A Conversation With Fred Sinclair - #3-Social Issues

Last week’s column was the second part of an extended interview with Fred Sinclair, Allegany County legislator and Manager of the Soil and Water conservation district for Allegany county for 35 years. This week’s column concludes the interview. To read our previous conversations just scroll down to the previous posts. At the bottom of this weeks column are links to primary source materials that Fred Sinclair provided.

Previously, Fred talked at length about the geology of aquifers and the threat that hydrofracking poses to our water resources. Last week he commented on the dangers inherent from the radioactivity contained within the Marcellus Shale itself.

GM: Fred, what about the quality of life issues in communities that have allowed hydrofracking?

FS: Everyone is focused on the important issues of water and health, but what people aren’t talking so much about is the impact on the social structure of a boom. Local governments need to be prepared for and take pro-active action against the effects of this level of activity hitting you all at once. Your jails are going to get filled up, policeman will be overtaxed, emergency responders are going to be burnt out, hospitals are going to be hit with everything from chemical spill emergencies to workers with severe infections and sexually transmitted diseases that they have brought with them from other areas. This is what they’re seeing at the Guthrie Clinic.

GM: I’ve read about many of the things you are mentioning in the report from Guthrie, like how emergency vehicles are slowed because of the high volume of truck traffic. [Click here to read the Guthrie Report]

FS: This is a killer on your community. The whole tempo is changed. There are subtle impacts and not so subtle. Out of state workers with a lot of money, workers with children and how that impacts the schools, many workers the first few months working for these companies don’t have health insurance so there can be a big impact on Medicaid roles. DWI’s go up. And there are housing issues. There aren’t enough places to rent in an area being developed in this way – the gas workers take everything and they pay twice as much as it is worth, and students can’t find accommodations. Hotels and motels fill up. We are required by State law to house the homeless, the indigent, and people coming out of jail, and what will happen – if we cannot put them up in a motel because they are all full – we have to shift them to shelter in a county up north at twice the cost. We have been looking at these issues because cumulatively there is a huge social impact.

GM: I think what you are saying is important. I often hear, “oh, my grandfather had a gas well and everything was fine.” Many people don’t understand that fracking will mean the transformation of the countryside into an industrial zone and all the ramifications that come along with extreme energy extraction in the 21^st century.

FS: And it will stay this way for awhile and then collapse and you are left with pipes in the ground which have changed hands, the wells are sold to some secondary producer who doesn’t care or have the resources to do a proper cleanup and closure. This is a bubble that the industry is creating. It’s just like the tech bubble and there will be a huge impact when it pops. These are artificial bubbles created by people who want to make a lot of money – and a lot of this is foreign money – the wells are often owned by foreign investors.

GM: Given the dangers to our communal resources the economics are complex. What would you say to someone who sees leasing as their economic salvation?

FS: There is an old saying, “ Water will get you through times without money, better than money gets you through times without water.” That’s kind of flip but the bottom line is that a few people will get very rich and the environment will suffer, our way of life will suffer. We are putting in road protection on a countywide level and towns should do the same.  Our tourism industry will be hit; the wildlife will be driven away from the wellheads and the huge industrial activity. All of the things that bring people here and that people enjoy immensely, birding, fishing or hunting – all of that will be impacted and we will end up losing money. Tourism is a big thing for us and we are learning how to nurture it – it’s a pleasant economic adventure – people coming to enjoy your area and spending their money locally. People will not come here to sit in a traffic jam, to sit behind trucks hauling poisonous chemicals or lines of water tankers. That will be the perception and there is a danger in that.

The socio-economic planning by the DEC in the SGEIS is very weak. They studied communities across the Southern Tier where drilling will have an impact and Steuben and Allegany Counties are conspicuously absent. They left us out of the discussion completely and I don’t know why. That is a travesty worth noting.

I am impressed by the large spectrum of people, economists, scientists, doctors, and just regular citizens that are stepping up to speak with their town boards. How many bans and moratoriums are there now?

GM: If you include all the bans, moratoriums, pending legislation and DEC protected communities in the NYC and Syracuse watersheds there are 209.

Fred, thank you for sitting down with me and sharing your expertise. Any parting thoughts about hydrofracking?

FS: It should not be allowed in my opinion. It is just not worth it. The first oil minister for Saudi Arabia upon his retirement said, “I wish we had discovered water.” When you look at the structure there, there are a small number of people who are extremely wealthy and everyone else is poor. I don’t believe that people here will benefit and we will lose why we are here- that’s sad. I am very proud of Alfred’s moratorium. Many people with the “drill baby, drill” mentality will be the first ones to say, “Oh, I didn’t know that was going to happen."

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This column concludes my extended conversation with Fred Sinclair. Many of the points that Fred has discussed in this series are contained in the Guthrie Report referenced above and the DEC Draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS). The entire SGEIS is a very large file but worth spending time with. Please note: if you download the whole file, Chapter 11 is the index and will help you navigate the document.

Another source to go to: James “Chip” Northrup, who was a planning manager at Atlantic Richfield and an independent oil and gas producer for onshore and offshore drilling rigs. He has 30 years of experience in the industry. Go to his blog: www.scribd.com/northrup49  Because of his insider knowledge of the industry his writings are particularly interesting. Many of the concerns that Fred Sinclair has talked about can also be found in the writings and public lectures of James Northrup.

Fred Sinclair has provided me with many of his primary sources for the issues discussed in our three part interview.  Below are the links to those documents:


Water:


USGS: Response to DEC SGEIS. This document covers many of the points Fred Sinclair made on water issues

This document is a less technical summary of the USGS: Response to the DEC SGEIS 

Chemical and Biological Risk Assessment for Natural Gas Extraction in New York - a paper by Ronald E. Bishop, PH.D. , CHO, Chemistry and Biochemistry Department, State University of New York, College at Oneonta

Wastewater Becomes Issue in Debate on Gas Drilling - New York Times 5/4/12

Radioactivity:

A collection of resources on radium, low-level radioactivity, and the Marcellus shale

Radioactivity : A paper by Peter J. Davies, Professor of Biology, Cornell University

Radon and the Marcellus Shale by Martin Resnikoff, Radioactive Waste Management Associates

Radon in Natural Gas from Marcellus Shale by Martin Resnikoff, Radioactive Waste Management Associates

USGS Fact Sheet: Naturally Occurring Radionuclides in the Ground Water of Southeastern Pennsylvania

USGS: Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORM) in Produced Water and Oil-Field Equipment-An Issue For The Energy Industry


Social/Economic Issues:


The Economic Consequences of Marcellus Shale Gas Extraction: Key Issues -A research project sponsored by the Cornell University Department of City and Regional Planning

A Conversation With Fred Sinclair #2 - Radioactivity

Last week’s column was the first part of an extended interview with Fred Sinclair, Allegany County legislator and Manager of the Soil and Water conservation district for the county for 35 years. 

Previously, Fred talked at length about the geology of aquifers and the threat that hydrofracking poses to our water resources. This week he comments on the dangers inherent from the Marcellus Shale itself.

FS: The Marcellus Shale is radioactive – it carries radium 226, and other “daughter” radionuclides that are degraded remnants from the uranium that was in the earth. They are present at levels 25 times natural background, so if officials say, “this is no different than the brick in your house or the stone in your garden” that is not true.

GM: So how is this a problem?

FS: Radon, which is the gas that comes off from Radium is water soluble. So as this methane gas, with radon in it, is released from the shale and is coming up through water resources and aquifers, the radon can actually go into solution and that is a serious thing because if radon gets into your water and then you drink it, it goes into the cellular level of your body. It’s not the same as breathing it and it’s not the same as alpha particles hitting your clothes and bouncing off, which is the argument they like to use about radon, “ oh, they just bounce off your blue jeans and that’s it.” If Radon is in your water it is the worst, because it then bio-accumulates and sits there emitting alpha particles inside of you that directly affect your cells.

GM: So are you saying that something that was contained deep within the earth can start to migrate because drilling, fracking and pressure disturbs it and creates pathways for it to migrate?

FS: Yes. The natural pressures down a mile deep are huge – like in the ocean – so anything in a gaseous state is going to want to get to an area of lower pressure. That’s just the way it works. It is going to find those pathways and as I have said, to think we have everything all sealed off is naïve.

GM: So if radium is present in the Marcellus Shale is radium present in the gas from the Marcellus shale?

FS:  Potentially, yes. This is an exposure danger that needs to be assessed, researched, and taken very seriously.

GM: I understand that the Hyland Landfill in Angelica is accepting drill tailings from the fracking in Pennsylvania.

FS: It is true. Thousands of tons. This is an extension of the same issue because the tailings and cuttings come from the Marcellus Shale drilling. Some are just ground up bedrock, but it is the tailings and cuttings from what we call the “black shale,” the Marcellus layer, this is a nasty deposit from roughly 350 million years ago that is of concern. Another issue is that the tailings –they are kind of like a soup, dry out, so there is dust associated with it, and when it is transported this is also a problem.

GM: Are the tailings being monitored?

FS: Allegedly. But there is a lot of conjecture about the ability of these monitors to pick up the daughter radionuclides. They think everything is fine, but I believe if you took a radon test up there you might find there is a lot of radon coming off the site.

GM: You described radon’s water soluability – what about the danger from the landfill that takes these tailings? What about the leachate from the landfill itself?

FS: That is exactly the point. I made this point emphatically in the Energy Committee, that we needed to warn the Wellsville treatment plant because all of the leachate from Hyland goes to Wellsville, where it then gets treated and discharged into the Genesee River. What is the quality of the water that they are putting in the river? That’s the bottom line that we should know. It’s not routinely required to test their emissions. We don’t know what the long term, cumulative effects are of the radioactivity associated with the landfill, the leachate, the air, sewage treatment plants and the accumulation in the equipment. Studies of this kind of low-level radioactivity haven’t been done. No one has tested radioactivity and leachate long term, or done cumulative projections. We pretend to know what we are doing. Something that we do know about are the heavy metals in the leachate from the landfill.

GM: Where do the heavy metals come from?

FS:  The Marcellus was an ancient sea bed, extremely salty. There is a lot of salt and bromides that come up with the tailings and cuttings and when they are introduced to the landfill they alter the chemistry and it changes the rate of composting.

GM: Just like my garden compost when I put some salty material in it.

FS: Correct. And this caustic liquid from the tailings and cuttings migrates down through the landfill and causes the materials already in the landfill to release heavy metals. This moisture is a different animal than rainwater. It changes the chemistry of the landfill. I alerted the Board of Health and Wellsville stopped taking the leachate for a short time, but the leachate backs up and it’s a lot of revenue for Wellsville.

GM: Wellsville can handle this material?

FS: They think they can. They are treating it for bacteria and running it through their settling beds. The environment of these beds can absorb a lot of the heavy metals.

GM: Are there other ways in which radioactivity from the Marcellus can impact us?

FS: Another significant issue is that when you run radioactive material through your pipes it accumulates on the little joints and seams and as it accumulates these things become more and more radioactive. The corners of the sludge pits that don’t get cleaned out all the way – over time, and the pipes that bring the gas up out of the ground. They become radioactive. So the question is, what are you going to do with these pipes and transmission lines? Is radon gas being delivered to people who don’t have their stoves vented? Is radon actually going to be increased in the homes of people who are using Marcellus gas? So here we are 20 years later with the threat of radioactivity again in Allegany County and a major threat to the environment. Thousands of tons of this material have been put into Angelica. It’s scary. Themes in history do indeed repeat themselves, and it is here, now, already.

Continued Next week: Part #3: Quality of life.

A Conversation With Fred Sinclair #1 Introduction / Water issues

I had the pleasure to sit down with Fred Sinclair for a few hours on a recent Saturday and asked him questions about hydrofracking and its potential impacts. I first met Fred during the fight against the siting of the radioactive waste dump in Allegany Co. and quickly came to respect his broad knowledge and expertise. In our conversation, Fred spoke on topics that will be the focus of my next three columns:  Water, Radioactivity, and Social Impacts.

Fred is currently an Allegany County legislator and is the chairman of the Planning and Economic Development Committee. For 35 years he was manager of the Soil and Water conservation district for Allegany County prior to becoming a legislator. He has a deep understanding of resource protection, water flow and hydraulics, interactions of water and earth, and subsurface geology. This knowledge combined with the larger social and economic perspectives of a legislator has given him the ability to see how the various issues related to hydrofracking – whether they be scientific, geologic, economic, or social, are all interrelated.

GM: The Village of Alfred, the Colleges, Tinkertown, parts of the Town of Alfred, the Alfred-Almond School, and the village of Almond all draw their water from one aquifer. If hydrofracking is allowed in our area should we be concerned?

FS: This type of aquifer is called an unconfined aquifer, meaning that it is related to the gravels and the recharge areas of the valley; considerable wetlands areas serve to recharge it and are hydraulically connected to it.

This is a fundamentally different situation than a confined aquifer that exists down below a big layer of clay that would tend to confine it from surface influences. Alfred’s unconfined aquifer has a lot of hydraulic connections, just like in your body, like the way veins are connected and go to many different areas. These water veins feed this aquifer and there is the potential for things that happen on the surface to penetrate down through and affect the aquifer readily. And it sits on top of bedrock that has its own characteristic patterns of significant fractures; that also collects water and feeds the aquifer. These are all possible pathways for pollution if drilling goes into one of these veins that feed a gradient that heads towards an aquifer. Alfred’s aquifer and well is very good and needs to be protected and having this huge population dependent on it ups the ante for the need to protect it.

GM: So given the geology you just described do you feel that hydrofracking in the area around the aquifer is a threat?

FS: Absolutely! And there is an additional issue here and that is airborne sources of pollution. You have to look at all of the trucking, hydrofracking engines at the well sites, and all of the developmental activities that come with drilling. Additionally, over a 12 month period 1 well is allowed to discharge 1 ton of benzene to the atmosphere. That’s only one well – remember a spacing unit between well pads is 640 acres – so every 640 acres there could be a well pad.

The DEC -- proposed solution to these emissions is to put 30-foot stacks up at the well pads. That is their solution! What happens when it rains and you get this atmospheric deposition of pollutants? It lands on watersheds, recharge areas, wetlands and foliage. It is part of the water that penetrates the earth and is recharging aquifers. Not to mention that it’s going to affect organic certification of fields. These emissions will also affect the more susceptible – people with breathing problems and those less able to cope with pollutants. Think about the BTEX complex [Benzene, Toulene, Ethybenzene and Xylene] coming off the condensate tanks. This wide blanketing of atmospheric deposition is not something the DEC has addressed.

GM: You describe a kind of aerial migration pathway to the aquifer, what about the drilling itself as a source of pollution?

FS: At the wellheads there will be large areas of extremely poisonous chemicals on site. There will be accidents. There will be illegal activity. There are examples in Pennsylvania of fracking fluids being spread on roads. That’s the human factor. There are many ways pollution can travel underground. First, when they begin drilling, before a pipe is inserted and grouted, they are using a caustic drilling “mud” and they are drilling down through aquifers. Second, when they drill into the Marcellus layer they then fracture the shale with an explosive force that exerts huge amounts of pressure, creating fractures that can connect to natural geologic pathways. It is absurd to think that gas and chemicals will only follow the designated channels. Four, it is proven that gas will follow along the outside of the pipe. Five, you have seals and grout in the underground pipeline. As long as they work you have a seal that will contain most of the gas, but they have a life and you have ground movement and the potential for seals to be interrupted, so who’s to say for how long they will function properly? There are actual field studies that show how long these seals work – they might last 10 years but inevitably there will be seepage and methane can accumulate in your water system and can be explosive. For us to think that we have everything all sealed off is naïve. The latest research of the USGS [United States Geologic Survey] has been damning in terms of what is happening out west. The DEC says our regulations will be better -- but with the forces at play we will find over time that these things will leak and there will be the introduction of pollutants into the aquifers.

GM: Up to 50% of the water that’s mixed with chemicals that goes down the hole of a well during the fracking process, doesn’t come back to the surface. The industry says it’s not a concern because it’s geologically sound down there and this material will be contained forever. Does the process of migration you’ve just described pertain also to this chemical-laced water?

FS: Yes. It could easily be carried up by man-made and geologic fractures. The earth and geology in western New York is very fractured already.

GM: What about the large number of abandoned gas wells in Allegany Co.?

FS: There are areas in the county where hundreds and hundreds of wells were drilled in a very small area and they just walked away from them when they didn’t hit anything – or they hit water. Not all of these wells are still seen at the surface, sometimes the pipe is rusted off and grass has grown over it. In the Allentown area there are zones where the homes do not have potable water, there are some spots where it is questionable if you should bathe in the water. Because of old drilling there are hydrocarbons in the aquifers – there are entire areas in the mostly southern part of the county where you cannot drill a water well. A lot of people don’t know that.

GM: It’s like you are describing swiss cheese. Are these old wells a threat to us in relation to hydrofracking?

FS: Absolutely. In many cases they are the connections between lower levels of geology and water. Those pipes are old enough that they are cracked and have lost their integrity, so if hydrofracking or a crevice of some kind was to reach them, they are a direct conduit to an upper aquifer.

An abandoned gas well in Elm Valley that now spouts water. What was intended to keep water out has now become a conduit for it.

GM: Are there other ways in which our water is threatened?

FS: Yes –what’s even more vulnerable than the unconfined aquifer that Alfred draws from is the Genesee River. The villages of Wellsville and Scio rely on water that comes right out of it. It is classified A Class, meaning it is potable water. We have contacted Potter County and their emergency managers and we have attempted to set up a direct line of communication between Pennsylvania and our water plant in Wellsville, so that if they have any inkling that a truck has turned over, or a bad actor has put stuff in a stream that is in the Genesee River watershed – there are several thousands of acres in Pennsylvania that feed directly into the Genesee River – we want to know immediately if something happens. It’s no small feat to get everyone understanding the importance of this. Immediate notification would enable us to close our water intake until it has passed by us.

GM: Does this arrangement leave you feeling confident?

FS: The human factor is one that does not create confidence.

GM: And what about further downstream from Wellsville?

FS: The other community that could be affected is the Village of Belmont. It has an unconfined aquifer just off the side of the Genesee and its water is associated with the river. If they were to know, action could be taken.

GM: And what happens further downstream from there?

FS: The DEC will tell you that dilution is the solution to pollution.

Continued Next week: Part #2: How radioactivity is a threat from hydrofracking.