Pennsylvania

Energy. Environment. Economy.

DEP’s Dimock Decision Based On 2010 Agreement, Not Water Quality

December 8, 2011 | 3:40 PM
By Scott Detrow

Susan Phillips / StateImpactPA

Actor Mark Ruf­falo holds up a jug of water drawn from a well in Dimock, Pa. Ruf­falo spoke at a rally this week after help­ing deliver fresh water to affected residents.

As anti-natural gas drilling pro­test­ers con­verged on Dimock, Susque­hanna County this week to protest the Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion grant­ing Cabot Oil and Gas the right to stop deliv­er­ing water to fam­i­lies whose water sup­ply was con­t­a­m­i­nated, many activists on either side of the issue viewed the DEP deci­sion as an endorse­ment of the community’s cur­rent water quality.

In fact, DEP’s deci­sion allow­ing Cabot to stop pro­vid­ing water to Dimock res­i­dents had noth­ing to do with whether or not methane lev­els have increased or decreased at the affected water wells. “The [Con­sent Order and Agree­ment] didn’t require DEP to deem the water safe before per­mit­ting Cabot to stop deliv­er­ing water,” explained depart­ment spokes­woman Katy Gresh via email.

Indeed, a Decem­ber 2010 agree­ment between DEP and Cabot required the com­pany to con­tinue pro­vid­ing potable water to affected Dimock res­i­dents “until Cabot [received] writ­ten notice from the Depart­ment that it has com­plied” with a set list of require­ments.  Improved water qual­ity was not among the criteria.

DEP began inves­ti­gat­ing Cabot after a Jan­u­ary 1, 2009 explo­sion at a Dimock resident’s water well. State inspec­tors doc­u­mented mul­ti­ple vio­la­tions at Cabot wells, includ­ing faulty well cas­ings, spilled diesel fuel and spilled drilling mud. DEP also doc­u­mented high methane lev­els and “com­bustible gas” in water wells located near Cabot drilling sites. In the ini­tial Con­sent Order and Agree­ment between DEP and Cabot, dated Novem­ber 4, 2009, the agency deter­mined, “the pres­ence of dis­solved methane and/or com­bustible gas in the 10 Affected Water Sup­plies occurred within six months of com­ple­tion of drilling of one or more of the Cabot Wells. As such, Cabot is pre­sumed to be respon­si­ble for the pol­lu­tion to these 10 Affected Water Supplies.”

Susan Phillips / StateImpactPA

Norma Fiorentino is one of sev­eral Dimock res­i­dents chal­leng­ing DEP’s deci­sion to allow Cabot Oil and Gas to halt water deliveries.

Cabot signed onto this doc­u­ment, which ordered the driller to

  • imme­di­ately stop drilling for nat­ural gas within the “affected area” around Dimock
  • improve its well cas­ing procedures
  • pro­vide potable water for impacted residents
  • sub­mit a plan to per­ma­nently “restore or replace” these res­i­dents’ water sources

Unlike the later Decem­ber 2010 agree­ment — which we’ll get into shortly — the ini­tial Con­sent Order and Agree­ment (COA) required Cabot to con­tinue pro­vid­ing water to Dimock res­i­dents until, “the Depart­ment noti­fies Cabot, in writ­ing, that the Depart­ment has deter­mined that the Affected Water Sup­ply has been restored such that Cabot is no longer required to pro­vide such pur­chased water.” In other words, DEP would test the water sources.

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Dimock, PA: “Ground Zero” In The Fight Over Fracking

“18 of these fam­i­lies had their water con­t­a­m­i­nated by gas migrat­ing from poorly con­structed gas wells. DEP found this repeat­edly,” said for­mer DEP Sec­re­tary John Hanger, who ran the depart­ment dur­ing the last two years of the Ren­dell Admin­is­tra­tion.  “Test­ing removed the pos­si­bil­ity that this was pre­ex­ist­ing gas.” Cabot has dis­puted this con­clu­sion, releas­ing mul­ti­ple stud­ies show­ing methane migra­tion is a com­mon, nat­ural occur­rence in the Dimock area.

In 2010, the COA between Cabot and DEP was revised twice. The final agree­ment, reached in Decem­ber, is the doc­u­ment dic­tat­ing the agency’s cur­rent stance. In it, Cabot makes it clear the com­pany dis­agrees with DEP’s find­ings, “how­ever, Cabot agrees to and shall full­fil all of the terms and oblig­a­tions of this Con­sent Order and Agree­ment Set­tle­ment.” The Decem­ber 2010 doc­u­ment laid out harsh penal­ties for the driller. It required Cabot to pay the impacted fam­i­lies set­tle­ments worth twice their prop­erty val­ues, a total Hanger said exceeded $4 mil­lion. But the doc­u­ment did not include water test­ing as a cri­te­ria for Cabot to stop pro­vid­ing clean water to the impacted families.

Instead, Cabot had to ful­fill the fol­low­ing obligations:

  • deposit the set­tle­ment money into escrow accounts
  • notify the fam­i­lies and DEP that the money was available
  • install a “gas mit­i­ga­tion device” (a water fil­ter) at each residence

In Octo­ber, Cabot informed DEP it had met all these require­ments, and asked for per­mis­sion to stop deliv­er­ing water to the Dimock fam­i­lies. Act­ing Deputy Sec­re­tary Scott Perry approved the request, and Cabot stopped pro­vid­ing water on Decem­ber 1. In a let­ter to the Cham­bers­burg Pub­lic Opin­ion, Sec­re­tary Mike Krancer defended the deci­sion. “We were guided by a legal agree­ment dat­ing to the pre­vi­ous admin­is­tra­tion,” he wrote. “The agreement…required Cabot to sat­isfy spe­cific water pro­vi­sion oblig­a­tions and meet cer­tain requirements….Cabot sat­is­fied those require­ments, and the law, in turn, requires DEP to fol­low its obligations.”

In a state­ment, Cabot said it “con­tin­ues to offer to install DEP-approved water treat­ment sys­tems to affected res­i­dents. Res­i­dents across the Com­mon­wealth have suc­cess­fully used fil­tra­tion sys­tems as the time-tested solu­tion to remove methane from water.” The state­ment con­tin­ued,” all of the home­own­ers who accepted the methane treat­ment sys­tems in Dimock have seen a 96%-98% reduc­tion in methane con­cen­tra­tions.” But sev­eral fam­i­lies have refused Cabot’s offers, say­ing the fil­tra­tion sys­tems will not remove harm­ful chemicals.

DEP’s deci­sion did not sit well with sev­eral impacted fam­i­lies. At the rally on Tues­day, res­i­dents held up a jug full of murky water they say came from their well. Craig Saut­ner chal­lenged DEP Sec­re­tary Michael Krancer to drink his water.

“He says there’s noth­ing wrong with the water in Dimock. Does that water look like there’s noth­ing wrong with it? Does he drink it?”

Is the water safe? While DEP has not been con­duct­ing tests, Cabot has pro­vided water sam­ples to state-laboratories. The fed­eral Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency has reviewed the data, and found the water “does not indi­cate an imme­di­ate health threat to well water users.” In a state­ment, the agency said it “will con­tinue to review the lat­est infor­ma­tion,” not­ing it had received more than 300 pages of well water data from Dimock residents.

Sev­eral Dimock res­i­dents express scep­ti­cism about Cabot’s tests. Ray Kem­ble says he never gave Cabot per­mis­sion to go on his land and test his water.

“They come here and think they own the place just because you signed a lease with them,” said Kemble.

Kemble’s well is now dis­con­nected from his house, and he gets water from a water buf­falo that stores trucked in water. He says he didn’t see where Cabot work­ers took water sam­ples, and doesn’t trust the lab results.

Kem­ble and ten other Dimock fam­i­lies are chal­leng­ing the DEP deci­sion. At an Envi­ron­men­tal Hear­ing Board yes­ter­day, they asked a judge to over­turn the agency’s rul­ing. As the Scran­ton Times-Tribune wrote,

The Nat­ural Resources Defense Coun­cil, an envi­ron­men­tal orga­ni­za­tion, joined the fam­i­lies’ attor­neys Wednes­day in ask­ing the judge to reverse the state’s deter­mi­na­tion that Cabot ful­filled the terms of a Decem­ber 2010 set­tle­ment allow­ing the deliv­er­ies to stop. Fur­ther, the attor­neys asked the judge to throw out the “ille­gal” sec­tion of the set­tle­ment that fell short of state laws requir­ing drillers to “restore or replace” water they damage.

The attor­neys argued the state wrongly ignored the harm the fam­i­lies would suf­fer if forced to drink well water they said con­tains con­t­a­m­i­nants includ­ing met­als, sol­vents and man­u­fac­tured chem­i­cals at lev­els above state and fed­eral drink­ing water standards.

Comments

  • Mike Knapp

    I think this arti­cle is miss­ing just a bit of con­text.  The DEP acknowl­edged a long time ago that methane was the only con­t­a­m­i­nant that was of con­cern.  Methane is eas­ily removed by installing a fil­tra­tion sys­tem designed for that pur­pose.  Herego, if Cabot offered and installed methane removal sys­tems, and redesigned their well stan­dards to make sure that it doesn’t hap­pen again, all would be well and they could go about their busi­ness.  As men­tioned in the arti­cle, the sys­tems remove 96–98% of the methane.

    DEP didn’t require Cabot to remove the methane from the aquifer, as this can be tricky or impos­si­ble.  They required Cabot to do every­thing in their power to TRY to fix it.  Thank­fully, it did indeed work and methane lev­els are back to back­ground lev­els.  What’s puz­zling is why DEP required Cabot to deliver water as long as they did. 

    I don’t have the info in front of me, but I bet that dur­ing the time between the orig­i­nal COA and the revised COA, methane lev­els were already drop­ping sig­nif­i­cantly, which was evi­dence that the con­di­tions orig­i­nally imposed were work­ing or had already worked.  As such, there was no need to specif­i­cally address “water qual­ity” in the revised COA. 

    If the water was believed by DEP to be degraded to an unsafe level by Cabot, there is no way, shape, or form in which they would have granted Cabot the abil­ity to dis­con­tinue water deliv­er­ies.  This is fur­ther evi­denced by the EPA’s com­ments on the matter.

    Bot­tom line:  The water is safe to drink in Dimock. 

    Mike Knapp
    Pres­i­dent
    Knapp Acqui­si­tions & Pro­duc­tion
    Kit­tan­ning, PA

    • Scott Detrow

      Thanks for the com­ment, Mike.

    • Con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed­wa­terindi­mock

      If there’s no prob­lem with the water in Dimock, then why don’t you come and drink it your­self. Then take it home with you and shower in it for a cou­ple of months. You’ll be chang­ing your tune. 

    • John Trallo

      What’s puz­zling is why a guy like Mike Knapp chooses to ignore the rest of the data. Could it pos­si­bly be his per­sonal finan­cial inter­est in nat­ural gas devel­op­ment? Hmmm… let’s look at the facts regard­ing the water sam­ples in Dimock.
       

      As the data stands now, there are five major prob­lems with reach­ing the con­clu­sion that Dimock ground­wa­ter is not con­t­a­m­i­nated. These are: 1) there is no loca­tion map or key to inform the reader as to where all the assorted sam­ple sites are, 2) many area wells known to be adversely affected were not sam­pled, 3) visu­ally obvi­ous MCL vio­la­tions were ignored, 4) the con­clu­sions reached have failed to fac­tor in the hydro­ge­o­logic set­ting and ground­wa­ter flow, and 5) Cabot’s own data reveals exist­ing con­t­a­m­i­na­tion in excess of State MCL drink­ing water qual­ity standards.

      Recent Exam­ple Vio­la­tions of Max­i­mum Con­t­a­m­i­nant Level (MCL) Drink­ing Water Qual­ity Stan­dard Thresholds

      Look­ing first at the Saut­ner well, Cabot’s recent data shows the iron level to be 5000 ug/l, some 16.7 times the MCL of 300 ug/l. Three other sam­ple loca­tions in Cabot’s recent data set
      also reveal iron con­cen­tra­tions rang­ing from 3.7 to 5.3 times the MCL stan­dard (e.g., Roos well). Five sam­ple loca­tions, includ­ing Saut­ner, were found to have man­ganese con­cen­tra­tions of up to 4 times the PA MCL drink­ing water stan­dard for man­ganese of 50 ug/l. The Carter well was found to have lead and man­ganese at lev­els of 5 and 2.6 times State MCL lev­els and iron at 5.7 times the PA State MCL stan­dard. These are all obvi­ous vio­la­tions of PA Safe Drink­ing Water Reg­u­la­tion stan­dards.
      Let’s take a look at water from theScott Ely well that Cabot and the State of PA have deter­mined is now suit­able for inges­tion. Prior to gas drilling activ­i­ties, Scott Ely’s ground­wa­ter was clear, potable, and did not require fil­tra­tion. This is it here now in this one gal­lon jug (hold up water sam­ple). As I tell you only some of what is in it, con­sider whether you would allow your­self and your fam­ily to drink and bathe in it. Within the last two weeks, this water sam­ple was found to have lead and man­ganese at 5.8 and 10 times State MCL lev­els and arsenic at 15 times the State MCL level. Data received within the last few hours revealed an alu­minum con­cen­tra­tion of 28 mg/l, some 140 times the State MCL. This is cause for great con­cern. Alu­minum is a potent neu­ro­toxin that may be linked to demen­tia, includ­ing Alzheimer’s like health symp­toms. Sim­i­larly, iron was detected at 34 mg/l, some 113 times the State MCL Safe Drink­ing Water stan­dard. While all analy­ses have not been com­pleted, pre­lim­i­nary find­ings also indi­cate the pres­ence of low level hexa­nes, octanes, and decanes. How­ever, the high pH of the water indi­cates the pres­ence of SIGNIFICANT other frack-related chem­i­cals that are both unknown and untested –chem­i­cal com­pounds that do not have MCLs – chem­i­cals that poten­tially present long-term chronic expo­sure to tox­ins and carcinogens.Let’s take a look at water from theScott Ely well that Cabot and the State of PA have deter­mined is now suit­able for inges­tion. Prior to gas drilling activ­i­ties, Scott Ely’s ground­wa­ter was clear, potable, and did not require fil­tra­tion. This is it here now in this one gal­lon jug (hold up water sam­ple). As I tell you only some of what is in it, con­sider whether you would allow your­self and your fam­ily to drink and bathe in it. Within the last two weeks, this water sam­ple was found to have lead and man­ganese at 5.8 and 10 times State MCL lev­els and arsenic at 15 times the State MCL level. Data received within the last few hours revealed an alu­minum con­cen­tra­tion of 28 mg/l, some 140 times the State MCL. This is cause for great con­cern. Alu­minum is a potent neu­ro­toxin that may be linked to demen­tia, includ­ing Alzheimer’s like health symp­toms. Sim­i­larly, iron was detected at 34 mg/l, some 113 times the State MCL Safe Drink­ing Water stan­dard. While all analy­ses have not been com­pleted, pre­lim­i­nary find­ings also indi­cate the pres­ence of low level hexa­nes, octanes, and decanes. How­ever, the high pH of the water indi­cates the pres­ence of SIGNIFICANT other frack-related chem­i­cals that are both unknown and untested –chem­i­cal com­pounds that do not have MCLs – chem­i­cals that poten­tially present long-term chronic expo­sure to tox­ins and carcinogens.So, if the only prob­lem is methane, perh­pas Mike Knapp should do what Cabot and the DEP don’t have the guts to do. Put your money where your mouth is… lit­er­ally, and drink it. If it’s good enough for the res­i­dents of Carter Rd., it’s good enough for you, right?  

      The Carter well was found to have lead and man­ganese at lev­els of 5 and 2.6 times State MCL lev­els and iron at 5.7 times the PA State MCL stan­dard.
      These are all obvi­ous vio­la­tions of PA Safe Drink­ing Water Reg­u­la­tion standards.

      Let’s take a look at water from theScott Ely well that Cabot and the State of PA have deter­mined is now suit­able for inges­tion. Prior to gas drilling activ­i­ties, Scott Ely’s ground­wa­ter was clear, potable, and did not require fil­tra­tion. This is it here now in this one gal­lon jug (hold up water sam­ple). As I tell you only some of what is in it, con­sider whether you would allow your­self and your fam­ily to drink and bathe in it. Within the last two weeks, this water sam­ple was found to have lead and man­ganese at 5.8 and 10 times State MCL lev­els and arsenic at 15 times the State MCL level. Data received within the last few hours revealed an alu­minum con­cen­tra­tion of 28 mg/l, some 140 times the State MCL. This is cause for great con­cern. Alu­minum is a potent neu­ro­toxin that may be linked to demen­tia, includ­ing Alzheimer’s like health symp­toms. Sim­i­larly, iron was detected at 34 mg/l, some 113 times the State MCL Safe Drink­ing Water stan­dard. While all analy­ses have not been com­pleted, pre­lim­i­nary find­ings also indi­cate the pres­ence of low level hexa­nes, octanes, and decanes. How­ever, the high pH of the water indi­cates the pres­ence of SIGNIFICANT other frack-related chem­i­cals that are both unknown and untested –chem­i­cal com­pounds that do not have MCLs – chem­i­cals that poten­tially present long-term chronic expo­sure to tox­ins and car­cino­gens.
      Let’s take a look at water from theScott Ely well that Cabot and the State of PA have deter­mined is now suit­able for inges­tion. Prior to gas drilling activ­i­ties, Scott Ely’s ground­wa­ter was clear, potable, and did not require fil­tra­tion. This is it here now in this one gal­lon jug (hold up water sam­ple). As I tell you only some of what is in it, con­sider whether you would allow your­self and your fam­ily to drink and bathe in it. Within the last two weeks, this water sam­ple was found to have lead and man­ganese at 5.8 and 10 times State MCL lev­els and arsenic at 15 times the State MCL level. Data received within the last few hours revealed an alu­minum con­cen­tra­tion of 28 mg/l, some 140 times the State MCL. This is cause for great con­cern. Alu­minum is a potent neu­ro­toxin that may be linked to demen­tia, includ­ing Alzheimer’s like health symp­toms. Sim­i­larly, iron was detected at 34 mg/l, some 113 times the State MCL Safe Drink­ing Water stan­dard. While all analy­ses have not been com­pleted, pre­lim­i­nary find­ings also indi­cate the pres­ence of low level hexa­nes, octanes, and decanes. How­ever, the high pH of the water indi­cates the pres­ence of SIGNIFICANT other frack-related chem­i­cals that are both unknown and untested –chem­i­cal com­pounds that do not have MCLs – chem­i­cals that poten­tially present long-term chronic expo­sure to tox­ins and carcinogens.

      So, if the only prob­lem is methane, perh­pas Mike Knapp should do what Cabot and the DEP don’t have the guts to do. Put your money where your mouth is… lit­er­ally, and drink it. If it’s good enough for the res­i­dents of Carter Rd., it’s good enough for you, right?  

    • Anony­mous

      It is inter­est­ing that even USEPA is stat­ing the infor­ma­tion is in the review stage but Mike knows it all. 

  • Mike Wag­ner

    It’s a good thing that US EPA is inter­ven­ing.  There is so much indus­try pro­pa­ganda and non trans­parency of PA DEP (not to men­tion the appar­ent con­flict of inter­est that the Gov­er­nor Cor­bett has based on indus­try dona­tions to his cam­paign).   The water in Dim­rock was con­t­a­m­i­nated by the devel­oper and it is not safe to drink.  Don’t believe a word from Mr. Knapp who has stated the words ‘pub­lic rela­tions’ and ‘psy ops’ are synonyms.  

  • SJANDAT3
  • SJANDAT3

    HEY MIKE KNAPP…THERE IS MUCH MUCH MUCH MORE THAN ELEVATED METHANE LEVELS IN THAT WATER (see the links below)…THESE ARE THE OFFICIAL RESULTS OF THE WATER TESTS TAKEN ON THE WELLS OF THE 11 FAMILIES THAT DEP CLAIMS THEIR WATER IS SAFE TO DRINK…SAFE???  LEAD AND MAGNESIUM 10X’S THE STATE LIMIT/  ARSENIC AT 15X’S GREATER THAN THE STATE MCL LIMIT ALLOWS/ ALUMINUM AT 140X’S THE STATE MCL  LIMIT (ALUMINUM HAS BEEN LINKED TO ALZHEIMER’S AND AUTISM) / IRON 115X’S THE MCL STATE LIMIT…AND MANY OTHER TOXINS AND  CARCINOGENS!   (A car­cino­gen is any sub­stance, radionu­clide, or radi­a­tion that is an agent directly involved in caus­ing cancer.)

    I BELIEVE YOU ARE GRASPING AT STRAWS MIKE KNAPP!!!  THIS WATER IS CLEARLY UNSAFE TO DRINK!  UNSAFE TO BATH! UNFIT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTIONS..BUT..MAYBE YOU ARE GETTING CONFUSED..SINCE THAT IS WHAT IT SAID ON THE OUTSIDE OF THE WATER BUFFALO’S THAT CABOT WAS PROVIDING..OH WAIT!..I’M SORRY..THEY READ…NOT SAFE FOR ‘ANIMAL’ CONSUMPTION!! OOOPS..MY BAD!

    https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B9tP1cRHZ8J_ODFhYmQzOWItYjk3MS00ZDljLTkyNmUtMThiYmE4ZTZjNjU1&hl=en_US http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZSQS6baKyQ&feature=p

    • Mike Knapp

      I pre­fer to get my infor­ma­tion from unbi­ased sources, like the DEP, the EPA, and inde­pen­dent 3rd party accred­ited water test­ing labs.  Not from lawyers and lit­i­gants who stand to make many mil­lions of dol­lars, and “envi­ron­men­tal con­sul­tants” look­ing to make a name for them­selves.   The DEP required Cabot to pro­vide water for the bet­ter part of three years, and reme­di­a­tion orders cost­ing Cabot tens of mil­lions or dol­lars.   Why, if DEP doesn’t feel the water is safe, would they up and decide to allow the prac­tice to stop?   Why, if frac water con­t­a­m­i­nated the aquifers in Dimock, are we not see­ing ele­vated chlo­ride lev­els?   Frac water is many times saltier than salt water.  If frac fluid got into the aquifer, you’d see high salt con­di­tions, like in Pavil­lion, WY. 

      • Anony­mous

        Bot­tom line Mike. Were these sam­ple fil­tered before being analyzed?

        As far as what Cabot did:

        1. Did Cabot char­ac­ter­ize the ver­ti­cal and hor­i­zon­tal extent of the ground­wa­ter con­t­a­m­i­na­tion as nor­mal PADEP inves­ti­ga­tions are done?

        2. If the above was done, did Cabot make a plan to abate the fea­si­ble ground­wa­ter con­t­a­m­i­na­tion plume?

        3. Did Cabot pro­vide ade­quate short term (bot­tled water) and plans for long term (drink­ing water lines or per­ma­nent point treat­ment units with sam­pling) measures?

        Seems like none of these were done as typ­i­cally required by PADEP and USEPA in other pro­grams. Feel free to cor­rect me if I am wrong.

      • Anony­mous

        The EPA states that the sam­ples are cur­rently being reviewed. I don’t believe you (or myself) knows if “total” sam­ples have been (or not) pro­vided for EPA review. Read the memo again.

  • Get­The­Facts

    come and drink it.  Do you tell every­one that you never drank your water that you always had bot­tled water?  Why is it that you have never shown your test results?  Why is it that the media never films the water that comes from your well?  When the water is filmed it’s clear then a cut scene to the brown jug.  Oh no wait.  You had a utube video done where it was clear and you were com­plain­ing that it had no methane in it.  Why don’t you pay that lawyer bill and take the treat­ment sys­tem.  You have twice the assessed value plus some­one else offered you the assed value in cash.  Take it and go.  You make claims that peo­ple who come on your prop­erty get it ill just from being on the prop­erty.  Then you tell peo­ple to come with chil­dren and make sure you bring food and snacks and lots of water give you money too.  Is you pay pal set up?  Hope you pay your taxes on it.  Pay the lawyer!!!

  • Anony­mous

    Mike Knapp:

    Are you now back­track­ing? A few posts ago you seemed to say EPA said noth­ing is wrong with the sam­ples, yet EPA admits they have not com­pleted a review of the data. If the sam­ples were fil­tered prior to the analy­sis then the methane (and other organ­ics) would have been removed prior to the analy­sis. The met­als would be sig­nif­i­cantly decreased and would never be appro­pri­ate to com­pare with drink­ing water lev­els. Any sam­pler with over a wek expe­ri­ence would know this. There­fore, if Cabot did fil­ter the sam­ples (1) they did it out of total igno­rance on how to sam­ple cor­rectly or (2) they pur­posely tried to reduce the sam­ple con­cen­tra­tions. Again, here is the require­ment (and com­mon sense)  that sup­ple­ments the nor­mal sam­pling of res­i­den­tial wells.

    A bit more on the sam­ple prepa­ra­tion that might have been done inap­pro­pri­ately at Dimock. Note sec­tion (d) that is cited. Sam­ples for drink­ing water are NOT to be fil­tered.
     
    § 250.10. Mea­sure­ment of reg­u­lated sub­stances in media. (a)  For mea­sur­ing reg­u­lated sub­stances in soil and sed­i­ments, analy­ses shall be per­formed on a dry weight basis.  (b)  For met­als in soil, analy­ses shall be per­formed on total met­als, except for hexa­va­lent and triva­lent chromium, which analy­ses shall be per­formed indi­vid­u­ally.  (c)  For ground­wa­ter, sam­ples for met­als analy­sis shall be field fil­tered and field acid­i­fied in accor­dance with the most cur­rent ver­sion of the Ground­wa­ter Mon­i­tor­ing Guid­ance Man­ual, Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion, 3610-BK-DEP1973.  (d)  For ground­wa­ter where mon­i­tor­ing is being per­formed at a drink­ing water well, sam­ples for met­als analy­sis shall be field acid­i­fied and unfil­tered in accor­dance with the most cur­rent ver­sion of Ground­wa­ter Mon­i­tor­ing Guid­ance Man­ual, Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion, 3610-BK-DEP1973.  (e)  For sur­face water, sam­ples for met­als analy­sis shall be field acid­i­fied in accor­dance with approved EPA ana­lyt­i­cal meth­ods in §  16.102 (relat­ing to approved EPA ana­lyt­i­cal meth­ods and detec­tion lim­its).  (f)  For air, sam­ples and analy­ses shall be per­formed in accor­dance with Chap­ters 131 and 139 (relat­ing to ambi­ent air qual­ity stan­dards; and sam­pling and testing).

    • Mike Knapp

      The EPA used sam­ples obtained by state cer­ti­fied water test­ing labs. 

      • Anony­mous

        That’s not the answer although would like to know what lab since you seem to be pos­i­tive on the sam­ples. My posts was that IF they were FILTERED before analy­sis. All the organ­ics would be removed and the met­als sig­nif­i­cantly reduced. Most sam­plers would know bet­ter than to fil­ter res­i­den­tial sam­ples and then com­pare to risk lev­els. Sorry but you did not come close to answer­ing my post.

        d) For ground­wa­ter where mon­i­tor­ing is being per­formed at a drink­ing water well, sam­ples for met­als analy­sis shall be field acid­i­fied and unfil­tered in accor­dance with the most cur­rent ver­sion of Ground­wa­ter Mon­i­tor­ing Guid­ance Man­ual, Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion, 3610-BK-DEP1973

  • Anony­mous

    As far as “dif­fi­cult to impos­si­ble” to remove methane, nor­mal lev­els if they exist at all are likely in the parts per bil­lion range. These ele­vated lev­els can likely be eas­ily removed with treat­ment units.For your edu­ca­tion, go down the road a few miles to the Ivy Indus­trial Park where a coop­er­a­tive and com­plex organic sol­vent prob­lem is being resolved. Go fur­ther south to Moun­tain­top where Fos­ter Wheeler is also clean­ing up an organic prob­lem. Then go fur­ther south to Val­mont TCE Super­fund site for another suc­cess­ful organic prob­lem being assessed and cor­rected. If your com­pany is in the busi­ness of assess­ment and abate­ment of ground­wa­ter prob­lems have a sug­ges­tion. Go back to school, hire a COMPETENT geol­o­gist, spend less time whin­ing on the Inter­net, and learn from past suc­cesses and mis­takes of those that know what they are doing.

  • Penguin5b

    NPR needs to be defunded NOW. Let’s see…George Soros, ultra-progressive, ultra lib­eral, gives 1.8 mil­lion to NPR to start his pet project called “State Impact”. Now go to the NPR site, specif­i­cally the State Impact area. Look who else is cur­rently fund­ing it:

    Doris Duke Char­i­ta­ble Foun­da­tion
    Ethics & Excel­lence in Jour­nal­ism Foun­da­tion
    The William and Flora Hewlett Foun­da­tion
    The Melville Char­i­ta­ble Trust
    Open Soci­ety Foun­da­tion
    The Wal­lace Foun­da­tion
    Ultra pro­gres­sives all. Now, does any honest-thinking per­son actu­ally believe that report­ing born of this parent­age will be fair and bal­anced? Any­one? If you doubt me just visit the sites of the 8 dif­fer­ent states cov­ered by State Impact and look at the issues focused on and the slanted cov­er­age thereof.

    Here in PA the major focus is drilling the Mar­cel­lus shale. EVERY SINGLE STORY is a hit piece against the indus­try and are lit­tle more than op/ed columns. State Impact? Couldn’t “impact” be both good and bad? Then where are the sto­ries about how drilling has ben­e­fited PA? Jobs, tax rev­enue, eco­nomic plusses, less reliance on for­eign energy, among oth­ers. Surely these things should rate at least a story or two every now and then.

    But I’m sure Scott Detrow and Suzy Phillps would like to keep their jobs. And when your bosses are Soros and Ann Bee­son, well you just bet­ter be sure to toe the line.

    So how about it Scott &Suzy? How about a lit­tle bal­ance? Surely not every per­son in PA is against drilling. Maybe you could find a few and stick your mic in their faces, as repul­sive as you find this to be. You see, if you really want your sto­ries to have the “impact” that Soros/Beeson intended with their grant, here’s what to do: Prac­tice some hon­est, objec­tive jour­nal­ism and print of few of those sto­ries I men­tioned. That way, your hit pieces will actu­ally have more legit­i­macy by com­par­i­son. Get it? I’m not sure that Soros/Beeson will be pleased, but if they remove you from the project at least you’ll have the sat­is­fac­tion that you actu­ally per­formed what you got into the jour­nal­ism busi­ness to do — tell the truth.

  • Lit­tlegert

    I take it the escrow accounts set up for the effected fam­i­lies was not used by all of them and they are not accpet­ing any roy­alty checks either? Hav­ing watched some of them speak in Bing­ham­ton last night none of this is brought to light, it is their deci­sion to stay in their homes at this point?

  • Scohen3

    Why doth Mike protest so much?? 

  • Kel­lyz

    I am so dis­gusted with the greed preva­lent in all of these profrack­ing decisions.The evi­dence is clear. The EPA has been bought.There is a spe­cial place in hell for all of those push­ing for hydrofrack­ing and their money won’t help them there. Mean­while they work on ruin­ing the Earth for a few dollars.…sickening.                  Lisa AZ

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