The Marcellus Shale is a huge deposit of rock that extends south from Southern New York State, curving through much of Northern Pennsylvania into sections of Ohio and West Virginia. Rich in natural gas, the shale is located deep within the earth, often a mile or more. Its extraction requires a special technique called hydraulic fracturing or “fracking.” According to independent, nonprofit newsroom ProPublica, “fracking involves the injection of more than a million gallons of water, sand, and chemicals at high pressure down and across into horizontally drilled wells as far as 10,000 feet below the surface.” Gas companies maintain that the process is completely safe, but environmental groups, referencing contaminated water supplies from Texas to Wyoming to Northern Pennsylvania, have sounded an alarm, suggesting that serious environmental harm may occur. Gas companies do admit that there will be mistakes, given that we’re dealing with human beings and mechanical processes, but view them as rare and inconsequential. I met with Russ Cowles, the president of the Lycoming Creek Watershed Association, to discuss the dangers he saw ahead for the Lycoming. “There are two types of impacts to the creek,” Russ offered in a matter-of-fact voice. “The first type we know will happen and it includes significant deforestation, which has already begun. This will allow quicker runoff, which will add silt to the creek. Deterioration of our roads, especially our dirt roads, will also contribute to the silt problem, and we also know that there will be surface contamination most likely emanating from drill site runoff, possibly from leaking pipes, like the accident that occurred in McNett.” These are problems that Russ thought would likely heal over time. “What we don’t know, and this is the second category,” Russ continued, “what I don’t think anyone knows, is whether or not there will be contamination of an aquifer. I would describe this kind of impact as catastrophic.”

Thinking about what the practical results of contamination would mean for our creek led me to contact Walt Nicholson, Director of Operations for the Williamsport Municipal Water Authority. We talked about various aspects of the drilling as it relates to water quality issues, including the application by Southwestern Energy Co. to withdraw from four sites along the creek, a total of six million gallons of water each day. Walt said the

withdrawals represented a threat to both the quality and volume of Lycoming Creek for downstream users. We discussed the dangers to the creek itself from the drilling activity and Walt followed up with an e-mail to me outlining his concerns. “There are serious questions concerning whether all of the wellpads and wells currently

permitted, as well as the hundreds (or thousands) more which are expected to be proposed in the next several years, can be safely developed in the Lycoming Creek watershed without incidents which would degrade the resource.” He went on to describe potential causes of pollution which include “spills and leaks around wellpads, impoundments and wastewater transfer pipelines, including drilling process fluids, pit water, hydrofracturing

process chemicals, flowback waste water from storage tanks, wastewater trucking operations.” A particular concern (my words) was well casing and grouting failures, which could contaminate shallower aquifers that eventually flow to streams and wells used by the public. In the October/November 2009 issue of Fly Rod And Reel Magazine, Ted Williams outlines the dangers to native trout (and, by extension, the waters in which they swim) posed by gas drilling in Mid-Atlantic states. “No one I consulted in the conservation community oppose exploiting this rich resource,” Ted writes. “They’d just like it done right; they’d even settle for legally. Instead New York, West Virginia, and especially Pennsylvania are in the process of suspending what the energy industry calls ‘impediments’ to gas production and what the rest of the nation calls environmental laws.” Ted goes on to describe the Bush-Cheney energy policy: “Extract as much gas as possible, at any cost to fish and wildlife and with enormous subsidies to industry at a time of record profits.” And due to fiscal challenges facing the State, the PADEP, the agency we’ve been counting on to protect us from environmental degradation, is facing the most significant cuts (26.7%) of any PA Government agency. According to a November 17, 2009, story on Philadelphia radio station WHYY, the agency will lay off 138 staffers. In future months and years will we reflect on the clear waters of the Lycoming Creek, or will there be disturbing evidence that our creek has been contaminated? Still in its early stages, there remains an opportunity to bring the drilling and related activities under more stringent monitoring and regulation and place limits on where the drilling can occur. But we will need to act soon. Writing earlier this year for PA Trout, Dr. Pete Ryan, President of God’s Country Chapter—

Trout Unlimited, expressed strong reservations about the drilling. “I moved to Potter County more than 30 years ago, not because it was a great economic opportunity but because I wanted to live, raise my family, and recreate in an area that one would consider pristine. I believe the ‘Marcellus Shale Play’, as those in the industry call it, has the potential to be the worst environmental disaster of our generation.”



Robbie Cross is Co-Chair of NCP Safe Clean

& Green Committee. This article is reprinted

from Inside Newberry.