Editor’s Note: This is the first in a seven-part series on natural gas drilling gleaned from a recent staff outing to Pennsylvania. It will continue each Thursday in The Evening Sun.
The Evening Sun staff traveled to Montrose and Dimock, Pa. on Dec. 7, 2010 to obtain first-hand accounts about drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale, the resulting impact on those communities, and, ultimately, to draw for readers a picture depicting what Chenango County could expect if shale gas drilling were permitted here.
It was a cold, snowy day on the drive down, but it took less time than planned to reach the widely-publicized epicenter of the nation’s focus on shale drilling. We drove through the Susquehanna County capital of Montrose, noting the glassy reservoir that feeds it to our left, but, surprisingly, saw no anti-drilling signs on people’s lawns. Only upon reaching our destination of Carter Road in Dimock did we finally see any anti-drilling sentiment.
Cabot Oil and Gas Corp.’s admitted drilling accident that allegedly polluted 18 Carter Road area residents’ wells has grabbed headlines, and the company eventually paid $4.1 million to the residents with contaminated wells and $500,000 to partially offset the state’s investigation into the cause of well contamination. Reporter Brian Golden scored an interview with one of the affected families, and in the next article of this seven-part series, he’ll describe their sentiments and the Dimock disaster in detail.
Brian’s piece will also delve into the environmental activists’ perspective on the dangers related to the controversial high-water volume, hydraulic fracturing drilling method needed to extract the energy source from shale, as there have been other alleged accidents in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Louisiana and Wyoming. The possible water, soil and air contamination from fracturing ultimately resulted in an Obama Administration directive to the Environmental Protection Agency in March to study for a second time whether it should be regulated under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.
Most readers know by now that fracturing, which is not new, just improved, also prompted New York Gov. David Paterson to take caution back in 2008 when companies began targeting this state’s newly discovered riches in the Marcellus Shale. He halted permitting, giving the Department of Environmental Conservation time to revise and update its regulations. Executive orders announced during the governor’s last days in office have extended release of those regs through at least July, leaving companies and landowners wanting to develop the region’s shale gas potential effectively shut out of New York at this point.
Chenango County followed the DEC’s lead and embarked upon its own investigation of natural gas drilling activity. From Town of Otselic Supervisor David J. Messineo’s first remark back in 2005 about “clandestine gas-related activity” along county Road 16 between his town and Smyrna, to the formation of a Natural Gas Advisory Committee in 2008 and subsequent hiring of an economic development consultant in 2009, Chenango’s government has asked questions, searched answers and struggled to control both the existing natural gas drilling in sandstone and the future natural gas drilling in shales.
Our day trip took us on many windy, hilly and narrow dirt roads that were reminiscent of the back roads in McDonough, Otselic or Smyrna. And, as is easily the case in those Chenango County towns, it’s not surprising that we got a bit lost. But, despite the snow and in-the-middle-of-nowhere feel, and the abundant, gas-related truck traffic, it was obvious that the roads had been recently maintained, and some of them even widened and improved.
Reporter Tyler Murphy had the opportunity to sit down with Montrose’s emergency management officials to discuss actions taken to regulate municipal ordinances and maintain safe roads, water and pipeline infrastructure. His article will describe how the town has prepared itself to respond to drilling-related accidents as well as offer a history of the impact of natural gas drilling on Dimock from when it began in 2007 to present, including road boring, seismic testing, noise control and the resulting impacts on residents.
