Articles

The majority of FracTracker’s posts are generally considered articles. These may include analysis around data, embedded maps, summaries of partner collaborations, highlights of a publication or project, guest posts, etc.

Land-Use Change, the Utica Shale, and the Loss of Ecosystem Services

May 16, 2013/by Ted Auch, PhD

By Ted Auch, PhD – Ohio Program Coordinator, FracTracker Alliance

In Ohio, Utica Well pads range in size from 5-15 acres. (Estimates for pipeline and retention ponds are unavailable.) That figure gives us the chance to estimate how hydraulic fracturing influenced changes to land-use, ecosystem services, plant productivity, and soil carbon loss.

Working with Caleb Gallemore and his Ohio State University GIS class, we created a data set that estimated the percent cover for each well pad prior to drilling using the USGS and Department of Interior’s 2006 National Land Cover Database (NLCD, 2006) [1].

Figure 1. Ohio’s original vegetation cover and Utica Well permits as of April 30th, 2013

Figure 1. Ohio’s original vegetation cover and Utica Well permits as of April 30, 2013

Accordingly, the state was and is dominated by:

mixed oak (from 12,038 mi² pre-settlement to 7,911 mi² today) to the east and
maple-beech-birch (from 13,917 mi² pre-settlement to 2,521 mi² today) to the west stretching into the southeast and northwest corner of Ohio.

During pre-settlement times additional dominant forest types included:

5,181 mi² of mixed mesophytic and hemlock-beech-chestnut-red oak forests, and
3,401 square miles of oak-sugar maple (Figure 1).

Since industrialization:

The faster growing elm-ash-cottonwood has arisen as a sub-dominant forest type currently comprising 1,237 mi².
Additional sub-dominant forest types comprising 100-140 mi² of Ohio’s land area include aspen-birch (134 mi²), white-red-jack pine (124 mi²), and loblolly-shortleaf pine (108 mi²).

Our results suggest the average amount of deciduous forest [2] disturbed – as a percent of total well pad area – by well pad establishment is 9.8 ± 5.5% per well pad with a range of 4.7% in Stark and Holmes Counties and a high of 24% in Monroe County (Figure 2). With respect to pasture and crop displacement the average is 11.7 and 10.7% per well pad, respectively, with significantly higher between-county variability for crop cover (±5.5% Vs ±3.6%).

Figure 2. Percent Cover across Ohio’s 269 Utica Well Pads assuming an average area of 7.75 acres and the National Land Cover Database 2006 (NLCD 2006) as a proxy for previous land-use. – Click to enlarge

Converting this data into ecosystem services requires certain assumptions about plant growth, soil organic matter content, and soil compaction utilizing Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) soil data to model the latter two and established peer-reviewed estimates for plant pattern and process (Follett, Kimble, & Lal, 2000; Lobell et al., 2002; Valentine et al., 2012). The basics of this analysis – assuming subsurface soils are 25% more compact and contain 45% less organic matter than the surface 12-13 inches (Needelman et al., 1999) – demonstrated that well pad establishment has displaced approximately 28,205 tons of surface and 78,348 tons of subsurface soil carbon [3] for a total of 106,554 tons of carbon equivalent to 389,986 tons of CO₂.

Additionally, the displacement and/or removal of vegetation – assuming the average Ohio forest is 40-80 years old [4] – has resulted in the annual loss of 1,050, 6,516, and 9,461 tons of crop, pasture, and forest carbon production, respectively. This is equal to 17,027 tons of carbon or 62,319 tons of CO₂, which when added to the aforementioned soil loss is equivalent to the CO₂ footprint of 25,198 Ohioans [5].

Over the life of these three ecosystem types, well pad establishment displaces 1,021,619 tons of carbon. This equates to 3.74 million tons of CO₂ or 230,034 Ohioans, which is roughly 9,000 less people than reside in Akron and Warren combined. Another way way to frame this figure is that it would be equivalent to the eightieth largest US city between Henderson, NV and Scottsdale, AZ.

At CO₂’s current valuation this Ohio Utica well pad “carbon displacement” is roughly $18.71 million. However, if we assume this is at the lower end of reasonable CO₂ estimates and that a range of $10-75 dollars is more indicative of carbon’s price, then we estimate the value of well pad displaced carbon is more like $41.29-309.68 million.

The true value of Utica well pad carbon displacement is somewhere in this range and entirely dependent on your belief in the feasibility of valuing CO₂ emissions. However, these estimates do point to some of the externalities associated with Utica Shale development currently ignored by industry lobbyists and political advocates. There is far more work to be done as it relates to understanding well pads’ influence on ecosystem services, crop productivity, and local hydrology; this is simply an attempt to begin quantifying such effects.

References

Follett, R F, Kimble, J M, & Lal, R. (2000). The Potential of U.S. Grazing Lands to Sequester Carbon and Mitigate the Greenhouse Effect. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press LLC.

Fry, J, Xian, G, Jin, S, Dewitz, J, Homer, C, Yang, L, . . . Wickham, J. (2011). Completion of the 2006 National Land Cover Database for the Conterminous United States. PE&RS, 77(9), 858-864.

Lobell, D B, Hicke, J A, Asner, G P, Field, C B, Tucker, C J, & Los, S O. (2002). Satellite estimates of productivity and light use efficiency in United States agriculture, 1982-98. Global Change Biology, 8(8), 722-735.

Needelman, B A, Wander, M M, Bollero, G A, Boast, C W, Sims, G K, & Bullock, D G. (1999). Interaction of Tillage and Soil Texture Biologically Active Soil Organic Matter in Illinois. Soil Science Society of America Journal, 63(5), 1326-1334.

Valentine, J, Clifton-Brown, J, Hastings, A, Robson, P, Allison, G, & Smith, P. (2012). Food vs. Fuel: The use of land for lignocellulosic next generation energy crops to minimize competition with primary food production. Global Change Biology Bioenergy, 4(1), 1-19.

Footnotes

[1] The NLCD estimates land cover using sixteen classes at a 98 foot spatial resolution applied to 2006 Landsat satellite data or 4-5 years prior to the first Ohio Utica permit in September, 2010 (Fry et al., 2011)

[2] Primary tree species include red and sugar maple, red and white oak, white ash, black cherry, American beech, hickory, and tulip poplar according to the most recent USFS Forest Inventory Analysis “Ohio Forests 2006”.

[3] Along with roughly 6,536 tons of soil nitrogen assuming an Ohio soil Carbon-To-Nitrogen ratio of 14.6.

[4] Utilizing the USFS’s Forest Inventory and Analysis EVALIDator Version 1.5.1.04 tool we determined that 62% of Ohio’s oak-hickory, maple-beech-birch, elm-ash-cottonwood, and oak-pine forest types, which account for 94% of the state’s forest area, are 40-80 years old.

[5] Assuming 17.3-18.6 tons of CO2 per capita based on Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center as cited by the World Bank.

Winter Summary of the Trail Logbook Project

May 14, 2013/by FracTracker Alliance

As the forests beckon us to return to their paths now that winter has subsided (hopefully), let’s take a look at the reports we received over the winter for our Trail Logbook Project.

Impacts Summary

Reports came from several counties, but the majority of complaints focused on the impacts of drilling in Loyalsock State Forest.

Counties:

Clinton
Centre
Lycoming
Warren
Sullivan

Suspected Causes:

Existing gas line
Shallow gas wells
Truck traffic
Pipeline construction
Drilling/hydraulic fracturing
Impoundment
Seismic Testing

Main Trails Affected:

Loyalsock State Forest trails
Eddy Lick Trail Loop
Minister Creek Trail

Impacts Reported (in descending order according to frequency):

Unpleasant odors
Confrontation with gas company employees, contractors, security personnel
Noise impacts
Potential degradation/contamination of a stream, spring, lake, or pond, brine in the water at ANF pump
Visual impacts (degradation of scenery)

Logbook Quotes

Drilling has largely overtaken this tract of Loyalsock State Forest. I would say that drilling has completely eclipsed the recreational aspect of the tract. Indeed, the tract seems to have been transformed into an industrial forest. I came here for hiking and nature photography, but I felt as though I were a guest on Seneca-owned land, not a visitor to public land paid for by the citizens of Pennsylvania. I noticed no other visitors in the tract, too; everyone I saw was a Seneca employee. The scenic vista on Bodine Mountain Road (noted on the Loyalsock State Forest map) was less than scenic when I visited; many drilling pads (some near, some far) were seen. The noise from trucks and compressors also diminished the recreational aspect. I won’t return here until most of the drilling ends.

This stream, Minister Creek, is a “Safe” zone for Brook Trout. It now has areas of bubbles and a thin oil sheen on its surface in addition to the Brine taste at the pump.

While setting up campsite just off the Loyalsock Trail at the old CCC Camp on Sandstone Lane, I heard an approaching Crew Truck with a loudspeaker blasting radio conversation with supervisors. As the Lane had been damaged in recent storms, they tried to drive thru a meadow and right thru my Campsite. There was no opening in the trees wide enough to pass and I told them so. They went back to the lane and bored thru the rutted, flood-gouged lane past my camp…

Recommendations from Citizen Reports

Where roads are narrow, especially in forested areas, there are often checkpoints set up by the operators in order to control two-way traffic. Often signs are not sufficiently visible/present/clear, so motorists may not realize the new rules. In Loyalsock State Forest, this has been an issue. As such, below are recreationalists’ recommendations regarding ways to reduce or avoid the issues currently arising from gas operations in this and other public areas:

Seneca Resources Corp. and the DCNR should work together to better educate visitors on the need to stop at every checkpoint in this tract of Loyalsock State Forest (or in any forested area that is frequented by recreationalists).
At each of the two entrances (Hagerman Run Road and Grays Run Road) to the tract from Pennsylvania Route 14, post a large, prominent sign about the need to stop at every checkpoint for two-way traffic control;
Post clearly visible signs at every checkpoint; and
On the DCNR Web site in the Advisories section of the Loyalsock State Forest page, post information about roads affected by two-way traffic control and the need to stop at checkpoints. (Currently, information about such roads is posted on the Road Advisories page on the DCNR Web site, but accessing this page from the home page is challenging. Also, the Road Advisories page doesn’t mention that motorists need to stop at checkpoints.)

More Information

Visit the Trail Logbook Project landing page for more information about this initiative, our partners, and to submit your own report.

Launch of National Mapping Project Designed to Show Possible Impacts of Oil and Gas Drilling on Well Water

May 1, 2013/by FracTracker Alliance

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
US Map of Suspected Well Water Impacts
Contacts: Brook Lenker, Executive Director, FracTracker Alliance, (717) 303-0403; and
Samantha Malone, Manager of Science and Communications, FracTracker Alliance, (412) 802-0273

May 1, 2013 – The US Map of Suspected Well Water Impacts is a project that will attempt to piece together recent complaints of well water quality impacts that people believe are attributed to unconventional gas and oil operations. Research has demonstrated potential risks to ground and drinking water posed by faulty well casings, surface spills, and hydraulic fracturing. From across the country, in areas where gas and oil development is occurring, accounts of possible well water contamination have been reported but not been collected all in one place – yet. The FracTracker Alliance and cooperating organizations are providing that opportunity.

Inspired by other “crowd-sourced” data and mapping projects, this project aims to collect ongoing stories, narratives, and data from individual homeowners living on well water near drilling operations and map the general location of these reports online. The first version of the dynamic map (shown below) is available at www.fractracker.org/usmap.

US Map of Suspected Well Water Impacts - V1

US Map of Suspected Well Water Impacts
Read more about Version 1 of the map

Once received, submissions will be reviewed to the extent possible by cooperating researchers and organizations. Not all reported cases of water contamination, however, have been or will be able to be substantiated. According to Brook Lenker, Executive Director of FracTracker Alliance:

The reports we are collecting are not necessarily indisputable evidence that drilling has contaminated drinking water sources. Some accounts are irrefutable. Others remain unsubstantiated, but that doesn’t mean the well owner isn’t experiencing serious problems. Even where proof may be elusive, perception of risk can tell us much about an issue and the level of concern by the community. This information will likely help to identify pre-existing problems or conditions that were not previously well known. Such outreach is needed to permit citizens, local agencies, and others to work together to address pre-existing concerns, improve local regulations or standards, conduct proper baseline testing and monitoring, and make informed decisions.

As unconventional natural gas and oil extraction expands internationally, an Internet-based project like the US Map of Suspected Well Water Impacts can help to share on a global scale how people in the U.S. view – and may be impacted by – unconventional drilling. If everyone contributed their stories, the public’s understanding of gas and oil extraction’s impacts on well water could expand dramatically.

Anyone wishing to submit their story should visit www.fractracker.org/usmap or call (202) 639-6426. A complete list of current project partners is available on the website.

# # #

Downloadable Press Release (PDF)
Read more about Version 1 of the map

Introducing the US Map of Suspected Well Water Impacts

May 1, 2013/by Matt Kelso, BA

About the Map

The FracTracker Alliance has been working with nine different community partners on a project to map instances where oil and gas activity are suspect of impacting groundwater supplies in the United States. The US Map of Suspected Well Water Impacts is now ready for its initial release, and consists of the following data layers:

Visitor Submitted Impacts. This layer consists of viewer submitted form data describing suspected incidents of groundwater contamination by oil and gas extraction and related industries. The locations have been determined using the centroids or geometric center-points of the zip code in which the suspected incident occurred. If you are aware of additional incidents, please submit them here.
Pipeline Incidents Contaminating Groundwater. This data layer includes hazardous liquid pipeline incidents that were indicated as resulting in groundwater contamination between 1/1/2010 and 3/29/2013. The data were obtained by the US Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). The data have been altered by the FracTracker Alliance in that it only includes incidents leading to groundwater contamination, and by the removal of several dozen columns of data about the incident for the sake of brevity. There are 30 incidents on this list.
NRDC Suspected Contamination Events. Amy Mall of the Natural Resources Defense Council compiled a list of 37 incidents where hydraulic fracturing is suspected of contributing to groundwater contamination. The list was compiled in December 2011, and each entry is linked to news reports of the event. This layer was mapped by the FracTracker Alliance based on the centroids or geographic center-points of the municipality, county, or state of the incident, depending on the best information available.
List of the Harmed Suspected Water Incidents. Jenny Lisak, co-director of the Pennsylvania Alliance for Clean Water and Air, maintains a list of people claiming to be harmed by hydraulic fracturing or related processes, called the List of the Harmed (LotH). This data layer is based on the February 23, 2013 update of the list, and contains only the events in which water is the suspected exposure pathway. This data was mapped by the FracTracker Alliance based on the centroids or geographic center-points of the municipality, county, or state of the incident, depending on the best information available.
NM Pit Contamination Events. This layer consists of events where the New Mexico Oil Conservation Division determined that substances from oil and gas pits contaminated groundwater. Altogether, there are 369 incidents included in the data. The document on which this map was based was published in 2008. This data was mapped by the FracTracker Alliance based on the centroids or geographic center-points of the PLSS section, meaning that the points should be accurate within 0.72 miles.

US Map of Suspected Well Water Impacts – Version 1

It is important to note that the standard for inclusion in the map is simply whether or not someone suspects that well water has been impacted by oil and gas extraction-related activity. Specifically, items on the Visitor Submitted Impacts, NRDC Suspected Contamination Events, and List of the Harmed Suspected Water Incidents should be thought of as perceived impacts by oil and gas activity, not confirmed ones. The NRDC and LotH lists were built with links to one or more media reports about the event.

On the other hand, the New Mexico document on which the pit contamination event layer was built simply says, “Cases Where Pit Substances Contaminated New Mexico’s Ground Water,” and it is worth noting that it was published by a state regulatory agency. Likewise, the PHMSA pipeline data is published by an administration within the US Department of Transportation. Between these two layers, there are 399 incidents with the authority of a regulatory agency behind them.

Future versions of this map can be found on the project’s landing page.

Negative Health Impacts & Stressors Perceived to Result from Marcellus Shale Activity

April 30, 2013/by Guest Author

Identified by Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health

By Kyle Ferrar, MPH – DrPH Candidate, Environmental and Occupational Health Department, Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh

The potential for negative health impacts to result from unconventional natural gas development activities, such as hydraulic fracturing (deemed “frac’ing”) occurring in the Marcellus Shale basin, is a highly debated and contentious issue. To resolve this issue public health and medical professionals will need to conduct a large-scale epidemiological study – one that monitors the lives and health of a large sample of people for an extended period of time. Such a study should test to see if proximity, or closeness to unconventional natural gas development, such as frac’ing, causes negative health impacts. Such a study has not yet been officially proposed in Pennsylvania, much less funded, but researchers at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Healthy Environments and Communities (CHEC) believe such a study will be conducted in the future.

New peer-reviewed research released by the CHEC provides background data for that kind of study. The research documented 59 unique health impacts, or “symptoms,” and 13 “stressors” perceived to result from Marcellus Shale development. Over time, symptoms and perceived health impacts increased for the sample population (p<0.05), while stressors resulting from Marcellus Shale activity remained consistent (p=0.60). The study group was a biased sample population, meaning the participants were not randomly selected. Rather, the participants were already concerned by or interested in issues associated with this industrial activity.

Using community based participatory research methods, researchers from CHEC, along with researchers from FracTracker while it was still a project at CHEC, engaged community members with in-depth interviews. Mail surveys have been conducted by other researchers in Colorado and Wyoming, but this is the first research to use an ethnographical, in-person approach. Furthermore, this is the first peer-reviewed and published research that describes symptoms in those who believe their health has been affected. The six most reported symptoms are reported in Table 1, with stress being the most commonly reported health effect.

The article contributes several new findings to this field of research, including evidence about what people report as stressors. Contributions of stress to negative health effects are well documented in the literature, known as allostatic loads. The six most commonly reported “stressors,” or sources of stress, are reported in Table 2. Particularly notable is the very high percentage of the group that report issues such as being lied to that presumably would be corrected if the industry became more transparent and responsive. The article also reports on the longitudinal nature of the perceived health impacts and stressors. Longitudinal refers to the fact that the data were collected over time, not just once. Follow-up interviews conducted 19-22 months after the initial interviews showed that the number of perceived health impacts reported by participants actually increased over time, while the number of stressors reported remained consistent. This contradicts industry’s argument that the problems are mainly caused by seeing and hearing drilling activity, and that as the intensity of activity diminishes over time so will the symptoms and stressors. While this research does not answer the larger question of whether negative health effects are associated with Marcellus Shale development, it demonstrates a need for future studies to be conducted within these particular communities and supports the more difficult task of embarking on a broader epidemiological study.

Table 1. Most reported symptoms with the percentage of participants reporting said symptom.

Symptoms	Session 1 (n=33)
Stress	76%
Rashes	27%
Loss of sleep	27%
General illness	24%
Headaches	24%
Diarrhea	24%
Shortness of breath	21%

Table 2. Most reported “stressors” participants associated with Marcellus Shale development, with the percentage of participants reporting said stressor.

Stressor	Session 1 (n=33)
Denied or provided false information	79%
Corruption	61%
Concerns/complaints ignored	58%
Being taken advantage of	52%
Financial damages	45%
Noise pollution	45%

About the Journal Article

Assessment and longitudinal analysis of health impacts and stressors perceived to result from unconventional shale gas development in the Marcellus Shale region <-- Note: This link is presently not connecting to the article on IngentaConnect.com. We will update the link once the article becomes available again on their site. Authors: Kyle J. Ferrar; Jill Kriesky; Charles L. Christen; Lynne P. Marshall; Samantha L. Malone; Ravi K. Sharma; Drew R. Michanowicz; Bernard D. Goldstein Source: International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health

Unconventional Shale Drilling: What we know, What we don’t know, What we need to know to move forward

April 23, 2013/by Ted Auch, PhD

Archived

This post has been archived.

By Ted Auch, PhD – Ohio Outreach Coordinator, FracTracker Alliance

A Conference Retrospective

Communities, NGOs large and small, local governments, and even next door neighbors and/or families are dealing with long-term potential and realized environmental, economic, health^*, and social equity damage from the activities of the gas industry in Ohio and beyond. These impacts were vetted at a conference (PDF) recently convened in Warren, OH by FreshWater Accountability Project Ohio, The FracTracker Alliance, and the Buckeye Forest Council. The title of the conference was “Unconventional Shale Drilling: What we know, What we don’t know, What we need to know to move forward.” The premise was to bring together a forum of diverse subject matter experts from academia, industry, government and private organizations to discuss and prioritize – using a knowledge-based approach – the various major issues relating to energy extraction that are facing local, state and national agencies and private citizens.

Conference attendees heard from a variety of researchers and community activist about their successes and failures, data needs, and expectations for how to leverage the conference gathering into a relatively cohesive and largely ego free movement. One highlight was a presentation and informal discussion with Deborah Rogers, former Merrill Lynch and Smith Barney investment banker, Dallas Federal Reserve Advisory Council member, current U.S. Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (USEITI) advisory committee member, and the woman behind the Energy Policy Forum. Ms. Rogers’ keynote presentation “Shale and Wall Street: Was the Decline in Natural Gas Prices Orchestrated?” focused on the regulatory and high finance parallels between the early aughts real-estate bubble and the current US shale bubble’s red queen predicament (what’s this?) forcing industry to acquire shale assets and repurchase shares in an illusory attempt to inflate their balance sheets and placate Wall Street expectations (while simultaneously overestimating reserves by 400-500% and experiencing 6.5% recovery efficiencies). Ms. Rogers pointed to the fact that the US is home to 181,000 oil and gas jobs Vs. 183,200 renewable energy jobs, however, they account for 45% and 15% of total energy generation capacity, respectively, with the latter “providing significantly more jobs per kilowatt capacity than oil and gas.”

Ms. Rogers was followed by University of Pittsburgh professor Dr. Bernard Goldstein, Biological Mimetics, Inc. President and CEO, Peter Nara, with public health and environmental concerns presentations, respectively. Julie Weatherington-Rice, an OSU adjunct faculty geologist, delivered an Ohio- focused talk on the legal and public policy implications of drilling in public water well fields. Dr. Weatherington-Rice gave an encore performance the following day focusing on shale gas waste, public water supplies, Ohio EPA’s September 2012 advisory regarding disposal of fracking waste in the Great Lake’s waste landfill facilities, and the dangers associated with technologically enhanced radioactive material (TENORM). Dr. Rice was followed by presentations on sustainable communities via “Local Self-Government and the Rights of Nature” by Tish O’Dell of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) and Matt Nisenoff exploring the non-binary nature of Ohio advocacy. Mr. Nisenoff addressed the need for persistent organizing and “entering the political ring as candidates rather than voters.”

One of the most novel components of the conference was the presentation by Rumi Shammin, an environmental studies professor at Oberlin College who brought to the floor the concepts of ecosystem services and ecological economics or the monetization of ecological pattern and process [1]. These two lines of research are new to the hydraulic fracturing conversation and potentially integral to policy formulation, community outreach and academic-citizen scientist collaboration in Ohio.

Bowling Green State University professor Andrew Kear offered the final presentation titled “Unconventional Politics of Unconventional Gas: Environmental Reframing and Policy Change.” The presentation highlighted his PhD dissertation work focusing on unlikely bedfellows in the mountain west shale plays and the types of lessons he thought applied to Ohio’s shale fracturing discussion.

The conference closed with attendees coming together to identify the explicit knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns in Ohio relative to economic, environmental, social integrity, and health issues. The results of these break-out groups and discussion will be made available to the public in the next two weeks.

Next steps include crafting two to three white papers, writing a peer review publication, implementing effective collaboration strategies, planning future conferences, and developing policy recommendations. The ultimate goals are to promote fact-based transparency, best in class technologies, and create healthy and sustainable energy resources.

In the face of industry and regulatory inertia that continues to push back against transparency and local control, the conference underscored the need for more education, data, and far more research – all issues of special interest to the FracTracker Alliance – while bridging rifts and fortifying existing bonds.

Contact Information

For more information and notices as to resulting products, please contact:

Leatra Harper, FreshWater Accountability Project Ohio,
Ted Auch, PhD, The FracTracker Alliance, Ohio Program Coordinator
Peter Nara, PhD, Biological Mimetics, Inc.
Julie Weatherington-Rice, PhD, Adjunct Faculty The Ohio State University and Bennett & Williams
Nathan Johnson, Buckeye Forest Council

^* Keynote speaker Deborah Rogers cited health impact costs in the Barnett, Fayetteville, and Marcellus Shale of $73, 33.5, and 32 million per annum.

[1] Arrow et al., 1995; Costanza et al., 1997; Costanza et al., 2000; Costanza, Wainger, Folke, & Mäler, 1993; Daily et al., 1997; Krantzberg & Boer, 2006; Ruhl, 2006

A Year in the Life of Ohio’s Utica Play

April 23, 2013/by Ted Auch, PhD

The Ohio Utica play has taken off in the last calendar year, jumping from 160 permitted wells as of March 2012 to 453 since then. This equates to 1.24 permitted wells per day. (Note: The state’s less exploited Marcellus shale had 13 permitted wells a year ago with an increase of 7 since then.) A year ago Ohio was home to 50 “drilled” wells and is now home to an additional 80 “drilled” wells (Figure 1). Meanwhile 0.65% and 1.14% of permitted wells are what Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) calls “Inactive” or “Not Drilled” with the latter being relatively similar a year ago vs. today with 3 and 4 “Not Drilled” wells, respectively. According to the latest ODNR data 54 Utica wells were permitted as of 4/1/2012 vs. 342 since then. Plugged wells constitute 1.63% of all Ohio Utica wells although the industry appears to be increasing efficiency with respect to plugging having experienced 7 “Plugged” wells as of 4/1/2012 and only 3 since. Conversely, wells that are “Producing” have declined from 25.63% (41 “Producing” wells) of all permitted wells to 1.32% (6 “Producing” wells) of all permitted wells since then with the latest reported producing well being a Mountaineer Keystone well in Windham Township, Portage County.

The permitting process has continued along its exponential path since permitting began September 28, 2010 (Figure 2). The gross average number of permitted Ohio Utica wells per month in the last five months is 39 with a total of 195 permitted since November 2012. The quarterly permit average has increased by an order of magnitude of 4.2 permits per month between September 2010 and 2011 to 39 per month since September 2012. In recent months Washington county was added to the list of Ohio counties home to Utica hydraulic fracturing permits, while Carroll remains the state with the most Utica permits followed by Harrison, Columbiana, Guernsey, and Jefferson/Noble with the average number of Utica well permits across the 22 counties home to at least one permit being 28 per county with six counties above and sixteen below this mean (Figure 3). In the last year the four counties that have entered the Utica conversation are Trumbull, neighboring Holmes and Wayne, and Washington, with 4, 3, 1, and 1 Utica permit as of April 1^st, respectively. Meanwhile five other counties have seen no increase in Utica permits including Muskingum, Knox, Ashland, Geauga, and Medina. Conversely Belmont County has seen a 21-fold increase in Utica well permits followed distantly by Harrison, Guernsey, Noble, and Coshocton counties all of which have experienced ≥5-fold increases.

The average number of people per Utica well across the aforementioned 22 counties is 31,808, while the average number of wells per square mile is 0.066. The range is quite broad for both variables ranging from 0.0018 wells per square mile in Wayne – home to the Wayne National Forest – to 0.59 wells per square mile in Carroll County, with the one recent Washington County well placing it 13^th out of 22 counties. The inverse is the case for people per well with Medina County, home to the highest number of people relative to Utica well permits with 172,332 people per well (vs. 124-563 people per well in Carroll, Harrison, Noble, and Monroe counties). Since last we conducted this type of analysis in late January the valuation of Ohio’s major Utica players has actually increased by 11.7%. This is a particularly complex situation considering that Atlas Noble the owner of 6 Utica wells has actually gone private for a variety of reasons and Chesapeake Energy has ousted its CEO Aubrey McClendon due to “philosophical differences and a pending SEC investigation. Meanwhile, Wall Street-types:

… expect well results to vary greatly, given 2012 drilling activity across many fringe areas of the play. We believe weak results from other operators are likely to validate that Gulfport remains the most exposed operator. Source

Additionally, the repeated delay in 2012 production numbers scheduled for the 1^st of April is creating layer upon layer of uncertainty leaving everyone guessing and relying on 2011 production numbers. This leaves public sentiment worried about the unsustainability, uncoordinated, and unbalanced nature of both Ohio’s regulatory framework and highly Utica exposed and/or leveraged balance sheets. Meanwhile Wall Street analysts are contemplating whether market forces, expectations, reality, or collusion is to blame. Our current model of potential Utica production in the form of barrels of oil equivalent speaks to small and discrete highly productive zones in Belmont, Noble, Guernsey, Morgan, and Muskingum counties, rather than the originally estimated zones of highest production in Carroll and Columbiana. An additional hotspot appears to be located in Fairfield, Perry, and Hocking counties. However, due to insufficient data quantity, quality, and methodology, and transparency from ODNR and industry, the opportunities to conduct such exercises are still accompanied by substantial uncertainty in the form of high signal-to-noise resulting from scant and unreliable data. The hope, herein and on Wall Street, is that ODNR and industry will begin to make their production data available in real-time.

This is an especially important consideration given that the aforementioned regulatory environment here in Ohio – as well as the relatively generous severance taxing system [1] – has reached a point that even industry/supply-side think tanks like The Fraser Institute in Canada have determined “the extent of investment barriers (based on All-Inclusive Composite Index values)” are as good as they are ever going to get; Ohio trails only Mississippi in a global investment barrier ranking of 146 countries, US states, and Canadian provinces. Furthermore, in one year the conditions for doing largely hydrocarbon-related business in Ohio improved so much between 2010 and 2011 that Ohio jumped up the league tables from 12^th to 2^nd, according to the institute’s 2011 “Global Petroleum Survey.” This loosening of regulations, combined with decreasing data quality and availability, is the primary concern of The FracTracker Alliance in Ohio.

Figure 1: Utica Permit activity by status to April 1, 2013

Figure 2. Cumulative and Per Month Utica Permits to September 2010 through March 2013

Figure 3. Utica Permit Count by County from September 28, 2010 to April 1, 2013

Figure 4. Utica Permits Per Square Mile and People Per Well by County from September 28, 2010 to April 1, 2013

(Note: This model was constructing utilizing the Geostatistical Analyst Tools “Empirical Bayesian Kriging” tool in ArcGIS)

Figure 5. A map of the current Ohio Shale and Tight Gas Plays, hydraulic fracturing permits in Ohio as of 4/1/2013, and a generalized model of potential production from with light green representing 20 Barrels of Oil Equivalent (BOE) and red approximately 10,000 BOE

Table 1. Distribution of Ohio Utica Shale wells across companies (#, %), Date of First Permit (DFP), and the valuation of the publicly funded companies at their DFP at the close of business 4/9/2013.

				Company Valuation
Company	#	%	DFP^†	Share Price DFP	Share Price 4/9/2013	% Change
Anadarko^•	12	0.019	09/07/2011	69.88	86.70	1.241
Antero	21	0.034	03/23/2012
Atlas Noble^††	6	0.010	09/24/2012	31.14
Carrizo	2	0.003	07/26/2012	24.02	26.26	1.093
Chesapeake Energy^•	389	0.626	12/23/2010	25.61	19.99	0.781
Chevron Appalachia	2	0.003	07/31/2012	109.58	118.71	1.083
Consol Energy^•	25	0.040	06/17/2011	45.86	33.85	0.738
Devon Energy	13	0.021	11/02/2011	65.46	55.28	0.844
Eclipse Resources	1	0.002	12/21/2012	—	—
Enervest^•	16	0.026	06/30/2011	9.37	8.79	0.938
EQT	3	0.005	09/13/2012	57.76	69.59	1.205
Gulfport Energy^•	46	0.074	02/28/2012	35.49	48.09	1.355
Halcon	2	0.003	11/02/2012	5.003	7.69	1.537
Hall Drilling	1	0.002	09/17/2012
Hess Ohio	24	0.039	09/28/2010	53.63	73.50	1.371
HG Energy	16	0.026	09/14/2011	—	—	—
Hilcorp Energy	3	0.005	12/14/2012	—	—	—
Mountaineer Keystone	7	0.011	07/13/2012	—	—	—
PDC Energy^•	9	0.014	05/25/2012	25.67	47.59	1.854
R E Gas Development^•	13	0.021	03/19/2012	—	—	—
Sierra Resources	3	0.005	07/02/2012	—	—	—
SWEPI	1	0.002	06/20/2012	—	—	—
XTO Energy	5	0.008	04/09/2012	0.28	0.01	0.036
BP	1	0.002	03/20/2013
	613					1.083

^† DFP = Date of First Permit; “—“ not a publicly traded company

^†† Atlas Noble has since gone private

^• Corporations that have reported production numbers as of this post: 1) Anadarko – 3, 2) Chesapeake – 14, 3) Consol Energy – 1, 4) Enervest and PDC Energy – 2, 5) Gulfport – 10, R E Gas Development – 4.

[1] Ernst & Young in a 2011 report found that Ohio’s hydrocarbon taxing rates were the most favorable of the eight states they investigated with a total state and local tax of 1.8% vs. 10.9-11.0% in neighboring West Virginia and Oklahoma, respectively. The average across the seven other states was 9.2% or 5.12 times that of The Buckeye State.

US Pipelines Incidents Are a Daily Occurrence

April 15, 2013/by Matt Kelso, BA

Recently, there has been a lot of attention focused on the Mayflower, Arkansas pipeline failure that resulted in a massive oil spill, particularly as it comes at a time when discussions of the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline project are once again heating up. However, the situation is far from unusual. In fact, according to data downloaded from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), there were 1,887 incidents in the nation’s gathering and transmission, distribution, and hazardous liquids pipelines between January 1, 2010 and March 29, 2013, or an average of 1.6 incidents per day.

Pipeline incidents from 1/1/2010 through 3/29/2013. Data Source: PHMSA.

Obviously, not all of these failures are on par with the massive spill in Mayflower, and it should be noted that there are a variety of reasons for these lines to fail. Some of these reasons, such as excavation activity in the vicinity of a pipeline, are not necessarily the fault of the pipeline’s operator. The fact that these incidents are commonplace, however, is not one that can be dismissed.

Pipeline incidents in the United States from 1/1/2010 through 3/29/2013. Source: PHMSA. Red Triangles represent incidents leading to fatalities, and yellow triangles represent those leading to injuries. To access the legend and other controls, click the “Fullscreen” icon at the top-right corner of the map.

It is clear from the map that there a few data entry errors, as a few of the data points draw in locations that aren’t even in the jurisdiction of the United States. However, each entry also contains a city and state that the incident is associated with, and for the most part, the data seem to be fairly reliable.

Unconventional oil and gas wells in the Chesapeake Basin

A Fresh Opportunity in the FRESHER Act

April 11, 2013/by Guest Author

By Tanya Dierolf, Choose Clean Water Coalition

Love him or hate him, there’s no arguing that Stephen Colbert can grab a headline. Recently he’s had a lot to say about environmental protection, energy and water. Last week he reported on the Pegasus Pipeline Spill in Arkansas and reminded us that what’s “out of sight” and “out of mind” might still be in our drinking water. Those of us in Pennsylvania familiar with Talisman Terry have yet to forget his exposé on the children’s coloring book that attempts to teach kids about hydraulic fracturing through the expertise of a friendly Frackasaurus. This leaves me wondering if Colbert might ask Congressman Matt Cartwright about his legislative attempts to apply stricter federal protections to oil and gas development when the Pennsylvania Congressman appears on Stephen’s “Better Know a District” segment in early May.

In March 2013, Congressman Cartwright (PA-17) introduced the “Focused Reduction of Effluence and Stormwater runoff through Hydrofracking Environmental Regulation Act” or FRESHER act. Because of expanding development of oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania and exploration, construction, and operations in almost 30 other states, Mr. Cartwright introduced legislation aimed at fixing a federal Clean Water Act loophole to control stormwater runoff from for oil and gas operations. Under the Clean Water Act, industrial facilities are required to obtain a permit to discharge stormwater from their sites and develop “Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plans” if disturbing more than one acre of land. However, Congress exempted oil and gas operations from both of these requirements. By closing the loophole, the FRESHER Act would provide for stronger oversight as both regulators and the public would be aware of industry plans to control pollution. The bill would also require a federal study of stormwater impacts in areas that might be contaminated by stormwater runoff pollution from oil and gas operations.

Chesapeake Bay Watershed

Many of us working in the Chesapeake Bay watershed are often asked about the impacts that increasing natural gas activity may have on our local waters and the larger Chesapeake Bay cleanup. Considering the ongoing challenges we have with sediment impacts to our local waterways in Pennsylvania and West Virginia and the pollution limits we now have in place to bring the Bay back to health, many are asking how we quantify these impacts. In addition to increased sediment pollution largely carried by stormwater runoff, others are also asking what impact a change in our land use might have as we convert farm fields and forests to well pads. Furthermore, many are asking about roads and pipelines and cumulative impacts. All good questions – and these are just related to natural gas development and its relationship to existing pollution limits and cleanup plans. There are a host of additional questions being asked about drinking water, emissions, groundwater contamination, methane migration, and health and safety.

Mapping a Better Picture

Unconventional Oil and Gas Wells in PA’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed
Click here to view dynamic, PA map of unconventional wells

To get an idea of the impacts of the oil and gas industry in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, we turned to our colleagues at the FracTracker Alliance. FracTracker is committed to working with partners – citizens, organizations, and institutions – in a quest for objective, helpful information to perpetuate awareness and support actions that protect public health, the environment, and socioeconomic well-being. FracTracker collects, interprets and shares data through a website and mapping tool. When it came time to understand impacts, we asked for and received some numbers.

In the portion of Pennsylvania that has waterways draining to the Chesapeake Bay, there have been 5,137 oil and gas wells drilled since 2005*. This number includes both conventional and unconventional wells and vertical and horizontal wells (see map on right). Pennsylvania defines an “unconventional well” as one that is drilled into an unconventional formation, which is defined as a geologic shale formation between the base of the Elk Sandstone or its geologic equivalent where natural gas generally cannot be produced except by horizontal or vertical well bores stimulated by hydraulic fracturing. In short, the definition does include wells drilled within the Marcellus Shale formation. We are continuing to work with FracTracker to obtain similar information on West Virginia.

In Practice

I don’t want to leave the impression that oil and gas development, specifically gas development because of hydraulic fracturing, is an unregulated industry. For example, Pennsylvania already requires erosion & sediment permits for activities involving earth disturbance activities over five acres. I’m also not attempting to get into the patchwork of state-by-state regulations of the oil and gas industry, but Congressman Cartwright’s legislation would ensure that oil and gas companies have stormwater-related permits and pollution prevention plans in place prior to well pad development. The lack of oversight and permitting represents a significant threat to our waterways in places without adequate accountability mechanisms. It’s a fresh opportunity to address an ongoing challenge. We hope Mr. Colbert might just ask Mr. Cartwright about his efforts as we get to know PA’s 17^th district. We think he might just say the FRESHER Act is good for his Congressional district and the region.

Written by Tanya Dierolf, Choose Clean Water Coalition

*For those who prefer to read statistics in a table format, see below:

Number of PA Drilled Wells in Chesapeake Basin 1/1/05 – 3/20/13
Well Type	Conventional	Unconventional	Total
Vertical	1197	461	1658
Horizontal	5	3474	3479

Total	1202	3935	5137

PACWA’s List of the Harmed Now Mapped by FracTracker

March 7, 2013/by Matt Kelso, BA

Jenny Lisak, co-director of the Pennsylvania Alliance for Clean Water and Air, maintains a list of people claiming to be harmed by hydraulic fracturing or related processes, called the List of the Harmed. This version of the list, last updated on February 23, 2013, has 822 people thought to be negatively impacted by the industry, with symptoms ranging from headaches and rashes to death.

The List of the Harmed is maintained by the Pennsylvania Alliance for Clean Water and Air. For full access to map controls, click the “Fullscreen” icon at the top right corner of the map.

The FracTracker Alliance was not involved in the creation or maintenance of this list, but our intern Stephen Paddock did map the incidents to the best available level of accuracy, whether that was at the municipal, county, or state level. Please do not assume that the locations on the map are any more accurate than the level indicated in the “Accuracy” column.

Popup box containing the data for one of the 878 entries on the List. The yellow oval shows that there are multiple boxes stacked on top of each other, and the green oval provides a hyperlink to more information about the incident in question.

Each entry on the List of the Harmed has at least one link to more information about the given incident. To access those, click on any map icon to bring up the popup box. Then scroll down to the “Link” section, and click on “More info”. If there are multiple sources, they will appear under “Link_2” or “Link_3”.

In the picture above, the text “(1 of 11)” in the yellow oval tells us that there are eleven popup boxes stacked on top on one another. To sort through the records, simply click the arrow button toward the right edge of the yellow oval.