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.
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