“Drill Baby Drill”!  Resounding echoes of past mistakes

The deep Marcellus and Utica formations should not be further developed.  Focus should be on shallow gas deposits

A COLUMN By Frederick Sinclair

It is surprising to hear ‘Drill Baby Drill’ on the airwaves, like an ill fated echo resounding back from a better forgotten past. Much has transpired since the boom of drilling for natural gas in the geologic formations dubbed the Marcellus and Utica shale. The shale gas is tightly bound in these formations, until recently, when it was extracted utilizing modern techniques of directional drilling down, then boring horizontally for thousands of feet into and across the deep (5,000 ft+) shale formations. The drill casings are then split open with explosives and millions of gallons of secret chemical mixtures (hydraulic fracturing fluid) are injected under extreme pressures that turn the formerly tight shale into a highly fractured medium. Removal of the fluids (backflow) leaves a fractured formation giving up massive quantities of natural gas. Hundreds of these wells were drilled and almost overnight, Pennsylvania became the second highest producer of natural gas in the nation.

The rush to capitalize on this resource utilizing modern drilling and extraction techniques did not come without risk and ultimately negative impact to the surface environment, subsurface aquifers and public health. Millions of tons of fractured shale mixed with drilling mud and millions of gallons of flow back fracturing fluids containing lubricants and anti fungal pesticides had to be disposed of. Numerous municipal sewage treatment plants as well as 25 landfills in Pennsylvania and several in New York State became the recipients of the enormous waste stream resulting in the decade long natural gas boom. Several small communities and rural homesteads in Pa. began experiencing water well pollution. People, cattle and pets were getting sick. Use of the aquifer that fed the Coudersport hospital had to be shut down. Local streams and rivers were being polluted and the leachate from landfills, that accepted drilling wastes, as well as discharges and sludge from sewage plants treating the drilling waste stream, began showing high levels of the drilling chemicals along with radioactivity. Use of the salty (brine) extracted during production could no longer be used to control dust on the rural dirt roads. The Marcellus and Utica Shale deposits and associated waste stream contain Radium which decays into radioactive isotopes of Polonium 210 for a short period and then radioactive lead for several decades.

New York State enacted a ban on the use of High Volume Hydraulic Fracturing in the development of Marcellus and Utica natural gas wells. The waste stream from Pa, however, accepted at NY landfills with its chemical as well as radioactive pollutants began showing up in the testing of leachate and gaseous releases from solid and liquid waste disposal sites.  Even more alarming was the realization that these deeper geologic formations contain much higher radioactivity than shallower gas producing geologic formations. Research into the potential impacts of a radium contaminated natural gas supply became a nightmare that the producers, government regulators, and even homeowners prefer to ignore. The smoking gun, however, comes into evidence when the cleaning (pigging) of large transmission lines, pumps, valves, have to cleared of natural gas condensates(scale buildup). These compounded deposits of radioactivity require disposal as a hazardous radioactive waste. The implications and complications of the underground pipes and natural gas facilities, treatment plants, landfills and discharge to water bodies becoming more and more radioactive is a dangerous fact of life that we cannot continue to ignore. It has also been recently revealed that PFAs (forever chemicals) are a secret ingredient used in natural gas directional drilling and high volume hydrofracking operations.

Natural gas is an important energy resource to maintain and conserve as an important component of our national energy policy that facilitates the transition (bridge) to a sustainable non polluting energy future. The deep Marcellus and Utica formations should not be further developed.  Focus should be on shallow gas deposits (old school) exploration and the maintaining of the existing delivery infrastructure to avoid new pipelines. We should free our genius inventors from the tyranny of the Patent office, that has seized and suppressed important inventions and promote new energy sources such as Hydrogen, Hydro, Solar, Fuel Cells, safe modular nuclear, that can burn down spent fuel (waste), zero point, etc. We can indeed set the course for a safe non polluting energy future and let the frenzied echo of ‘Drill Baby Drill’ fade away.

Fred Sinclair is an Alfred NY opinion writer, former county legislator, and a soil and water professional. You can contact him anytime, fpsinclair@yahoo.com