petroleum Geologist Brad Hill has led to the revelation that there are currently no shale gas wells in the state. On the other hand, he indicated that most vertical and horizontal wells in Utah undergo some amount of hydrofracturing process, making the data relevant to our pursuits here at FracTracker.
From the perspective of trying to obtain meaningful data about oil and gas operations, the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining is wonderful resource. Just to give an indication of the breadth of the scope of what they have to offer, go to the Oil and Gas Well Log Search, set the three boxes to “API Well Number”, “LIKE”, and “43” (which is Utah’s state code), and you get a list of wells in the state, complete with associated well logs that can be viewed and downloaded. In Pennsylvania, you would have to file a Right to Know claim to get access to some of these documents. The small sample of scanned source documents that I have looked at in Utah has included typewritten notices from the 1960’s. One of the files had over 30 pages of documents.
In addition to having an abundance of information on their site, the workers that I have dealt with at the Division of Oil, Mining, and Gas have been extremely useful in obtaining additional information. My initial query to Don Staley of that department was replied to within 20 minutes, and he contacted the Petroleum Geologist of his own volition to make sure that the information that was given to me was clear. They have set the standard for public service by a governmental regulatory agency, as far as I am concerned. Texas was also helpful, but only some of their information is available free of charge.
Most people are familiar to some extent with the basic longitude and latitude system. The grid that the two values combine to make, known as a graticule, allows for the identification of unique locations on the planet. It is not, however, the only means of identifying unique locations.
A system used by Utah and by many of the other western states is known as the Public Land Survey System, or PLSS. This system was conceptualized by Thomas Jefferson and dates to the Land Ordinace Act of 1785. In essence, it creates a series of six-mile wide horizontal bands known as Townships, and six-mile vertical bands called Ranges. These intersect to create a six-by-six mile box (see image right), with a name of something like “Township 5 North”, “Range 8 West.” This is further divided into 36 sections, each one-mile square. This can be further subdivided into quarters, and then quarters of that, so that a location could be recorded as the northeast quarter of the southeast quarter of Township 5 North, Range 8 West, Section 5 (or NE1/4 of SE1/4 of T5N, R8W, Sec. 5 for short).
This discussion is relevant here because in parts of the Utah Oil and Gas website, location information comes up in this format. To obtain the locations for the drilled wells in the state, it required a convoluted process of finding a map of the 1-by-1 mile section boxes, then finding the midpoint of those boxes with GIS tools, and finally correlating those points to the original dataset. Since the midpoint of a 1-by-1 mile box is about 0.70 miles to each corner, that is the margin of error for the location of these datapoints. For most uses, that shouldn’t matter.
After completing these conversions, I have found elsewhere on the site latitude and longitude data, as well as Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) values, which is yet another means of finding unique places on Earth. I have not yet determined whether that has all of the information from the dataset that has been posted, but if so, then more accurate location information will follow shortly.
By Samantha Malone, MPH, CPH – Communications Specialist and DrPH student, Center for Healthy Environments & Communities (CHEC), University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health
Last week the PA House of Representatives voted in support of a severance tax of 39 cents for every thousand cubic feet of natural gas extracted. This proposed bill now awaits its fate in the Senate. Governor Edward Rendell recently sent a letter to Senate leaders urging them to move forward on the bill.
“A week ago the Pennsylvania House of Representatives voted to impose a severance tax on natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. Since that time, in spite of the expressed commitment made by the you in the fiscal code, your comments, and those made by your staff, do not offer a shred of evidence that you have any intention of living up to this commitment you made to put the severance tax to a vote in the Senate before you adjourn the session.” Read more.
Industry representatives have stated that the proposed tax is too high and would hinder the extraction process in the Commonwealth. Supporters of this tax, however, feel it is necessary to counter the costs to local infrastructure and protect the environment and public health.
The University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health cordially invites you to the following exclusive conference:
HEALTH EFFECTS OF SHALE GAS EXTRACTION: WHAT IS KNOWN AND WHAT CAN WE PREDICT?
This free conference will explore the science and methodological approaches behind understanding environmental health impacts associated with increasing development of natural gas extraction from shale deposits found under wide geographical areas of the United States.
University Club, Pittsburgh, PA 15260
November 19, 2010
8 AM – 6 PM
Download event flyer (PDF).
This conference is limited to 240 participants. Registration is required.
Click here [link removed] to learn more and register.
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| Clearfield Blowout, June 2010 Photo credit: PA DEP |
By Samantha Malone, MPH, CPH – CHEC Communications Specialist and DrPH Student, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health
It came at a conspicuous time; on June 3, 2010 a Marcellus gas well blew out in Clearfield County, PA – less than two months after the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf (and before that spill was capped).
Luckily, the Clearfield blowout did not kill or injure workers or spill five million gallons into the ocean, but it does raise significant public health preparedness and environmental health questions.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PA DEP) released a report stating that untrained EOG Resources personnel and improper control of the well were the cause of the blowout that released wastewater and methane gas into the atmosphere for 16 hours. EOG also failed to notify the DEP about the incident until several hours after it began.
The Clearfield well site in question is located in the center of PA off of I-80 (see map below).
[image removed]
Figure 1. The red square indicates multiple violations that occurred in one geographic location, the Clearfield blowout. Click on “i” to learn more about each square (record). (The map used to be private and visible on the DataTool only to members of CHEC, but it can now be seen by anyone.)
Many concerns and questions are associated with a blowout of this type:
On the part of emergency responders, some progress is being made. CHEC continues to receive reports that more and more local first responders, including volunteer firefighters, are being trained in PA and WV to deal with potential accidents and blowouts on well sites. Additionally, the PA DEP has hired a team of responders throughout the state who are no more than five hours away from any drill pad.
Read the DEP’s full report on the Clearfield gas well blowout. [link removed]
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