Forget Marcellus Shale; let’s turn Pennsylvania into a wildlife preserve

Let’s just be done with it and make the state of Pennsylvania the ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) of the east coast and a ward of the federal government. After all why would the good citizens of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania want to see their state become an energy producer to rival the states of the Gulf Coast or Alaska? One may be skeptical or feel that converting the entire state into a wildlife preserve is a bit extreme. Possibly extreme, but that may be the only way to satisfy the free market killing demands of various conservation groups and other “regulate everything” at any cost organizations.

It’s not clear that those behind the curtain pulling the strings to make this consortium of regulation advocates do their progressive agenda hamster dances have thought this one through completely. The great newspapers in Pennsylvania that have followed in Benjamin Franklin’s footsteps would go out of business along with the evil Marcellus Shale well drillers once the wildlife preserve is established. Where would we be without hard hitting investigative journalism pieces such as Gas drillers pile up rule violations that appeared in the Patriot News on August 3, 2010?

There are a number of possible “facts” about articles such as this that make no attempt to qualify intentionally misleading “reports” and “quotes” as something other than fact. Two of the possibilities are that (a) the intent was to mislead the public in the first place or (b) the newspaper has no adult leadership and fact checking is not required “prior” to publication. In either case such articles serve to promote adversarial relationships that hardly seem to be in the public interest. Let’s parse through this Pulitzer Prize candidate and look at some facts in the article (article fact), things in the article that are conclusions, assertions, or statements that are clearly or thinly veiled attempts to mislead the reader (non-facts), and easily checkable facts (Right to Know inquiry not required).

Marcellus Shale gas drillers in Pennsylvania commit an average of 11/2 regulatory violations per day, according to a report from the Pennsylvania Land Trust.

In the last 21/2 years, drilling companies were cited for 1,435 violations — 952 of which were considered most likely to harm the environment, according to the report.

The Land Trust gathered the information via Right to Know requests to the Department of Environmental Protection.

The DEP provided a computer spreadsheet with information about each violation, said Alana Richman, a spokeswoman for the Land Trust, a group of conservation organizations.

“We simply wanted to know what was going on with the drilling and put it out there as a statement of fact,” Richman said.

Gas drillers pile up rule violations

Article Fact – Dividing 1,435 by the number of days in 2 ½ years (912.5) is indeed an average of 1 ½ per day (actually that would be 1.5726 but 1 ½ is close enough).
Non-fact – The average number of regulatory “violations” per day has meaning. It’s doubtful that such a metric would serve any useful purpose in gauging the effectiveness of Marcellus Shale oversight programs; not likely to make a manager’s top 100 list of important metrics.
Non-fact – Considered “likely to” harm the environment has meaning. 952 acts or violations that “actually” harmed the environment by some measurable amount might mean something. On the other hand 952 or even 1 ½ million “likely to” things are still maybe, would have, or could have things.
Easily checkable fact – 1,841 Marcellus Shale gas wells had been drilled in Pennsylvania as of July 30, 2010 (DEP Weekly Workload Report)
Easily checkable fact – DEP conducted 2,368 inspections of 1,038 Marcellus Shale gas wells (56% of the total number of wells) between January 1, 2010 and July 30, 2010. (DEP Weekly Workload Report)
Easily checkable fact – There were 683 violations recorded during the 2,368 inspections or an average of 0.29 violations per inspection. (DEP Weekly Workload Report)
Easily checkable fact – A total of 189 enforcements resulted from those 2,368 inspections or an average of 0.08 enforcements per inspection. (DEP Weekly Workload Report)

Do these “easily checkable facts” tell us anything? Who knows? It could be that DEP is doing one heck of a job inspecting gas drilling operations and that the number of “violations” committed by Marcellus Shale gas drilling operators is relatively small. It could also be that DEP is doing a lousy job of inspecting and we have no idea whether or not the operators are in compliance with applicable regulations. More often than not additional context is required for “facts” to have real meaning and represent useful information or actionable knowledge. 1 ½ violations per day is little more than a piece of data from which you can derive very little value without additional context.

Note 1: For ease of reference a portion of the DEP Weekly Workload Report is included at the end of this article. Updated versions of the report should be posted on the DEP Web site reports page under a link titled Well Permit Workload Report.

Nearly half of the violations were related to improper erosion and sedimentation plans and improper construction of wastewater impoundments that contain fracking water. These impoundments were improperly lined or not structurally sound.

In one instance, the Department of Agriculture quarantined a Tioga County farmer’s cattle because they could have ingested the frack water that leaked from the impoundment.

Gas drillers pile up rule violations

Article fact – Land Trust “concludes” based on their analysis of DEP supplied information that nearly half of the violations are related to improper construction of wastewater impoundments.
Non-fact – Interesting “information” but were the improper linings or imperfections in structural soundness serious flaws or minor flaws? Did they result in any problems or are these just “facts” that demonstrate that the inspection process is working? Are the inspections uncovering things that are potential problems that are being corrected before undesirable things occur?
Article fact – A farmer’s cattle were quarantined
Non-fact – As for the suspected ingestion of “frack” water; whether or not they did and, if so, how much, and what if any effect that might have on them was not determined.

The process of fracking involves pumping sand- and chemical-laced water deep into the earth to break up rock to free the natural gas.

Gas drillers pile up rule violations

Article fact – Fracking involves the use of sand and water.
Easily checkable fact – The typical recipe for fracking fluid is 99.51% water and approximately 0.49% additives according to the Department of Energy’s Modern Shale Gas Development in the United States: A Primer (page 62), Marcellus Shale Coalition Web site and DEP Web site.
Article fact – Water that is used in fracking is “laced” with chemicals is factual based on a dictionary definition of laced: “a small amount of alcoholic liquor or other substance added to food or drink”. Dictionary.com Fracking fluid is neither food nor drink but perhaps the author was not aware of the proper application of the word.
Easily checkable fact – “A typical fracture treatment will use very low concentrations of between 3 and 12 additive chemicals depending on the characteristics of the water and the shale formation being fractured.” DOE Primer (page 61)
Easily checkable fact – the specific content of various additive combinations supplied by vendors used by Marcellus Shale drillers is available on the DEP web site
Non-fact – One can speculate as to whether or not the author of the article wished to convey that fracking fluid contains a very small amount of additives or if the intent was to cause the reader to envision something other than a small amount of additives. Given the overall tone of the article and the misleading statements quoted, one could easily assume that the author chose “chemical-laced” over descriptions such as “low concentrations” or “small amounts” in hopes of conjuring up a vision of something mysterious or secretive. Something more like a vision of nefarious exploiters using who knows what kinds of chemicals to force the earth to surrender its bounty of natural resources locked in places man was never intended to reach.

The numbers in the report might reflect only a fraction of violations, according to Jeff Schmidt, the director of the Sierra Club Pennsylvania Chapter.

“There’s likely to be lots more violations out there that haven’t been identified,” Schmidt said. “Many people feel this is the tip of the iceberg.”

Gas drillers pile up rule violations

Non-fact – Numbers in the report by Land Use “might” reflect only a fraction of violations – speculation, assertion, with no evidence cited
Non-fact – “many people” and their feelings in support of an unsupported assertion

The Sierra Club and Clean Water Action said the report was evidence that Pennsylvania needs to enact legislation and make environmental inspection of Marcellus wells mandatory.

“DEP already has a policy that requires inspections,” Schmidt said. “This policy is not followed.”

Gas drillers pile up rule violations

Article fact – DEP policy requires inspections
Non-fact – The policy is not followed
Non-fact – The land use “report” is in anyway evidence of a need for legislation to make Marcellus Shale inspections mandatory.
Easily checkable fact – Marcellus Shale inspections are being done by DEP; conducted 2,368 inspections of 1,038 Marcellus Shale gas wells (56% of the total number of wells) between January 1, 2010 and July 30, 2010. (DEP Weekly Workload Report)

Note 2: One might wonder how additional legislation would cause a rogue organization such a DEP to follow policy. One also might wonder how inspecting 56% of the wells within the first seven months of the year (many of which apparently were inspected multiple times) is not following the policy requiring inspections. Whether or not the inspections are effective could be debated but based on the “facts’ it’s hard to see how one could assert DEP is not doing inspections.

That echoes a withering critique of the agency from the Citizens Coal Council in a recent 195-page study of DEP monitoring of coal mines in southwestern Pennsylvania.

James A. Schmid, the consulting ecologist who produced that study, said a review of more than 75,000 pages of DEP files revealed that the department “is not very credible in its monitoring and permitting.”

He said the Land Trust study did not look at actual DEP files.

“There may be three times that many violations if anyone were to actually look. … When you look at monitoring reports [for coal mining], it’s a disaster,” Schmid said. “Having revised regulations is great … but there are laws and protections on the books. DEP just doesn’t enforce them.”

Gas drillers pile up rule violations

Article fact – Mr. Schmid (not to be confused with Mr. Schmidt of the Sierra Club), authored a study critical of DEP’s monitoring of coal mines
Non-fact – Mr. Schmid’s study and knowledge of DEP performance with respect to coal mines is evidence that DEP is or is not credible in monitoring and permitting gas wells.
Non-fact – Mr. Schmid’s study and knowledge of DEP performance with respect to coal mines is evidence that DEP does or does not enforce laws/regulations with respect to Marcellus Shale gas well operations.
Easily checkable fact – A total of 189 enforcements resulted from 2,368 DEP inspections of Marcellus Shale sites or an average of 0.08 enforcements per inspection.

Bottom Line

If DEP is not performing adequate inspections of Marcellus Shale and other gas drilling, that should be fixed.

If DEP is reporting thousands of inspections that are not actually being performed that is indeed a very serious matter. One that should be investigated.

If it’s a resource problem and DEP needs additional funding to execute their assigned mission; reprogram the $20M to be spent on a Murtha Center for Public Policy and an Arlen-Specter Library to be used for additional DEP Marcellus Shale inspectors (Murtha and Specter; pork and books anyone?)

If newspapers are going to publish items about Marcellus Shale without as much as a cursory fact check, put them on the op-ed page where they belong.