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Local government officials learn effects of drilling in Marcellus shale
By FRAN De LANCEY
Era Correspondent
SMETHPORT — Local government officials from McKean, Cameron, Potter, Elk and Warren counties attended a video-teleconference Thursday at the McKean County 911 Center about how drilling in the Marcellus shale will affect local governments.
The conference was titled “Natural Gas Exploration and Drilling: The Local Government Role in the Future Impacts of Underground Opportunities.”
Jim Clark, extension educator, and Don Tanner, county extension director, were facilitators for the session, one of ten sites statewide. Speakers spokesmen from state agencies, oil and gas industry and an attorney. Following each presenter, the audiences had opportunities to ask questions.
The Pennsylvania State University has done extensive research on the Marcellus shale and horizontal drilling operations and has many educational publications available for the public.
Tom Murphy, Lycoming County’s extension director, began the program with background on the Marcellus shale, the world’s largest natural gas deposit. It is located in all of West Virginia, much of Pennsylvania, and parts of Ohio, New York, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, Alabama and even the Great Lakes. Estimates of the volume of recoverable natural gas are in the range of 50 trillion cubic feet.
About half of the U.S. population is within close proximity to the 34 million acres of the Marcellus shale, which reduces transpiration costs to the markets.
To get at this gas, though, requires a new technology called horizontal drilling, which consists of drilling vertically into the earth to a certain depth, then making a right-angle turn and continuing with horizontal drilling. According to Clark, the black shale has many vertical cracks, and these are targeted with water and sand under pressure, which open the cracks and release the gas.
It is illegal to drill under leased land to get under unleased land, one speaker noted.
With such potential for profits, companies have started drilling, and there will be more to come, Murphy said. “Competition is increasing,” he noted.
In the past, natural gas explorations have been done on land about one-half acre, but due to the horizontal drilling, this activity is found on larger sites, some as large as three to five acres.
Multiple wells are being drilled on one site. This is encouraged, Murphy said, because it lessens the impact on the land.
Lou D’Amico of the Independent Oil and Gas Association pointed to the huge economic impact on local economies the drilling will have since it will provide jobs for surveyors, equipment rentals, offices and warehouses, abstractors and attorneys. “The near-term impacts will be high-paying jobs, growth of service industries, and a moving (transient) labor force.”
The drilling activity will consume huge amounts of water for the hydrofracing process; produce more heavy equipment traffic; cause firms to pay bonds to local government for heavy use of roads; and result in roads being posted for certain traffic. D’Amico said, “These drillers are responsible companies, and they stand behind their promises to fix the roads and restore the land to original gradings.”
Several factors, though, could have the potential of stopping this economic development, according to D’Amico. “They are market pricing, bad legislation of over-regulation and overtaxing, competition from other states, and active campaigns by environmental extremists.”
After D’Amico’s comments, an audience member from another site asked if the townships have the power to tax oil and gas production.
The answer was “No . . . that authority rests with the state.”
Another questioner wanted to know how waste water from the drilling sites is managed.
It was noted that the Department of Environmental Protection would have to approve the disposal of that water into sewage treatment plants or at other disposal sites. Right now, more of these disposal sites are located in the western part of the state than in the northeast sector.
Property owners would enter into leases with drilling companies prior to any drilling. Municipalities are not obligated to lease any land, but so far, some, including school districts, have done so for the revenue.
One question pertained to emergencies such as fires at the wells.
A presenter said that if a fire breaks out, it is almost always contained to that site.
“The people who are most knowledgeable about gas fires are already working there, and they would close the valves and isolate the fire and fuel,” he said.
Companies are also working with emergency responders in the areas of training, and their employees keep satellite phones to call 911 if necessary.
Iron Gilius, oil and gas program director for DEP, spoke on that agency’s regulatory requirements.
He explained that a lease between a landowner and a drilling company is a private contract over which DEP has no enforcement power.
DEP’s regulatory authority is spelled out in the state’s Clean Streams law, Solid Waste Management Act and dams and encroachments statutes. Under state law, DEP regulates procedures at the well site and no drilling can be done in streams or wetlands, he said. “Nor can drilling be done within 100 feet of a building,” he added. “But, drilling in the Marcellus shale is well away from buildings, so there are no major conflicts.”
Attorney Gary Falatovich, a municipality’s solicitor from southwestern Pennsylvania, commented on the state’s Oil and Gas Act. “Under this statute, the term, ‘pre-emption,’ states that when state law bumps heads with local regulations, the state law prevails.”
Opinions from the Commonwealth have ruled in favor of municipalities bonding their roads, and those governments should continue this practice, he said. That court also said the municipalities can regulate the slopes and grading at well sites.
However, the state Supreme Court has yet to rule on questions of municipalities regulating drilling to specific zoning districts, requiring additional buffer zones in residential areas
“As for municipalities regulating access roads to well sites, that’s a definite maybe,” Falatovich said.
Craig Reed of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation addressed the topics of roads and bonding.
The program was conducted by the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors and provided through funding from the Governor’s Center for Local Government Services in the Department of Community and Economic Development.
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