November 3, 2009
EDITORIAL
The Halliburton Loophole
Among the many dubious provisions in the 2005 energy bill was one dubbed the Halliburton loophole, which was inserted at the behest of — you guessed it — then-Vice President Dick Cheney, a former chief executive of Halliburton.
It stripped the Environmental Protection Agency of its authority to regulate a drilling process called hydraulic fracturing. Invented by Halliburton in the 1940s, it involves injecting a mixture of water, sand and chemicals, some of them toxic, into underground rock formations to blast them open and release natural gas.
Hydraulic fracturing has been implicated in a growing number of water pollution cases across the country. It has become especially controversial in New York, where regulators are eager to clear the way for drilling in the New York City watershed, potentially imperiling the city’s water supply. Thankfully, the main company involved has now decided not to go ahead.
The safety of the nation’s water supply should not have to rely on luck or the public relations talents of the oil and gas industry. Thanks in part to two New Yorkers — Representative Maurice Hinchey and Senator Charles Schumer — Congress last week approved a bill that asks the E.P.A. to conduct a new study on the risks of hydraulic fracturing. An agency study in 2004 whitewashed the industry and was dismissed by experts as superficial and politically motivated. This time Congress is demanding “a transparent, peer-reviewed process.”
An even more important bill is waiting in the wings. Cumbersomely named the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act, it would close the loophole and restore the E.P.A.’s rightful authority to regulate hydraulic fracturing. It would also require the oil and gas industry to disclose the chemicals they use.
The industry argues that the chemicals are proprietary secrets and that disclosing them would hurt their competitiveness. It also argues that the process is basically safe and that regulating it would deter domestic production. But if hydraulic fracturing is as safe as the industry says it is, why should it fear regulation?
The New York Times, November 2, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Ducks Unlimited Banquet October 29, 2009, in Fayetteville, Arkansas
Please click on images to move to Flickr site and use magnifying tool above photo to ENLARGE for easy reading.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Green Groups Guild meeting Thursday
From: Green Groups Guild (ggg@listserv.uark.edu) on behalf of ggg (ggg@UARK.EDU)
Sent: Tue 10/13/09 2:31 PM
To: GGG@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
Meeting 10/15/09 7:00 p.m.
209 Thompson Ave. Three Sisters Bldg on Dickson above Fez Hookah Lounge.
Patrick Kunnecke
GGG President
ASLA Vice President
4th Year Landscape Architecture Student
479-544-1906
Sent: Tue 10/13/09 2:31 PM
To: GGG@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
Meeting 10/15/09 7:00 p.m.
209 Thompson Ave. Three Sisters Bldg on Dickson above Fez Hookah Lounge.
Patrick Kunnecke
GGG President
ASLA Vice President
4th Year Landscape Architecture Student
479-544-1906
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Runners and Sponsors sought for Nov. 7, 2009, 5K veterans' memorial race to benefit Fayetteville National Cemetery
Please click on image to move to Flickr site and ENLARGE for easy reading. The Regional National Cemetery Improvement Corporation meets at 10:30 a.m. Saturday October 10 and needs to add sponsor names to the file for the race T shirts and the brochures so that printing can begin. Already, Tyson Foods has donated at the Medal of Honor level and has challenged others to join them at the top of the list, thanks to the effort of RNCIC Secretary Peggy McClain.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Slant drilling remains controversial in Fayetteville Shale natural-gas area
Drilling method sparks dispute
Gas panel, firm spar over rule
By Seth Blomeley
Sunday, October 4, 2009
LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission wants to slow down some natural-gas drilling in the Fayetteville Shale, a move opposed by one of the largest producers in the shale, Southwestern Energy Co. of Houston.
“Our biggest fear is not protecting the royalty owner,” said Commission Chairman Chad White of Magnolia. “The commission is the only thing standing between the royalty owner and the [production] company to make sure the [royalty owner] is not ripped off in some way.”
But some county officials question whether the commission’s proposal would lead to more wells being drilled and heavy equipment causing more damage to roads.
“The less wells we have dotted all over the landscape the better [for the roads],” said Faulkner County Judge Preston Scroggin.
The nine-member commission unanimously passed a rule during its July meeting aimed at monitoring types of wells in the Fayetteville shale.
But Southwestern, county officials and some others stood ready to voice opposition during a Sept. 15 meeting of a legislative committee that reviews agency rules and regulations and decides whether to sign off on them.
Anticipating a roughreception in the committee meeting, Larry Bengal, the executive director of the Oil and Gas Commission, asked for the rule to be taken off the agenda, and it was.
Bengal said Southwestern opposes the rule change because it could slow down production in some wells by a month or so.
He’s now working with Southwestern to find a middle ground to present to the commission during its Oct. 28 meeting in Fort Smith.
The Fayetteville Shale natural-gas deposits, located in north-central Arkansas, have been an economic boon to the state, and some officials, including Gov. Mike Beebe, have credited the drilling activity for cushioning the blow of the recession in the state.
From 2008 to 2009, the number of wells in the shale grew from 679 to 1,388.
The disagreement between the commission and Southwestern is over what’s called “cross-unit” drilling.
Much of the drilling in the Fayetteville Shale is horizontal, crossing property boundaries at times.
“The average [cross-drill] is now up to 4,000 feet,” Bengal said. “Some are proposed for 6,000 feet or so.”
That can mean that multiple landowners, gas producers and royalty owners are due proceeds from the sale of the gas.
Bengal said the commission in 2006 developed a way to allow cross-unit drilling using a formula that divides up proceeds on a percentage basis depending on the well.
“We’re the only state that does this,” he said. “It’s a unique methodology. Although I cannot say with absolute certainty no other state has adopted a similar cross-unit-well approach, I am not aware of the issue being addressed similarly in any other major oil- and gasproducing state.”
Officials with the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission in Oklahoma City and the Gas Processors Association in Tulsa didn’t return messages last week.
Arkansas’ cross-unit drilling procedure was established with the purpose of facilitating development of the Fayetteville Shale, but since then it’s brought complications as the industry started drilling longer wells with different types of angles, Bengal said.
In March, the commission started drafting ways to revise the cross-unit drilling rule. Since then, it has gone through nine drafts, according to commission files.
The 2006 rule allows Bengal to make the call on whether to approve cross-unit wells. Parties on the losing end can appeal to the commission.
Now, with the proposed change to the rule, the commission wants to hear each of those cases.
“It’s very hard to write a rule that covers every nuance and every scenario,” Bengal said. “At the commission level, testimony from witnesses can be questioned and you can be more flexible in decisions as opposed to a strict regulatory rule.”
Natural-gas producers would prefer that staff members handle those decisions because it would take less time, he said.
In a Sept. 18 e-mail to thecommission, Southwestern Energy attorney Mark Boling said the “real problem” with the commission’s rule-change proposal is that it “does not allow director the necessary latitude” to approve each application.
Boling, through company lobbyist Danny Ferguson, declined to answer questions from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Instead, Boling issued a statement that Southwestern’s goals are to “minimize waste” of natural gas, protect rights of royalty owners, “minimize surface disturbance,” and “promote efficient development” of natural gas in the Fayetteville Shale.
A form letter to the commission from opponents, including Southwestern and several county judges, touted cross-unit drilling as a way to reduce the number of wells being drilled, and the access roads and heavy equipment needed to drill them.
The commission countered in papers prepared for the legislative committee that it wasn’t against cross-unit drilling but only wanted to change the approval process.
But White, the commission chairman, said the commission also wants to require that a well be drilled on each drilling section, which is one square mile.
That’s only fair to royalty owners, he said.
Without a well to himself, one royalty owner could only get a percentage of the revenue from the “little sliver” of the cross-unit well coming onto his land from a neighboring section, he said.
What about road and environmental concerns of drilling more wells?
“We’re trying to allow as many wells drilled off the same pad as we can,” White said.
He described a pad as a place where heavy equipment can drill wells in several locations, including other sections, with separate wellheads. He said that would eliminate road damage. But he said more pads may have to be built in some cases.
It’s unclear how another major shale driller, Chesapeake Energy of Oklahoma City, feels about the commission’s plan. White said the company was OK with it. Bengal said they opposed it.
A Chesapeake spokesman, Danny Games, said he was unfamiliar with the issue.
White said he understands the industry seeking to maximize profits, especially with the low price of natural gas. It’s down to $4.64 per 1,000 cubic feet but the price needs to get up to $8 to $10 for the high cost of horizontal drilling to be profitable, he said.
Beebe said last week that he’s studying the issue and has been kept apprised by staff of the debate.
“I hope the commission would be very mindful and protective of the landowners,” Beebe said. “[Royalty owners] don’t normally have as much day-to-day background and knowledge as the [production] companies do.”
The governor said the commission must be the “guardian” of the rights of royalty owners.
Of the nine commissioners, five have either been appointed or reappointed by Beebe, who took office in 2007. The other four were appointed or reappointed by former Gov. Mike Huckabee.
Arkansas, Pages 17, 19 on 10/04/2009
Copyright © 2009, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc.
All rights reserved.
This document may not be reprinted without the express written permission of Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc.
Material from the Associated Press is Copyright © 2009, Associated Press and may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press text, photo, graphic, audio and/or video material shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium. Neither these AP materials nor any portion thereof may be stored in a computer except for personal and noncommercial use. The AP will not be held liable for any delays, inaccuracies, errors or omissions therefrom or in the transmission or delivery of all or any part thereof or for any damages arising from any of the foregoing. All rights reserved.
Gas panel, firm spar over rule
By Seth Blomeley
Sunday, October 4, 2009
LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission wants to slow down some natural-gas drilling in the Fayetteville Shale, a move opposed by one of the largest producers in the shale, Southwestern Energy Co. of Houston.
“Our biggest fear is not protecting the royalty owner,” said Commission Chairman Chad White of Magnolia. “The commission is the only thing standing between the royalty owner and the [production] company to make sure the [royalty owner] is not ripped off in some way.”
But some county officials question whether the commission’s proposal would lead to more wells being drilled and heavy equipment causing more damage to roads.
“The less wells we have dotted all over the landscape the better [for the roads],” said Faulkner County Judge Preston Scroggin.
The nine-member commission unanimously passed a rule during its July meeting aimed at monitoring types of wells in the Fayetteville shale.
But Southwestern, county officials and some others stood ready to voice opposition during a Sept. 15 meeting of a legislative committee that reviews agency rules and regulations and decides whether to sign off on them.
Anticipating a roughreception in the committee meeting, Larry Bengal, the executive director of the Oil and Gas Commission, asked for the rule to be taken off the agenda, and it was.
Bengal said Southwestern opposes the rule change because it could slow down production in some wells by a month or so.
He’s now working with Southwestern to find a middle ground to present to the commission during its Oct. 28 meeting in Fort Smith.
The Fayetteville Shale natural-gas deposits, located in north-central Arkansas, have been an economic boon to the state, and some officials, including Gov. Mike Beebe, have credited the drilling activity for cushioning the blow of the recession in the state.
From 2008 to 2009, the number of wells in the shale grew from 679 to 1,388.
The disagreement between the commission and Southwestern is over what’s called “cross-unit” drilling.
Much of the drilling in the Fayetteville Shale is horizontal, crossing property boundaries at times.
“The average [cross-drill] is now up to 4,000 feet,” Bengal said. “Some are proposed for 6,000 feet or so.”
That can mean that multiple landowners, gas producers and royalty owners are due proceeds from the sale of the gas.
Bengal said the commission in 2006 developed a way to allow cross-unit drilling using a formula that divides up proceeds on a percentage basis depending on the well.
“We’re the only state that does this,” he said. “It’s a unique methodology. Although I cannot say with absolute certainty no other state has adopted a similar cross-unit-well approach, I am not aware of the issue being addressed similarly in any other major oil- and gasproducing state.”
Officials with the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission in Oklahoma City and the Gas Processors Association in Tulsa didn’t return messages last week.
Arkansas’ cross-unit drilling procedure was established with the purpose of facilitating development of the Fayetteville Shale, but since then it’s brought complications as the industry started drilling longer wells with different types of angles, Bengal said.
In March, the commission started drafting ways to revise the cross-unit drilling rule. Since then, it has gone through nine drafts, according to commission files.
The 2006 rule allows Bengal to make the call on whether to approve cross-unit wells. Parties on the losing end can appeal to the commission.
Now, with the proposed change to the rule, the commission wants to hear each of those cases.
“It’s very hard to write a rule that covers every nuance and every scenario,” Bengal said. “At the commission level, testimony from witnesses can be questioned and you can be more flexible in decisions as opposed to a strict regulatory rule.”
Natural-gas producers would prefer that staff members handle those decisions because it would take less time, he said.
In a Sept. 18 e-mail to thecommission, Southwestern Energy attorney Mark Boling said the “real problem” with the commission’s rule-change proposal is that it “does not allow director the necessary latitude” to approve each application.
Boling, through company lobbyist Danny Ferguson, declined to answer questions from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Instead, Boling issued a statement that Southwestern’s goals are to “minimize waste” of natural gas, protect rights of royalty owners, “minimize surface disturbance,” and “promote efficient development” of natural gas in the Fayetteville Shale.
A form letter to the commission from opponents, including Southwestern and several county judges, touted cross-unit drilling as a way to reduce the number of wells being drilled, and the access roads and heavy equipment needed to drill them.
The commission countered in papers prepared for the legislative committee that it wasn’t against cross-unit drilling but only wanted to change the approval process.
But White, the commission chairman, said the commission also wants to require that a well be drilled on each drilling section, which is one square mile.
That’s only fair to royalty owners, he said.
Without a well to himself, one royalty owner could only get a percentage of the revenue from the “little sliver” of the cross-unit well coming onto his land from a neighboring section, he said.
What about road and environmental concerns of drilling more wells?
“We’re trying to allow as many wells drilled off the same pad as we can,” White said.
He described a pad as a place where heavy equipment can drill wells in several locations, including other sections, with separate wellheads. He said that would eliminate road damage. But he said more pads may have to be built in some cases.
It’s unclear how another major shale driller, Chesapeake Energy of Oklahoma City, feels about the commission’s plan. White said the company was OK with it. Bengal said they opposed it.
A Chesapeake spokesman, Danny Games, said he was unfamiliar with the issue.
White said he understands the industry seeking to maximize profits, especially with the low price of natural gas. It’s down to $4.64 per 1,000 cubic feet but the price needs to get up to $8 to $10 for the high cost of horizontal drilling to be profitable, he said.
Beebe said last week that he’s studying the issue and has been kept apprised by staff of the debate.
“I hope the commission would be very mindful and protective of the landowners,” Beebe said. “[Royalty owners] don’t normally have as much day-to-day background and knowledge as the [production] companies do.”
The governor said the commission must be the “guardian” of the rights of royalty owners.
Of the nine commissioners, five have either been appointed or reappointed by Beebe, who took office in 2007. The other four were appointed or reappointed by former Gov. Mike Huckabee.
Arkansas, Pages 17, 19 on 10/04/2009
Copyright © 2009, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc.
All rights reserved.
This document may not be reprinted without the express written permission of Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc.
Material from the Associated Press is Copyright © 2009, Associated Press and may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press text, photo, graphic, audio and/or video material shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium. Neither these AP materials nor any portion thereof may be stored in a computer except for personal and noncommercial use. The AP will not be held liable for any delays, inaccuracies, errors or omissions therefrom or in the transmission or delivery of all or any part thereof or for any damages arising from any of the foregoing. All rights reserved.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
League of Women voters sponsoring discussion of Arkansas' electric future on September 23, 2009
Concerned about a proposed SWEPCO rate increase and developing energy efficiency?
A panel of experts will discuss the electrical power dilemma facing
Arkansas and ratepayers during a public information program
moderated by Hoyt Purvis, University of Arkansas Journalism Department.
Wed., Sept. 23, 2009, from 6:00 to 8:00 at the Fayetteville Public Library
This is also a special LWVWC membership invitation event. Come early, 5:30 to 6:00, for refreshments and visit the membership table before the program for more information.
Topic:
Arkansas finds itself with a need to expand electrical production at the same time it has overcapacity. A controversial coal-fired generating plant, choice of what fuels should be used in the future, an urgency to upgrade transmission, serious environmental concerns and ratepayer costs combine for a perfect “electrical” storm. Learning what Arkansas is facing and what that means to ratepayers is the focus for this League of Women Voters of Washington County’s public program.
Panel Participants:
Sandra Byrd, VP, Strategic Affairs, Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation and former chair of the Arkansas Public Service Commission
Nicholas Brown, President and CEO of Southwest Power Pool, Inc.
Ken Smith, Executive Director of Audubon Arkansas, an organization involved in the lawsuit over the J.W.Turk, Jr. coal-fired plant
Eddie Moore, an attorney working with Audubon on electric efficiency and ratepayers issues and representing the Arkansas Public Policy Panel on energy issues during the 2009 legislative session
A panel of experts will discuss the electrical power dilemma facing
Arkansas and ratepayers during a public information program
moderated by Hoyt Purvis, University of Arkansas Journalism Department.
Wed., Sept. 23, 2009, from 6:00 to 8:00 at the Fayetteville Public Library
This is also a special LWVWC membership invitation event. Come early, 5:30 to 6:00, for refreshments and visit the membership table before the program for more information.
Topic:
Arkansas finds itself with a need to expand electrical production at the same time it has overcapacity. A controversial coal-fired generating plant, choice of what fuels should be used in the future, an urgency to upgrade transmission, serious environmental concerns and ratepayer costs combine for a perfect “electrical” storm. Learning what Arkansas is facing and what that means to ratepayers is the focus for this League of Women Voters of Washington County’s public program.
Panel Participants:
Sandra Byrd, VP, Strategic Affairs, Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation and former chair of the Arkansas Public Service Commission
Nicholas Brown, President and CEO of Southwest Power Pool, Inc.
Ken Smith, Executive Director of Audubon Arkansas, an organization involved in the lawsuit over the J.W.Turk, Jr. coal-fired plant
Eddie Moore, an attorney working with Audubon on electric efficiency and ratepayers issues and representing the Arkansas Public Policy Panel on energy issues during the 2009 legislative session
Monday, August 10, 2009
PSC chairman spins threat of major ratepayer costs if coal-fired plant not built
Gladys - I believe it was you who asked, at the CCTF meeting a week ago, what was the effect and the status of the recent Ark Appeal Court's judgement against the Turk coal plant. This rather long article is a pretty complete answer to that question. Cheers - Art
Date: Sun, 09 Aug 2009 10:00:00 -0500
From: slcox1@aep.com
Subject: Fw: PSC Chairman Suskie comments on court of appeals ruling of SWEPCO
Turk plant - Ark Business
Swepco Ratepayers Could Be on Hook for Cost of Turk Plant
PSC Chairman Paul Suskie: "If the Court of Appeals' ruling stands, I don't see how a plant can get built anywhere in the state of Arkansas, period."
By Jamie Walden
8/10/2009
"If the Court of Appeals' ruling stands, I don't see how a plant can get built anywhere in the state of Arkansas, period. Whether it's a solar farm, a wind farm, you're going to have to have, I think, amendments to law," Suskie said. "Because of the way the Court of Appeals interpreted it, you would have to have a fundamental rewrite."
Swepco Ratepayers Could Be on Hook for Cost of Turk Plant
By Jamie Walden - 8/10/2009
If Southwestern Electric Power Co. can't complete its embattled John W. Turk Jr. coal-fired power plant in Hempstead County, Swepco customers in Arkansas and elsewhere could be on the hook for more than $876 million.
The case, now on appeal to the Arkansas Supreme Court, appears to hinge on three major issues, one of which could permanently alter the approval process for power plants in Arkansas.
In early 2007, three private hunting clubs and a family trust launched an offensive on the Turk plant, claiming it would harm the environment. In June, the plaintiffs won their case in the Arkansas Court of Appeals. The argument by Hempstead County Hunting Club Inc., Po-Boy Land Co. Inc., Yellow Creek Corp. and Shultz Family Management Co. targeted the approval procedure by the Arkansas Public Service Commission and simultaneously argued that Swepco didn't adequately document a need for the Turk plant or its evaluation of alternative locations.
The PSC regulates the construction and location of power plants under the Utility Facility Environmental & Economic Protection Act of 1973. A company must obtain a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility & Public Need, or CECPN, to build a plant.
The PSC also wields the authority to approve the transmission lines that transport the power generated by the plant.
Ever since legislators wrote the utility act in 1973, the PSC has interpreted the method of handing down these approvals in one consistent way. But recently the Arkansas Court of Appeals said the PSC has been doing it wrong all this time.
And/Or
The contentious clause grants the Public Service Commission exclusive and final jurisdiction "for the expeditious resolution of all matters concerning the location, financing, construction and operation of electric generating plants and electric and gas transmission lines and associated facilities in a single proceeding."
The PSC has, for the past 36 years, interpreted the "single proceeding" to mean an issue is heard solely by the commission. "Not in a district court or a circuit court here, not in front of one state agency here, have it all in one place," PSC Chairman Paul Suskie said.
Furthermore, the use of the word "and" in that construction - "electric generating plants and electric and gas transmission lines and associated facilities" - has led the PSC to handle the construction of a plant in one docket and the transmission lines in another docket. Despite the division of those hearings, the PSC thought it was following the law because the proceeding was held by one body.
The Arkansas Court of Appeals, however, interpreted that phrase to mean the plant construction, transmission lines and associated facilities should all be part of one hearing.
"Piecemeal consideration of all the matters concerning a generating plant and its transmission lines corrupts the spirit and letter of the law," the appellate court wrote.
Suskie said that Ed Dillon, an attorney with Entergy in 1973 who helped the PSC staff write the legislation, filed the first application for the White Bluff coal-powered plant in Redfield just months after the legislation was passed. Dillon, with first-hand knowledge of the law, separated the plant application from the transmission lines application.
"It's pretty compelling to me when the attorneys that wrote the law then months later apply it that way," Suskie said.
The Court of Appeals disagreed and was unmoved by the "we've always done it this way" argument.
"Significantly, the APSC's procedure of separating generating plants from transmission lines in CECPN proceedings has never been challenged in a court proceeding. The mere fact that the practice has gone unchallenged cannot create a presumption that it is proper," the appellate court wrote.
Suskie said the PSC contemplated the transmission lines in the first proceeding, but didn't approve the transmission line sites until the second hearing. However, he said that in the first proceeding to approve the plant, the PSC dictated certain rules that Swepco must follow when siting the transmission lines.
The PSC addressed the transmission lines "on the front end because in the orders, we put conditions upon it. And some of those conditions were, 'You could not run transmission lines over sensitive areas and the interveners' property,'" Suskie said.
In this case, the hunting clubs were some of those interveners.
The determination of the sites where the transmission lines would run, however, occurred during a different proceeding. And the plaintiffs argued that affected parties, such as property owners, should know the whole plan, including the sites of the transmission lines, before a plant is approved.
Part of the commission's duty, though, is to make the process "as expeditious as possible." Separating the hearings does just that, Suskie said.
"If you did all those at once, it would extend the time frame. ... It could easily run two years, but the statute requires the Arkansas commission to do it as 'expeditiously as possible,'" Suskie said.
"In the way this case was handled, the Turk plant was approved. And then after it was approved, [Swepco] continued with the processes for approvals, the air permit and so forth. Well, after that took place, we were still in the process of siting the transmission lines."
The PSC approved the Turk plant in November 2007, and then finally gave the nod to the plant's transmission lines in January.
The division of hearings can also be convenient for out-of-state businesses. Because a plant, depending on the size, can often take longer to build than the laying of transmission lines, the time needed to bring an operation online is shorter if a business can start earlier on the plant.
A Question of Need
Regardless of how the Supreme Court rules on the question of whether two PSC proceedings complies with the law - if, that is, the high court chooses to hear the case when it reconvenes after Labor Day - the plaintiffs still allege there is no need for the Turk plant. And proving need is one of the first hoops through which a utility provider must jump before getting a CECPN.
Charles Nestrud of Chisenhall Nestrud & Julian PA of Little Rock, which represents the groups challenging the project, pointed to Swepco's market in Texas.
Because transmission lines for the Turk plant cross state lines, Swepco also had to present its case before public service commissions in Texas and Louisiana.
"Swepco's need has deteriorated. In the Texas proceeding, they couldn't project that they needed this power plant because the need had evaporated," Nestrud said. "If you look at their latest [annual report], their wholesale sales are down, their retail sales are down."
Paul Chodak, president and chief operating officer of Swepco, disputed the notion that the need for the Turk plant had disappeared.
"Now, have we seen an economic downturn? Sure, we've seen an economic downturn. But we're building this plant to last the next 40 years, really the next 60 years," Chodak said. "So what the economy does in a two-year time frame is not the basis by which you build a plant."
Nestrud also contended that a natural gas plant makes more fiscal and environmental sense than a coal plant.
"We believe that now with the cost of this plant having escalated the way it has, with the gas prices having decreased below anybody's projections, and with the cost of carbon-capture for coal plants, this plant could never survive in a cost comparison of alternatives," Nestrud said.
Chodak said Swepco aims for energy diversity with a current portfolio of 60 percent coal plants and 40 percent natural gas facilities.
"To point to one summer where natural gas prices are low - and I'm sure they're forecasted to stay low into the future - I would urge you to go back and look at what gas prices were last year," Chodak said.
"The certainty about forecasts is that they are wrong. I don't know if they are wrong high or if they're wrong low."
Alternative Locations
Finally, the Court of Appeals cried foul at the treatment of alternative locations during the process.
"Swepco's application states that the Hempstead site was selected because it was large enough to accommodate the facility, had water supply, had nearby rail access, and had a property owner willing to sell," the appellate court wrote. "The other sites were not mentioned.
"Staff witness Clark Cotton admitted that Swepco's [environmental impact statement] did not contain a description of the comparative merits and detriments of each alternative location as required" by a section of the utility act.
Plaintiffs' attorney Nestrud agreed. "They didn't look at need and compare that to environmental impacts and to alternatives that were available. So when all that occurs, I don't agree that it's a forgone conclusion that they're going to get a certificate."
Court of Appeals Judge Josephine Linker Hart, in her concurring opinion, addressed what has become a major point of controversy in the case: why the "mostly idle" Union Power Station plant in El Dorado, owned by Entegra Power Group LLC, wasn't considered as an alternative location.
Suskie said that Entegra didn't bid on the Arkansas project and thereby fulfill certain requirements held by the Louisiana Public Service Commission. For the past 10 years, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has required utilities to plan by region because transmission lines cross state borders, multiple states are involved in approving a project like the Turk plant.
"The [Louisiana commission] asked for proposals to meet that need, and Entegra never bid."
Arkansas and Texas didn't require Swepco to solicit bids.
Entegra later tried to intervene in the Arkansas docket. Though Suskie wasn't on the PSC at the time, he said the commission saw that move by Entegra as an attempt to block a competitor from entering the market.
"They didn't bid at the proper time. And then they wanted to intervene in the Arkansas docket essentially to block the plant from being built because it's competition," Suskie said.
Holding the Bag
Although Swepco, which has 113,500 customers in Arkansas, has the most cash in play, other parties stand to be affected by the outcome of the case.
The Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp., which has about 490,000 Arkansas customers, has a 12 percent ownership stake in the plant.
If the Supreme Court takes on the case and sides with the Court of Appeals, Swepco would be forced to restart what has been a multiple-year application process. And if plaintiffs' attorney Nestrud is right and Swepco can't demonstrate a need for the plant this time around, customers would be left holding the $876 million bag.
According to Swepco's most recent quarterly report, the company would seek to increase its rates to recoup $136 million in contract termination fees plus whatever it has invested in the plant thus far. Swepco had spent more than $740 million as of last week on the Turk plant, spokeswoman Kacee Kirschvink said.
"If the Turk Plant cannot be completed and placed in service, Swepco would seek approval to recover its prudently incurred capitalized construction costs including any cancellation fees and a return on unrecovered balances through rates in all of its jurisdictions," the filing states.
So what are the possible outcomes? Suskie said the Supreme Court could kick the case back to the PSC for more hearings, uphold the PSC's procedure or support the appellate court's decision.
"If the Court of Appeals' ruling stands, I don't see how a plant can get built anywhere in the state of Arkansas, period. Whether it's a solar farm, a wind farm, you're going to have to have, I think, amendments to law," Suskie said. "Because of the way the Court of Appeals interpreted it, you would have to have a fundamental rewrite."
Date: Sun, 09 Aug 2009 10:00:00 -0500
From: slcox1@aep.com
Subject: Fw: PSC Chairman Suskie comments on court of appeals ruling of SWEPCO
Turk plant - Ark Business
Swepco Ratepayers Could Be on Hook for Cost of Turk Plant
PSC Chairman Paul Suskie: "If the Court of Appeals' ruling stands, I don't see how a plant can get built anywhere in the state of Arkansas, period."
By Jamie Walden
8/10/2009
"If the Court of Appeals' ruling stands, I don't see how a plant can get built anywhere in the state of Arkansas, period. Whether it's a solar farm, a wind farm, you're going to have to have, I think, amendments to law," Suskie said. "Because of the way the Court of Appeals interpreted it, you would have to have a fundamental rewrite."
Swepco Ratepayers Could Be on Hook for Cost of Turk Plant
By Jamie Walden - 8/10/2009
If Southwestern Electric Power Co. can't complete its embattled John W. Turk Jr. coal-fired power plant in Hempstead County, Swepco customers in Arkansas and elsewhere could be on the hook for more than $876 million.
The case, now on appeal to the Arkansas Supreme Court, appears to hinge on three major issues, one of which could permanently alter the approval process for power plants in Arkansas.
In early 2007, three private hunting clubs and a family trust launched an offensive on the Turk plant, claiming it would harm the environment. In June, the plaintiffs won their case in the Arkansas Court of Appeals. The argument by Hempstead County Hunting Club Inc., Po-Boy Land Co. Inc., Yellow Creek Corp. and Shultz Family Management Co. targeted the approval procedure by the Arkansas Public Service Commission and simultaneously argued that Swepco didn't adequately document a need for the Turk plant or its evaluation of alternative locations.
The PSC regulates the construction and location of power plants under the Utility Facility Environmental & Economic Protection Act of 1973. A company must obtain a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility & Public Need, or CECPN, to build a plant.
The PSC also wields the authority to approve the transmission lines that transport the power generated by the plant.
Ever since legislators wrote the utility act in 1973, the PSC has interpreted the method of handing down these approvals in one consistent way. But recently the Arkansas Court of Appeals said the PSC has been doing it wrong all this time.
And/Or
The contentious clause grants the Public Service Commission exclusive and final jurisdiction "for the expeditious resolution of all matters concerning the location, financing, construction and operation of electric generating plants and electric and gas transmission lines and associated facilities in a single proceeding."
The PSC has, for the past 36 years, interpreted the "single proceeding" to mean an issue is heard solely by the commission. "Not in a district court or a circuit court here, not in front of one state agency here, have it all in one place," PSC Chairman Paul Suskie said.
Furthermore, the use of the word "and" in that construction - "electric generating plants and electric and gas transmission lines and associated facilities" - has led the PSC to handle the construction of a plant in one docket and the transmission lines in another docket. Despite the division of those hearings, the PSC thought it was following the law because the proceeding was held by one body.
The Arkansas Court of Appeals, however, interpreted that phrase to mean the plant construction, transmission lines and associated facilities should all be part of one hearing.
"Piecemeal consideration of all the matters concerning a generating plant and its transmission lines corrupts the spirit and letter of the law," the appellate court wrote.
Suskie said that Ed Dillon, an attorney with Entergy in 1973 who helped the PSC staff write the legislation, filed the first application for the White Bluff coal-powered plant in Redfield just months after the legislation was passed. Dillon, with first-hand knowledge of the law, separated the plant application from the transmission lines application.
"It's pretty compelling to me when the attorneys that wrote the law then months later apply it that way," Suskie said.
The Court of Appeals disagreed and was unmoved by the "we've always done it this way" argument.
"Significantly, the APSC's procedure of separating generating plants from transmission lines in CECPN proceedings has never been challenged in a court proceeding. The mere fact that the practice has gone unchallenged cannot create a presumption that it is proper," the appellate court wrote.
Suskie said the PSC contemplated the transmission lines in the first proceeding, but didn't approve the transmission line sites until the second hearing. However, he said that in the first proceeding to approve the plant, the PSC dictated certain rules that Swepco must follow when siting the transmission lines.
The PSC addressed the transmission lines "on the front end because in the orders, we put conditions upon it. And some of those conditions were, 'You could not run transmission lines over sensitive areas and the interveners' property,'" Suskie said.
In this case, the hunting clubs were some of those interveners.
The determination of the sites where the transmission lines would run, however, occurred during a different proceeding. And the plaintiffs argued that affected parties, such as property owners, should know the whole plan, including the sites of the transmission lines, before a plant is approved.
Part of the commission's duty, though, is to make the process "as expeditious as possible." Separating the hearings does just that, Suskie said.
"If you did all those at once, it would extend the time frame. ... It could easily run two years, but the statute requires the Arkansas commission to do it as 'expeditiously as possible,'" Suskie said.
"In the way this case was handled, the Turk plant was approved. And then after it was approved, [Swepco] continued with the processes for approvals, the air permit and so forth. Well, after that took place, we were still in the process of siting the transmission lines."
The PSC approved the Turk plant in November 2007, and then finally gave the nod to the plant's transmission lines in January.
The division of hearings can also be convenient for out-of-state businesses. Because a plant, depending on the size, can often take longer to build than the laying of transmission lines, the time needed to bring an operation online is shorter if a business can start earlier on the plant.
A Question of Need
Regardless of how the Supreme Court rules on the question of whether two PSC proceedings complies with the law - if, that is, the high court chooses to hear the case when it reconvenes after Labor Day - the plaintiffs still allege there is no need for the Turk plant. And proving need is one of the first hoops through which a utility provider must jump before getting a CECPN.
Charles Nestrud of Chisenhall Nestrud & Julian PA of Little Rock, which represents the groups challenging the project, pointed to Swepco's market in Texas.
Because transmission lines for the Turk plant cross state lines, Swepco also had to present its case before public service commissions in Texas and Louisiana.
"Swepco's need has deteriorated. In the Texas proceeding, they couldn't project that they needed this power plant because the need had evaporated," Nestrud said. "If you look at their latest [annual report], their wholesale sales are down, their retail sales are down."
Paul Chodak, president and chief operating officer of Swepco, disputed the notion that the need for the Turk plant had disappeared.
"Now, have we seen an economic downturn? Sure, we've seen an economic downturn. But we're building this plant to last the next 40 years, really the next 60 years," Chodak said. "So what the economy does in a two-year time frame is not the basis by which you build a plant."
Nestrud also contended that a natural gas plant makes more fiscal and environmental sense than a coal plant.
"We believe that now with the cost of this plant having escalated the way it has, with the gas prices having decreased below anybody's projections, and with the cost of carbon-capture for coal plants, this plant could never survive in a cost comparison of alternatives," Nestrud said.
Chodak said Swepco aims for energy diversity with a current portfolio of 60 percent coal plants and 40 percent natural gas facilities.
"To point to one summer where natural gas prices are low - and I'm sure they're forecasted to stay low into the future - I would urge you to go back and look at what gas prices were last year," Chodak said.
"The certainty about forecasts is that they are wrong. I don't know if they are wrong high or if they're wrong low."
Alternative Locations
Finally, the Court of Appeals cried foul at the treatment of alternative locations during the process.
"Swepco's application states that the Hempstead site was selected because it was large enough to accommodate the facility, had water supply, had nearby rail access, and had a property owner willing to sell," the appellate court wrote. "The other sites were not mentioned.
"Staff witness Clark Cotton admitted that Swepco's [environmental impact statement] did not contain a description of the comparative merits and detriments of each alternative location as required" by a section of the utility act.
Plaintiffs' attorney Nestrud agreed. "They didn't look at need and compare that to environmental impacts and to alternatives that were available. So when all that occurs, I don't agree that it's a forgone conclusion that they're going to get a certificate."
Court of Appeals Judge Josephine Linker Hart, in her concurring opinion, addressed what has become a major point of controversy in the case: why the "mostly idle" Union Power Station plant in El Dorado, owned by Entegra Power Group LLC, wasn't considered as an alternative location.
Suskie said that Entegra didn't bid on the Arkansas project and thereby fulfill certain requirements held by the Louisiana Public Service Commission. For the past 10 years, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has required utilities to plan by region because transmission lines cross state borders, multiple states are involved in approving a project like the Turk plant.
"The [Louisiana commission] asked for proposals to meet that need, and Entegra never bid."
Arkansas and Texas didn't require Swepco to solicit bids.
Entegra later tried to intervene in the Arkansas docket. Though Suskie wasn't on the PSC at the time, he said the commission saw that move by Entegra as an attempt to block a competitor from entering the market.
"They didn't bid at the proper time. And then they wanted to intervene in the Arkansas docket essentially to block the plant from being built because it's competition," Suskie said.
Holding the Bag
Although Swepco, which has 113,500 customers in Arkansas, has the most cash in play, other parties stand to be affected by the outcome of the case.
The Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp., which has about 490,000 Arkansas customers, has a 12 percent ownership stake in the plant.
If the Supreme Court takes on the case and sides with the Court of Appeals, Swepco would be forced to restart what has been a multiple-year application process. And if plaintiffs' attorney Nestrud is right and Swepco can't demonstrate a need for the plant this time around, customers would be left holding the $876 million bag.
According to Swepco's most recent quarterly report, the company would seek to increase its rates to recoup $136 million in contract termination fees plus whatever it has invested in the plant thus far. Swepco had spent more than $740 million as of last week on the Turk plant, spokeswoman Kacee Kirschvink said.
"If the Turk Plant cannot be completed and placed in service, Swepco would seek approval to recover its prudently incurred capitalized construction costs including any cancellation fees and a return on unrecovered balances through rates in all of its jurisdictions," the filing states.
So what are the possible outcomes? Suskie said the Supreme Court could kick the case back to the PSC for more hearings, uphold the PSC's procedure or support the appellate court's decision.
"If the Court of Appeals' ruling stands, I don't see how a plant can get built anywhere in the state of Arkansas, period. Whether it's a solar farm, a wind farm, you're going to have to have, I think, amendments to law," Suskie said. "Because of the way the Court of Appeals interpreted it, you would have to have a fundamental rewrite."
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Natural-gas drillers ignore consequences of drilling and production and tout 'cleanness' of natural gas
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Fayetteville food drive and Washington County "stop the quarry" efforts touted on square on Saturday July 18, 2009
Please click on images to ENLARGE view of details. The finger points to the area where the red-dirt pit that owners want to convert to a limestone mine sits on the edge of Fayetteville. It is up to the Washington County Quorum Court to see that the proposal is not allowed. Residents of Fayetteville and the rest of Washington County must let their justices of the peace know their feelings about this project or it could become an even uglier disaster than shown on the poster. And the limestone pit is estimated to take 75 years to deplete!
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Saturday, May 2, 2009
FarmToTable theme of today's program in the Rose Garden of the Walton Art Center with renewable-energy lecture at Night Bird bookstore at 2 p.m.
Please click on image to ENLARGE view of OMNI Springfest poster.
Please click on image to ENLARGE view of poster.
Solar Power Struggle
Professor Richard Hutchinson of Louisiana Tech University in Ruston will speak on "The Struggle for the Solar Future" at 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 2, at Nightbird Books on Dickson Street in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
An inquiry into environmental change and the obstacles and opportunities in the path of the renewable energy transition.
Sponsored by OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology.
Please click on image to ENLARGE view of poster.
Solar Power Struggle
Professor Richard Hutchinson of Louisiana Tech University in Ruston will speak on "The Struggle for the Solar Future" at 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 2, at Nightbird Books on Dickson Street in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
An inquiry into environmental change and the obstacles and opportunities in the path of the renewable energy transition.
Sponsored by OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Louisiana Tech professor to discuss the struggle for the solar future Saturday afternoon at Nightbird Books on Dickson Street in Fayetteville
Please click on image to ENLARGE view of poster.
Solar Power Struggle
Professor Richard Hutchinson of Louisiana Tech University in Ruston will speak on "The Struggle for the Solar Future" at 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 2, at Nightbird Books on Dickson Street in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
An inquiry into environmental change and the obstacles and opportunities in the path of the renewable energy transition.
Sponsored by OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology.
Solar Power Struggle
Professor Richard Hutchinson of Louisiana Tech University in Ruston will speak on "The Struggle for the Solar Future" at 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 2, at Nightbird Books on Dickson Street in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
An inquiry into environmental change and the obstacles and opportunities in the path of the renewable energy transition.
Sponsored by OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
City of Clinton to treat wastewater from gas-production sites
The Morning News
Local News for Northwest Arkansas
Clinton To Begin Treating Water From Gas Drilling
By Rob Moritz
THE MORNING NEWS
LITTLE ROCK — Within two months, Clinton in north-central Arkansas hopes to begin treating water used in the natural gas drilling process, Mayor Roger Rorie said Tuesday.
Rorie said the city has reached agreements with four companies drilling for natural gas in the Fayetteville Shale play to treat the water they use, avoiding the need to store the water on so-called land farms or inject it deep into the earth.
The state Department of Environmental Quality said Monday tests found evidence of environmental contamination in 11 permitted land farms across north-central and western Arkansas. Four of those sites are located within the Fayetteville Shale formation.
"The average citizen doesn't have any idea how much water is used by one of these companies for gas drilling," Rorie said Tuesday, adding that a small drilling site may use 5 million gallons of water, while a large site may use up to 15 million gallons.
Rorie scheduled a news conference for 1 p.m. Wednesday to announce agreements with Chesapeake Energy, Petrohawk Energy Corp., Southwestern Energy Co. and XTO Energy.
Department spokesman Aaron Sadler said state environmental experts have met with Clinton officials and support the plan.
"It's probably a good thing," he said. "If everything can be recycled in a safe manner, then we see this as a big benefit to the environment. It keeps (wastewater) out of land farms and gets rid of a waste stream."
The water will be recycled in an idle sewer treatment plant the city built specifically for processing waste from the Pilgrim's Pride chicken processing plant. The plant closed in October.
Rorie said Siemens Water Technologies, an international company that already recycles water used by offshore oil rigs, is helping provide some of the technical expertise and equipment for the process.
The initial goal is to recycle 630,000 gallons of water a day at the site, with gas companies bringing their used water to the plant in 42-gallon barrels.
"We want a closed loop system where they can take the water back and use it again," he said.
Rorie said he hopes to eventually eliminate the need to store contaminated water on or beneath earth's surface where used drilling water is stored until the chlorides and other chemicals settle and it can be used for irrigation.
"We know this is going to be profitable," he said, adding he did not know exactly how much money the city would make recycling the water. "We do expect a real return ... yes, the city is going to make money, but our number one objective is to clean this water up."
Local News for Northwest Arkansas
Clinton To Begin Treating Water From Gas Drilling
By Rob Moritz
THE MORNING NEWS
LITTLE ROCK — Within two months, Clinton in north-central Arkansas hopes to begin treating water used in the natural gas drilling process, Mayor Roger Rorie said Tuesday.
Rorie said the city has reached agreements with four companies drilling for natural gas in the Fayetteville Shale play to treat the water they use, avoiding the need to store the water on so-called land farms or inject it deep into the earth.
The state Department of Environmental Quality said Monday tests found evidence of environmental contamination in 11 permitted land farms across north-central and western Arkansas. Four of those sites are located within the Fayetteville Shale formation.
"The average citizen doesn't have any idea how much water is used by one of these companies for gas drilling," Rorie said Tuesday, adding that a small drilling site may use 5 million gallons of water, while a large site may use up to 15 million gallons.
Rorie scheduled a news conference for 1 p.m. Wednesday to announce agreements with Chesapeake Energy, Petrohawk Energy Corp., Southwestern Energy Co. and XTO Energy.
Department spokesman Aaron Sadler said state environmental experts have met with Clinton officials and support the plan.
"It's probably a good thing," he said. "If everything can be recycled in a safe manner, then we see this as a big benefit to the environment. It keeps (wastewater) out of land farms and gets rid of a waste stream."
The water will be recycled in an idle sewer treatment plant the city built specifically for processing waste from the Pilgrim's Pride chicken processing plant. The plant closed in October.
Rorie said Siemens Water Technologies, an international company that already recycles water used by offshore oil rigs, is helping provide some of the technical expertise and equipment for the process.
The initial goal is to recycle 630,000 gallons of water a day at the site, with gas companies bringing their used water to the plant in 42-gallon barrels.
"We want a closed loop system where they can take the water back and use it again," he said.
Rorie said he hopes to eventually eliminate the need to store contaminated water on or beneath earth's surface where used drilling water is stored until the chlorides and other chemicals settle and it can be used for irrigation.
"We know this is going to be profitable," he said, adding he did not know exactly how much money the city would make recycling the water. "We do expect a real return ... yes, the city is going to make money, but our number one objective is to clean this water up."
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
ADEQ shows signs of life in effort to reduce massive pollution by natural-gas production sites over Fayetteville Shale
ADEQ NEWS RELEASE
A study conducted by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) found that fluids used in natural gas production have been improperly applied by landfarms operating in the state, thus endangering the environment.
The study findings were released in a report Monday. The report indicated that existing practices had, in many cases, caused environmental harm. Particularly, all 11 sites that land applied fluids at some point had improperly discharged the fluids so as to cause runoff into the waters of the state. Also, chloride concentrations in soil used for land application were abnormally high.
ADEQ Director Teresa Marks ordered the department’s study in November 2008 because of repeated permit violations at some of the sites. At that time, Marks also halted consideration of any new landfarm permit applications until the study was completed.
“With the increase in the number of landfarms and applications for landfarms due to expanded drilling activity in the state, concerns about the resulting environmental impact warranted a closer look at these operations,” Marks said.
ADEQ has taken enforcement actions against all 11 landfarms studied and has sought to revoke permits at two of the sites. Additional enforcement actions are pending and other revocations could be forthcoming.
The study supports changes to all existing or new landfarm permits. The changes include requirements that routine soil and water sampling be conducted at specified locations in the presence of an ADEQ inspector and that fencing be erected around all on-site ponds.
“The results of the study have caused us to put additional measures in place to ensure that these facilities are complying with the terms of their permits and are not causing harm to the soils and waters of the state,” Marks said. “We recognize that there is a waste stream created by the drilling practices that must be dealt with, but we want to make sure it is dealt with in a way that will not cause harm to the environment.”
Scientists in ADEQ’s environmental preservation and water divisions prepared the report. ADEQ employees visited the 11 landfarms between November and January.
Video on environmental damage of natural-gas drilling
On many site visits, the department discovered downstream concentrations of chlorides and total dissolved solids that were higher than those taken upstream.
While landfarm permits prohibit land application of any fluid with chloride levels higher than 3,000 milligrams-per-liter, four facilities held fluids with levels over the permitted maximum.
Soil at eight of the sites contained chloride amounts that exceeded permitted limitations.
The study found that the high chloride content at some sites might irrevocably damage the soils there.
In addition, the study found at nine sites concentrations of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) in amounts that suggested that application of oil-based drilling fluids had taken place. ADEQ permits strictly prohibit such application.
The full report is available on the department’s Web site, www.adeq.state.ar.us. A link to the report is located in the “Hot Topics” section on ADEQ’s home page.
A study conducted by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) found that fluids used in natural gas production have been improperly applied by landfarms operating in the state, thus endangering the environment.
The study findings were released in a report Monday. The report indicated that existing practices had, in many cases, caused environmental harm. Particularly, all 11 sites that land applied fluids at some point had improperly discharged the fluids so as to cause runoff into the waters of the state. Also, chloride concentrations in soil used for land application were abnormally high.
ADEQ Director Teresa Marks ordered the department’s study in November 2008 because of repeated permit violations at some of the sites. At that time, Marks also halted consideration of any new landfarm permit applications until the study was completed.
“With the increase in the number of landfarms and applications for landfarms due to expanded drilling activity in the state, concerns about the resulting environmental impact warranted a closer look at these operations,” Marks said.
ADEQ has taken enforcement actions against all 11 landfarms studied and has sought to revoke permits at two of the sites. Additional enforcement actions are pending and other revocations could be forthcoming.
The study supports changes to all existing or new landfarm permits. The changes include requirements that routine soil and water sampling be conducted at specified locations in the presence of an ADEQ inspector and that fencing be erected around all on-site ponds.
“The results of the study have caused us to put additional measures in place to ensure that these facilities are complying with the terms of their permits and are not causing harm to the soils and waters of the state,” Marks said. “We recognize that there is a waste stream created by the drilling practices that must be dealt with, but we want to make sure it is dealt with in a way that will not cause harm to the environment.”
Scientists in ADEQ’s environmental preservation and water divisions prepared the report. ADEQ employees visited the 11 landfarms between November and January.
Video on environmental damage of natural-gas drilling
On many site visits, the department discovered downstream concentrations of chlorides and total dissolved solids that were higher than those taken upstream.
While landfarm permits prohibit land application of any fluid with chloride levels higher than 3,000 milligrams-per-liter, four facilities held fluids with levels over the permitted maximum.
Soil at eight of the sites contained chloride amounts that exceeded permitted limitations.
The study found that the high chloride content at some sites might irrevocably damage the soils there.
In addition, the study found at nine sites concentrations of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) in amounts that suggested that application of oil-based drilling fluids had taken place. ADEQ permits strictly prohibit such application.
The full report is available on the department’s Web site, www.adeq.state.ar.us. A link to the report is located in the “Hot Topics” section on ADEQ’s home page.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Brown thrashers among the many species to be seen on World Peace Wetland Prairie during Sunday's Earth Day celebration
Please click on image to Enlarge view of one of the many species of birds feeding and picking nesting sites on World Peace Wetland Prairie on April 17, 2009. The elusive brown thrasher is often able to slip into the thickets before a camera can capture its image. But the attraction of scattered brush piles and the excitement of mating season can make them a bit careless.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
League of Women Voters offers two excellent speakers for Earth Day celebration
Joyce Hale reports:
The League of Women Voters would like to invite non-members to hear one or both of the special speakers we have invited to our state convention. It will be held at the Fayetteville Library on Sat., April 25. As an Earth Day activity, we think that both of these programs have important ecological messages.
Dr. Matlock's presentation is an important big picture of water issues and the reality of future needs. He gave this program to the Annual Meeting of the Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association and was so well received we asked for an encore. If you missed him there, here is a chance to see a fine presentation.
Dr. Theo Colborn is a Paonia, Colorado scientist who has won international awards for her studies of chemical influence of the endocrine system. When she found herself near one the massive natural gas development regions of the West, she and her non-profit science foundation evaluated the process in light of her years of chemical study. Her warnings of the dangers have alerted Congress and residents of impacted areas to the protections that are needed because of Federal safety exemptions granted the oil and gas industry.
I hope you will schedule one or both of these programs into your recognition of Earth Day and pass this information to others. I add more detail below. If you have any questions, please let me know.
Happy Earth Day!
Joyce
10:15 to 11:30 a.m. – "Everything is Connected: Water Quality in Arkansas and Poverty in Africa" by Dr. Marty Matlock, Associate Professor of Ecological Engineering in the Biological and Ecological Engineering Department at the University of Arkansas. Dr. Matlock is deeply involved in sustainability and the impact of humans on ecosystems, especially water. In working toward ecosystem restoration design and management he serves as an advisor for five national organizations and provides technical support for USDA FAS in the Mid-East Peace Process.
2:00 to 3:15 p.m. – “What You Need to Know About Natural Gas Production and Delivery” by Dr. Theo Colborn, who has written and lectured widely on the human health and environmental threats posed by endocrine disruptors and other industrially-produced chemicals at low concentrations in the environment. Dr. Colborn founded a scientific non-profit organization which reports environmental policy development and analysis, environmental advocacy, medical ethics, philosophy and children's environmental health. As a Colorado resident, she has studied the impact of natural gas development and is nationally recognized for warning the public of related health risks.
The League of Women Voters would like to invite non-members to hear one or both of the special speakers we have invited to our state convention. It will be held at the Fayetteville Library on Sat., April 25. As an Earth Day activity, we think that both of these programs have important ecological messages.
Dr. Matlock's presentation is an important big picture of water issues and the reality of future needs. He gave this program to the Annual Meeting of the Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association and was so well received we asked for an encore. If you missed him there, here is a chance to see a fine presentation.
Dr. Theo Colborn is a Paonia, Colorado scientist who has won international awards for her studies of chemical influence of the endocrine system. When she found herself near one the massive natural gas development regions of the West, she and her non-profit science foundation evaluated the process in light of her years of chemical study. Her warnings of the dangers have alerted Congress and residents of impacted areas to the protections that are needed because of Federal safety exemptions granted the oil and gas industry.
I hope you will schedule one or both of these programs into your recognition of Earth Day and pass this information to others. I add more detail below. If you have any questions, please let me know.
Happy Earth Day!
Joyce
10:15 to 11:30 a.m. – "Everything is Connected: Water Quality in Arkansas and Poverty in Africa" by Dr. Marty Matlock, Associate Professor of Ecological Engineering in the Biological and Ecological Engineering Department at the University of Arkansas. Dr. Matlock is deeply involved in sustainability and the impact of humans on ecosystems, especially water. In working toward ecosystem restoration design and management he serves as an advisor for five national organizations and provides technical support for USDA FAS in the Mid-East Peace Process.
2:00 to 3:15 p.m. – “What You Need to Know About Natural Gas Production and Delivery” by Dr. Theo Colborn, who has written and lectured widely on the human health and environmental threats posed by endocrine disruptors and other industrially-produced chemicals at low concentrations in the environment. Dr. Colborn founded a scientific non-profit organization which reports environmental policy development and analysis, environmental advocacy, medical ethics, philosophy and children's environmental health. As a Colorado resident, she has studied the impact of natural gas development and is nationally recognized for warning the public of related health risks.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Game and Fish Commission to set aside gas-leasing money
http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2009/04/11/news/041209arstatelandleases.txt
The Morning News
Local News for Northwest Arkansas
Game & Fish To Set Aside Gas Income
By The Associated Press
LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission says it will hold onto millions it receives from natural gas leases on state land it manages, pending a judge’s decision on whether the agency can keep the money.
A citizen lawsuit has been filed to challenge the commission’s attempt to not to share the $32 million rather than have it used as state general revenue. The agency has sought to have the lawsuit dismissed, arguing the James Dockery of Little Rock has no standing to sue.
Dockery argues that the money belongs to the state. He also says the park land may need state funding in the future to mitigate harm to the land caused by drilling.
The commission and Dockery’s lawyers reached an agreement earlier this month to keep the lease money separate.
An order released Friday by Circuit Judge James Moody Jr. said now that the state Legislature has appropriated $32,227,000 in gas lease revenue to the commission, the funds “shall be kept in a special gas lease revenue sub-fund SDG 0800 within the Game Protection Fund at the Arkansas State Treasury and the defendant will not expend any of the $32,227,000 in gas lease revenue funds until this court enters a final, appealable order or decree in this case.”
Commission attorney Jim Goodhart said the agreement constituted a “voluntary restraint on our part not to spend the money.”
“The court is being told that both parties are in agreement that the Game and Fish Commission will not expend any of the funds that were being appropriated this session by the Legislature until the court issues a ruling in the case,” he said.
Dockery’s attorney, Q. Byrum Hurst Jr. of Hot Springs, said his co-counsel, Sam Perroni of Little Rock, negotiated the deal.
“The Game and Fish Commission was very reasonable in agreeing to segregate the money,” Hurst said. “We always believed the court would’ve entered that order anyway, but, of course, you never know, and it would’ve taken some time to get that litigated.”
Hurst noted that there was testimony during the legislative session about problems arising as the Fayetteville Shale is developed by natural-gas drilling operations.
“I think it was sort of eye-opening that although the shale is a great revenue source, there are problems in lots of areas,” Hurst said.
Goodhart said the agreement would simply save time and money for each side.
The commission voted in July 2008 to accept the terms of the leases with Chesapeake Energy for drilling rights in the Gulf Mountain and Petit Jean River wildlife management areas after taking bids on the opportunity to explore the lands. The leases will allow the Oklahoma City-based company to have access to more than 7,500 acres in the Petit Jean River WMA in Yell County and nearly 4,000 acres in the Gulf Mountain WMA in Van Buren County.
Both leases are for five years but they are automatically renewable if the company finds gas. The leases carry a 20 percent royalty payment — well above the 12.5 percent minimum royalty that state law mandates. If the company produces gas on the land, it can automatically renew the leases.
The Legislature considered a number of bills related to natural-gas drilling.
The Morning News
Local News for Northwest Arkansas
Game & Fish To Set Aside Gas Income
By The Associated Press
LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission says it will hold onto millions it receives from natural gas leases on state land it manages, pending a judge’s decision on whether the agency can keep the money.
A citizen lawsuit has been filed to challenge the commission’s attempt to not to share the $32 million rather than have it used as state general revenue. The agency has sought to have the lawsuit dismissed, arguing the James Dockery of Little Rock has no standing to sue.
Dockery argues that the money belongs to the state. He also says the park land may need state funding in the future to mitigate harm to the land caused by drilling.
The commission and Dockery’s lawyers reached an agreement earlier this month to keep the lease money separate.
An order released Friday by Circuit Judge James Moody Jr. said now that the state Legislature has appropriated $32,227,000 in gas lease revenue to the commission, the funds “shall be kept in a special gas lease revenue sub-fund SDG 0800 within the Game Protection Fund at the Arkansas State Treasury and the defendant will not expend any of the $32,227,000 in gas lease revenue funds until this court enters a final, appealable order or decree in this case.”
Commission attorney Jim Goodhart said the agreement constituted a “voluntary restraint on our part not to spend the money.”
“The court is being told that both parties are in agreement that the Game and Fish Commission will not expend any of the funds that were being appropriated this session by the Legislature until the court issues a ruling in the case,” he said.
Dockery’s attorney, Q. Byrum Hurst Jr. of Hot Springs, said his co-counsel, Sam Perroni of Little Rock, negotiated the deal.
“The Game and Fish Commission was very reasonable in agreeing to segregate the money,” Hurst said. “We always believed the court would’ve entered that order anyway, but, of course, you never know, and it would’ve taken some time to get that litigated.”
Hurst noted that there was testimony during the legislative session about problems arising as the Fayetteville Shale is developed by natural-gas drilling operations.
“I think it was sort of eye-opening that although the shale is a great revenue source, there are problems in lots of areas,” Hurst said.
Goodhart said the agreement would simply save time and money for each side.
The commission voted in July 2008 to accept the terms of the leases with Chesapeake Energy for drilling rights in the Gulf Mountain and Petit Jean River wildlife management areas after taking bids on the opportunity to explore the lands. The leases will allow the Oklahoma City-based company to have access to more than 7,500 acres in the Petit Jean River WMA in Yell County and nearly 4,000 acres in the Gulf Mountain WMA in Van Buren County.
Both leases are for five years but they are automatically renewable if the company finds gas. The leases carry a 20 percent royalty payment — well above the 12.5 percent minimum royalty that state law mandates. If the company produces gas on the land, it can automatically renew the leases.
The Legislature considered a number of bills related to natural-gas drilling.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Jim Bemis suggests forming local chapters of independent producers and royalty owners
In case you missed. Maybe we ought to start a local chapter of the "Arkansas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association " I've seen the Texas version, but didn't know we had the association in Arkansas.
Jim
Environmentalists, gas firms split on lobbyists' influence
BY CHARLIE FRAGO
Posted on Sunday, April 5, 2009
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/256566/
The 87th General Assembly is the first to convene after the increase in the severance tax on natural gas last year, and as the legislative session nears its end, opinion is divided on how powerful the gas lobby has become and what that means for the state.
Environmentalists say companies like Southwestern Energy Co. and Chesapeake Energy Corp. have pushed legislation to increase the power of an industry that many say has helped the state avoid the worst of a nasty recession.
The companies referred questions to a gas industry association official who said the industry was surprised that some bills considered by industry officials to be noncontroversial - like establishing that a majority of the Oil and Gas Commission shall be experienced in those fields - drew fire.
But the gas industry, said J. Kelly Robbins, executive vice president of the Arkansas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association, didn't come to the state Capitol "with a plateful of things trying to get enacted" in the session scheduled to end Thursday.
Many lawmakers say that the drilling in the Fayetteville Shale has been an important boost. That may have produced some hesitation among legislators to challenge an economic engine estimated by University of Arkansas at Fayetteville researchers to have had an impact of more than $2.3 billion in 2008.
"It's an industry that we'd like to keep in Arkansas. If we do too much, it might be what pushes them over the edge as far as exploiting our minerals," said Rep. Jonathan Dismang, R-Beebe, who has challenged natural gas companies on several occasions this session.
But Rep. Bruce Maloch, DMagnolia, co-chairman of the Joint Budget Committee, said he didn't think the gas companies had exerted too much influence.
"I've never been in a meeting public or private where it's been said, 'Hey, we've got to do something for these guys,'" Maloch said.
Here are some of the higherprofile issues involving natural gas this session:
Legislation to ensure that a majority of the nine-member commission have experience in development, production or transportation of oil or gas failed in its first try in the House.
Some members, including Dismang, questioned if it would unfairly restrict the influence of royalty owners and others.
Eventually signed into law as Act 389, Robbins said he was surprised that the bill sponsored by Rep. Garry Smith, D-Camden, became a "lightning rod" for criticism of the industry.
Maloch agreed, saying most boards and commissions have a majority of members with experience in whatever industry that board oversees.
But not every board has the power of the Oil and Gas Commission, said Rod Bryan of the Arkansas Conservation Alliance, an environmental organization.
"They have offices in three cities and the power of an agency. They call them a commission so that they can have their cake and eat it, too," Bryan said.
Maloch's proposal to codify a prudent operator standard for oil and gas companies to protect them against lawsuits also drew attention.
A 2000 Arkansas Supreme Court ruling awarded $109 million to royalty owners after the court found that gas companies had sold gas at below-market rates to a sister company.
The ruling contained "dicta" - or judicial remarks not directly related to the ruling - that oil and gas companies had a fiduciary responsibility to royalty owners.
Examples of a fiduciary responsibility are an executor of an estate and an heir or a guardian and a ward, Maloch said. That kind of legal arrangement requires that any action only be done in the best interests of the heir or ward, he said.
"I don't know of any business that operates that way," Maloch said. "That would mean that the mineral owner could demand that the natural gas company drill a well to extract $500,000 worth of gas even if it costs $3 million to drill the well."
Maloch's legislation, now Act 719, codifies the "prudent operator standard" already in practice in courts in Arkansas and neighboring states, he said.
That standard requires companies to act in good faith and for the mutual benefit of the company and royalty owner.
The Senate changed the bill to remove language that some attorneys thought would benefit the gas companies in negotiations, said Sen. Jim Luker, D-Wynne.
Luker said the gas industry has "put money in the pockets of people who had been of modest means," but "those who don't directly benefit financially are not quite as satisfied."
"Our job is to try to strike a balance," he said.
"People fussed for a long time that we weren't taxing them enough. We finally got it done and they said we didn't do enough. Well, we got them paying something," Maloch said.
Copyright © 2001-2009 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact: webmaster@nwanews.com
Jim
Environmentalists, gas firms split on lobbyists' influence
BY CHARLIE FRAGO
Posted on Sunday, April 5, 2009
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/256566/
The 87th General Assembly is the first to convene after the increase in the severance tax on natural gas last year, and as the legislative session nears its end, opinion is divided on how powerful the gas lobby has become and what that means for the state.
Environmentalists say companies like Southwestern Energy Co. and Chesapeake Energy Corp. have pushed legislation to increase the power of an industry that many say has helped the state avoid the worst of a nasty recession.
The companies referred questions to a gas industry association official who said the industry was surprised that some bills considered by industry officials to be noncontroversial - like establishing that a majority of the Oil and Gas Commission shall be experienced in those fields - drew fire.
But the gas industry, said J. Kelly Robbins, executive vice president of the Arkansas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association, didn't come to the state Capitol "with a plateful of things trying to get enacted" in the session scheduled to end Thursday.
Many lawmakers say that the drilling in the Fayetteville Shale has been an important boost. That may have produced some hesitation among legislators to challenge an economic engine estimated by University of Arkansas at Fayetteville researchers to have had an impact of more than $2.3 billion in 2008.
"It's an industry that we'd like to keep in Arkansas. If we do too much, it might be what pushes them over the edge as far as exploiting our minerals," said Rep. Jonathan Dismang, R-Beebe, who has challenged natural gas companies on several occasions this session.
But Rep. Bruce Maloch, DMagnolia, co-chairman of the Joint Budget Committee, said he didn't think the gas companies had exerted too much influence.
"I've never been in a meeting public or private where it's been said, 'Hey, we've got to do something for these guys,'" Maloch said.
Here are some of the higherprofile issues involving natural gas this session:
Legislation to ensure that a majority of the nine-member commission have experience in development, production or transportation of oil or gas failed in its first try in the House.
Some members, including Dismang, questioned if it would unfairly restrict the influence of royalty owners and others.
Eventually signed into law as Act 389, Robbins said he was surprised that the bill sponsored by Rep. Garry Smith, D-Camden, became a "lightning rod" for criticism of the industry.
Maloch agreed, saying most boards and commissions have a majority of members with experience in whatever industry that board oversees.
But not every board has the power of the Oil and Gas Commission, said Rod Bryan of the Arkansas Conservation Alliance, an environmental organization.
"They have offices in three cities and the power of an agency. They call them a commission so that they can have their cake and eat it, too," Bryan said.
Maloch's proposal to codify a prudent operator standard for oil and gas companies to protect them against lawsuits also drew attention.
A 2000 Arkansas Supreme Court ruling awarded $109 million to royalty owners after the court found that gas companies had sold gas at below-market rates to a sister company.
The ruling contained "dicta" - or judicial remarks not directly related to the ruling - that oil and gas companies had a fiduciary responsibility to royalty owners.
Examples of a fiduciary responsibility are an executor of an estate and an heir or a guardian and a ward, Maloch said. That kind of legal arrangement requires that any action only be done in the best interests of the heir or ward, he said.
"I don't know of any business that operates that way," Maloch said. "That would mean that the mineral owner could demand that the natural gas company drill a well to extract $500,000 worth of gas even if it costs $3 million to drill the well."
Maloch's legislation, now Act 719, codifies the "prudent operator standard" already in practice in courts in Arkansas and neighboring states, he said.
That standard requires companies to act in good faith and for the mutual benefit of the company and royalty owner.
The Senate changed the bill to remove language that some attorneys thought would benefit the gas companies in negotiations, said Sen. Jim Luker, D-Wynne.
Luker said the gas industry has "put money in the pockets of people who had been of modest means," but "those who don't directly benefit financially are not quite as satisfied."
"Our job is to try to strike a balance," he said.
"People fussed for a long time that we weren't taxing them enough. We finally got it done and they said we didn't do enough. Well, we got them paying something," Maloch said.
Copyright © 2001-2009 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact: webmaster@nwanews.com
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
New fracking process in the extraction of natural gas worse than some people thought
Video on fracking for natural gas
This just came in from New York League friends who have recently become
aware of the new fracking process used to extract natural gas. Be sure to
view the newscast video. There is a brief glimpse of Dr. Colborn in the
video they are showing. A video of Dr. Colborn's discussion about
chemicals used in natural gas drilling will be part of the League's State
Convention April 25, 2:00 pm at the Fayetteville Public Library. League
members are encouraged to attend, but the public is also invited to attend
this program. The Arkansas League members have been discussing natural gas
drilling for two years, but many are just now realizing that the process is
different and has been exempted from most of the Federal health and safety
regulations, while states lack sufficient protections.
>http://www.weny.com/News-Local.asp?ARTICLE3864=9143415
Video on fracking for natural gas
Joyce Hale
This just came in from New York League friends who have recently become
aware of the new fracking process used to extract natural gas. Be sure to
view the newscast video. There is a brief glimpse of Dr. Colborn in the
video they are showing. A video of Dr. Colborn's discussion about
chemicals used in natural gas drilling will be part of the League's State
Convention April 25, 2:00 pm at the Fayetteville Public Library. League
members are encouraged to attend, but the public is also invited to attend
this program. The Arkansas League members have been discussing natural gas
drilling for two years, but many are just now realizing that the process is
different and has been exempted from most of the Federal health and safety
regulations, while states lack sufficient protections.
>http://www.weny.com/News-Local.asp?ARTICLE3864=9143415
Video on fracking for natural gas
Joyce Hale
Friday, March 27, 2009
Game and Fish Commission sued over use of gas-leasing money
Game, fish agency says plaintiff lacks standing in lawsuit
BY L. LAMOR WILLIAMS
Posted on Friday, March 27, 2009
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/255822/
The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission is arguing that a lawsuit filed by a Little Rock man who says money from natural gas leases held by the agency should go to the state's general fund should be dismissed because the plaintiff hasn't suffered any harm.
The commission said in a response to James Dockery's lawsuit that, among other things, Dockery has no claim to the mineral leases and does not belong to any class of persons who claim to be hurt by the lease agreement.
Dockery's attorney, Q. Byrum Hurst Jr. of Hurst, Morrissey & Hurst in Hot Springs, said he disagreed.
"I don't believe that's an accurate statement of the law," Hurst said. "He does have an injury because he's a taxpayer in the state of Arkansas. I think we'll prevail on that issue but we'll certainly ask the court to make a ruling."
Hurst described his client as "something of a social activist" and said Dockery filed the suit on behalf of the entire state. Hurst said Dockery wanted a ruling on the issue from the courts opposed to previously issued attorney general opinions.
Jim Goodhart, general counsel for the Game and Fish Commission, said he didn't have much to say about the suit.
"We've essentially responded and we will be defending the agency based on the legal defenses that are outlined in our answer to the lawsuit," Goodhart said.
Game and Fish Commission sued over natural-gas money
Goodhart said Quattlebaum, Grooms, Tull & Burrow PLLC will take the lead during litigation while his office will serve as co-counsel.
"My attorneys here are working on the case as well, but we have a significant number of legal matters pending and we wanted to have some specialized litigation assistance," Goodhart said. "We handle a lot of litigation firsthand in our agency, but we only have three lawyers in our office."
Goodhart said he hopes the case will be over quickly.
"The plaintiff 's asked the court for expedited consideration on the court's docket and when we answered, we responded that we also would appreciate the court's expedited consideration," Goodhart said. "So we're hoping it will move quicker than usual matters."
The Perroni and Koehler law firm in Little Rock is joining Hurst in the suit which also asks the court to prohibit the Game and Fish Commission from us- ing any of the money until a ruling is issued.
Hurst was unavailable for comment, but Sam Perroni said the firm agreed to assist because "we believe in the issue."
"We were asked to assist primarily because he needs some local counsel to help facilitate things," Perroni said. "Also we have had some experience over the years with cases of this nature."
In July 2008, the commission reached a $29.5 million agreement with Chesapeake Energy for the lease of 11,500 acres in the Gulf Mountain and Petit Jean River wildlife management areas.
The Gulf Mountain site in Van Buren County is situated over the Fayetteville Shale, a geologic formation primarily in north-central Arkansas that's proved to be rich in natural gas. The lease is for $28.3 million for 4,000 acres.
The Petit Jean River Wildlife Management Area lease totals $1.2 million. That land is considered part of the Arkoma basin, where Chesapeake Energy has natural gas operations in nonshale formations.
Both leases are for five years and carry a 20 percent royalty payment - well above the 12.5 percent minimum royalty mandated by state law. If the company produces gas on the land, it can automatically renew the leases.
Drilling in the Fayetteville Shale is projected to have a $22 billion effect on the state's economy between 2005 and 2012, according to a study by the University of Arkansas that was partially funded by Chesapeake Energy.
Gov. Mike Beebe had called on the constitutionally independent Game and Fish Commission to share its revenue from leasing wildlife management land, saying the money belonged to "all 2.8 million Arkansans."
However, Goodhart raised concerns that spending the money on nonwildlife causes would risk the Game and Fish Commission's eligibility to receive future federal grants, which total about $20 million a year. The agency submitted a $95.4 million budget for the 2008-09 biennium.
In September 2008, Loren Hitchcock, deputy director of the Game and Fish Commission, reported that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had given the green light for the agency to share the funds with the state's Oil and Gas Commission and the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, which is set to get $3.5 million of the lease revenue.
When Beebe was attorney general, he issued an opinion on the issue in 2006, which reads in part:
"In my opinion the funds may not be redirected to purposes other than those listed in Amendment 35. As noted above, the funds may only be expended for 'the control, management, restoration, conservation and regulation of the birds, fish and wildlife resources of the State' and for 'no other purposes.'"
Amendment 35 to the Arkansas Constitution established the commission as a nearly independent state agency.
Copyright © 2001-2009 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact: webmaster@nwanews.com
BY L. LAMOR WILLIAMS
Posted on Friday, March 27, 2009
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/255822/
The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission is arguing that a lawsuit filed by a Little Rock man who says money from natural gas leases held by the agency should go to the state's general fund should be dismissed because the plaintiff hasn't suffered any harm.
The commission said in a response to James Dockery's lawsuit that, among other things, Dockery has no claim to the mineral leases and does not belong to any class of persons who claim to be hurt by the lease agreement.
Dockery's attorney, Q. Byrum Hurst Jr. of Hurst, Morrissey & Hurst in Hot Springs, said he disagreed.
"I don't believe that's an accurate statement of the law," Hurst said. "He does have an injury because he's a taxpayer in the state of Arkansas. I think we'll prevail on that issue but we'll certainly ask the court to make a ruling."
Hurst described his client as "something of a social activist" and said Dockery filed the suit on behalf of the entire state. Hurst said Dockery wanted a ruling on the issue from the courts opposed to previously issued attorney general opinions.
Jim Goodhart, general counsel for the Game and Fish Commission, said he didn't have much to say about the suit.
"We've essentially responded and we will be defending the agency based on the legal defenses that are outlined in our answer to the lawsuit," Goodhart said.
Game and Fish Commission sued over natural-gas money
Goodhart said Quattlebaum, Grooms, Tull & Burrow PLLC will take the lead during litigation while his office will serve as co-counsel.
"My attorneys here are working on the case as well, but we have a significant number of legal matters pending and we wanted to have some specialized litigation assistance," Goodhart said. "We handle a lot of litigation firsthand in our agency, but we only have three lawyers in our office."
Goodhart said he hopes the case will be over quickly.
"The plaintiff 's asked the court for expedited consideration on the court's docket and when we answered, we responded that we also would appreciate the court's expedited consideration," Goodhart said. "So we're hoping it will move quicker than usual matters."
The Perroni and Koehler law firm in Little Rock is joining Hurst in the suit which also asks the court to prohibit the Game and Fish Commission from us- ing any of the money until a ruling is issued.
Hurst was unavailable for comment, but Sam Perroni said the firm agreed to assist because "we believe in the issue."
"We were asked to assist primarily because he needs some local counsel to help facilitate things," Perroni said. "Also we have had some experience over the years with cases of this nature."
In July 2008, the commission reached a $29.5 million agreement with Chesapeake Energy for the lease of 11,500 acres in the Gulf Mountain and Petit Jean River wildlife management areas.
The Gulf Mountain site in Van Buren County is situated over the Fayetteville Shale, a geologic formation primarily in north-central Arkansas that's proved to be rich in natural gas. The lease is for $28.3 million for 4,000 acres.
The Petit Jean River Wildlife Management Area lease totals $1.2 million. That land is considered part of the Arkoma basin, where Chesapeake Energy has natural gas operations in nonshale formations.
Both leases are for five years and carry a 20 percent royalty payment - well above the 12.5 percent minimum royalty mandated by state law. If the company produces gas on the land, it can automatically renew the leases.
Drilling in the Fayetteville Shale is projected to have a $22 billion effect on the state's economy between 2005 and 2012, according to a study by the University of Arkansas that was partially funded by Chesapeake Energy.
Gov. Mike Beebe had called on the constitutionally independent Game and Fish Commission to share its revenue from leasing wildlife management land, saying the money belonged to "all 2.8 million Arkansans."
However, Goodhart raised concerns that spending the money on nonwildlife causes would risk the Game and Fish Commission's eligibility to receive future federal grants, which total about $20 million a year. The agency submitted a $95.4 million budget for the 2008-09 biennium.
In September 2008, Loren Hitchcock, deputy director of the Game and Fish Commission, reported that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had given the green light for the agency to share the funds with the state's Oil and Gas Commission and the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, which is set to get $3.5 million of the lease revenue.
When Beebe was attorney general, he issued an opinion on the issue in 2006, which reads in part:
"In my opinion the funds may not be redirected to purposes other than those listed in Amendment 35. As noted above, the funds may only be expended for 'the control, management, restoration, conservation and regulation of the birds, fish and wildlife resources of the State' and for 'no other purposes.'"
Amendment 35 to the Arkansas Constitution established the commission as a nearly independent state agency.
Copyright © 2001-2009 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact: webmaster@nwanews.com
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Game and Fish Commission sued over use of gas-leasing money
The Morning News
Local News for Northwest Arkansas
Lawsuit Filed Over Leases To Gas Company
By The Associated Press
LITTLE ROCK -- A lawsuit filed in Pulaski County aims to stop the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission from solely using the money generated from leasing state lands to Chesapeake Energy Corp.
James Dockery of Little Rock filed the suit against the commission, which will be getting about $30 million from land leases to the gas exploration company in wildlife management areas. Dockery claims the money should go into the state’s general budget and be available to all agencies.
“Historically, leasing Game & Fish land is for the purposes of hunting and fishing,” Byrum Hurst Jr., Dockery’s lawyer, told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. “Now, we have a situation unique in the state. All of a sudden we have Game and Fish property being leased to oil and gas companies and producing not only oil and gas, but huge amounts of revenue that appears to be headed to the pockets of the Game & Fish Commission and nowhere else.”
Jim Goodhart, general counsel for the Game & Fish Commission, said, “We’re aware that we’ve been sued.”
“I’m not going to comment on what is in the lawsuit because we’ve not been served yet,” Goodhart said Friday. “We expect to be served, and after we’ve had an opportunity to review it, we’ll take appropriate action to defend the state’s interest.”
The commission voted in July 2008 to accept the terms of the leases with Chesapeake for drilling rights in the Gulf Mountain and Petit Jean River wildlife management areas after taking bids on the opportunity to explore the lands. The leases will allow the Oklahoma City-based company to have access to more than 7,500 acres in the Petit Jean River WMA in Yell County and nearly 4,000 acres in the Gulf Mountain WMA in Van Buren County.
Though the commission initially balked at offering other state agencies any of the money, it later agreed to share $3.5 million with environmental regulators.
Dockery’s lawsuit cites the environmental concerns that might arise from exploration in the state’s Fayetteville Shale play as a reason for the need to share the money.
“The general public, including the Plaintiff, has not been informed as to whether the chemicals used to extract gas are toxic or contains various toxins which could be harmful,” the suit claims.
Teresa Marks, the director of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, said she hadn’t studied the lawsuit. However, she sought to put to rest Dockery’s concerns about the effects of drilling.
“It appears to me that the plaintiff is concerned about environmental protection in the state,” Marks said. “If that is something he is concerned about, then he should be pleased that we are getting some of that money because it will certainly be going to the protection of the environment in the state.”
Local News for Northwest Arkansas
Lawsuit Filed Over Leases To Gas Company
By The Associated Press
LITTLE ROCK -- A lawsuit filed in Pulaski County aims to stop the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission from solely using the money generated from leasing state lands to Chesapeake Energy Corp.
James Dockery of Little Rock filed the suit against the commission, which will be getting about $30 million from land leases to the gas exploration company in wildlife management areas. Dockery claims the money should go into the state’s general budget and be available to all agencies.
“Historically, leasing Game & Fish land is for the purposes of hunting and fishing,” Byrum Hurst Jr., Dockery’s lawyer, told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. “Now, we have a situation unique in the state. All of a sudden we have Game and Fish property being leased to oil and gas companies and producing not only oil and gas, but huge amounts of revenue that appears to be headed to the pockets of the Game & Fish Commission and nowhere else.”
Jim Goodhart, general counsel for the Game & Fish Commission, said, “We’re aware that we’ve been sued.”
“I’m not going to comment on what is in the lawsuit because we’ve not been served yet,” Goodhart said Friday. “We expect to be served, and after we’ve had an opportunity to review it, we’ll take appropriate action to defend the state’s interest.”
The commission voted in July 2008 to accept the terms of the leases with Chesapeake for drilling rights in the Gulf Mountain and Petit Jean River wildlife management areas after taking bids on the opportunity to explore the lands. The leases will allow the Oklahoma City-based company to have access to more than 7,500 acres in the Petit Jean River WMA in Yell County and nearly 4,000 acres in the Gulf Mountain WMA in Van Buren County.
Though the commission initially balked at offering other state agencies any of the money, it later agreed to share $3.5 million with environmental regulators.
Dockery’s lawsuit cites the environmental concerns that might arise from exploration in the state’s Fayetteville Shale play as a reason for the need to share the money.
“The general public, including the Plaintiff, has not been informed as to whether the chemicals used to extract gas are toxic or contains various toxins which could be harmful,” the suit claims.
Teresa Marks, the director of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, said she hadn’t studied the lawsuit. However, she sought to put to rest Dockery’s concerns about the effects of drilling.
“It appears to me that the plaintiff is concerned about environmental protection in the state,” Marks said. “If that is something he is concerned about, then he should be pleased that we are getting some of that money because it will certainly be going to the protection of the environment in the state.”
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
City of Clinton may have found a way to clean and recycle water from Fayetteville shale gasp-drilling rigs
Mayor: Method found to purify drilling water
BY AMY UPSHAW
Posted on Tuesday, February 24, 2009
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/253313/
Using an idle sewer plant in town, the city of Clinton has found a way to recycle contaminated water used in the natural-gas drilling process, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has learned.
"We have a process that will clean all the drill wastewater," Clinton Mayor Roger Rorie said Monday evening.
In a meeting next week, the mayor, along with Siemens Water Technologies representatives, will present to four of the gas companies drilling in the Fayetteville Shale findings from recent tests the city conducted on water taken from drilling sites. Several elected officials also have been invited.
"We feel like we have the answer for the Fayetteville Shale," Rorie said.
The Fayetteville Shale is a geologic formation where companies are drilling for natural gas in north-central Arkansas.
Natural-gas companies use millions of gallons of water to drill each well in the formation and to break up the rock to release the gas. Some wastewater already is being spread on vacant land in a process called land application or land farming.
Other wastewater from drilling is too salty or laden with chemicals and must be pumped into injection disposal wells. Arkansas, because it's newer to the shale business, lacks infrastructure to adequately process both types of drilling water.
Teresa Marks, director of the state Department of Environmental Quality, said Monday evening that her agency will have to evaluate several things before the city could begin the water-recycling process.
"That would be wonderful if that could happen because certainly recycling that water would be a wonderful thing for the environment," Marks said. "This may be a viable option, but what we'll have to do is look at the law, the terms of [the city's] permit and the technology they have, to see if they can successfully treat what's in that ... water."
Rorie said his city does not yet have a contract with any drilling companies and has not been paid by any of the companies to conduct the tests. But if the companies and the state approve the idea, Rorie said, the city could move equipment for the process into the sewer plant within days.
The city stands to gain a substantial amount of money if the process is given the go-ahead, though Rorie said he isn't pushing the idea for the city to "get rich." Treating the wastewater could help the city keep its drinking-water supply safe, he said.
The sewer plant, one of two in the city, has been idle since October. It was dedicated to processing waste from the Pilgrim's Pride chicken processing plant until it closed in Oct. 10.
Because the plant offered hundreds of manufacturing jobs, the city took out millions of dollars in debt to build the sewer plant and a 16-inch waterline to serve Pilgrim's. In 2007 alone, the city spent $140,000 upgrading the sewage plant.
Since the processing plant closed, the city has been losing about $30,000 a month in water and sewer revenue. To cope, the city laid off one employee and would have laid off another had he not retired.
The city has lost all of its major manufacturing companies over the past few years. Rorie believes that this water-treatment process would create 50 to 60 new jobs in Clinton.
Natural-gas companies drilling in the area gave the city permission to take water samples of "flow back" from drilling sites. Using filtering equipment from Siemens, the city processed the water at its idle sewer plant.
Samples of the water were pulled out during three different stages of treatment and sent to the private lab, Environmental Service Co.
"We've got potable water," Rorie said.
The city hopes to recycle 80 of every 100 gallons of water it treats by selling it back to the gas-drilling companies.
The rest, he said, would go into injection wells.
A spokesman for Chesapeake Energy said Monday night that the company has been in informal talks with Rorie about the possible water recycling.
"We look forward to learning more," spokesman Mark Raines said.
A spokesman for Southwestern Energy Co. did not return a call for comment.
Asked what gas company officials have said to him about the idea, Rorie said, "They have been jumping up and down wanting to know when we will be in operation."
Information for this article was contributed by Laura Stevens of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Copyright © 2001-2009 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact: webmaster@nwanews.com
BY AMY UPSHAW
Posted on Tuesday, February 24, 2009
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/253313/
Using an idle sewer plant in town, the city of Clinton has found a way to recycle contaminated water used in the natural-gas drilling process, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has learned.
"We have a process that will clean all the drill wastewater," Clinton Mayor Roger Rorie said Monday evening.
In a meeting next week, the mayor, along with Siemens Water Technologies representatives, will present to four of the gas companies drilling in the Fayetteville Shale findings from recent tests the city conducted on water taken from drilling sites. Several elected officials also have been invited.
"We feel like we have the answer for the Fayetteville Shale," Rorie said.
The Fayetteville Shale is a geologic formation where companies are drilling for natural gas in north-central Arkansas.
Natural-gas companies use millions of gallons of water to drill each well in the formation and to break up the rock to release the gas. Some wastewater already is being spread on vacant land in a process called land application or land farming.
Other wastewater from drilling is too salty or laden with chemicals and must be pumped into injection disposal wells. Arkansas, because it's newer to the shale business, lacks infrastructure to adequately process both types of drilling water.
Teresa Marks, director of the state Department of Environmental Quality, said Monday evening that her agency will have to evaluate several things before the city could begin the water-recycling process.
"That would be wonderful if that could happen because certainly recycling that water would be a wonderful thing for the environment," Marks said. "This may be a viable option, but what we'll have to do is look at the law, the terms of [the city's] permit and the technology they have, to see if they can successfully treat what's in that ... water."
Rorie said his city does not yet have a contract with any drilling companies and has not been paid by any of the companies to conduct the tests. But if the companies and the state approve the idea, Rorie said, the city could move equipment for the process into the sewer plant within days.
The city stands to gain a substantial amount of money if the process is given the go-ahead, though Rorie said he isn't pushing the idea for the city to "get rich." Treating the wastewater could help the city keep its drinking-water supply safe, he said.
The sewer plant, one of two in the city, has been idle since October. It was dedicated to processing waste from the Pilgrim's Pride chicken processing plant until it closed in Oct. 10.
Because the plant offered hundreds of manufacturing jobs, the city took out millions of dollars in debt to build the sewer plant and a 16-inch waterline to serve Pilgrim's. In 2007 alone, the city spent $140,000 upgrading the sewage plant.
Since the processing plant closed, the city has been losing about $30,000 a month in water and sewer revenue. To cope, the city laid off one employee and would have laid off another had he not retired.
The city has lost all of its major manufacturing companies over the past few years. Rorie believes that this water-treatment process would create 50 to 60 new jobs in Clinton.
Natural-gas companies drilling in the area gave the city permission to take water samples of "flow back" from drilling sites. Using filtering equipment from Siemens, the city processed the water at its idle sewer plant.
Samples of the water were pulled out during three different stages of treatment and sent to the private lab, Environmental Service Co.
"We've got potable water," Rorie said.
The city hopes to recycle 80 of every 100 gallons of water it treats by selling it back to the gas-drilling companies.
The rest, he said, would go into injection wells.
A spokesman for Chesapeake Energy said Monday night that the company has been in informal talks with Rorie about the possible water recycling.
"We look forward to learning more," spokesman Mark Raines said.
A spokesman for Southwestern Energy Co. did not return a call for comment.
Asked what gas company officials have said to him about the idea, Rorie said, "They have been jumping up and down wanting to know when we will be in operation."
Information for this article was contributed by Laura Stevens of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Copyright © 2001-2009 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact: webmaster@nwanews.com
Monday, February 23, 2009
Sierra Club to meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday Feb. 24, 2009, for presentation on environmental bills in legislature
The Ozark Headwaters Group of the Sierra Club will be meeting
tomorrow, Tuesday Feb. 24th, at 7 pm at U.S. Pizza Company on Dixon
Street in Fayetteville. The Bicycle Coalition of the Ozarks has a fun
and informative presentation planned. Also Bill Kopsky of the Arkansas
Public Policy Panel will be discussing the environmental bills that
will be coming before the Arkansas Legislature this year and the
upcoming rally day at the Capitol building. You do not have to be a
member to attend!
For more information contact Molly at mollyrawn@gmail.com or at 479 527 9499
tomorrow, Tuesday Feb. 24th, at 7 pm at U.S. Pizza Company on Dixon
Street in Fayetteville. The Bicycle Coalition of the Ozarks has a fun
and informative presentation planned. Also Bill Kopsky of the Arkansas
Public Policy Panel will be discussing the environmental bills that
will be coming before the Arkansas Legislature this year and the
upcoming rally day at the Capitol building. You do not have to be a
member to attend!
For more information contact Molly at mollyrawn@gmail.com or at 479 527 9499
Monday, February 16, 2009
House committee caps citizen rights not gas wells
Eminent-domain Bill Dies in Committee
By Arkansas Business Staff - 2/11/2009 3:15:01 PM
A bill restricting private oil and gas companies from claiming eminent domain failed to make it out of a House committee on Wednesday.
HB1178 by Rep. Jonathan Dismang, R-Beebe, went before the House Committee on Agriculture, Forestry and Economic Development but was killed on a 9-6 vote.
The bill clarified that a pipeline company does not have the authority to exercise the power of eminent domain for the purpose of the construction or operation of a gathering line. Dismang said the purpose of the bill was to provide landowners the ability to effectively negotiate with oil companies over the location of gathering lines and well sites.
The bill is a response to the activity in the Fayetteville Shale play.
More analysis from Capsearch.com Here: http://www.capsearch.com
February 11, 2009
Rep. Dismang’s Eminent Domain bill fails in committee
Filed under: Uncategorized — Matt Price @ 3:11 pm
HB1178 from Rep. Jonathan Dismang went before the House Committee on Agriculture, Forestry and Economic Development today. The bill clarified that a pipeline company does not have the authority to exercise the power of eminent domain for the purpose of the construction or operation of a gathering line. Rep. Dismang stated that the purpose of his bill was to grant landowners the ability to effectively negotiate with oil companies over the location gathering lines and well sites. Mr. Don Rainey, an attorney in Searcy, Arkansas testified that he has represented landowners in White County for over 30 years and that he did not believe oil and gas companies should have the power of eminent domain for gathering lines and well sites. Mr. Rainey stated that prior to enacting A.C.A. §23-15-101 the power of eminent domain had never been granted by the Arkansas Legislature to unregulated private corporations.
Mr. Jerry Canfield, Esq., an attorney for Chesapeake Energy, spoke against the bill. Mr. Canfield stated that Article 12, Section 9 of the Arkansas Constitution allowed the power of eminent domain to be given to privately held corporations. Within Chesapeake’s business, the process of “Unitizing” pipelines was essential to the effective transport and production of natural gas. Mr. Canfield further stated that private condemners pay full value of the property easement even if the condemner takes only the easement and not the full fee.
Representatives of groups including the Fayetteville Shale Citizens Association, White County Farm Bureau, Arkansas Conservation Alliance and Arkansas Farm Bureau spoke in favor of the bill while several royalty owners spoke against the bill. Of particular note were statements made by Kenneth May, President of the White County Farm Bureau and Rodney Baker with Arkansas Farm Bureau. Mr. May stated that his 6,300 member group took up the issue of oil and gas companies eminent domain power and at a December meeting unanimously voted to support HB1178. Mr. May said that the complete unanimity with which his group supported this bill and the fact that the bill was being addressed today demonstrates that a real problem exists. Though conservative, Mr. Baker said that Arkansans recognize that there is a need for eminent domain. However, in this instance, Mr. Baker stated that the Arkansas Farm Bureau saw the use of eminent domain as Chesapeake taking advantage of the Arkansas Code to avoid regulation while simultaneously obtaining the power of eminent domain.
The final vote was 9 votes against and 6 votes for HB1178.
FOR: Sample, King, Rice, Dale, Betts, Nickels.
AGAINST: Everett, Reep, Davenport, Wills, Lowery, Cash, Reynolds, House and Patterson.
By Arkansas Business Staff - 2/11/2009 3:15:01 PM
A bill restricting private oil and gas companies from claiming eminent domain failed to make it out of a House committee on Wednesday.
HB1178 by Rep. Jonathan Dismang, R-Beebe, went before the House Committee on Agriculture, Forestry and Economic Development but was killed on a 9-6 vote.
The bill clarified that a pipeline company does not have the authority to exercise the power of eminent domain for the purpose of the construction or operation of a gathering line. Dismang said the purpose of the bill was to provide landowners the ability to effectively negotiate with oil companies over the location of gathering lines and well sites.
The bill is a response to the activity in the Fayetteville Shale play.
More analysis from Capsearch.com Here: http://www.capsearch.com
February 11, 2009
Rep. Dismang’s Eminent Domain bill fails in committee
Filed under: Uncategorized — Matt Price @ 3:11 pm
HB1178 from Rep. Jonathan Dismang went before the House Committee on Agriculture, Forestry and Economic Development today. The bill clarified that a pipeline company does not have the authority to exercise the power of eminent domain for the purpose of the construction or operation of a gathering line. Rep. Dismang stated that the purpose of his bill was to grant landowners the ability to effectively negotiate with oil companies over the location gathering lines and well sites. Mr. Don Rainey, an attorney in Searcy, Arkansas testified that he has represented landowners in White County for over 30 years and that he did not believe oil and gas companies should have the power of eminent domain for gathering lines and well sites. Mr. Rainey stated that prior to enacting A.C.A. §23-15-101 the power of eminent domain had never been granted by the Arkansas Legislature to unregulated private corporations.
Mr. Jerry Canfield, Esq., an attorney for Chesapeake Energy, spoke against the bill. Mr. Canfield stated that Article 12, Section 9 of the Arkansas Constitution allowed the power of eminent domain to be given to privately held corporations. Within Chesapeake’s business, the process of “Unitizing” pipelines was essential to the effective transport and production of natural gas. Mr. Canfield further stated that private condemners pay full value of the property easement even if the condemner takes only the easement and not the full fee.
Representatives of groups including the Fayetteville Shale Citizens Association, White County Farm Bureau, Arkansas Conservation Alliance and Arkansas Farm Bureau spoke in favor of the bill while several royalty owners spoke against the bill. Of particular note were statements made by Kenneth May, President of the White County Farm Bureau and Rodney Baker with Arkansas Farm Bureau. Mr. May stated that his 6,300 member group took up the issue of oil and gas companies eminent domain power and at a December meeting unanimously voted to support HB1178. Mr. May said that the complete unanimity with which his group supported this bill and the fact that the bill was being addressed today demonstrates that a real problem exists. Though conservative, Mr. Baker said that Arkansans recognize that there is a need for eminent domain. However, in this instance, Mr. Baker stated that the Arkansas Farm Bureau saw the use of eminent domain as Chesapeake taking advantage of the Arkansas Code to avoid regulation while simultaneously obtaining the power of eminent domain.
The final vote was 9 votes against and 6 votes for HB1178.
FOR: Sample, King, Rice, Dale, Betts, Nickels.
AGAINST: Everett, Reep, Davenport, Wills, Lowery, Cash, Reynolds, House and Patterson.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Arkansas Times reports on arrogance of natural-gas pipeliners
Pipeline company’s right to condemn land contested.
Published 2/5/2009
Beverly Strain-Eads is 70 years old. She's a great-grandmother and a cattle rancher. About 24 years ago, she bought a ranch near Greenbrier called the Circle Z. It was her plan to raise cattle along with the help of Kirk Hicks, a long-time friend and business partner who now works as the ranch foreman, and eventually sell the land for development. This, she thought, would surely be enough to support her family, and the Hicks family, in the years after their retirement.
That was before she got a letter from Arkansas Midstream, a pipeline company owned by Chesapeake Energy. The letter, which she received in March of last year, said a pipeline would be installed on her land. She had seven days to respond to the letter and if she had not agreed by that time the company would condemn the land and file for eminent domain.
Work began in May and was complete in December. The result: “It's torn up my ranch from north to south and east to west,” she said. “They have caused over $200,000 of legitimate damages to my property: fences down, ponds ruined, big valves put up on my land.”
Strain-Eads is not alone: Other landowners across the state have received similar letters. A White County landowner has sued, arguing that pipeline companies' power of eminent domain is restricted to common carriers, lines that transmit gas from multiple sources, across state lines or provide some other public benefit, and not gathering lines, those that take gas from only one company's well to a transmission line. Plaintiffs plan to appeal a Circuit Court ruling in favor of the pipeline company to the state Supreme Court.
The Arkansas Public Service Commission takes the position that it does not have regulatory authority over gathering lines. Landowner advocates say if that's the case, then pipeline companies shouldn't have the power to condemn land to build them.
State Rep. Jonathan Dismang, R-Beebe, agrees, and he has introduced a bill that would keep companies that build gathering lines from using the power of eminent domain.
“These gathering lines are not community lines, they're just for one producer,” Dismang said. “The problem is that eminent domain is being used as a first resort instead of a last resort. Companies have been operating in the state for years and have never used eminent domain to acquire a pipeline easement. But Arkansas Midstream feels that they have that power and they're not really negotiating with our landowners.”
The line going across Strain-Eads' land is a gathering line. Unlike many landowners, Strain-Eads had an advantage: She was able to hire a lawyer to negotiate portions of the right-of-way agreement. But, attorney Bryan Christian said, unforeseeable damages “exceeded the value that we received for signing the agreement.”
“Once they got their foot in the door they just went crazy,” Strain-Eads' partner Hicks said. “They ruined an entire winter crop of hay by leaving a gate open and letting all the cows trample and eat the grass. They've ruined the bedrock under our main watering pond and they cut down about a football field's worth of trees and said it was just a mistake.”
Strain-Eads is worried about the future of her land. Aside from the damage to the cattle business, she's worried the value of her property will decline due to Arkansas Midstream's presence there. She said she's too old to worry about fighting any battles, but somebody had to do it.
“I'm not in this to make money or be greedy,” she said. “I just want them to pay me for what they've messed up. They've offered to buy the ranch a couple of times. And there are a lot of things that mean more to me than just a dollar amount and one of them is that beautiful pristine ranch. You've got to do something to get their attention and money is the only thing they understand.”
Dismang's bill is scheduled to go before the House Agriculture, Forestry and Economic Development Committee on Feb. 11. He said he's got some support, but knows it will be a tough fight.
Chesapeake didn't respond to the Times' requests for comment.
http://www.arktimes.com/articles/articleviewer.aspx?ArticleID=dacd0c12-6c39-4094-ba11-a73246b3e9f4
Published 2/5/2009
Beverly Strain-Eads is 70 years old. She's a great-grandmother and a cattle rancher. About 24 years ago, she bought a ranch near Greenbrier called the Circle Z. It was her plan to raise cattle along with the help of Kirk Hicks, a long-time friend and business partner who now works as the ranch foreman, and eventually sell the land for development. This, she thought, would surely be enough to support her family, and the Hicks family, in the years after their retirement.
That was before she got a letter from Arkansas Midstream, a pipeline company owned by Chesapeake Energy. The letter, which she received in March of last year, said a pipeline would be installed on her land. She had seven days to respond to the letter and if she had not agreed by that time the company would condemn the land and file for eminent domain.
Work began in May and was complete in December. The result: “It's torn up my ranch from north to south and east to west,” she said. “They have caused over $200,000 of legitimate damages to my property: fences down, ponds ruined, big valves put up on my land.”
Strain-Eads is not alone: Other landowners across the state have received similar letters. A White County landowner has sued, arguing that pipeline companies' power of eminent domain is restricted to common carriers, lines that transmit gas from multiple sources, across state lines or provide some other public benefit, and not gathering lines, those that take gas from only one company's well to a transmission line. Plaintiffs plan to appeal a Circuit Court ruling in favor of the pipeline company to the state Supreme Court.
The Arkansas Public Service Commission takes the position that it does not have regulatory authority over gathering lines. Landowner advocates say if that's the case, then pipeline companies shouldn't have the power to condemn land to build them.
State Rep. Jonathan Dismang, R-Beebe, agrees, and he has introduced a bill that would keep companies that build gathering lines from using the power of eminent domain.
“These gathering lines are not community lines, they're just for one producer,” Dismang said. “The problem is that eminent domain is being used as a first resort instead of a last resort. Companies have been operating in the state for years and have never used eminent domain to acquire a pipeline easement. But Arkansas Midstream feels that they have that power and they're not really negotiating with our landowners.”
The line going across Strain-Eads' land is a gathering line. Unlike many landowners, Strain-Eads had an advantage: She was able to hire a lawyer to negotiate portions of the right-of-way agreement. But, attorney Bryan Christian said, unforeseeable damages “exceeded the value that we received for signing the agreement.”
“Once they got their foot in the door they just went crazy,” Strain-Eads' partner Hicks said. “They ruined an entire winter crop of hay by leaving a gate open and letting all the cows trample and eat the grass. They've ruined the bedrock under our main watering pond and they cut down about a football field's worth of trees and said it was just a mistake.”
Strain-Eads is worried about the future of her land. Aside from the damage to the cattle business, she's worried the value of her property will decline due to Arkansas Midstream's presence there. She said she's too old to worry about fighting any battles, but somebody had to do it.
“I'm not in this to make money or be greedy,” she said. “I just want them to pay me for what they've messed up. They've offered to buy the ranch a couple of times. And there are a lot of things that mean more to me than just a dollar amount and one of them is that beautiful pristine ranch. You've got to do something to get their attention and money is the only thing they understand.”
Dismang's bill is scheduled to go before the House Agriculture, Forestry and Economic Development Committee on Feb. 11. He said he's got some support, but knows it will be a tough fight.
Chesapeake didn't respond to the Times' requests for comment.
http://www.arktimes.com/articles/articleviewer.aspx?ArticleID=dacd0c12-6c39-4094-ba11-a73246b3e9f4
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Houma Today
New state drilling rules focus on safety
Jeremy Alford
Capitol Correspondent
Published: Sunday, January 25, 2009 at 8:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, January 24, 2009 at 11:17 p.m.
BATON ROUGE -- Louisiana has enacted what may be the most stringent rules in the country to regulate oil-and-gas companies that drill over water in close proximity to an interstate system.
From a historical perspective, it’s yet another industry first in instances where water and oil overlap.
In the early 1900s, Caddo Lake in Mooringsport hosted the first above-water drilling operation in the U.S.’s long history of energy production.
Over the past decade, just off the shores of Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes, explorers have reached ever deeper to siphon oil and gas from the ocean floor – lately at depths of 5,000 feet or more.
Endorsed by Conservation Commissioner James Welsh earlier this month, the new policy prohibits companies from drilling wells within 1,000 feet of an interstate highway that runs over a major waterway.
Most other states don’t have such a rule. Those that do have an average 100-foot threshold.
Along the Interstate-10 and Interstate-12 corridor and beyond, that’s prime property.
It includes areas like the I-10 crossing of the Atchafalaya Basin, Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain; the I-12 crossing of the Amite River; and the I-20 crossing of the Red River, among others.
Louisiana officials still are reeling from the gas-well blowout in November 2007. The blaze was tremendous and closed I-10 at Ramah, right outside Grosse Tete, for a 11 days.
Welsh said the state is so serious about taking a preventive approach that another set of rules went into effect in December to complement the ban.
They call for recurring training, design specifications, new diverters and updated requirements for the quick operation of valves controlling gas and fluid flow.
“We want to minimize as much as humanly possible all potential well blowouts, no matter where the well is located,” Welsh said.
Oil-and-gas companies aren’t overjoyed about the new regulations, Welsh said, but most have been quick to point out their attention to safety.
For instance, Bridas Energy USA Inc., which was responsible for operating the Ramah well in 2007, plans to re-drill in the same area, only this time under the new 1,000-feet guidelines.
“The new rules have placed new burdens on oil-and-gas exploration companies,” Welsh said, “but they too recognize the need to make the drilling process as safe as possible for their employees and the public.”
Jeremy Alford can be reached at jeremy@jeremyalford.com.
All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.
Copyright © 2009 HoumaToday.com — All rights reserved. Restricted use only.
New state drilling rules focus on safety
Jeremy Alford
Capitol Correspondent
Published: Sunday, January 25, 2009 at 8:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, January 24, 2009 at 11:17 p.m.
BATON ROUGE -- Louisiana has enacted what may be the most stringent rules in the country to regulate oil-and-gas companies that drill over water in close proximity to an interstate system.
From a historical perspective, it’s yet another industry first in instances where water and oil overlap.
In the early 1900s, Caddo Lake in Mooringsport hosted the first above-water drilling operation in the U.S.’s long history of energy production.
Over the past decade, just off the shores of Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes, explorers have reached ever deeper to siphon oil and gas from the ocean floor – lately at depths of 5,000 feet or more.
Endorsed by Conservation Commissioner James Welsh earlier this month, the new policy prohibits companies from drilling wells within 1,000 feet of an interstate highway that runs over a major waterway.
Most other states don’t have such a rule. Those that do have an average 100-foot threshold.
Along the Interstate-10 and Interstate-12 corridor and beyond, that’s prime property.
It includes areas like the I-10 crossing of the Atchafalaya Basin, Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain; the I-12 crossing of the Amite River; and the I-20 crossing of the Red River, among others.
Louisiana officials still are reeling from the gas-well blowout in November 2007. The blaze was tremendous and closed I-10 at Ramah, right outside Grosse Tete, for a 11 days.
Welsh said the state is so serious about taking a preventive approach that another set of rules went into effect in December to complement the ban.
They call for recurring training, design specifications, new diverters and updated requirements for the quick operation of valves controlling gas and fluid flow.
“We want to minimize as much as humanly possible all potential well blowouts, no matter where the well is located,” Welsh said.
Oil-and-gas companies aren’t overjoyed about the new regulations, Welsh said, but most have been quick to point out their attention to safety.
For instance, Bridas Energy USA Inc., which was responsible for operating the Ramah well in 2007, plans to re-drill in the same area, only this time under the new 1,000-feet guidelines.
“The new rules have placed new burdens on oil-and-gas exploration companies,” Welsh said, “but they too recognize the need to make the drilling process as safe as possible for their employees and the public.”
Jeremy Alford can be reached at jeremy@jeremyalford.com.
All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.
Copyright © 2009 HoumaToday.com — All rights reserved. Restricted use only.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Natural-gas CEO being paid well. How much is your gas bill this month?
Chesapeake CEO McClendon Gets $75 Million Bonus
By Arkansas Business Staff - 1/7/2009 4:27:01 PM
Chesapeake Energy Corp. of Oklahoma City and CEO Aubrey K. McClendon have agreed to terms of a new five-year contract, whereby McClendon will receive a one-time $75 million bonus, an annual salary of $975,000 and yearly bonuses that will not exceed his 2008 total of $1.95 million.
After taxes, the bonus will net McClendon $43.5 million, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission document filed Wednesday. The parties reached the agreement Dec. 31, according to the filing.
Chesapeake (NYSE: %%CHK) is active in the Fayetteville Shale Play, a natural gas reservoir in north-central Arkansas. The company is one of the play's largest producers. The company has worked to enhance its cash holdings since this summer when natural gas prices began to fall from the high of about $14.
The company closed the sale of a 25 percent stake in its Fayetteville Shale holdings in September. BP America purchased the stake for $1.9 billion. Chesapeake has sold stakes in several other of its natural gas holdings and reduced its capital expenditures multiple times to help raise its cash position.
By Arkansas Business Staff - 1/7/2009 4:27:01 PM
Chesapeake Energy Corp. of Oklahoma City and CEO Aubrey K. McClendon have agreed to terms of a new five-year contract, whereby McClendon will receive a one-time $75 million bonus, an annual salary of $975,000 and yearly bonuses that will not exceed his 2008 total of $1.95 million.
After taxes, the bonus will net McClendon $43.5 million, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission document filed Wednesday. The parties reached the agreement Dec. 31, according to the filing.
Chesapeake (NYSE: %%CHK) is active in the Fayetteville Shale Play, a natural gas reservoir in north-central Arkansas. The company is one of the play's largest producers. The company has worked to enhance its cash holdings since this summer when natural gas prices began to fall from the high of about $14.
The company closed the sale of a 25 percent stake in its Fayetteville Shale holdings in September. BP America purchased the stake for $1.9 billion. Chesapeake has sold stakes in several other of its natural gas holdings and reduced its capital expenditures multiple times to help raise its cash position.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Violators of water rules don't share details of problem or ideas for solution
Facilities mum on violation solution
BY L. LAMOR WILLIAMS
Posted on Monday, January 12, 2009
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/249127/
The company that owns two facilities used to discard water used by natural-gas drillers is remaining silent about how it will fix violations that led to emergency orders halting disposal operations.
The two facilities, Fayetteville Shale Land Farm in Lonoke County and Central Arkansas Disposal in White County, are owned by Fayetteville Shale Land Farm LLC. Both permits are registered to Ron Carl, and each lists the same Carlisle address.
Attorney John Peiserich of Perkins & Trotter PLLC, a Little Rock-based environmental law firm, represents the company. He said he couldn't comment because his client was "in the middle of enforcement action negotiations" with the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality.
"I'd just as soon not make any comment, but we've met with them and are attempting to resolve these issues," Peiserich said.
The two facilities remain closed. Teresa Marks, the Department of Environmental Quality's director, said Fayetteville Shale Land Farm expects to remain closed until spring.
A typical land farm, as such facilities are called, has two large plastic-lined ponds where water and rock sediment discarded after drilling is stored. When one pond is full, the owner can submit water samples to the Environmental Quality Department and if approved, the water from that pond can be used to irrigate crops while the other is being filled.
According to Environmental Quality Department records, Central Arkansas Disposal has the largest ponds in the state, holding up to 180,000 barrels of the castoff water. Among the other 11 facilities in the state, the smallest ponds hold 25,000 barrels each. Each barrel is 42 gallons.
Central Arkansas Disposal is accused of maintaining a third pond about two miles away from the primary facility and pumping the water through underground pipes into the reservoir.
After a nearby property owner reported seeing dead fish in streams on his land Dec. 4, the department investigated. The inspector reported finding a "large unlined, unpermitted waste treatment reservoir" that was emptying into Raft Creek, which feeds the Steve Wilson/ Raft Creek Wildlife Management Area in White County. Central Arkansas Disposal was ordered to stop operations on Dec. 12.
The Fayetteville Shale Land Farm was cited Dec. 3 for allowing the water to run off the property after irrigation. Under the terms of the permit, drill water must be completely absorbed by crops, leaving no puddles or runoff.
The fluid is generated by companies drilling for natural gas in the Fayetteville Shale, a geologic formation that stretches from north-central Arkansas to the Mississippi River.
A man who answered the phone at Searcy-based Central Arkansas Disposal said no one there would be making any comment.
Marks said the department is working with Central Arkansas Disposal to develop a plan for fixing the violations.
"I actually went to the site to visit with them," she said. "It sometimes helps me to have a visual, particularly if there's significant interest from adjoining landowners or significant outcry from the public."
Marks said the department often works with any permit holder in violation because it saves time since their remediation plans must be approved by the department before implementation.
"We've not gotten any final documentation at this point, but this has been given to enforcement," she said. "Their position is that it was an accidental release into the reservoir.
"They did acknowledge that drilling waste did get into the reservoir, but that the reservoir was for holding water for irrigating farm land and that no drill waste was supposed to get into it," Marks said.
She said pipeline valves to the off-site reservoir had been closed.
Marks said there are 13 such facilities licensed to operate in Arkansas. Of those, 11 have had violations within the past few months that have resulted in enforcement action. It usually takes about two months from the date of inspection before sanctions are levied. Violations ranged from not having the proper clearance at the top of ponds - 24 inches minimum is required - to irrigating with more water than was approved by the department.
The largest fine in recent history was levied against Comer Mining Corporation in Sebastian County in December for $19,400, Marks said. The company's violations included:
No records of when, where and how much of the water was used to irrigate crops.
Not submitting reports to the Department detailing the origin, transporter and volume of the water taken in.
Flooding one field with the castoff water and mud.
Not submitting the required water and soil samples to the department.
Inspectors discovered the violations after inspections in March 2007 and in February, June and August.
Marks said fines can be as much as $10,000 per day of being in violation and that the department considers issues such as whether harm was done to the environment, whether the act was intentional and whether the company involved has a history of violations.
Copyright © 2001-2009 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact: webmaster@nwanews.com
BY L. LAMOR WILLIAMS
Posted on Monday, January 12, 2009
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/249127/
The company that owns two facilities used to discard water used by natural-gas drillers is remaining silent about how it will fix violations that led to emergency orders halting disposal operations.
The two facilities, Fayetteville Shale Land Farm in Lonoke County and Central Arkansas Disposal in White County, are owned by Fayetteville Shale Land Farm LLC. Both permits are registered to Ron Carl, and each lists the same Carlisle address.
Attorney John Peiserich of Perkins & Trotter PLLC, a Little Rock-based environmental law firm, represents the company. He said he couldn't comment because his client was "in the middle of enforcement action negotiations" with the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality.
"I'd just as soon not make any comment, but we've met with them and are attempting to resolve these issues," Peiserich said.
The two facilities remain closed. Teresa Marks, the Department of Environmental Quality's director, said Fayetteville Shale Land Farm expects to remain closed until spring.
A typical land farm, as such facilities are called, has two large plastic-lined ponds where water and rock sediment discarded after drilling is stored. When one pond is full, the owner can submit water samples to the Environmental Quality Department and if approved, the water from that pond can be used to irrigate crops while the other is being filled.
According to Environmental Quality Department records, Central Arkansas Disposal has the largest ponds in the state, holding up to 180,000 barrels of the castoff water. Among the other 11 facilities in the state, the smallest ponds hold 25,000 barrels each. Each barrel is 42 gallons.
Central Arkansas Disposal is accused of maintaining a third pond about two miles away from the primary facility and pumping the water through underground pipes into the reservoir.
After a nearby property owner reported seeing dead fish in streams on his land Dec. 4, the department investigated. The inspector reported finding a "large unlined, unpermitted waste treatment reservoir" that was emptying into Raft Creek, which feeds the Steve Wilson/ Raft Creek Wildlife Management Area in White County. Central Arkansas Disposal was ordered to stop operations on Dec. 12.
The Fayetteville Shale Land Farm was cited Dec. 3 for allowing the water to run off the property after irrigation. Under the terms of the permit, drill water must be completely absorbed by crops, leaving no puddles or runoff.
The fluid is generated by companies drilling for natural gas in the Fayetteville Shale, a geologic formation that stretches from north-central Arkansas to the Mississippi River.
A man who answered the phone at Searcy-based Central Arkansas Disposal said no one there would be making any comment.
Marks said the department is working with Central Arkansas Disposal to develop a plan for fixing the violations.
"I actually went to the site to visit with them," she said. "It sometimes helps me to have a visual, particularly if there's significant interest from adjoining landowners or significant outcry from the public."
Marks said the department often works with any permit holder in violation because it saves time since their remediation plans must be approved by the department before implementation.
"We've not gotten any final documentation at this point, but this has been given to enforcement," she said. "Their position is that it was an accidental release into the reservoir.
"They did acknowledge that drilling waste did get into the reservoir, but that the reservoir was for holding water for irrigating farm land and that no drill waste was supposed to get into it," Marks said.
She said pipeline valves to the off-site reservoir had been closed.
Marks said there are 13 such facilities licensed to operate in Arkansas. Of those, 11 have had violations within the past few months that have resulted in enforcement action. It usually takes about two months from the date of inspection before sanctions are levied. Violations ranged from not having the proper clearance at the top of ponds - 24 inches minimum is required - to irrigating with more water than was approved by the department.
The largest fine in recent history was levied against Comer Mining Corporation in Sebastian County in December for $19,400, Marks said. The company's violations included:
No records of when, where and how much of the water was used to irrigate crops.
Not submitting reports to the Department detailing the origin, transporter and volume of the water taken in.
Flooding one field with the castoff water and mud.
Not submitting the required water and soil samples to the department.
Inspectors discovered the violations after inspections in March 2007 and in February, June and August.
Marks said fines can be as much as $10,000 per day of being in violation and that the department considers issues such as whether harm was done to the environment, whether the act was intentional and whether the company involved has a history of violations.
Copyright © 2001-2009 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact: webmaster@nwanews.com
Monday, January 5, 2009
On a different environmental front, Antrim Caskey reports through AlterNet on coal-ash spill in Tennessee
Legislature may see bill to protect public and environment from drilling-site waste
Something to consider supporting by contacting legislators and governor during the upcoming session.
Don't be shy about pointing weaknesses and strengths of the bill. Amendments will occur. Your comment can make a difference:
AN ACT TO AMEND ARKANSAS CODE § 8-4-203 TO REQUIRE FINANCIAL ASSURANCE FOR THE CLOSURE OR RESTORATION OF PERMITTED SITES IN THE STATE OF ARKANSAS THAT LAND APPLY OR STORE FLUIDS GENERATED OR UTILIZED DURING EXPLORATION OR PRODUCTION PHASES OF OIL OR GAS OPERATIONS; AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES.
AN ACT TO REQUIRE FINANCIAL ASSURANCE FOR LANDFARMS.
SECTION 1. Arkansas Code § 8-4-203 is amended to add a new subsection to read as follows:
8-4-203. Permits generally.
(c)(1)(A)(i) All facilities that land apply or store fluids generated or utilized during exploration or production phases of oil or gas operations shall be closed in a manner that ensures protection of human health and the environment.
(ii) As used in this subsection “land application or storage of fluids generated or utilized during exploration or production phases of oil or gas operations” means land-farming through the controlled and repeated application of drilling fluids to a soil surface or the practice of receiving and storing said fluids from offsite for waste management.
(iii) Surface facilities associated with Class II injection wells are specifically excluded from the requirements of this section.
(iv) Land applications at the drilling or exploration site that are authorized pursuant to any general permit issued by the Department are specifically excluded from the requirements of this section.
(B) Within sixty days after the effective date of this Act, each existing, permitted facility regulated under this section shall submit to the department the following:
(i) A plan to close the permitted facility and make any site restoration deemed necessary by the Department;
(ii) A detailed cost estimate to close and
restore the permitted facility that meets the requirements of this subsection and is approved by the Department; and
(iii) A financial mechanism that demonstrates, to the department’s satisfaction, the permittee’s financial ability to ensure adequate closure and any necessary restoration of the permitted facility in accordance with the requirements of this subsection.
(C) After the effective date of this Act, the department shall not issue, modify, or renew a permit for facilities regulated under this subsection without the permit applicant first demonstrating to the department’s satisfaction, the applicant’s financial ability to ensure adequate closure and any necessary restoration of the permitted facility in accordance with the requirements of this subsection.
(D) The amount of any financial assurance
required under this subsection shall be in an amount that is equal to or greater than the detailed cost estimate prepared by an independent professional consultant for a third party to close the permitted facility in accordance with closure plans approved by the department.
(i) For new permits, the applicant shall submit to the department, for approval, a detailed cost estimate to close and restore the facility based on the proposed operation and capacity of the facility from the date the permit is issued through the following October 1;
(ii) For renewal or modification applications, the permittee shall submit to the department, for approval, a detailed cost estimate to close and restore the permitted facility based on closure plans approved by the department; and
(iii) On or before August 15 of each year, all permittees shall submit to the Department for approval, a detailed cost estimate to close and restore the permitted facility in accordance with closure plans approved by the department.
(E) The financial assurance mechanism shall be renewable on October 1 of each year during the duration of the permit.
(F) Documentation that the required financial assurance mechanism has been renewed must be received by the department by September 15 of each year for the duration of the permit or the department shall initiate procedures to take possession of the funds guaranteed by the mechanism and suspend or revoke the permit under which the facility is operated. Any permit suspension shall remain in effect until a financial assurance mechanism is provided to the department in accordance with this subsection.
(G) The permittee is responsible for ensuring that documentation of annual renewal is received by the department by its due date.
(2) The permittee or applicant’s financial ability to adequately close or restore the land application or storage facility shall be demonstrated:
(A) By obtaining insurance that specifically covers closure and restoration costs;
(B) By obtaining a letter of credit;
(C) By obtaining a bond or other surety instrument;
(D) By creating a trust fund or an escrow account;
(E) Through the use of a combination of any of the above; or
(F) By any other financial instrument acceptable to the director.
(4) Any financial instrument required by this subsection shall:
(i) Be posted to the benefit of the department;
(ii) Provide that it cannot be cancelled without sixty days prior, written notice addressed to the department’s Legal Division Chief as evidenced by a signed, certified mail, return receipt; and
(iii) Be reviewed by the Department upon receipt of the cancellation notice, to determine whether to initiate procedures to revoke or suspend the facility’s permit and whether to initiate procedures to take possession of the funds guaranteed by the financial assurance mechanism.
(4) Before the department may release any financial assurance mechanism, it must receive a certification by a professional engineer that the permitted facility has been closed and restored in accordance with closure plans approved by the department.
(5) It is explicitly understood that the department shall not be responsible for the operation, closure, or restoration of any facility permitted under this subsection.
SECTION 2. EMERGENCY CLAUSE. It is found and determined by the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas that establishing financial assurance requirements for the closure of commercial facilities that land apply or store fluids generated or utilized during exploration or production phases of oil or gas operations is necessary to protect human health and the environment and that a delay in the effective date of this Act may result in harm to human health or the environment. Therefore, an emergency is declared to exist and this Act being necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, and safety shall be in full force and effect from and after the date of its passage or approval. If the bill is neither approved nor vetoed by the Governor, it shall become effective on the expiration of the period of time during which the Governor may veto the bill. If the bill is vetoed by the Governor and the veto is overridden, it shall become effective on the date the last house overrides the veto.
Don't be shy about pointing weaknesses and strengths of the bill. Amendments will occur. Your comment can make a difference:
AN ACT TO AMEND ARKANSAS CODE § 8-4-203 TO REQUIRE FINANCIAL ASSURANCE FOR THE CLOSURE OR RESTORATION OF PERMITTED SITES IN THE STATE OF ARKANSAS THAT LAND APPLY OR STORE FLUIDS GENERATED OR UTILIZED DURING EXPLORATION OR PRODUCTION PHASES OF OIL OR GAS OPERATIONS; AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES.
AN ACT TO REQUIRE FINANCIAL ASSURANCE FOR LANDFARMS.
SECTION 1. Arkansas Code § 8-4-203 is amended to add a new subsection to read as follows:
8-4-203. Permits generally.
(c)(1)(A)(i) All facilities that land apply or store fluids generated or utilized during exploration or production phases of oil or gas operations shall be closed in a manner that ensures protection of human health and the environment.
(ii) As used in this subsection “land application or storage of fluids generated or utilized during exploration or production phases of oil or gas operations” means land-farming through the controlled and repeated application of drilling fluids to a soil surface or the practice of receiving and storing said fluids from offsite for waste management.
(iii) Surface facilities associated with Class II injection wells are specifically excluded from the requirements of this section.
(iv) Land applications at the drilling or exploration site that are authorized pursuant to any general permit issued by the Department are specifically excluded from the requirements of this section.
(B) Within sixty days after the effective date of this Act, each existing, permitted facility regulated under this section shall submit to the department the following:
(i) A plan to close the permitted facility and make any site restoration deemed necessary by the Department;
(ii) A detailed cost estimate to close and
restore the permitted facility that meets the requirements of this subsection and is approved by the Department; and
(iii) A financial mechanism that demonstrates, to the department’s satisfaction, the permittee’s financial ability to ensure adequate closure and any necessary restoration of the permitted facility in accordance with the requirements of this subsection.
(C) After the effective date of this Act, the department shall not issue, modify, or renew a permit for facilities regulated under this subsection without the permit applicant first demonstrating to the department’s satisfaction, the applicant’s financial ability to ensure adequate closure and any necessary restoration of the permitted facility in accordance with the requirements of this subsection.
(D) The amount of any financial assurance
required under this subsection shall be in an amount that is equal to or greater than the detailed cost estimate prepared by an independent professional consultant for a third party to close the permitted facility in accordance with closure plans approved by the department.
(i) For new permits, the applicant shall submit to the department, for approval, a detailed cost estimate to close and restore the facility based on the proposed operation and capacity of the facility from the date the permit is issued through the following October 1;
(ii) For renewal or modification applications, the permittee shall submit to the department, for approval, a detailed cost estimate to close and restore the permitted facility based on closure plans approved by the department; and
(iii) On or before August 15 of each year, all permittees shall submit to the Department for approval, a detailed cost estimate to close and restore the permitted facility in accordance with closure plans approved by the department.
(E) The financial assurance mechanism shall be renewable on October 1 of each year during the duration of the permit.
(F) Documentation that the required financial assurance mechanism has been renewed must be received by the department by September 15 of each year for the duration of the permit or the department shall initiate procedures to take possession of the funds guaranteed by the mechanism and suspend or revoke the permit under which the facility is operated. Any permit suspension shall remain in effect until a financial assurance mechanism is provided to the department in accordance with this subsection.
(G) The permittee is responsible for ensuring that documentation of annual renewal is received by the department by its due date.
(2) The permittee or applicant’s financial ability to adequately close or restore the land application or storage facility shall be demonstrated:
(A) By obtaining insurance that specifically covers closure and restoration costs;
(B) By obtaining a letter of credit;
(C) By obtaining a bond or other surety instrument;
(D) By creating a trust fund or an escrow account;
(E) Through the use of a combination of any of the above; or
(F) By any other financial instrument acceptable to the director.
(4) Any financial instrument required by this subsection shall:
(i) Be posted to the benefit of the department;
(ii) Provide that it cannot be cancelled without sixty days prior, written notice addressed to the department’s Legal Division Chief as evidenced by a signed, certified mail, return receipt; and
(iii) Be reviewed by the Department upon receipt of the cancellation notice, to determine whether to initiate procedures to revoke or suspend the facility’s permit and whether to initiate procedures to take possession of the funds guaranteed by the financial assurance mechanism.
(4) Before the department may release any financial assurance mechanism, it must receive a certification by a professional engineer that the permitted facility has been closed and restored in accordance with closure plans approved by the department.
(5) It is explicitly understood that the department shall not be responsible for the operation, closure, or restoration of any facility permitted under this subsection.
SECTION 2. EMERGENCY CLAUSE. It is found and determined by the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas that establishing financial assurance requirements for the closure of commercial facilities that land apply or store fluids generated or utilized during exploration or production phases of oil or gas operations is necessary to protect human health and the environment and that a delay in the effective date of this Act may result in harm to human health or the environment. Therefore, an emergency is declared to exist and this Act being necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, and safety shall be in full force and effect from and after the date of its passage or approval. If the bill is neither approved nor vetoed by the Governor, it shall become effective on the expiration of the period of time during which the Governor may veto the bill. If the bill is vetoed by the Governor and the veto is overridden, it shall become effective on the date the last house overrides the veto.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Drop in gas price makes severance-tax payoff uncertain
As tax on natural gas kicks in, intake unclear
BY SETH BLOMELEY
Posted on Thursday, January 1, 2009
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/248190
Arkansas' increased severance tax on natural gas, approved in April after much debate, takes effect today amid questions about how many dollars it will produce for the state and what those dollars will do.
The tax is based on the price of natural gas, which has plummeted since the state last produced revenue estimates.
That means projections of $57 million to be collected in 2009 are uncertain.
The bulk of the revenue is to be spent on roads, but fluctuations in the price of oil have created more uncertainty on exactly how it will be used, said Cliff Hoofman of North Little Rock, a member of the Arkansas Highway Commission.
"We have talked about setting aside [severance tax revenue] for some identifiable project, but our discussions a few months ago was that we should put that on hold because we were experiencing a real calamity in the reduction in department revenue," Hoofman said. "Now, we don't know what's going to happen. We're sort of in a holding pattern."
Much of Highway Department revenue from the state is based on a gasoline tax of 22.5 cents per gallon. Fuel tax receipts for the department from July through October were $73.4 million, down from $77.9 million in the same period in 2007, said Randy Ort, department spokesman.
Highway off icials have blamed the decrease on the fact that people bought less gasoline because of the high prices earlier in 2008. But now that the price of gasoline has dropped from $4 a gallon to $1.50 a gallon, officials say it's unclear whether fuel tax revenue will go up.
Hoofman said the severance tax money may end up simply making up for the loss in the fuel tax revenue. He said it "would be irresponsible" to start new projects with the money until the department has a better idea of the amount of tax col- lections.
The severance tax was increased after a surge in drilling in the Fayetteville Shale natural gas deposits in north-central Arkansas.
The previous rate was 1 cent per 1,000 cubic feet of gas, which was set in 1957 and was based on volume so it hadn't increased since then. The tax raised about $600,000 a year.
Gov. Mike Beebe and the Legislature increased the tax to 5 percent of proceeds from the sale of gas by the producer less the cost of treating and transportation.
The state projects revenue to increase to about $100 million by 2013.
The proceeds are to be divided four ways, with 5 percent going into state general revenue. Of the remaining 95 percent, 70 percent is to go to state highways, 15 percent to counties and 15 percent to cities.
Beebe called a special legislative session to raise the tax after negotiating with natural-gas production companies on an increase. That led to consensus in the Legislature to approve it.
Little Rock attorney Sheffield Nelson had called for an initiated act to raise the tax by an even greater amount, if the Legislature and the governor failed to act.
Nelson said some have argued that Beebe's agreement with the gas companies is too soft and contains too many exemptions.
"But it's 100 times more than what the state has been getting up until this time," Nelson said. "It's quite an accomplishment."
Nelson, a former Republican gubernatorial nominee and former natural gas utility executive, said "time has proven" that he and his supporters were correct to back off pursuing a ballot initiative to raise the tax.
He said he thinks that the economic downturn could have made it harder to raise any tax.
"Had we fought a very tough battle from that time until November, even if we had won, there would have been negative consequences," Nelson said. "No one would come down with a good taste in their mouth. I think we would have won but we would have burned so many bridges."
For example, he said had a ballot initiative been successful he doubted that natural gas producer Southwestern Energy of Houston would have decided to build a $25 million regional headquarters in Conway, which was announced Dec. 18.
At the time of the severance tax's passage in April, the price of natural gas traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange was $10 per 1,000 cubic feet. Now, it's $6.
"That's probably artificially low," Nelson said. "It's tagged to a certain degree of what's happening with oil. It will go back up."
Oil is a major ingredient in asphalt. So even though the Highway Department would have gotten more severance tax money when the price of natural gas was high, roads were more expensive to build and fix because of the increased price for asphalt, Hoofman said.
Hoofman said it's unclear whether the price for asphalt will decline with the reduction in oil prices the past couple of months. He said there should be some indication of that next week when project bids are opened.
Beebe spokesman Matt De-Cample said the governor expected uncertainty in the price of natural gas.
"We'll just take it as it comes," he said.
State revenue estimates were based on $8 natural gas. Richard Weiss, director of the Department of Finance and Administration, said the state hasn't updated it's revenue estimates for the severance tax.
Beebe said in 2008 that he wanted the severance tax money to be spent at the Highway Department based on "money following the cars," meaning in areas of high traffic and in places where it could help economic development.
DeCample said that's Beebe's general philosophy on highway revenue but that the governor has no specific plan on spending the severance tax money.
"We accepted the adjustment of the Arkansas severance tax," said Danny Games, spokesman for Chesapeake Energy Corp. of Oklahoma City. "We and our royalty owners pay similar types of taxes in most of the other states where we operate."
A Southwestern Energy spokesman didn't return a message.
Also taking effect today are two proposals approved by the people at the Nov. 4 election:
An initiated act that bars unmarried people living together from adopting children or being foster parents. The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit challenging the law in Pulaski County Circuit Court.
A constitutional amendment calling for annual sessions of the Legislature, which now meets in regular session every odd-numbered year. So the first additional session under the terms of the amendment would be in 2010.
Copyright © 2001-2009 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact: webmaster@nwanews.com
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Gas-lease cash to pay new inspectors of drilling sites
IT'S ABOUT TIME!
Agency says gas-lease cash to aid hiring of inspectors
BY L. LAMOR WILLIAMS
Posted on Thursday, December 18, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/246962/
Gas-lease money to hire inspectors
The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality is set to get $3.5 million from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission that it will use to hire more inspectors to keep watch on the state's growing natural gas drilling industry.
Teresa Marks, director of the Department of Environmental Quality, said Wednesday that while a formal agreement has yet to be signed, she is looking forward to using the money to hire new inspectors to regulate drill-water disposal sites.
The money will come from leases issued by the Game and Fish Commission to natural-gas firms to drill on state-wildlife management areas.
Drilling for natural gas in the Fayetteville Shale geologic formation has led to the creation of at least 13 drill-water disposal sites, which are permitted to store the water and rock sediment discarded during drilling. Two sites recently were ordered to cease operation until violations have been remedied.
...
The department currently has 17 inspectors who only visit the disposal sites in response to complaints. Eight inspectors are assigned to the Fayetteville Shale.
The Game and Fish Commission earns about $30 million annually on the land leases.
Agency says gas-lease cash to aid hiring of inspectors
BY L. LAMOR WILLIAMS
Posted on Thursday, December 18, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/246962/
Gas-lease money to hire inspectors
The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality is set to get $3.5 million from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission that it will use to hire more inspectors to keep watch on the state's growing natural gas drilling industry.
Teresa Marks, director of the Department of Environmental Quality, said Wednesday that while a formal agreement has yet to be signed, she is looking forward to using the money to hire new inspectors to regulate drill-water disposal sites.
The money will come from leases issued by the Game and Fish Commission to natural-gas firms to drill on state-wildlife management areas.
Drilling for natural gas in the Fayetteville Shale geologic formation has led to the creation of at least 13 drill-water disposal sites, which are permitted to store the water and rock sediment discarded during drilling. Two sites recently were ordered to cease operation until violations have been remedied.
...
The department currently has 17 inspectors who only visit the disposal sites in response to complaints. Eight inspectors are assigned to the Fayetteville Shale.
The Game and Fish Commission earns about $30 million annually on the land leases.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Raft Creek pollution by gas-driller's waste kills fish in Wildlife Management Area
Dead fish spur state to ban site from taking driller wastewater
BY L. LAMOR WILLIAMS
Posted on Wednesday, December 17, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/246862
Gas-drilling waste kills fish in Raft Creek
A second facility used to store and dispose of discarded water used by natural gas drillers can no longer accept the wastewater, the director of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality said Tuesday.
A property owner reported seeing dead fish on his property near the Griffithville disposal site operated by Searcy-based Central Arkansas Disposal, said Teresa Marks, director of the Department of Environmental Quality.
After investigating, the department issued an emergency order Friday after an inspection found a "large unlined, unpermitted waste treatment reservoir," being filled through an underground pipe from the licensed facility, the emergency order states.
On Dec. 3, the department closed a wastewater storage and disposal facility near Carlisle for improperly applying the water onto farmland.
Marks imposed a moratorium on new permits for drill fluid storage facilities until a study is completed examining the effects the operations have on soils and waterways. She said Central Arkansas Disposal was already scheduled for sampling.
The director said the complaint coincided with the ongoing study.
"We did have some sampling that was part of the scientific study, but also had a complaint about a reservoir that a citizen was concerned about," she said. "We went out to test as a result of the complaint and determined that it had high a level of chlorides."
The manager of Central Arkansas Disposal, Ron Carl, was traveling out-of-state Tuesday and was unavailable for comment, according to a man who answered the phone at the company's office in Searcy.
The unpermitted reservoir was emptying into Raft Creek, the emergency order says and an employee from Central Arkansas Disposal "stated that the fluid within the reservoir was from the Central Arkansas Disposal facility. The employee did not know if the fluid reached the reservoir by pumping or gravity flow."
A water sample also found high chloride levels in the stream. The creek feeds the Steve Wilson/Raft Creek Wildlife Management Area in White County.
Mike Armstrong, chief of fisheries for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, said because the fish found on the landowners property had been dead for at least a week or more, it was hard to determine the magnitude of the fish kill in the creek.
"We did delineate that between a one-mile and two-mile stretch of the creek was affected," Armstrong said. "We found several largemouth bass up to 4 pounds and quality sized crappie so there was a robust fish population in those ditches."
Armstrong said the commission would study data on similar habitats to make an estimation of how many fish should be in the area.
"I would suspect that kill would be in the thousands with dead bass in the 2- to 4-pound range," he said.
Land farms consist of at least two large plastic-lined ponds that hold drilling fluid - which is mainly water and rock sediment discarded during drilling. After obtaining a permit from the department, land farm owners are allowed to irrigate crops with the fluid, after sending samples to the department.
The fluid is generated by companies drilling for natural gas in the Fayetteville Shale, a geologic formation that stretches from north-central Arkansas to the Mississippi River. The formation is expected to have a $22 billion impact on the Arkansas economy by 2012, according to a University of Arkansas study.
Marks said she is unaware of any drinking water in the area that could be affected, but that the company now faces a penalty of up to $10,000 per day of being in violation of its permit.
She said the emergency order simply calls for the company to cease operation, but enforcement action will follow.
"We have a matrix at the water department and we can plug in such information as whether or not harm was done to the environment; whether or not it was an intentional act and whether or not the company has a history of violations, things like that."
Copyright © 2001-2008 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact: webmaster@nwanews.com
Saturday, December 13, 2008
AP says drilling waste from Fayetteville shale gas wells used for irrigation found to be oily
The Morning News
Local News for Northwest Arkansas
http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2008/12/13/news/121308arfayshale.txt
Firm Ordered Not To Take Drilling Wastewater
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
CARLISLE -- A company that collects wastewater from natural gas companies drilling in the Fayetteville Shale has been ordered by environmental regulators to stop.
The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality issued the emergency order to Fayetteville Shale Land Farms near Carlisle after an inspection found the fluid -- a mixture of water and sediment discarded from the drilling process -- was not adequately contained on the property and included oil in violation of the state permit.
Arkansas has 13 "land farms." The operations use large plastic-lined ponds to hold drilling fluid, which they then use to irrigate crops. The wastewater must be contained and absorbed on the property and cannot include oil-based drilling fluids, which are listed as hazardous waste.
In its Dec. 3 order, the department said Fayetteville Shale Land Farms improperly applied the fluid to crops, creating pools on the Lonoke County property. Also, an inspector found "what appeared to be a large amount of oil in the staging pond."
According to the order, "Oil should not be found in the staging pond for fluids that are to be land applied."
Deputy Director Steve Martin said the inspection most likely was prompted by a complaint from a nearby resident.
A spokesman for Fayetteville Land Shale Farms did not immediately return a call for comment.
Local News for Northwest Arkansas
http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2008/12/13/news/121308arfayshale.txt
Firm Ordered Not To Take Drilling Wastewater
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
CARLISLE -- A company that collects wastewater from natural gas companies drilling in the Fayetteville Shale has been ordered by environmental regulators to stop.
The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality issued the emergency order to Fayetteville Shale Land Farms near Carlisle after an inspection found the fluid -- a mixture of water and sediment discarded from the drilling process -- was not adequately contained on the property and included oil in violation of the state permit.
Arkansas has 13 "land farms." The operations use large plastic-lined ponds to hold drilling fluid, which they then use to irrigate crops. The wastewater must be contained and absorbed on the property and cannot include oil-based drilling fluids, which are listed as hazardous waste.
In its Dec. 3 order, the department said Fayetteville Shale Land Farms improperly applied the fluid to crops, creating pools on the Lonoke County property. Also, an inspector found "what appeared to be a large amount of oil in the staging pond."
According to the order, "Oil should not be found in the staging pond for fluids that are to be land applied."
Deputy Director Steve Martin said the inspection most likely was prompted by a complaint from a nearby resident.
A spokesman for Fayetteville Land Shale Farms did not immediately return a call for comment.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Saturday, November 1, 2008
ADEQ makes pretense of protecting Arkansas watersheds from gas-drilling pollution
The Morning News
Local News for Northwest Arkansas
State Plans Closer Look At Drilling Water
By The Associated Press
LITTLE ROCK -- The top state environmental regulator her agency will increase inspections of areas where drilling companies store water used in boring through rock to reach natural gas deposits.
Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality Director Teresa Marks said Friday companies now send test samples to the department but that she wants the agency to start conducting its own tests.
Drilling has expanded rapidly across the Fayetteville Shale in north-central Arkansas, where higher natural gas prices have made it economically feasible to probe more difficult areas to extract gas. Drilling sites have lined storage ponds that contain water and rock from the drilling process.
Marks says random inspections at the ponds are to start immediately.
“A concern I have is we don’t know for sure what’s in those ponds,” Marks said Friday during the Arkansas Watershed Advisory Group and Arkansas Stream Team Watershed Conference. “They send us test samples, but we want to do testing ourselves.”
Marks says she has 17 inspectors, with eight of them working Fayetteville Shale. She says she needs to hire more inspectors to be able to handle the random testing.
Marks said that it would take a few months after the inspections to develop a report on the findings. There are a dozen sites that are allowed to store water that’s used during drilling, and three other companies are seeking ADEQ permits, she said.
“We want to do more testing and more research to determine the long-term effects the facilities could have on Arkansas,” Marks said.
The water can be used to irrigate crops, but soil and water samples must first be approved by ADEQ.
State Rep. Betty Pickett, D-Conway, who was at the gathering, said the Legislature should provide resources the ADEQ needs.
“This may be one of the biggest economic boons in Arkansas, and Arkansas needs it,” Pickett said. “Arkansas will be enriched by what’s going on, but while we bask in the dollar signs, we must not develop a blind eye for the environmental impact this will have. There’s no reason we have to trade one for the other.”
Shale drilling will contribute an estimated $22 billion to the state economy by 2012.
Pickett said she will encourage state regulatory agencies, such as the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission and the ADEQ to work closely together to keep an eye on the industry.
Local News for Northwest Arkansas
State Plans Closer Look At Drilling Water
By The Associated Press
LITTLE ROCK -- The top state environmental regulator her agency will increase inspections of areas where drilling companies store water used in boring through rock to reach natural gas deposits.
Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality Director Teresa Marks said Friday companies now send test samples to the department but that she wants the agency to start conducting its own tests.
Drilling has expanded rapidly across the Fayetteville Shale in north-central Arkansas, where higher natural gas prices have made it economically feasible to probe more difficult areas to extract gas. Drilling sites have lined storage ponds that contain water and rock from the drilling process.
Marks says random inspections at the ponds are to start immediately.
“A concern I have is we don’t know for sure what’s in those ponds,” Marks said Friday during the Arkansas Watershed Advisory Group and Arkansas Stream Team Watershed Conference. “They send us test samples, but we want to do testing ourselves.”
Marks says she has 17 inspectors, with eight of them working Fayetteville Shale. She says she needs to hire more inspectors to be able to handle the random testing.
Marks said that it would take a few months after the inspections to develop a report on the findings. There are a dozen sites that are allowed to store water that’s used during drilling, and three other companies are seeking ADEQ permits, she said.
“We want to do more testing and more research to determine the long-term effects the facilities could have on Arkansas,” Marks said.
The water can be used to irrigate crops, but soil and water samples must first be approved by ADEQ.
State Rep. Betty Pickett, D-Conway, who was at the gathering, said the Legislature should provide resources the ADEQ needs.
“This may be one of the biggest economic boons in Arkansas, and Arkansas needs it,” Pickett said. “Arkansas will be enriched by what’s going on, but while we bask in the dollar signs, we must not develop a blind eye for the environmental impact this will have. There’s no reason we have to trade one for the other.”
Shale drilling will contribute an estimated $22 billion to the state economy by 2012.
Pickett said she will encourage state regulatory agencies, such as the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission and the ADEQ to work closely together to keep an eye on the industry.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Good idea only if using waste material from agriculture and timber production and without decreasing wildlife habitat. Clearing land pollutes air
Summit promotes growing high-energy plants
BY DUSTIN TRACY
Posted on Saturday, October 11, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/News/69979/
Northwest Arkansas Times Fayetteville’s first ever Sustainability Summit brought more than 300 people to the city’s center to talk about ways organizations can become more environmentally friendly. One way discussed was a switch from conventional diesel fuel to the use of bioenergybased fuel. Jim Wimberly with BioEnergy System LLC in Fayetteville talked about the energy-efficient idea at a small breakout session during the summit. “ Agriculture and energy are so intertwined, ” Wimberly said.
He said the idea is to start promoting the growth of high-energy yielding plants that can be processed and manufactured into a full spectrum of energy projects, including fuel for automobiles.
“ In essence, plants are batteries, ” he said. “ They store energy through photosynthesis. ”
Arkansas provides a large amount of natural resources to make bioenergy manufacturing a reality, Wimberly said, and if the state takes an active interest in the concept, it could cut in half its yearly 1 billion gallons of petroleum used each year.
“ It would take just under a million acres of herbaceous energy crops (crops high in energy ) to displace half of that diesel used, ” he said.
Wimberly said a lot of research is being done on soybeans to create biodiesel, and that it’s a good fuel. However, he said fuel users need to broaden their horizons.
“ We need to quit being worried about planting a future around traditional approaches to biofuel, ” he said.
The state has the forest and farmland to support biofuel operations, which makes it already an attractive location to bioenergy companies, Wimberly said, but Arkansas and its cities need to work towards sealing the deal with the green fuel producers.
“ We are in competition with neighboring states, ” Wimberly said.
Financial incentives as well as getting state landowners and far mers on board with the idea could be the key, Wimberly said.
“ It’s not going to happen unless (farmers ) can make at least as much money as they do growing traditional crops, ” he said.
Copyright © 2001-2008 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact: webmaster@nwanews.com
BY DUSTIN TRACY
Posted on Saturday, October 11, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/News/69979/
Northwest Arkansas Times Fayetteville’s first ever Sustainability Summit brought more than 300 people to the city’s center to talk about ways organizations can become more environmentally friendly. One way discussed was a switch from conventional diesel fuel to the use of bioenergybased fuel. Jim Wimberly with BioEnergy System LLC in Fayetteville talked about the energy-efficient idea at a small breakout session during the summit. “ Agriculture and energy are so intertwined, ” Wimberly said.
He said the idea is to start promoting the growth of high-energy yielding plants that can be processed and manufactured into a full spectrum of energy projects, including fuel for automobiles.
“ In essence, plants are batteries, ” he said. “ They store energy through photosynthesis. ”
Arkansas provides a large amount of natural resources to make bioenergy manufacturing a reality, Wimberly said, and if the state takes an active interest in the concept, it could cut in half its yearly 1 billion gallons of petroleum used each year.
“ It would take just under a million acres of herbaceous energy crops (crops high in energy ) to displace half of that diesel used, ” he said.
Wimberly said a lot of research is being done on soybeans to create biodiesel, and that it’s a good fuel. However, he said fuel users need to broaden their horizons.
“ We need to quit being worried about planting a future around traditional approaches to biofuel, ” he said.
The state has the forest and farmland to support biofuel operations, which makes it already an attractive location to bioenergy companies, Wimberly said, but Arkansas and its cities need to work towards sealing the deal with the green fuel producers.
“ We are in competition with neighboring states, ” Wimberly said.
Financial incentives as well as getting state landowners and far mers on board with the idea could be the key, Wimberly said.
“ It’s not going to happen unless (farmers ) can make at least as much money as they do growing traditional crops, ” he said.
Copyright © 2001-2008 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact: webmaster@nwanews.com
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Governor's commission on global warming tentatively says NO to new coal-fired power plants
The Morning News
Local News for Northwest Arkansas
Panel Tentatively Endorses Ban On New Plants
By Peggy Harris
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LITTLE ROCK -- An Arkansas commission studying ways to reduce global warming tentatively endorsed a ban Thursday on new coal-fired power plants, saying a proposed $1.5 billion facility in Hempstead County shouldn't open until at least 2020.
The preliminary proposal would allow the John W. Turk Jr. plant near Fulton to open eight years later than planned, when new "sequestration" technology presumably would be available to capture harmful carbon dioxide emissions and store them in the ground. The plant could open sooner if the technology becomes available.
Under the proposal, the $1.3 billion Plum Point plant being built near Osceola could open as planned in 2010 but operators would have to retrofit the plant with the new anti-pollution technology once it becomes available.
Any other new coal-fired power plants in Arkansas would have to have the new technology when they open.
Currently, sequestration is not in use at any commercial power plant in the country. But the new technology is among the many innovations being discussed nationally and worldwide to reverse global warming.
State Rep. Kathy Webb, who chairs the Governor's Commission on Global Warming, said the draft proposal was one of about 50 the group has analyzed over the last several months with the help of consultants. The panel expects to have its final recommendations in a report to Gov. Mike Beebe by Oct. 31. Legislators could consider the measures when they meet in regular session next year.
Webb, D-Little Rock, said the proposed ban has been among the most controversial of the draft recommendations.
Coal-fired power plants and automobiles are the leading producers of carbon dioxide, the chief culprit of global warming. They also are a primary generator of electricity in the U.S. and considered essential to economic growth.
Commission members from the energy industry Thursday voiced opposition to the proposed ban.
Gary Voight, chief executive of Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation, said scrapping plans for new plants would mean using "dirtier" inefficient plants that produce more pollution and fail to meet consumer demand.
He said a ban would effectively make it more difficult for utilities to produce electricity economically and free up more money to invest in energy-efficient technology. In addition, Voight said, the Arkansas Public Service Commission has already imposed conditions on Southwestern Electric Power Co. to address pollution at the planned 600-megawatt plant in Hempstead County.
"This is a bad plan. It's retroactive regulation," said Voight, whose cooperative plans partly own the SWEPCO plant. "The commission has already ruled that SWEPCO must evaluate all carbon sequestration and capture technologies as available in the future so this (proposal) is pointless. It's a waste of time, and we should all vote against it and get it off the table."
Other commissioners spoke of the seriousness of global warming and the need to take strong action.
"This is what Congress is talking about. This is what a lot, a lot of scientists are concerned about. New coal plants, we're talking about moratorium until sequestration," said Art Hobson, a physics professor at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
Commissioner Kevin Smith, the former state senator from Stuttgart, said without a moratorium Arkansas could become "the new Pittsburgh -- not the Natural State." And commissioner Rob Fisher, executive director of The Ecological Conservation Organization, said the proposal was the most important recommendation the panel could make.
"If we don't pass this option, everything else we do is pointless," he said.
The commission endorsed the recommendation by a vote of 11-10.
Kacee Kirschvink, a spokeswoman for SWEPCO, said the Turk plant would be one of the cleanest coal plants in North America. She said it would use "ultra-supercritical" technology that requires less fuel and produces less carbon dioxide. In addition, she said, the plant could be retrofitted for newer technology once it becomes available.
"It would not be good public policy to change the rules now after much planning and investment has been done to meet the energy needs of SWEPCO's customers," she said.
Shreveport, La.-based SWEPCO wants to open the plant in 2012 and has begun site work, while awaiting an air-quality permit from state environmental regulators. SWEPCO is a part of Columbus, Ohio-based American Electric Power Co.
David Byford, a spokesman for Plum Point developers Dynegy Inc., said the commission proposal was in the early stages and Dynegy might comment later after further study.
Web Watch:
Arkansas Governors Commission on Global Warming
www.arclimatechange.us
Local News for Northwest Arkansas
Panel Tentatively Endorses Ban On New Plants
By Peggy Harris
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LITTLE ROCK -- An Arkansas commission studying ways to reduce global warming tentatively endorsed a ban Thursday on new coal-fired power plants, saying a proposed $1.5 billion facility in Hempstead County shouldn't open until at least 2020.
The preliminary proposal would allow the John W. Turk Jr. plant near Fulton to open eight years later than planned, when new "sequestration" technology presumably would be available to capture harmful carbon dioxide emissions and store them in the ground. The plant could open sooner if the technology becomes available.
Under the proposal, the $1.3 billion Plum Point plant being built near Osceola could open as planned in 2010 but operators would have to retrofit the plant with the new anti-pollution technology once it becomes available.
Any other new coal-fired power plants in Arkansas would have to have the new technology when they open.
Currently, sequestration is not in use at any commercial power plant in the country. But the new technology is among the many innovations being discussed nationally and worldwide to reverse global warming.
State Rep. Kathy Webb, who chairs the Governor's Commission on Global Warming, said the draft proposal was one of about 50 the group has analyzed over the last several months with the help of consultants. The panel expects to have its final recommendations in a report to Gov. Mike Beebe by Oct. 31. Legislators could consider the measures when they meet in regular session next year.
Webb, D-Little Rock, said the proposed ban has been among the most controversial of the draft recommendations.
Coal-fired power plants and automobiles are the leading producers of carbon dioxide, the chief culprit of global warming. They also are a primary generator of electricity in the U.S. and considered essential to economic growth.
Commission members from the energy industry Thursday voiced opposition to the proposed ban.
Gary Voight, chief executive of Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation, said scrapping plans for new plants would mean using "dirtier" inefficient plants that produce more pollution and fail to meet consumer demand.
He said a ban would effectively make it more difficult for utilities to produce electricity economically and free up more money to invest in energy-efficient technology. In addition, Voight said, the Arkansas Public Service Commission has already imposed conditions on Southwestern Electric Power Co. to address pollution at the planned 600-megawatt plant in Hempstead County.
"This is a bad plan. It's retroactive regulation," said Voight, whose cooperative plans partly own the SWEPCO plant. "The commission has already ruled that SWEPCO must evaluate all carbon sequestration and capture technologies as available in the future so this (proposal) is pointless. It's a waste of time, and we should all vote against it and get it off the table."
Other commissioners spoke of the seriousness of global warming and the need to take strong action.
"This is what Congress is talking about. This is what a lot, a lot of scientists are concerned about. New coal plants, we're talking about moratorium until sequestration," said Art Hobson, a physics professor at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
Commissioner Kevin Smith, the former state senator from Stuttgart, said without a moratorium Arkansas could become "the new Pittsburgh -- not the Natural State." And commissioner Rob Fisher, executive director of The Ecological Conservation Organization, said the proposal was the most important recommendation the panel could make.
"If we don't pass this option, everything else we do is pointless," he said.
The commission endorsed the recommendation by a vote of 11-10.
Kacee Kirschvink, a spokeswoman for SWEPCO, said the Turk plant would be one of the cleanest coal plants in North America. She said it would use "ultra-supercritical" technology that requires less fuel and produces less carbon dioxide. In addition, she said, the plant could be retrofitted for newer technology once it becomes available.
"It would not be good public policy to change the rules now after much planning and investment has been done to meet the energy needs of SWEPCO's customers," she said.
Shreveport, La.-based SWEPCO wants to open the plant in 2012 and has begun site work, while awaiting an air-quality permit from state environmental regulators. SWEPCO is a part of Columbus, Ohio-based American Electric Power Co.
David Byford, a spokesman for Plum Point developers Dynegy Inc., said the commission proposal was in the early stages and Dynegy might comment later after further study.
Web Watch:
Arkansas Governors Commission on Global Warming
www.arclimatechange.us
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Fracking will pollute our water in the rush to produce natural gas from shale formations
Info on gas production YOU need to know
From: Frances Alexander (fran@deane-alexander.com)
Sent: Sun 9/21/08 11:24 PM
To:
My friend who forwarded this article wrote, " I am wondering at what point the state with the least polluted water is going to be the economic engine of this country." Those of us trying with all our hearts and souls to shake reason into the minds of politicians and our fellow citizens deserve first chance at whatever place is left on this planet that bizness-as-usual hasn't poisoned. Fran
Controversial path to possible glut of natural gas
Water and chemicals injected at high pressure can extract more gas – and possibly pollute drinking water.
By Mark Clayton| Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor/ September 17, 2008 edition
After decades of declining US natural-gas production, an advanced drilling system so powerful it fractures rock with high-pressure fluid is opening up vast shale-gas deposits.
Instead of falling, US gas production is rising, with up to 118 years’ worth of “unconventional” natural gas reserves in 21 huge shale basins, an industry study in July reported. Such reserves could make the nation more energy self-sufficient and provide more of a cleaner “bridge fuel” to help meet carbon-reduction goals urged by environmentalists.
Shale gas reserves have a powerful economic lure. Companies, states, and landowners could all reap a windfall in the tens of billions. Some also predict lower heating costs for residential gas users as production increases.
Now, scores of natural gas companies are fanning out from Fort Worth, Texas, where hydraulic fracturing of shale has been done for at least five years, to lease shale lands in 19 states, including Pennsylvania and New York.
But some warn that by expanding “hydraulic fracturing” of shale, America strikes a Faustian bargain: It gains new energy reserves, but it consumes and quite possibly pollutes critical water resources.
“People need to understand that these are not your old-fashioned gas wells,” says Tracy Carluccio, special projects director for Delaware Riverkeeper, a watchdog group worried about a surge in new gas drilling from New York to Pennsylvania and from Ohio to West Virginia. “This technology produces tremendous amounts of polluted water and uses dangerous chemicals in every single well that’s developed.”
Traditional gas wells bore straight into porous stone, using a few thousand gallons of water during drilling. But dense shale has gas locked inside.
Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” and horizontal drilling unlock it.
Each hydraulically fractured horizontal well can require from 2 million to 7 million gallons of fresh water mixed with sand and thousands of gallons of industrial chemicals to make the water penetrate more easily.
This frac-water mixture is blasted at high pressure into shale deposits up to 10,000 feet deep, fracturing them. The sand lodges in the cracks, propping them open and providing a path for the gas to exit after external pressure is released.
Besides using vast amounts of groundwater, scientists and environmentalists worry that toxic frac water – 30 percent or more – remains underground and may years later pollute freshwater aquifers.
Millions of gallons of frac water come back to the surface. It could be treated, but in Texas it is most often reinjected into the ground.
Millions more gallons of “produced” water flow out later during gas production. This flow, too, is often tainted with radioactivity and poisons from the shale. Often stored in pits, that waste can leak or overflow while awaiting reinjection.
Simply put: “Each of these wells uses millions of gallons of fresh water, and all of it is going to be contaminated,” Ms. Carluccio says.
Industry spokesmen say such fears are overblown.
“The wells we drill … are insulated with concrete,” says Chip Minty, a spokesman for Devon Energy, an Oklahoma City-based gas company that pioneered hydraulic fracturing in the Barnett shale formation beneath Fort Worth, Texas. “The purpose is to protect any kind of aquifer or ground water layer. Those processes are controlled by regulatory agencies, and that keeps us safe from any kind of aquifer pollution.”
A pioneer in “best practices,” Devon has also developed a way to purify and reuse frac water. But those techniques are costly and not widely used at present. Whether such practices will be required elsewhere is an open question.
Targets for this new kind of drilling
One huge target is the Marcellus shale basin that spans large parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. States are eager to get to get new revenues – and so are many landowners lining up to sign leases.
“I’ll be glad to welcome the crews with open arms,” writes Al Czervic in the Catskill Commentator, an online publication. “Drill here, my friends,” he writes, “Drill here. And then, drill some more.”
But amid this gold-rush-type fever in the Delaware and Susquehanna River Basins, voices warn that environmental safeguards and industry standards need to be beefed up before drill bits hit – or the great gas boom could exact a steep price in polluted water.
“Decades ago, we weren’t careful with coal mining,” wrote Bryan Swistock, a water resources specialist with the Penn State Cooperative Extension, in a recent statement. “As a result, we are still paying huge sums to clean up acid mine drainage. We need to be careful and vigilant or we could see lasting damage to our water resources from so many deep gas wells.”
State environmental agencies and industry experts say multiple systems will be in place to safeguard water.
“The current balanced management approach works – allowing for effective state regulatory programs that appropriately protect the environment while providing for the essential development of oil and gas,” wrote Steph anie Meadows, a senior policy adviser at the American Pet rol eum Institute, a Wash ington trade group, in an e-mail response to Monitor questions on hydraulic fracturing.
Where safeguards failed
Still, one can point to examples where those safeguards did not work. New Mexico and Colorado, which have struggled with leakage from frac-water waste pits involving gas exploration, are now moving forward with legislation.
“There are numerous instances in various states of surface water and drinking water contamination from hydraulic frac turing,” says Kate Sinding, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources De fense Council in New York. “Nobody, including the industry, has done any in-depth examination to find out the impact on ground water. We are seeing some bad stuff coming out of individual wells and taps.”
The nation’s shale-gas guinea pigs reside in 15 counties around Fort Worth, where shale-gas extraction using hydraulic fracturing has been validated in recent years. The results have brought wealth to some, but infuriated others.
Charlotte Harris and her husband signed a mineral lease last year. But she’s upset now. She sharply recalls a day last November when her drinking-water well died and a new gas well 100 yards from her Grandview, Texas, home was born.
She washed dishes that morning as usual, she says in an phone interview. But after a shower, her skin itched terribly and she realized the water had a sulfurous odor. Later that day, without warning, her toilet erupted. Water shot out of it “like Niagara Falls.”
About that time, she learned, powerful pump trucks at the nearby well site were sending pulses of water mixed with sand and chemicals thousands of feet down into solid shale to fracture it to increase the flow of gas. She and her husband now believe some of that fluid escaped under pressure much nearer the surface.
After the Harrises complained, the drilling company had the water tested but found no problem. Harris’s next-door neighbor, John Sayers, had a lab test his well water. The lab found toluene, a chemical used in explosives, paint stripper – and often in drilling fluids.
Almost a year later, the Harris family well water, once clear and sweet, is murky and foul-smelling. Ms. Harris’s husband, Stevan, trucks in about 1,500 gallons twice a week, at 15 cents a gallon.
“We’re not using that [well] water for anything at all,” Mr. Sayers says. “I was told not to drink, wash, or anything. Not even water my grass with it.”
Is New York City drinking water at risk?
In July, New York’s governor signed a bill to permit shale-gas drilling using fracturing technology, which could bring the state $1 billion in annual revenues. But the state is first requiring an updated environmental assessment and may yet require companies to reveal the type of chemicals they mix with the water they shoot down the wells – something that Texas does not require.
New York City is one of only four large cities in the nation with unfiltered drinking water. It flows from the northern Catskill region. That’s the same basin in which gas companies want to drill.
Drilling “is completely and utterly inconsistent with a drinking water supply,” said New York City Councilman James Gennaro at a press conference last month. “This would destroy the New York City watershed, and for what? For short-term gains on natural gas.”
But while New York has a drilling freeze pending its environmental review, a gas-drilling rush is on in Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna River region. Scores of wells are being drilled, with applications pending to drill hundreds more. In the long run, some say there may be 10,000 new gas wells across the region.
“We’re hearing various stories … about flow backwater,” says Susan Obleski, a spokeswoman for the Susquehanna River Basin Commission, which oversees water usage. “We could eventually be seeing 29 million gallons a day usage by this industry. That sounds like a lot, but golf courses use double that.”
The concern, however, is that the most productive gas drilling areas tend to be in remote, forested areas, with forested streams – headwaters areas. If water is removed in significant amounts from there, it could damage ecosystems and Susquehanna watershed water quality.
The SBRC has issued two cease-and-desist orders to companies illegally re moving water. It has told 23 others to clarify requirements, and found that about 50, in all, are vying for water, leases, and drilling permits in the region.
Tiny Nockamixon Township, which has resisted gas drilling, is being sued by natural-gas drillers. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case in which some towns are seeking to overturn lower court decisions that keep municipalities from having laws regulating gas drilling inside their borders.
Back in Texas, some are fighting the practice of reinjecting frac water into the earth. In Erath County, near Fort Worth, Bill Gordon has successfully protested several new commercial injection wells that, according to him, would have pumped as much as 30,000 barrels a day of untreated frac water underground.
A recent lightning strike set one such well on fire, proving to Mr. Gordon that volatile chemicals remain in the fluid.
“Nobody knows what’s in this drilling fluid,” he says. “I think we need to know.”
What’s being injected deep underground?
Hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling are not new. Both date back decades. But their combined use to get gas from shale formations is new within the past decade.
Hydraulic fracturing has long been used to get gas from coal beds, a process some say is similar to shale-gas fracturing.
An Environmental Protection Agency study in 2004 concluded that hydraulic fracturing to get methane gas from coal beds “poses little or no threat” to drinking water supplies. But several EPA scientists have challenged that finding.
“EPA produced a final report … that I believe is scientifically unsound and contrary to the purposes of law,” Weston Wilson, a 30-year EPA veteran, wrote in a whistle-blower petition in 2004. “Based on the available science and literature, EPA’s conclusions are unsupportable.”
Today, chemicals used in fracturing are considered by the companies to be trade secrets. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 exempts companies from being forced by the Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, and other federal laws to reveal what chemicals are in their fracturing fluids.
But some say that it’s critical to know what’s being injected deep underground.
“We’re very concerned about this toxic drilling and hydraulic fracturing,” says Gwen Lachelt, director of the Oil and Gas Accountability Project in Durango, Colo. “We need to know what’s in what they’re putting into the ground.”
From: Frances Alexander (fran@deane-alexander.com)
Sent: Sun 9/21/08 11:24 PM
To:
My friend who forwarded this article wrote, " I am wondering at what point the state with the least polluted water is going to be the economic engine of this country." Those of us trying with all our hearts and souls to shake reason into the minds of politicians and our fellow citizens deserve first chance at whatever place is left on this planet that bizness-as-usual hasn't poisoned. Fran
Controversial path to possible glut of natural gas
Water and chemicals injected at high pressure can extract more gas – and possibly pollute drinking water.
By Mark Clayton| Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor/ September 17, 2008 edition
After decades of declining US natural-gas production, an advanced drilling system so powerful it fractures rock with high-pressure fluid is opening up vast shale-gas deposits.
Instead of falling, US gas production is rising, with up to 118 years’ worth of “unconventional” natural gas reserves in 21 huge shale basins, an industry study in July reported. Such reserves could make the nation more energy self-sufficient and provide more of a cleaner “bridge fuel” to help meet carbon-reduction goals urged by environmentalists.
Shale gas reserves have a powerful economic lure. Companies, states, and landowners could all reap a windfall in the tens of billions. Some also predict lower heating costs for residential gas users as production increases.
Now, scores of natural gas companies are fanning out from Fort Worth, Texas, where hydraulic fracturing of shale has been done for at least five years, to lease shale lands in 19 states, including Pennsylvania and New York.
But some warn that by expanding “hydraulic fracturing” of shale, America strikes a Faustian bargain: It gains new energy reserves, but it consumes and quite possibly pollutes critical water resources.
“People need to understand that these are not your old-fashioned gas wells,” says Tracy Carluccio, special projects director for Delaware Riverkeeper, a watchdog group worried about a surge in new gas drilling from New York to Pennsylvania and from Ohio to West Virginia. “This technology produces tremendous amounts of polluted water and uses dangerous chemicals in every single well that’s developed.”
Traditional gas wells bore straight into porous stone, using a few thousand gallons of water during drilling. But dense shale has gas locked inside.
Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” and horizontal drilling unlock it.
Each hydraulically fractured horizontal well can require from 2 million to 7 million gallons of fresh water mixed with sand and thousands of gallons of industrial chemicals to make the water penetrate more easily.
This frac-water mixture is blasted at high pressure into shale deposits up to 10,000 feet deep, fracturing them. The sand lodges in the cracks, propping them open and providing a path for the gas to exit after external pressure is released.
Besides using vast amounts of groundwater, scientists and environmentalists worry that toxic frac water – 30 percent or more – remains underground and may years later pollute freshwater aquifers.
Millions of gallons of frac water come back to the surface. It could be treated, but in Texas it is most often reinjected into the ground.
Millions more gallons of “produced” water flow out later during gas production. This flow, too, is often tainted with radioactivity and poisons from the shale. Often stored in pits, that waste can leak or overflow while awaiting reinjection.
Simply put: “Each of these wells uses millions of gallons of fresh water, and all of it is going to be contaminated,” Ms. Carluccio says.
Industry spokesmen say such fears are overblown.
“The wells we drill … are insulated with concrete,” says Chip Minty, a spokesman for Devon Energy, an Oklahoma City-based gas company that pioneered hydraulic fracturing in the Barnett shale formation beneath Fort Worth, Texas. “The purpose is to protect any kind of aquifer or ground water layer. Those processes are controlled by regulatory agencies, and that keeps us safe from any kind of aquifer pollution.”
A pioneer in “best practices,” Devon has also developed a way to purify and reuse frac water. But those techniques are costly and not widely used at present. Whether such practices will be required elsewhere is an open question.
Targets for this new kind of drilling
One huge target is the Marcellus shale basin that spans large parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. States are eager to get to get new revenues – and so are many landowners lining up to sign leases.
“I’ll be glad to welcome the crews with open arms,” writes Al Czervic in the Catskill Commentator, an online publication. “Drill here, my friends,” he writes, “Drill here. And then, drill some more.”
But amid this gold-rush-type fever in the Delaware and Susquehanna River Basins, voices warn that environmental safeguards and industry standards need to be beefed up before drill bits hit – or the great gas boom could exact a steep price in polluted water.
“Decades ago, we weren’t careful with coal mining,” wrote Bryan Swistock, a water resources specialist with the Penn State Cooperative Extension, in a recent statement. “As a result, we are still paying huge sums to clean up acid mine drainage. We need to be careful and vigilant or we could see lasting damage to our water resources from so many deep gas wells.”
State environmental agencies and industry experts say multiple systems will be in place to safeguard water.
“The current balanced management approach works – allowing for effective state regulatory programs that appropriately protect the environment while providing for the essential development of oil and gas,” wrote Steph anie Meadows, a senior policy adviser at the American Pet rol eum Institute, a Wash ington trade group, in an e-mail response to Monitor questions on hydraulic fracturing.
Where safeguards failed
Still, one can point to examples where those safeguards did not work. New Mexico and Colorado, which have struggled with leakage from frac-water waste pits involving gas exploration, are now moving forward with legislation.
“There are numerous instances in various states of surface water and drinking water contamination from hydraulic frac turing,” says Kate Sinding, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources De fense Council in New York. “Nobody, including the industry, has done any in-depth examination to find out the impact on ground water. We are seeing some bad stuff coming out of individual wells and taps.”
The nation’s shale-gas guinea pigs reside in 15 counties around Fort Worth, where shale-gas extraction using hydraulic fracturing has been validated in recent years. The results have brought wealth to some, but infuriated others.
Charlotte Harris and her husband signed a mineral lease last year. But she’s upset now. She sharply recalls a day last November when her drinking-water well died and a new gas well 100 yards from her Grandview, Texas, home was born.
She washed dishes that morning as usual, she says in an phone interview. But after a shower, her skin itched terribly and she realized the water had a sulfurous odor. Later that day, without warning, her toilet erupted. Water shot out of it “like Niagara Falls.”
About that time, she learned, powerful pump trucks at the nearby well site were sending pulses of water mixed with sand and chemicals thousands of feet down into solid shale to fracture it to increase the flow of gas. She and her husband now believe some of that fluid escaped under pressure much nearer the surface.
After the Harrises complained, the drilling company had the water tested but found no problem. Harris’s next-door neighbor, John Sayers, had a lab test his well water. The lab found toluene, a chemical used in explosives, paint stripper – and often in drilling fluids.
Almost a year later, the Harris family well water, once clear and sweet, is murky and foul-smelling. Ms. Harris’s husband, Stevan, trucks in about 1,500 gallons twice a week, at 15 cents a gallon.
“We’re not using that [well] water for anything at all,” Mr. Sayers says. “I was told not to drink, wash, or anything. Not even water my grass with it.”
Is New York City drinking water at risk?
In July, New York’s governor signed a bill to permit shale-gas drilling using fracturing technology, which could bring the state $1 billion in annual revenues. But the state is first requiring an updated environmental assessment and may yet require companies to reveal the type of chemicals they mix with the water they shoot down the wells – something that Texas does not require.
New York City is one of only four large cities in the nation with unfiltered drinking water. It flows from the northern Catskill region. That’s the same basin in which gas companies want to drill.
Drilling “is completely and utterly inconsistent with a drinking water supply,” said New York City Councilman James Gennaro at a press conference last month. “This would destroy the New York City watershed, and for what? For short-term gains on natural gas.”
But while New York has a drilling freeze pending its environmental review, a gas-drilling rush is on in Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna River region. Scores of wells are being drilled, with applications pending to drill hundreds more. In the long run, some say there may be 10,000 new gas wells across the region.
“We’re hearing various stories … about flow backwater,” says Susan Obleski, a spokeswoman for the Susquehanna River Basin Commission, which oversees water usage. “We could eventually be seeing 29 million gallons a day usage by this industry. That sounds like a lot, but golf courses use double that.”
The concern, however, is that the most productive gas drilling areas tend to be in remote, forested areas, with forested streams – headwaters areas. If water is removed in significant amounts from there, it could damage ecosystems and Susquehanna watershed water quality.
The SBRC has issued two cease-and-desist orders to companies illegally re moving water. It has told 23 others to clarify requirements, and found that about 50, in all, are vying for water, leases, and drilling permits in the region.
Tiny Nockamixon Township, which has resisted gas drilling, is being sued by natural-gas drillers. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case in which some towns are seeking to overturn lower court decisions that keep municipalities from having laws regulating gas drilling inside their borders.
Back in Texas, some are fighting the practice of reinjecting frac water into the earth. In Erath County, near Fort Worth, Bill Gordon has successfully protested several new commercial injection wells that, according to him, would have pumped as much as 30,000 barrels a day of untreated frac water underground.
A recent lightning strike set one such well on fire, proving to Mr. Gordon that volatile chemicals remain in the fluid.
“Nobody knows what’s in this drilling fluid,” he says. “I think we need to know.”
What’s being injected deep underground?
Hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling are not new. Both date back decades. But their combined use to get gas from shale formations is new within the past decade.
Hydraulic fracturing has long been used to get gas from coal beds, a process some say is similar to shale-gas fracturing.
An Environmental Protection Agency study in 2004 concluded that hydraulic fracturing to get methane gas from coal beds “poses little or no threat” to drinking water supplies. But several EPA scientists have challenged that finding.
“EPA produced a final report … that I believe is scientifically unsound and contrary to the purposes of law,” Weston Wilson, a 30-year EPA veteran, wrote in a whistle-blower petition in 2004. “Based on the available science and literature, EPA’s conclusions are unsupportable.”
Today, chemicals used in fracturing are considered by the companies to be trade secrets. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 exempts companies from being forced by the Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, and other federal laws to reveal what chemicals are in their fracturing fluids.
But some say that it’s critical to know what’s being injected deep underground.
“We’re very concerned about this toxic drilling and hydraulic fracturing,” says Gwen Lachelt, director of the Oil and Gas Accountability Project in Durango, Colo. “We need to know what’s in what they’re putting into the ground.”
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
A new proposal by the Bush/Cheney Administration would gut the law that protects polar bears, wolves and other endangered species
CREDO Action from Working Assets is proud to bring you an urgent alert from our friends at Defenders of Wildlife.
The Bush administration has announced a new proposal that would gut the Endangered Species Act — one of America's most important environmental laws. Now Defenders of Wildlife needs our help to preserve the vital checks and balances that protect our polar bears, wolves and other imperiled animals.
I urge you to read the message below from Defenders of Wildlife's president, Rodger Schlickeisen, and take action today to save our endangered species.
Michael Kieschnick
President, CREDO Mobile
Emergency Action
A new proposal by the Bush/Cheney Administration would gut the law that protects polar bears, wolves and other endangered species.
Urge your Representative and Senators to help stop the Bush/Cheney plan to gut the Endangered Species Act.
Dear Wildlife Supporter,
With less than 160 days left in power, the Bush/Cheney Administration has launched an unprecedented backdoor assault on America's endangered species!
Don't let them get away with it. Urge your Representative and Senators to do everything in their power to stop the Bush/Cheney Administration's eleventh-hour assault on America's wildlife.
For more than 30 years, the Endangered Species Act has protected wildlife at risk of extinction. Now the Bush/Cheney Administration wants to eliminate vital checks and balances that are crucial to protect our polar bears, wolves and other imperiled wildlife.
Please help protect endangered animals from the Bush/Cheney Administration's attack. Take action now.
Announced earlier this week, the Bush/Cheney proposal would severely limit scientific review by the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service of projects that could harm imperiled wildlife. And it would explicitly limit the ability of these expert agencies to consider how greenhouse gas emissions from such projects could impact polar bears, wolverines and other wildlife that may go extinct due to global warming.
Instead, agencies proposing projects such as highways, dams, mines, oil or gas drilling and virtually any other activity would be allowed to decide for themselves whether a project is likely to impact any of the nearly 1,400 species currently protected by the Endangered Species Act — without the crucial independent review now provided by scientific experts at the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service.
Many of these agencies do not even have biologists or other qualified staff to make such a determination.
Even worse, the new regulations would impose a brief 60-day review period for agencies, making it even less likely that anyone involved in the process will have the time or expertise to fully evaluate the potential harmful effects of a given project on sensitive wildlife or the habitat it needs to survive.
Help stop the Bush/Cheney Administration's assault on protections for our endangered species. Please take action now.
There are less than 160 days left in the Bush/Cheney Administration — and even less time for your Members of Congress to act. Please take action now to help stop the Bush/Cheney Administration's last-minute attempt to eliminate effective protections for the wildlife that you and I love.
Sincerely,
Rodger Schlickeisen
President
Defenders of Wildlife
P.S. Two years ago, Defenders of Wildlife led the fight that stopped Congressional legislation that would have gutted the Endangered Species Act. Now we need your help to stop the Bush Administration from trying to do the same thing. Please take action now!
The Bush administration has announced a new proposal that would gut the Endangered Species Act — one of America's most important environmental laws. Now Defenders of Wildlife needs our help to preserve the vital checks and balances that protect our polar bears, wolves and other imperiled animals.
I urge you to read the message below from Defenders of Wildlife's president, Rodger Schlickeisen, and take action today to save our endangered species.
Michael Kieschnick
President, CREDO Mobile
Emergency Action
A new proposal by the Bush/Cheney Administration would gut the law that protects polar bears, wolves and other endangered species.
Urge your Representative and Senators to help stop the Bush/Cheney plan to gut the Endangered Species Act.
Dear Wildlife Supporter,
With less than 160 days left in power, the Bush/Cheney Administration has launched an unprecedented backdoor assault on America's endangered species!
Don't let them get away with it. Urge your Representative and Senators to do everything in their power to stop the Bush/Cheney Administration's eleventh-hour assault on America's wildlife.
For more than 30 years, the Endangered Species Act has protected wildlife at risk of extinction. Now the Bush/Cheney Administration wants to eliminate vital checks and balances that are crucial to protect our polar bears, wolves and other imperiled wildlife.
Please help protect endangered animals from the Bush/Cheney Administration's attack. Take action now.
Announced earlier this week, the Bush/Cheney proposal would severely limit scientific review by the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service of projects that could harm imperiled wildlife. And it would explicitly limit the ability of these expert agencies to consider how greenhouse gas emissions from such projects could impact polar bears, wolverines and other wildlife that may go extinct due to global warming.
Instead, agencies proposing projects such as highways, dams, mines, oil or gas drilling and virtually any other activity would be allowed to decide for themselves whether a project is likely to impact any of the nearly 1,400 species currently protected by the Endangered Species Act — without the crucial independent review now provided by scientific experts at the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service.
Many of these agencies do not even have biologists or other qualified staff to make such a determination.
Even worse, the new regulations would impose a brief 60-day review period for agencies, making it even less likely that anyone involved in the process will have the time or expertise to fully evaluate the potential harmful effects of a given project on sensitive wildlife or the habitat it needs to survive.
Help stop the Bush/Cheney Administration's assault on protections for our endangered species. Please take action now.
There are less than 160 days left in the Bush/Cheney Administration — and even less time for your Members of Congress to act. Please take action now to help stop the Bush/Cheney Administration's last-minute attempt to eliminate effective protections for the wildlife that you and I love.
Sincerely,
Rodger Schlickeisen
President
Defenders of Wildlife
P.S. Two years ago, Defenders of Wildlife led the fight that stopped Congressional legislation that would have gutted the Endangered Species Act. Now we need your help to stop the Bush Administration from trying to do the same thing. Please take action now!
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Oil-drilling madness continues to dominate political thinking
The Drill of It All
Did you know that oil companies are already sitting on 68 million acres of leases that they aren't even drilling? Which kind of makes you wonder: Why are Big Oil and its allies suddenly desperate to get their hands on the last few places that are still protected -- our natural treasures, wildlife refuges, and pristine coastlines? They wouldn't use the concerns caused by high gas prices as an excuse to grab it ALL, would they?
Check out our map showing how much of our country Big Oil has already got and spread the word by forwarding it to friends who agree: Enough is enough.
So far, one woman has stood up to Big Oil. Let's thank Speaker Pelosi for keeping a cool head and holding out for real solutions.
| Discuss |
Make Your Travel Matter
Sierra Club founder John Muir believed deeply that conservation begins with experiencing nature's grandeur firsthand, and that's still the guiding principle of Sierra Club Outings. Sure, you could spend another vacation in a high-rise at an overcrowded beach. Or, you could study retreating glaciers from your kayak in remote eastern Greenland, maintain hiking trails in Puerto Rico, or support grassroots environmental efforts in Costa Rica.
Travel with us, and you'll have much more than a vacation. We've just launched our 2009 lineup of international trips, plus a few select domestic itineraries.
Our most popular trips fill up quickly, so have a look now and discover your next life-changing experience.
| Discuss |
The Thirty Percent Solution
Homes and other buildings are America's largest consumers of energy and a major contributor to global warming. That's why the Sierra Club's Cool Cities Campaign is joining with local governments, businesses, and energy-efficiency advocates to support a bold new proposal to adopt "green" building codes for new homes: the Thirty Percent Solution.
Next month, building-code officials from around the country will meet in Minneapolis to vote on whether to strengthen building-code energy-efficiency standards in new homes by 30 percent. By 2030, that would save an estimated 8 quadrillion BTUs of energy and $88 billion in energy costs; reduce CO2 by 464 million metric tons; and create new clean-energy construction and service jobs in the building trades and energy-efficiency product industries.
Make sure your community will be represented at the meeting -- contact your mayor or county leader today.
| Discuss |
Winds of Change in West Virginia
The residents of the Coal River Valley of West Virginia, with the support of the Sierra Club and other environmental groups, are proposing the development of a 440-megawatt wind farm as an economically viable alternative to a planned mountaintop-removal coal-mining operation. If the mountaintop-removal coal-mining proceeds as planned, it will destroy ten square miles of the mountain, pollute waterways, devastate the surrounding communities, and eliminate the vast wind potential the mountain now holds.
Add your signature to the petition asking West Virginia Governor Manchin to protect Coal River Mountain and bring clean energy and green jobs to West Virginia!
EXPLORE
Stand Up to Skeptics
The Sierra Club has joined forces with the Natural Resources Defense Council in smacking down global-warming skeptics at a new website called OpposingViews.com.
Take a look at all sides of the argument, recommend your favorite ones, and post comments.
"Staring Down Doomsday"
From Sierra Magazine: High school students from the Bronx hit the Appalachian Trail and face their fears.
PROTECT
Support the No Child Left Inside Act
Tell your Representative to support the No Child Left Inside Act to provide students with quality environmental education.
If we act now, we can ensure more American children become adults ready to face the environmental challenges that lie ahead.
Sierra Club
85 Second St.
San Francisco, CA 94109
insider@sierraclub.org
http://www.sierraclub.org/
Did you know that oil companies are already sitting on 68 million acres of leases that they aren't even drilling? Which kind of makes you wonder: Why are Big Oil and its allies suddenly desperate to get their hands on the last few places that are still protected -- our natural treasures, wildlife refuges, and pristine coastlines? They wouldn't use the concerns caused by high gas prices as an excuse to grab it ALL, would they?
Check out our map showing how much of our country Big Oil has already got and spread the word by forwarding it to friends who agree: Enough is enough.
So far, one woman has stood up to Big Oil. Let's thank Speaker Pelosi for keeping a cool head and holding out for real solutions.
| Discuss |
Make Your Travel Matter
Sierra Club founder John Muir believed deeply that conservation begins with experiencing nature's grandeur firsthand, and that's still the guiding principle of Sierra Club Outings. Sure, you could spend another vacation in a high-rise at an overcrowded beach. Or, you could study retreating glaciers from your kayak in remote eastern Greenland, maintain hiking trails in Puerto Rico, or support grassroots environmental efforts in Costa Rica.
Travel with us, and you'll have much more than a vacation. We've just launched our 2009 lineup of international trips, plus a few select domestic itineraries.
Our most popular trips fill up quickly, so have a look now and discover your next life-changing experience.
| Discuss |
The Thirty Percent Solution
Homes and other buildings are America's largest consumers of energy and a major contributor to global warming. That's why the Sierra Club's Cool Cities Campaign is joining with local governments, businesses, and energy-efficiency advocates to support a bold new proposal to adopt "green" building codes for new homes: the Thirty Percent Solution.
Next month, building-code officials from around the country will meet in Minneapolis to vote on whether to strengthen building-code energy-efficiency standards in new homes by 30 percent. By 2030, that would save an estimated 8 quadrillion BTUs of energy and $88 billion in energy costs; reduce CO2 by 464 million metric tons; and create new clean-energy construction and service jobs in the building trades and energy-efficiency product industries.
Make sure your community will be represented at the meeting -- contact your mayor or county leader today.
| Discuss |
Winds of Change in West Virginia
The residents of the Coal River Valley of West Virginia, with the support of the Sierra Club and other environmental groups, are proposing the development of a 440-megawatt wind farm as an economically viable alternative to a planned mountaintop-removal coal-mining operation. If the mountaintop-removal coal-mining proceeds as planned, it will destroy ten square miles of the mountain, pollute waterways, devastate the surrounding communities, and eliminate the vast wind potential the mountain now holds.
Add your signature to the petition asking West Virginia Governor Manchin to protect Coal River Mountain and bring clean energy and green jobs to West Virginia!
EXPLORE
Stand Up to Skeptics
The Sierra Club has joined forces with the Natural Resources Defense Council in smacking down global-warming skeptics at a new website called OpposingViews.com.
Take a look at all sides of the argument, recommend your favorite ones, and post comments.
"Staring Down Doomsday"
From Sierra Magazine: High school students from the Bronx hit the Appalachian Trail and face their fears.
PROTECT
Support the No Child Left Inside Act
Tell your Representative to support the No Child Left Inside Act to provide students with quality environmental education.
If we act now, we can ensure more American children become adults ready to face the environmental challenges that lie ahead.
Sierra Club
85 Second St.
San Francisco, CA 94109
insider@sierraclub.org
http://www.sierraclub.org/
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
NO COAL meeting Wednesday August 13th 7pm
Molly Rawn
OHG Sierra Club, Chair
(479) 879-1620
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: James Burke
Date: Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 6:05 PM
Subject: Important NO COAL meeting Wednesday August 13th 7pm
To: burke@ecoconservation.org
Hi everyone,
We had a successful tour traveling the state last week showing the documentary "Fighting Goliath" and talking with community groups about forming a no new coal coalition. Check out these links for an update:
http://arkansasmatters.com/content/fulltext/news/?cid=96901
http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2008/08/04/news/080508fzlibmov.txt
So far we have set up 'Clean Air Arkansas' groups in Fayetteville, Little Rock, Conway, and Hope to oppose the construction of new coal-fired power plants.
This Wednesday August 13th at 7pm we will meet in Fayetteville to discuss in more detail our campaign and delegate roles to people who are committed to this effort. Please join us and invite your friends and family. Time is running out and we need to come together to stop these coal plants
Here is the address for the meeting this Wednesday:
United Campus Ministry
Omni Center
902 W Maple St
Fayetteville, AR
Also, Maggie Bailey, a volunteer in Fayetteville has asked to coordinate events while I am in Little Rock so you can email either her or me for more questions about our campaign. Here is Maggie's email: mtucker22@yahoo.com
Hope to see you at the meeting. Thanks for your support.
James
burke@ecoconservation.org
www.ecoconservation.org
336-455-1065
OHG Sierra Club, Chair
(479) 879-1620
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: James Burke
Date: Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 6:05 PM
Subject: Important NO COAL meeting Wednesday August 13th 7pm
To: burke@ecoconservation.org
Hi everyone,
We had a successful tour traveling the state last week showing the documentary "Fighting Goliath" and talking with community groups about forming a no new coal coalition. Check out these links for an update:
http://arkansasmatters.com/content/fulltext/news/?cid=96901
http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2008/08/04/news/080508fzlibmov.txt
So far we have set up 'Clean Air Arkansas' groups in Fayetteville, Little Rock, Conway, and Hope to oppose the construction of new coal-fired power plants.
This Wednesday August 13th at 7pm we will meet in Fayetteville to discuss in more detail our campaign and delegate roles to people who are committed to this effort. Please join us and invite your friends and family. Time is running out and we need to come together to stop these coal plants
Here is the address for the meeting this Wednesday:
United Campus Ministry
Omni Center
902 W Maple St
Fayetteville, AR
Also, Maggie Bailey, a volunteer in Fayetteville has asked to coordinate events while I am in Little Rock so you can email either her or me for more questions about our campaign. Here is Maggie's email: mtucker22@yahoo.com
Hope to see you at the meeting. Thanks for your support.
James
burke@ecoconservation.org
www.ecoconservation.org
336-455-1065
Monday, August 11, 2008
Waste Management to Dedicate Arkansasʼ First Landfill-Gas-to-Energy Plant
WASTE MANAGEMENT NEWS RELEASE
Waste Management to Dedicate Arkansasʼ First Landfill Gas to Energy Plant and
Announce New Partnership with Audubon Arkansas
Senator Blanche Lincoln, Governor Mike Beebe and Congressman Vic Snyder Scheduled to Attend Event
State and local leaders will join Waste Management executives on Tuesday, August 12, 9:30 am at the Two Pine Landfill to officially dedicate Arkansasʼ first and only landfill gas-to-energy plant. This plant is part of Waste Managementʼs sustainable commitment to Arkansas as well as North America, unveiled this past October as part of Waste Managementʼs 2020 plan.
Additionally, Waste Management officials will announce a new first-of-its-kind partnership with Audubon Arkansas.
What: Landfill Gas to Energy Plant Dedication and Announcement of New Partnership with Audubon Arkansas
When: Tuesday, August 12 at 9:30 am
Where: Two Pine Landfill
100 Two Pine Drive
North Little Rock, AR 72117
Who: Senator Blanche Lincoln
Governor Mike Beebe
Congressman Vic Snyder
Waste Management Executives
Arkansas Audubon Director Ken Smith
The Two Pine Landfill gas-to-energy plant is a 4.8 megawatt facility, providing power for approximately 4,500 homes in North Little Rock. Consisting of six large engines, it was constructed in 2006 and recently achieved full generation. The engines are powered by methane gas, which forms in the landfill as a result of the decomposition of waste.
Approximately two years ago, Waste Management and Audubon Arkansas began discussions regarding the development of a wildlife management plan for the Two Pine Landfill. This first-of-its-kind program between Waste Management and Audubon Arkansas has the potential to expand to other Waste Management landfills. At Tuesdayʼs event, Waste Management officials and leaders from Audubon Arkansas will unveil the vision for Two Pine Landfill.
This past April, Waste Management received the stateʼs approval to expand the Two Pine Landfill. In the coming years, Waste Management plans to build an additional landfill gas-to-energy plant in the expanded landfill area.
These two projects are part of the companyʼs environmental sustainability initiative. Waste Management has committed to the following actions by 2020: doubling its waste based energy generation from the equivalent of generating enough energy for one million to two million homes, quadrupling the number of its sites certified by the Wildlife Habitat Council to 100 as well as set aside 25,000 acres for conservation, nearly tripling the amount of recyclables it manages to 20 million tons; and reducing its vehicle fleet emissions by 15 percent and increasing fuel efficiency by 15 percent.
Waste Management, based in Houston, Texas, is the leading provider of comprehensive waste management services in North America. Our subsidiaries provide collection, transfer, recycling and resource recovery, and disposal services. We are also a leading developer, operator and owner of waste-to-energy and landfill gas-to-energy facilities in the United States. Our customers include residential, commercial, industrial, and municipal customers throughout North America.
For more information, visit www.wm.com or www.thinkgreen.com
Waste Management to Dedicate Arkansasʼ First Landfill Gas to Energy Plant and
Announce New Partnership with Audubon Arkansas
Senator Blanche Lincoln, Governor Mike Beebe and Congressman Vic Snyder Scheduled to Attend Event
State and local leaders will join Waste Management executives on Tuesday, August 12, 9:30 am at the Two Pine Landfill to officially dedicate Arkansasʼ first and only landfill gas-to-energy plant. This plant is part of Waste Managementʼs sustainable commitment to Arkansas as well as North America, unveiled this past October as part of Waste Managementʼs 2020 plan.
Additionally, Waste Management officials will announce a new first-of-its-kind partnership with Audubon Arkansas.
What: Landfill Gas to Energy Plant Dedication and Announcement of New Partnership with Audubon Arkansas
When: Tuesday, August 12 at 9:30 am
Where: Two Pine Landfill
100 Two Pine Drive
North Little Rock, AR 72117
Who: Senator Blanche Lincoln
Governor Mike Beebe
Congressman Vic Snyder
Waste Management Executives
Arkansas Audubon Director Ken Smith
The Two Pine Landfill gas-to-energy plant is a 4.8 megawatt facility, providing power for approximately 4,500 homes in North Little Rock. Consisting of six large engines, it was constructed in 2006 and recently achieved full generation. The engines are powered by methane gas, which forms in the landfill as a result of the decomposition of waste.
Approximately two years ago, Waste Management and Audubon Arkansas began discussions regarding the development of a wildlife management plan for the Two Pine Landfill. This first-of-its-kind program between Waste Management and Audubon Arkansas has the potential to expand to other Waste Management landfills. At Tuesdayʼs event, Waste Management officials and leaders from Audubon Arkansas will unveil the vision for Two Pine Landfill.
This past April, Waste Management received the stateʼs approval to expand the Two Pine Landfill. In the coming years, Waste Management plans to build an additional landfill gas-to-energy plant in the expanded landfill area.
These two projects are part of the companyʼs environmental sustainability initiative. Waste Management has committed to the following actions by 2020: doubling its waste based energy generation from the equivalent of generating enough energy for one million to two million homes, quadrupling the number of its sites certified by the Wildlife Habitat Council to 100 as well as set aside 25,000 acres for conservation, nearly tripling the amount of recyclables it manages to 20 million tons; and reducing its vehicle fleet emissions by 15 percent and increasing fuel efficiency by 15 percent.
Waste Management, based in Houston, Texas, is the leading provider of comprehensive waste management services in North America. Our subsidiaries provide collection, transfer, recycling and resource recovery, and disposal services. We are also a leading developer, operator and owner of waste-to-energy and landfill gas-to-energy facilities in the United States. Our customers include residential, commercial, industrial, and municipal customers throughout North America.
For more information, visit www.wm.com or www.thinkgreen.com
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Monarch butterflies visit World Peace Wetland Prairie to lay eggs on milkweed so that caterpillars can eat and grow
Please click on image to ENLARGE photo of monarch butterfly August 10, 2008, on World Peace Wetland Prairie.
Please click on link to ENLARGE tall-green milkweed, Asclepias hirtella, at World Peace Wetland Prairie on August 10, 2008.
Please click on link to ENLARGE tall-green milkweed, Asclepias hirtella, at World Peace Wetland Prairie on August 10, 2008.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Natural-gas production's environmental problems ignored in rush to maintain fossil-fuel use
CROSS CURRENTS : Frack, rattle and roll
Fran Alexander frana@nwarktimes.com
Posted on Monday, July 28, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/Editorial/67585/
“ The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘ I’m from the government, and I’m here to help. ’ ” — Ronald Reagan It has occurred to me than anyone too young to know that Bill Haley and His Comets made the song, “ Shake, Rattle, and Roll, ” famous in the early ’ 50 s will not catch the beat of this article’s title. That song’s refrain, however, keeps humming in my soul as I think about what is going on underground in Arkansas and all across the country. Perversely, Ronnie Reagan’s ghost seems to be haunting me as well.
Arkansawyers have begun to realize that there is a big deal happening in the center of their state north of Little Rock and Conway, and it has rattled land and mineral rights owners, small towns, the governor and the state legislature. There’s natural gas in them-thar hills, and we all know anything resembling an energy resource these days has speculators, investors, politicians and energy companies slathering and slobbering in excitement. With a wad of billions for the state economy (yes, with a “ b” and ranging from $ 5. 5 billion between 2005 and 2008 to speculations of $ 17. 9 billion over several years ), a paltry enviro-conscious gnat of a citizen babbling, “ Uh, any money or rules for protecting the land, air and water ? ” might as well step in front of a freight train opened at full throttle. For example, when state representative Betty Pickett of Conway County tried to bring up rational environmental issues in a resolution she hoped would calm the feeding frenzy at the state legislature, those good ole boys, with all the manners of hogs at the trough, wouldn’t even let her finish her presentation. When the Sierra Club tried a proposal to increase the number of Oil and Gas Commission regulators to help inspect the thousands of wells to be drilled (there are now only eight ), their measure failed.
“ Don’t wanna hear it” is the response when pesky ethical details get whispered in the halls of Arkansas power so you, as a citizen, should not be surprised in the years to come that reports will probably be seeping out that drilling in the Fayetteville Shale Play is costing a lot. If all it costs us is just money, that will be the ideal bad consequence.
The “ play” is mostly taking place in Van Buren, Faulkner and White counties, although Cleburne, Conway and Pope also get to reap some of the economic windfall. Hundreds of millions of dollars in state tax revenues and perhaps 10, 000 jobs certainly smack of prosperity, as well it should when little physical or fiscal overhead is being figured into calculations.
As usual, we old spoiler environmentalists with zilch influence just keep raining on parades and for the same old reasons. We would love to change our tune, but the environment and human health continue to subsidize bizness-asusual. Fracking this shale for gas production is just a new twist on the same old methods we humans have always used to rape the Earth for resources.
Drilling for gas the easy way involved putting pipes into the Earth in the right places and capturing the usable gas that spewed out. To release gas captured in shale layers, however, the rock must be fraced, fracked or fractured (pick one ). This particular formation of shale being “ played ” (oil and gas geologic prospecting and extraction ) comes closest to the surface here in Fayetteville, hence its name, and runs deeper in the central Arkansas counties, down some 5, 000 feet in places. Wells are drilled down to the seam, then make an arching right-angle turn horizontally into the narrow shale layer for a few more thousand feet. Next, approximately 1 to 5 million gallons of water per well is mixed with drilling sand and a soup of chemicals and injected into the shale at high pressure. This fracks the rock and releases the gas that is then transported to markets through pipelines lacing across Arkansas and other states. (Pipelines bring a whole different set of problems. )
Keep in mind that once this water is removed from the surface of the land from streams, ponds, rivers, lakes, municipal water supplies, etc., it is not supposed to be returned to the water supply. Approximately 40 percent to 60 percent that is pumped into the shale comes back up, however, carrying the toxic drilling fluids and can also contain naturally occurring hazardous baddies like mercury, arsenic, radioactive materials, hydrogen sulfide and BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene, xylene ). And where does it go ?
The millions of gallons of poisoned water can be re-injected into special deep wells in the hope, with no guarantee, that it will stay in formations away from fresh water aquifers. It is sometimes dumped in open impoundments where its chemicals evaporate into the air. Wherever it goes requires transport, and that exposes it to the environment and us yet again.
Also, oil and gas facilities can release more than 50 toxic air pollutants from a variety of sources, according to a spokesman for the National Resources Defense Council. Yet in Arkansas these wells can be legally sited as close as 100 feet from a home, school, business, etc. Across the nation, wells are being drilled in parks, golf courses, national forests and neighborhoods — anywhere the mineral rights below have been leased is fair game.
“ I’m from the government, and I won’t help you, ” is more what is happening these days, and even scarier is knowing instead that the real help is going to the energy companies so they do not have to worry about pesky pollution details. Federal regulations exempt oil and gas exploration and production from the tough parts of the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Super Fund Law, the Resource Recovery and Conservation Act and the Toxic Release Inventory (which would require you be told when or if you are or could be exposed to production toxins ).
From Arkansas’ new millions that mineral owners will pay the state in severance taxes, 95 percent will fund highways and 5 percent will go to the general fund. So far it looks like the environment and human health will again sponsor our energy addiction.
Next time: Will we do anything about this situation ?
Fran Alexander is a local resident and an active environmentalist.
Copyright © 2001-2008 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact: webmaster@nwanews.com
Fran Alexander frana@nwarktimes.com
Posted on Monday, July 28, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/Editorial/67585/
“ The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘ I’m from the government, and I’m here to help. ’ ” — Ronald Reagan It has occurred to me than anyone too young to know that Bill Haley and His Comets made the song, “ Shake, Rattle, and Roll, ” famous in the early ’ 50 s will not catch the beat of this article’s title. That song’s refrain, however, keeps humming in my soul as I think about what is going on underground in Arkansas and all across the country. Perversely, Ronnie Reagan’s ghost seems to be haunting me as well.
Arkansawyers have begun to realize that there is a big deal happening in the center of their state north of Little Rock and Conway, and it has rattled land and mineral rights owners, small towns, the governor and the state legislature. There’s natural gas in them-thar hills, and we all know anything resembling an energy resource these days has speculators, investors, politicians and energy companies slathering and slobbering in excitement. With a wad of billions for the state economy (yes, with a “ b” and ranging from $ 5. 5 billion between 2005 and 2008 to speculations of $ 17. 9 billion over several years ), a paltry enviro-conscious gnat of a citizen babbling, “ Uh, any money or rules for protecting the land, air and water ? ” might as well step in front of a freight train opened at full throttle. For example, when state representative Betty Pickett of Conway County tried to bring up rational environmental issues in a resolution she hoped would calm the feeding frenzy at the state legislature, those good ole boys, with all the manners of hogs at the trough, wouldn’t even let her finish her presentation. When the Sierra Club tried a proposal to increase the number of Oil and Gas Commission regulators to help inspect the thousands of wells to be drilled (there are now only eight ), their measure failed.
“ Don’t wanna hear it” is the response when pesky ethical details get whispered in the halls of Arkansas power so you, as a citizen, should not be surprised in the years to come that reports will probably be seeping out that drilling in the Fayetteville Shale Play is costing a lot. If all it costs us is just money, that will be the ideal bad consequence.
The “ play” is mostly taking place in Van Buren, Faulkner and White counties, although Cleburne, Conway and Pope also get to reap some of the economic windfall. Hundreds of millions of dollars in state tax revenues and perhaps 10, 000 jobs certainly smack of prosperity, as well it should when little physical or fiscal overhead is being figured into calculations.
As usual, we old spoiler environmentalists with zilch influence just keep raining on parades and for the same old reasons. We would love to change our tune, but the environment and human health continue to subsidize bizness-asusual. Fracking this shale for gas production is just a new twist on the same old methods we humans have always used to rape the Earth for resources.
Drilling for gas the easy way involved putting pipes into the Earth in the right places and capturing the usable gas that spewed out. To release gas captured in shale layers, however, the rock must be fraced, fracked or fractured (pick one ). This particular formation of shale being “ played ” (oil and gas geologic prospecting and extraction ) comes closest to the surface here in Fayetteville, hence its name, and runs deeper in the central Arkansas counties, down some 5, 000 feet in places. Wells are drilled down to the seam, then make an arching right-angle turn horizontally into the narrow shale layer for a few more thousand feet. Next, approximately 1 to 5 million gallons of water per well is mixed with drilling sand and a soup of chemicals and injected into the shale at high pressure. This fracks the rock and releases the gas that is then transported to markets through pipelines lacing across Arkansas and other states. (Pipelines bring a whole different set of problems. )
Keep in mind that once this water is removed from the surface of the land from streams, ponds, rivers, lakes, municipal water supplies, etc., it is not supposed to be returned to the water supply. Approximately 40 percent to 60 percent that is pumped into the shale comes back up, however, carrying the toxic drilling fluids and can also contain naturally occurring hazardous baddies like mercury, arsenic, radioactive materials, hydrogen sulfide and BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene, xylene ). And where does it go ?
The millions of gallons of poisoned water can be re-injected into special deep wells in the hope, with no guarantee, that it will stay in formations away from fresh water aquifers. It is sometimes dumped in open impoundments where its chemicals evaporate into the air. Wherever it goes requires transport, and that exposes it to the environment and us yet again.
Also, oil and gas facilities can release more than 50 toxic air pollutants from a variety of sources, according to a spokesman for the National Resources Defense Council. Yet in Arkansas these wells can be legally sited as close as 100 feet from a home, school, business, etc. Across the nation, wells are being drilled in parks, golf courses, national forests and neighborhoods — anywhere the mineral rights below have been leased is fair game.
“ I’m from the government, and I won’t help you, ” is more what is happening these days, and even scarier is knowing instead that the real help is going to the energy companies so they do not have to worry about pesky pollution details. Federal regulations exempt oil and gas exploration and production from the tough parts of the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Super Fund Law, the Resource Recovery and Conservation Act and the Toxic Release Inventory (which would require you be told when or if you are or could be exposed to production toxins ).
From Arkansas’ new millions that mineral owners will pay the state in severance taxes, 95 percent will fund highways and 5 percent will go to the general fund. So far it looks like the environment and human health will again sponsor our energy addiction.
Next time: Will we do anything about this situation ?
Fran Alexander is a local resident and an active environmentalist.
Copyright © 2001-2008 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact: webmaster@nwanews.com
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Discovery Farms' program highlighted on its Web site and in Northwest Arkansas Times story
Please click link to read about
Discovery Farms environmental program in Wisconsin
Please click on link to read
Northwest Arkansas Times story on Discovery Farms environmental program in Wisconsin
Dairy farmer discusses program that monitors environmental data
BY TRISH HOLLENBECK Northwest Arkansas Times
Posted on Tuesday, July 22, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/News/67369/
SPRINGDALE — Joe Bragger says he believes farmers and nonfarmers can work together to solve environmental and economic problems.
There are fringe groups out there that will never be happy with anything he does, Bragger, a dairy farmer who also raises chickens and beef cattle on his family’s farm in west-central Wisconsin, said Monday.
But then there are the rest of the people who farmers can work with to get things done, he said in an interview after giving a speech about Wisconsin’s Discovery Farms Program during Arkansas Farm Bureau’s 60 th annual Officers & Leaders Conference at the Holiday Inn in Springdale.
Discovery Farms environmental program in Wisconsin
Please click on link to read
Northwest Arkansas Times story on Discovery Farms environmental program in Wisconsin
Dairy farmer discusses program that monitors environmental data
BY TRISH HOLLENBECK Northwest Arkansas Times
Posted on Tuesday, July 22, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/News/67369/
SPRINGDALE — Joe Bragger says he believes farmers and nonfarmers can work together to solve environmental and economic problems.
There are fringe groups out there that will never be happy with anything he does, Bragger, a dairy farmer who also raises chickens and beef cattle on his family’s farm in west-central Wisconsin, said Monday.
But then there are the rest of the people who farmers can work with to get things done, he said in an interview after giving a speech about Wisconsin’s Discovery Farms Program during Arkansas Farm Bureau’s 60 th annual Officers & Leaders Conference at the Holiday Inn in Springdale.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
American basket flower (Centaurea Americana) blooming on World Peace Wetland Prairie and other unmowed places throughout northwest Arkansas
Please click on image to ENLARGE photo of American basketflower made on July 10, 2008.
American basketflower photos and description˜
American basketflower photos and description˜
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Government protection of wetland pathetic
EPA Enforcement Is Faulted
Agency Official Cites Narrow Reading of Clean Water Act
By Juliet Eilperin Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, July 8, 2008; A06
An official administration guidance document on wetland policy is undermining enforcement of the Clean Water Act, said a March 4 memo written by the Environmental Protection Agency's chief enforcement officer.
The memo by Granta Y. Nakayama, EPA's assistant administrator for enforcement and compliance assurance, was obtained by the advocacy group Greenpeace and released yesterday by two House Democratic committee chairmen. It highlights the confusion that has afflicted federal wetland protections since a 2006 Supreme Court decision.
That 5 to 4 decision, known as Rapanos v. United States, held that the Army Corps of Engineers had exceeded its authority when it denied two Michigan developers permits to build on wetland, but the court split on where the Corps should have drawn the line on what areas deserve protection.
A plurality made of up Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. proposed an across-the-board reduction in the Corps' regulatory role, but Justice Anthony M. Kennedy -- who cast the deciding vote -- called for a case-by-case approach in deciding how the government should proceed. That left the ruling open to interpretation.
In his memo to Benjamin Grumbles, EPA's assistant administrator for water, Nakayama wrote that the document the agency issued in June 2007 to guide regulators' decisions under the Rapanos decision is having "a significant impact on enforcement." Nakayama and his staff concluded that between July 2006 and December 2007, EPA's regional offices had decided not to pursue potential Clean Water Act violations in 304 cases "because of jurisdictional uncertainty."
Much of the controversy centers on what sort of waterway and accompanying wetland should qualify for protection. The administration's guidance instructs federal officials to focus on the "relevant reach" of a tributary, which translates into a single segment of a stream. In the memo, Nakayama argued that this definition "isolates the small tributary" and "ignores longstanding scientific ecosystem and watershed protection principles critical to meeting the goals" of the Clean Water Act.
Chairmen Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) of the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee and James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.) of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee sent a letter yesterday to EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson saying they have "grave concerns" about the way the agency is implementing the Clean Water Act.
The two noted that Nakayama concluded that in all, the Supreme Court decision and the subsequent guidance document "negatively affected approximately 500 enforcement cases" in nine months. They also questioned why EPA's Grumbles did not raise the issue when he testified before Oberstar's panel less than three months ago.
"This sudden reduction in enforcement activity will undermine the implementation of the Clean Water Act and adversely affect EPA's responsibility to protect the nation's waters," the congressmen wrote. "Yet instead of sounding the alarm about EPA's enforcement problems, the agency's public statements have minimized the impact of the Rapanos decision."
In response to a question about the congressional inquiry, EPA spokesman Jonathan Shradar said in an e-mail: "We will be reviewing the new request and will work with the chairmen to provide information on our enforcement program."
Eric Schaeffer, who used to head EPA's civil enforcement division and now heads the Environmental Integrity Project, an advocacy group, called Nakayama's memo "very significant. It lays out very clearly why you can't enforce one of the most important parts of the Clean Water Act."
EPA officials are not the only ones growing frustrated with the confusing legal interpretations of the Rapanos decision. Robert B. Propst, a senior judge on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, Southern Division, wrote in a Nov. 7, 2007, decision that he was reassigning a wetland case "to another judge for trial. At least one of the reasons is that I am so perplexed by the way the law applicable to this case has developed that it would be inappropriate for me to try it again."
© 2008 The Washington Post Company
Stormwater Management Total Stormwater Management Service Design, Repair & Maintenance www.apexcos.com
Agency Official Cites Narrow Reading of Clean Water Act
By Juliet Eilperin Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, July 8, 2008; A06
An official administration guidance document on wetland policy is undermining enforcement of the Clean Water Act, said a March 4 memo written by the Environmental Protection Agency's chief enforcement officer.
The memo by Granta Y. Nakayama, EPA's assistant administrator for enforcement and compliance assurance, was obtained by the advocacy group Greenpeace and released yesterday by two House Democratic committee chairmen. It highlights the confusion that has afflicted federal wetland protections since a 2006 Supreme Court decision.
That 5 to 4 decision, known as Rapanos v. United States, held that the Army Corps of Engineers had exceeded its authority when it denied two Michigan developers permits to build on wetland, but the court split on where the Corps should have drawn the line on what areas deserve protection.
A plurality made of up Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. proposed an across-the-board reduction in the Corps' regulatory role, but Justice Anthony M. Kennedy -- who cast the deciding vote -- called for a case-by-case approach in deciding how the government should proceed. That left the ruling open to interpretation.
In his memo to Benjamin Grumbles, EPA's assistant administrator for water, Nakayama wrote that the document the agency issued in June 2007 to guide regulators' decisions under the Rapanos decision is having "a significant impact on enforcement." Nakayama and his staff concluded that between July 2006 and December 2007, EPA's regional offices had decided not to pursue potential Clean Water Act violations in 304 cases "because of jurisdictional uncertainty."
Much of the controversy centers on what sort of waterway and accompanying wetland should qualify for protection. The administration's guidance instructs federal officials to focus on the "relevant reach" of a tributary, which translates into a single segment of a stream. In the memo, Nakayama argued that this definition "isolates the small tributary" and "ignores longstanding scientific ecosystem and watershed protection principles critical to meeting the goals" of the Clean Water Act.
Chairmen Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) of the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee and James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.) of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee sent a letter yesterday to EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson saying they have "grave concerns" about the way the agency is implementing the Clean Water Act.
The two noted that Nakayama concluded that in all, the Supreme Court decision and the subsequent guidance document "negatively affected approximately 500 enforcement cases" in nine months. They also questioned why EPA's Grumbles did not raise the issue when he testified before Oberstar's panel less than three months ago.
"This sudden reduction in enforcement activity will undermine the implementation of the Clean Water Act and adversely affect EPA's responsibility to protect the nation's waters," the congressmen wrote. "Yet instead of sounding the alarm about EPA's enforcement problems, the agency's public statements have minimized the impact of the Rapanos decision."
In response to a question about the congressional inquiry, EPA spokesman Jonathan Shradar said in an e-mail: "We will be reviewing the new request and will work with the chairmen to provide information on our enforcement program."
Eric Schaeffer, who used to head EPA's civil enforcement division and now heads the Environmental Integrity Project, an advocacy group, called Nakayama's memo "very significant. It lays out very clearly why you can't enforce one of the most important parts of the Clean Water Act."
EPA officials are not the only ones growing frustrated with the confusing legal interpretations of the Rapanos decision. Robert B. Propst, a senior judge on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, Southern Division, wrote in a Nov. 7, 2007, decision that he was reassigning a wetland case "to another judge for trial. At least one of the reasons is that I am so perplexed by the way the law applicable to this case has developed that it would be inappropriate for me to try it again."
© 2008 The Washington Post Company
Stormwater Management Total Stormwater Management Service Design, Repair & Maintenance www.apexcos.com
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission fails to add carbon dioxide to state list of air contaminants
Panel denies air-code changes
BY MICHELLE HILLEN
Posted on Saturday, June 28, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/229886/
Saying the request was premature, the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission on Friday unanimously rejected a request by environmental groups to change Arkansas’ air code to consider carbon dioxide an “air contaminant.”
“I do think this is putting the cart before the horse,” commission member Scott Henderson, explaining that he believes the governor’s Global Warming Commission should have first crack at determining how carbon dioxide emissions should be regulated.
The commission, established last year, is studying ways state agencies can offset factors that might contribute to climate change.
“I don’t agree with the discussion about waiting for the federal government to do it, but I do think the Global Warming Commission has to do its work,” Henderson said.
The Arkansas Sierra Club, Audubon Arkansas and the Environmental Integrity Project had filed a petition seeking to amend definitions included in Regulations 18 and 26 of the state’s airquality regulations. The proposal called for the definitions in both regulations to eliminate carbon dioxide from a list of emissions not considered air contaminants, including water vapor, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen and inert gases.
The petition cited concerns that increased concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can lead to higher maximum temperatures, more hot days, higher minimum temperatures, fewer cold days, more intense “precipitation events” and increased risk of drought.
Environmentalists argued their proposal wouldn’t immediately require regulation of carbon dioxide by the Environmental Quality Department. But industry and department officials disagreed.
“We are not opposed to the removal of this exemption.... We realize that global warming is a global problem,” department Director Teresa Marks said. “Our concern is unintended consequences, and the practicality of what we would do if the exemption was removed immediately.”
Marks said existing regulations would require the department to regulate anyone who emits more than 25 tons per year of an “air contaminant.” The department today doesn’t have the technology available to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide, she said.
After more than a half-hour of comments from industry leaders and environmentalists, the commission approved an order supplied by the Arkansas Environmental Federation, an organization that lobbies on behalf of companies on environmental matters.
The order states that the request from the environmental- ists was defective for a number of reasons, including that it failed to include an economic impact statement and an environmental benefit analysis. Such statements are required by state law if the proposed change is more stringent than federal requirements.
Glen Hooks, regional representative of the Sierra Club, said he was surprised by the decision.
“I think what these guys have done is stand up and say we know CO 2 is a pollutant, we know it is a contaminant, but we don’t want to do anything about it,” Hooks said.
“They said it publicly, and I found it amazing.”
He said he and other environmentalists expect to bring forward a new petition that addresses the commissioners’ concerns sooner rather than later.
“We’ll be back,” said Ilan Levin of the Environmental Integrity Project.
The concerns can be addressed in a number of ways, including by increasing the allowable emission threshold from 25 tons per year, Levin said.
Copyright © 2001-2008 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact: webmaster@nwanews.com
BY MICHELLE HILLEN
Posted on Saturday, June 28, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/229886/
Saying the request was premature, the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission on Friday unanimously rejected a request by environmental groups to change Arkansas’ air code to consider carbon dioxide an “air contaminant.”
“I do think this is putting the cart before the horse,” commission member Scott Henderson, explaining that he believes the governor’s Global Warming Commission should have first crack at determining how carbon dioxide emissions should be regulated.
The commission, established last year, is studying ways state agencies can offset factors that might contribute to climate change.
“I don’t agree with the discussion about waiting for the federal government to do it, but I do think the Global Warming Commission has to do its work,” Henderson said.
The Arkansas Sierra Club, Audubon Arkansas and the Environmental Integrity Project had filed a petition seeking to amend definitions included in Regulations 18 and 26 of the state’s airquality regulations. The proposal called for the definitions in both regulations to eliminate carbon dioxide from a list of emissions not considered air contaminants, including water vapor, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen and inert gases.
The petition cited concerns that increased concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can lead to higher maximum temperatures, more hot days, higher minimum temperatures, fewer cold days, more intense “precipitation events” and increased risk of drought.
Environmentalists argued their proposal wouldn’t immediately require regulation of carbon dioxide by the Environmental Quality Department. But industry and department officials disagreed.
“We are not opposed to the removal of this exemption.... We realize that global warming is a global problem,” department Director Teresa Marks said. “Our concern is unintended consequences, and the practicality of what we would do if the exemption was removed immediately.”
Marks said existing regulations would require the department to regulate anyone who emits more than 25 tons per year of an “air contaminant.” The department today doesn’t have the technology available to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide, she said.
After more than a half-hour of comments from industry leaders and environmentalists, the commission approved an order supplied by the Arkansas Environmental Federation, an organization that lobbies on behalf of companies on environmental matters.
The order states that the request from the environmental- ists was defective for a number of reasons, including that it failed to include an economic impact statement and an environmental benefit analysis. Such statements are required by state law if the proposed change is more stringent than federal requirements.
Glen Hooks, regional representative of the Sierra Club, said he was surprised by the decision.
“I think what these guys have done is stand up and say we know CO 2 is a pollutant, we know it is a contaminant, but we don’t want to do anything about it,” Hooks said.
“They said it publicly, and I found it amazing.”
He said he and other environmentalists expect to bring forward a new petition that addresses the commissioners’ concerns sooner rather than later.
“We’ll be back,” said Ilan Levin of the Environmental Integrity Project.
The concerns can be addressed in a number of ways, including by increasing the allowable emission threshold from 25 tons per year, Levin said.
Copyright © 2001-2008 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact: webmaster@nwanews.com
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Association for Beaver Lake Environment growing!
From: President@able-ark.org
Sent: Sat 6/28/08 12:51 PM
To: aubreyshepherd@hotmail.com
This is an e-mail from 'Able-Ark.org - Association for Beaver Lake Environment '
Message:
Hello ABLE members,
I wanted to let you know that ABLE hosted a special Town Hall Meeting for Beaver Lake Dock Owners on Monday, June 23, 2008. The purpose of the meeting was to sell ABLE to Beaver Lake property owners, identify/discuss issues affecting and threatening the lake, and to increase ABLE membership. This meeting was very successful! We have signed up many new members, the meeting was standing room only, over 110 people attended!
We also had two guest speakers:
Thad Cheaney from the U.S. Army Corp. of Engineers - discussed dock and shoreline issues.
Nathan Jones, VP of Power Source Solar - discussed solar applications on boat docks.
I have posted the program on the website (www.able-ark.org). Login, click on "Information Library" page, and then click on Town Hall Meetings. You will see the "Dock Owners Meeting". You will need Adobe Acrobat in order to view the program.
Thanks for supporting ABLE!
Doug Timmons
President, ABLE
Sent: Sat 6/28/08 12:51 PM
To: aubreyshepherd@hotmail.com
This is an e-mail from 'Able-Ark.org - Association for Beaver Lake Environment '
Message:
Hello ABLE members,
I wanted to let you know that ABLE hosted a special Town Hall Meeting for Beaver Lake Dock Owners on Monday, June 23, 2008. The purpose of the meeting was to sell ABLE to Beaver Lake property owners, identify/discuss issues affecting and threatening the lake, and to increase ABLE membership. This meeting was very successful! We have signed up many new members, the meeting was standing room only, over 110 people attended!
We also had two guest speakers:
Thad Cheaney from the U.S. Army Corp. of Engineers - discussed dock and shoreline issues.
Nathan Jones, VP of Power Source Solar - discussed solar applications on boat docks.
I have posted the program on the website (www.able-ark.org). Login, click on "Information Library" page, and then click on Town Hall Meetings. You will see the "Dock Owners Meeting". You will need Adobe Acrobat in order to view the program.
Thanks for supporting ABLE!
Doug Timmons
President, ABLE
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Wetland article ignores drawbacks in wetland mitigation projects but provides valuable insight and source of hope for urban wetland protection
Woolsey wetland article in The Morning News
The Woolsey Prairie is adjacent to land where the new wastewater-treatment plant was built. Actually, the plant was built on what might be called the original Woolsey Prairie.
Because the plant destroyed a great many wetland acres, the Corps of Engineers permit required mitigation. There have been many shows on Government channel about the progress of creating the mitigation area over the past couple of years, mostly as a part of shows on progress of construction of the plant itself.
The good news is that the city is "manufacturing" wetland to make up for destruction. That isn't as good as preserving existing wetland exactly as nature made it. However, it is beautiful site.
The bad news is that a plan to allow developers to "purchase" shares in such mitigation land is similar to trading carbon-pollution rights. It means developers can dredge and fill to build on wetland in the city and "mitigate" it by paying for creation of such sites. This is better than nothing. However, it doesn't protect property from flooding downstream from the development. And it allows valuable habitat to be destroyed where it should be kept. It doesn't make stormwater remain where it falls and soak in to keep vegetation healthy and replenish underground aquifers.
That was the first story I ever read by Skip Descant. He appears to be a good reporter.
He wouldn't likely know about World Peace Wetland Prairie or that "keeping the water where it falls" is the contrasting idea that would have had to have been included in the story if his plan was to write a truly multi-source story.
In fact, WPWP is exactly opposite to a manufactured wetland area. It protects habitat and lets water soak in UPSTREAM where it falls. It was saved from development and stands in stark contrast with the Aspen Ridge/Hill Place development site to to its north.
While it has a large population of nonnative species, particularly fescue and Japanese honeysuckle that require constant volunteer effort to remove, it never had its basic seed and root base of native species removed.
Being inside the city and a part of the headwater system of the Town Branch of the West Fork of the White River and thus a significant area that helps protect the Beaver Lake watershed, its soil and plant life (even the invasive nonnative species) are functioning perfectly for stormwater management and protection of water quality.
The already completed Woolsey Prairie serves to catch water NEAR where it falls on the sewage-treatment plant. But adjacent parcels that may be saved as wetland prairie or savannah will be for sale to developers as mitigation for environmentally destruction parcels upstream. That part of the story has been discussed on several Government Channel productions related to the new sewage-treatment plant.
It would be nice to have a map of wetland areas. I frequently offer such information with photos from various parts of the watershed on my blogs and Flickr photo sets. But an overall plan to protect wetland isn't something everyone wants. Such a citywide delineation of wetland areas could prevent developers from buying property that should not be developed on the assumption that they will always get permission to dredge and fill such places simply by buying a share of an already preserved parcel miles away or not even in the same watershed.
Some developers and even some city officials and staff members don't want to acknowledge the existence of more than minimal wetland because public knowledge of the facts of Northwest Arkansas' environment might stifle their desire to build and pave every acre in the city.
More than two years ago, the Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association created a booklet with a list of environmentally sensitive areas in the city that the group deemed worthy of protection. That information has never been used by the city in any way, as far as I can tell. During the June 17, 2008, meeting of the Council of Neighborhoods, Bruce Shackleford's presentation on Woolsey Prairie got his ideas out to a lot of people and excited some of the neighborhood advocates to realize the importance of wetland prairie, exactly what we've been trying to do with our photos on Flickr and on our blogspots for the past year and for more than six years on Aubunique.com and for decades in various newspaper and magazine stories.
Fran Alexander and others persevere, but are only voices in the wildnerness, it seems.
Too many of the most outspoken people in the green, "sustainability" movement mostly focus on compromise positions. The paid environmentalists are all about compromise these days. Compromise mostly leads to learning to lose gracefully.
It takes people such as Fran Alexander with passion to get things done. And Shackleford's passion about the prairie wetland can do more to stir fervor in the fight to do the right thing in Fayetteville than some of us have done in decades. A lot of us old "tree-huggers" will be supporting his educational effort in every way we can.
For photos and more information, please use the following online links.
Hill Place/Aspen Ridge set of photos
Pinnacle Prairie set of photos — west side of World Peace Wetland Prairie
World Peace Wetland Prairie collection of sets of photos
Town Branch watershed set of photos
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Eight-year-old news report displays past forum decisions at Government Channel
Please click on image to enlarge:
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Times, Democrat both offer opinion on Telecom oversight
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Build Hill Place right or don't build it
The maps based on aerial photos below are reasonably new, and people who live in some houses along the Town Branch of the West Fork of the White River between Eleventh Street and Fifteenth Street who are paying on mortgages on their homes now have to pay for flood insurance.
A close look at the maps reveals that FEMA now acknowledges not only that many buildings in that stretch are either IN or immediately adjacent to the acknowledged flood plain but also that much of the infrastructure for the failed Aspen Ridge site was built in the flood plain between Sixth and Eleventh streets west of South Hill Avenue.
People who have lived in the neighborhood a long time know that the actual floodplain is much wider in places than the FEMA map shows.
While the developers of the Hill Place project are being required to remove a sewer line and blocks much of the flow under the bridge at Eleventh Street, they have not been told to build their proposed traffic bridge higher than the current walkiing bridge. In fact, they are proposing to build the traffic bridge LOWER than the walking bridge built in 2005 or 2006 across the stream. Because federal agencies will barely even look at the plans, the city must make the decision on this further construction in the floodplain.
In 2003 and 2004, the developers claimed that FEMA maps did not show floodplain in the area. Neighbors pointed out that the Town Branch FLOWED OVER much of that land frequently even though the government had not designated it as floodplain and that, not only did the stream flow over the bridge at Eleventh Street but sometimes flowed over the bridge at Fifteenth Street.
Just another example of NIMBIES being ignored in favor of developers and builders who don't care what harm their projects might do as long as they are able to reach the density level required to make a huge profit. People who say "Not in my backyard" in this neighborhood have seen the water there (and some have seen it in their houses or flowing in front of their houses); so they aren't talking about a trivial problem.
The lowest portion of the former wooded wetland at the southeast end of the project must be dug out and structured to pre-Aspen Ridge grade or lower to reapproach the historical flood-prevention capacity of that land.
No further paving should be done southeast of the existing walking bridge and the impervious fill dirt should be removed and water again should be allowed to soak into appropriate organic soil.
Developers claim their right to build as long as their project doesn't send more water off their land than flowed off there before.
They use voodoo mathematics that ignore overflow from the Town Branch and that ignore the nearly 100 percent permeability of the surface of the area before it was cleared and filled with rocky dirt and red clay.
They rely on the fact that water has threatened the downstream homes a little more each year during the decades the University of Arkansas has filled similar land on the campus and covered or dredged absorbent soil on the campus in favor of non-absorbent, non-organic soil and concrete.
Now is the time to begin to require developments to DECREASE downstream flooding, not aggravate it and blame the university for its building practices. Multiple wrong decisions don't add up to a right decision.
A close look at the maps reveals that FEMA now acknowledges not only that many buildings in that stretch are either IN or immediately adjacent to the acknowledged flood plain but also that much of the infrastructure for the failed Aspen Ridge site was built in the flood plain between Sixth and Eleventh streets west of South Hill Avenue.
People who have lived in the neighborhood a long time know that the actual floodplain is much wider in places than the FEMA map shows.
While the developers of the Hill Place project are being required to remove a sewer line and blocks much of the flow under the bridge at Eleventh Street, they have not been told to build their proposed traffic bridge higher than the current walkiing bridge. In fact, they are proposing to build the traffic bridge LOWER than the walking bridge built in 2005 or 2006 across the stream. Because federal agencies will barely even look at the plans, the city must make the decision on this further construction in the floodplain.
In 2003 and 2004, the developers claimed that FEMA maps did not show floodplain in the area. Neighbors pointed out that the Town Branch FLOWED OVER much of that land frequently even though the government had not designated it as floodplain and that, not only did the stream flow over the bridge at Eleventh Street but sometimes flowed over the bridge at Fifteenth Street.
Just another example of NIMBIES being ignored in favor of developers and builders who don't care what harm their projects might do as long as they are able to reach the density level required to make a huge profit. People who say "Not in my backyard" in this neighborhood have seen the water there (and some have seen it in their houses or flowing in front of their houses); so they aren't talking about a trivial problem.
The lowest portion of the former wooded wetland at the southeast end of the project must be dug out and structured to pre-Aspen Ridge grade or lower to reapproach the historical flood-prevention capacity of that land.
No further paving should be done southeast of the existing walking bridge and the impervious fill dirt should be removed and water again should be allowed to soak into appropriate organic soil.
Developers claim their right to build as long as their project doesn't send more water off their land than flowed off there before.
They use voodoo mathematics that ignore overflow from the Town Branch and that ignore the nearly 100 percent permeability of the surface of the area before it was cleared and filled with rocky dirt and red clay.
They rely on the fact that water has threatened the downstream homes a little more each year during the decades the University of Arkansas has filled similar land on the campus and covered or dredged absorbent soil on the campus in favor of non-absorbent, non-organic soil and concrete.
Now is the time to begin to require developments to DECREASE downstream flooding, not aggravate it and blame the university for its building practices. Multiple wrong decisions don't add up to a right decision.
Monday, May 12, 2008
FEMA floodplain map of Aspen Ridge/Hill Place and streets downstream
Please click on image to ENLARGE.
Please click on image to ENLARGE.
Please click on image to ENLARGE.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Fayetteville City Council to visit Town Branch Neighborhood development sites at 4 p.m. today. Everyone welcome. Need tax on topsoil removal
The mayor and members of the Fayetteville City Council are to gather at the failed Aspen Ridge town-house construction site near W. Sixth Street and S. Hill Avenue at 4:30 p.m. today (Monday, May 5, 2008 ) to view the 30-acre parcel from which nearly all the trees and topsoil have been removed. The rich, fertile, stormwater-absorbing, water-purifying soil has been either dredged out and hauled away or buried under tons of less-absorbent rocky soil.
Tuesday at 6 p.m., the council is to evaluate a plan that has been brought forward by Hank Broyles, who sold his share of the Aspen Ridge property to his partner in that venture, Hal Forsyth, soon after it was approved in 2005, but who bought the whole parcel after Forsyth's development ended with hundreds of low-income residents displaced but nothing built on the property.
Slimy, yellow silt-laden muddy water has overflowed from the failed Aspen Ridge site onto the north end of World Peace Wetland Prairie ever since that 30 acres' vegetation was removed and the soil replaced with non-absorbent soil. The Hill Place student apartment plan and the Summit Place plan must manage silt and stormwater properly or both WPWP and the Town Branch will be further damaged.
Broyles' new plan is to sell the property to
Place Properties, limited partnership, which develops and manages apartment complexes for college students in several states. The sale, apparently, is contingent on Broyles' getting the student-apartment plan approved by the council.
Please see
Summit Place, Hill Place maps and photos with first plans for Summit Place that were submitted to the Fayetteville planning department early this year.
Please see
Hill Place/Aspen Ridge plans, maps and photos with concept drawing from January 2008.
Town Branch neighbors are asking that the Summit Place plan be evaluated by the council before the council approves the Hill Place plan. Water from the eastern slope of Summit Place on Rochier Hill will increase erosion and further exacerbate the stormwater problems created by the Aspen Ridge land clearing and now the problem of the Hill Place project. Appian Design Center
Hill Place/Summit Place plan designers is planning both projects. Hank Broyles and John Nock reportedly own the Summit Place property.
The Summit Place project west of the Arkansas and Missouri Railroad is in Ward Four, while the Hill Place project is in Ward One.
As in the case of many adjacent projects, these are separate but the upstream work will have a bearing on the downstream project's success in protecting people further downstream on the Town Branch of the West Fork of the White River from flooding as well as an effect on the quality of water entering Beaver Lake, the water supply for most of Northwest Arkansas.
For details, please call 479-444-6072.
Tuesday at 6 p.m., the council is to evaluate a plan that has been brought forward by Hank Broyles, who sold his share of the Aspen Ridge property to his partner in that venture, Hal Forsyth, soon after it was approved in 2005, but who bought the whole parcel after Forsyth's development ended with hundreds of low-income residents displaced but nothing built on the property.
Slimy, yellow silt-laden muddy water has overflowed from the failed Aspen Ridge site onto the north end of World Peace Wetland Prairie ever since that 30 acres' vegetation was removed and the soil replaced with non-absorbent soil. The Hill Place student apartment plan and the Summit Place plan must manage silt and stormwater properly or both WPWP and the Town Branch will be further damaged.
Broyles' new plan is to sell the property to
Place Properties, limited partnership, which develops and manages apartment complexes for college students in several states. The sale, apparently, is contingent on Broyles' getting the student-apartment plan approved by the council.
Please see
Summit Place, Hill Place maps and photos with first plans for Summit Place that were submitted to the Fayetteville planning department early this year.
Please see
Hill Place/Aspen Ridge plans, maps and photos with concept drawing from January 2008.
Town Branch neighbors are asking that the Summit Place plan be evaluated by the council before the council approves the Hill Place plan. Water from the eastern slope of Summit Place on Rochier Hill will increase erosion and further exacerbate the stormwater problems created by the Aspen Ridge land clearing and now the problem of the Hill Place project. Appian Design Center
Hill Place/Summit Place plan designers is planning both projects. Hank Broyles and John Nock reportedly own the Summit Place property.
The Summit Place project west of the Arkansas and Missouri Railroad is in Ward Four, while the Hill Place project is in Ward One.
As in the case of many adjacent projects, these are separate but the upstream work will have a bearing on the downstream project's success in protecting people further downstream on the Town Branch of the West Fork of the White River from flooding as well as an effect on the quality of water entering Beaver Lake, the water supply for most of Northwest Arkansas.
For details, please call 479-444-6072.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
Earth Fest in Rose Garden during 2008 Springfest in Fayetteville, Arkansas
PLEASE CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE poster
Monday, April 21, 2008
Photo set from Sunday's Earth Day Celebration at World Peace Wetland Prairie will grow until complete
Please see first 33 photos in set of
Earth Day 2008 photos from World Peace Wetland Prairie and return later to see more!
Earth Day 2008 photos from World Peace Wetland Prairie and return later to see more!
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Meetings from past week replaying on Government Channel today. Please enjoy Sunday April 20 afternoon at World Peace Wetland Prairie
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Please volunteer April 19 to help give away oak trees in Fayetteville and Rogers
From Dina Nash of the Arkansas Sierra Club:
The Arkansas Forestry Commission asked if the Sierra Club would like to do a tree give-away project: They have 50,000 extra 3-foot-tall oak trees (Willow oaks, Water oaks, Shumard oaks, and Pin oaks) and they'd like to give them away. I said yes, and we very much need your members to volunteer some hours to help take these little trees out of the paper bundle of 100 trees, put 1 or 2 in a bag, tape the top of the bag with masking tape, and give them to people who will promise to water them once or twice a week for several months so they will get a good start. So if you have 3 or more hours to help give away trees to help global warming, please email or call me ASAP, so I can plan who'll be there to take care of the give-away table: Location: Wal-Mart on Mall Drive at Joyce Street, a block west of College. Near the Garden Center 10 AM-4 PM (3 hour shifts, 10-1 and 1-4, or the whole 6 hours) Three people per shift, some bagging, some taping, and some handing out trees and putting the planting info sheet with them An easy way to green up some bare places you may know of, too. Take some home to your yard, church, school, or farm! Give some to neighbors who lost a tree in a storm, etc. There are also openings at the Rogers Wal-Mart on Walnut Street on the l9th!!
Thanks so much for making this a success: please call me at 530-8328 My cell phone is in the 479 area code so Fayetteville friends don't need to make a long-distance call to reach me in Little Rock. Or you can email me at Dina_Nash@yahoo.com .
Thanks, Dina Nash, Vice Pres. Central AR Sierra Club 479-530-8328 Little Rock
If you can't reach Dina, you may call Aubrey Shepherd at 479-444-6072 for information. You need not be a Sierra Club member to participate.
The Arkansas Forestry Commission asked if the Sierra Club would like to do a tree give-away project: They have 50,000 extra 3-foot-tall oak trees (Willow oaks, Water oaks, Shumard oaks, and Pin oaks) and they'd like to give them away. I said yes, and we very much need your members to volunteer some hours to help take these little trees out of the paper bundle of 100 trees, put 1 or 2 in a bag, tape the top of the bag with masking tape, and give them to people who will promise to water them once or twice a week for several months so they will get a good start. So if you have 3 or more hours to help give away trees to help global warming, please email or call me ASAP, so I can plan who'll be there to take care of the give-away table: Location: Wal-Mart on Mall Drive at Joyce Street, a block west of College. Near the Garden Center 10 AM-4 PM (3 hour shifts, 10-1 and 1-4, or the whole 6 hours) Three people per shift, some bagging, some taping, and some handing out trees and putting the planting info sheet with them An easy way to green up some bare places you may know of, too. Take some home to your yard, church, school, or farm! Give some to neighbors who lost a tree in a storm, etc. There are also openings at the Rogers Wal-Mart on Walnut Street on the l9th!!
Thanks so much for making this a success: please call me at 530-8328 My cell phone is in the 479 area code so Fayetteville friends don't need to make a long-distance call to reach me in Little Rock. Or you can email me at Dina_Nash@yahoo.com .
Thanks, Dina Nash, Vice Pres. Central AR Sierra Club 479-530-8328 Little Rock
If you can't reach Dina, you may call Aubrey Shepherd at 479-444-6072 for information. You need not be a Sierra Club member to participate.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Friday, April 4, 2008
Monday, March 31, 2008
Gov. Beebe addresses joint session of Arkansas General Assembly
JOINT SESSION of the Arkansas legislature
Governor Mike Beebe addressed a joint session of the 86th Arkansas General Assembly today.
Governor Beebe Addresses Joint Session
Thank you Mr. Speaker and Mr. President for the invitation to address this joint session of the 86th General Assembly convening for this extraordinary session.
First, let me offer my thanks to all of you for responding to the call, for setting aside your personal and business interests and returning to the Capitol to take up the people’s business once again.
The privilege of service requires some sacrifice because this is a citizen legislature.
And this group has already proven how effective a group of citizens, working together to find solutions to complex problems, can be.
This 86th General Assembly has addressed, to the great benefit of the people of Arkansas, two of this State’s longest-standing, public-policy challenges:
You have approved a budget that sets us firmly on the path toward providing excellence in education for our children, and in doing so earned our release from court supervision and placed us firmly on the path toward excellence in our public schools.
You have cut in half the state’s most punitive and regressive tax, the sales tax on groceries.
Either of these achievements would have been sufficient to mark this group as one of the most accomplished in recent history, but your determination in tackling both issues is a feat of which this group can be very proud.
Today, you come together to address another policy question of historic significance to Arkansas.
At three-tenths of 1 cent per thousand cubic feet, Arkansas’s severance tax on natural gas provides inadequate compensation to the people of this State for the removal of such a valuable, non-renewable natural resource.
Legislators and Governors have wrestled with this issue unsuccessfully for more than 50 years.
We’re a small state, historically poor. Attracting outside investment and economic activity has always been a high priority, and our abundant natural resources have been our greatest lure.
But I believe that in our effort to be hospitable to business interests we have undervalued our resources – particularly our natural gas. They are rare, they are precious and they can only be sold once.
We speak often of managing our natural resources to the benefit of future generations of Arkansans; and in this case, it has never been more important for us to keep our word.
We are selling an asset, and removing it from the Arkansas that future generations will inherit. We must remember that we are negotiating on their behalf and ensure that we are receiving just compensation that can be invested for the benefit of Arkansans – both present and future.
Now, there is a balance that must be struck: The development of the Fayetteville shale play is already paying huge dividends to our State, and we can’t afford to discourage the billions in investment that we anticipate in the coming years.
The jobs alone will generate billions of dollars in economic activity and create millions in additional revenue for the State.
My goal throughout the negotiations with the industry has been to find that middle ground; to provide a solution that is fair to Arkansans but that does not create a disincentive for the investment that the industry is making in our state.
The bill that has been submitted for your consideration does both, and I ask that you give it your support.
This proposal is a rare opportunity to create a new funding source for highway improvement in Arkansas without increasing the tax burden on the majority of everyday Arkansans.
Highways are critical to our economic-development strategy: Good roads are one of the most important things government can provide as incentive for job creation and business investment.
While this solution will not erase the funding gap we face in addressing our highway needs, it will provide much needed capital for maintenance and repair – especially of our bridges – as well as expansion and new construction where we need it most.
We cannot forget that these projects create economic expansion and jobs for our people as well.
I’ve been told, many times, and I know many of you have heard as well, that the money that we appropriated for highways in last year’s general session allowed many contractors to run full crews through the summer – providing both needed highway repairs and jobs for Arkansans.
So this bill is not an “either-or” proposition.
We are encouraging the gas industry to continue to invest in exploration and production, and at the same time creating new economic activity in the construction industry.
It’s a prudent, targeted approach designed to turn one economic windfall into additional expansion of our State’s economy.
Opportunities such as this one appear very infrequently, so when they do arrive, we must make the most of them.
You have already made historic strides toward excellent education for our children and tax relief on the necessities of life for everyday Arkansans.
I call upon you to take one more step, one that 24 legislatures before you could not take, but one that will benefit all Arkansans today, and help build a strong infrastructure for the Arkansas of tomorrow.
Governor Mike Beebe addressed a joint session of the 86th Arkansas General Assembly today.
Governor Beebe Addresses Joint Session
Thank you Mr. Speaker and Mr. President for the invitation to address this joint session of the 86th General Assembly convening for this extraordinary session.
First, let me offer my thanks to all of you for responding to the call, for setting aside your personal and business interests and returning to the Capitol to take up the people’s business once again.
The privilege of service requires some sacrifice because this is a citizen legislature.
And this group has already proven how effective a group of citizens, working together to find solutions to complex problems, can be.
This 86th General Assembly has addressed, to the great benefit of the people of Arkansas, two of this State’s longest-standing, public-policy challenges:
You have approved a budget that sets us firmly on the path toward providing excellence in education for our children, and in doing so earned our release from court supervision and placed us firmly on the path toward excellence in our public schools.
You have cut in half the state’s most punitive and regressive tax, the sales tax on groceries.
Either of these achievements would have been sufficient to mark this group as one of the most accomplished in recent history, but your determination in tackling both issues is a feat of which this group can be very proud.
Today, you come together to address another policy question of historic significance to Arkansas.
At three-tenths of 1 cent per thousand cubic feet, Arkansas’s severance tax on natural gas provides inadequate compensation to the people of this State for the removal of such a valuable, non-renewable natural resource.
Legislators and Governors have wrestled with this issue unsuccessfully for more than 50 years.
We’re a small state, historically poor. Attracting outside investment and economic activity has always been a high priority, and our abundant natural resources have been our greatest lure.
But I believe that in our effort to be hospitable to business interests we have undervalued our resources – particularly our natural gas. They are rare, they are precious and they can only be sold once.
We speak often of managing our natural resources to the benefit of future generations of Arkansans; and in this case, it has never been more important for us to keep our word.
We are selling an asset, and removing it from the Arkansas that future generations will inherit. We must remember that we are negotiating on their behalf and ensure that we are receiving just compensation that can be invested for the benefit of Arkansans – both present and future.
Now, there is a balance that must be struck: The development of the Fayetteville shale play is already paying huge dividends to our State, and we can’t afford to discourage the billions in investment that we anticipate in the coming years.
The jobs alone will generate billions of dollars in economic activity and create millions in additional revenue for the State.
My goal throughout the negotiations with the industry has been to find that middle ground; to provide a solution that is fair to Arkansans but that does not create a disincentive for the investment that the industry is making in our state.
The bill that has been submitted for your consideration does both, and I ask that you give it your support.
This proposal is a rare opportunity to create a new funding source for highway improvement in Arkansas without increasing the tax burden on the majority of everyday Arkansans.
Highways are critical to our economic-development strategy: Good roads are one of the most important things government can provide as incentive for job creation and business investment.
While this solution will not erase the funding gap we face in addressing our highway needs, it will provide much needed capital for maintenance and repair – especially of our bridges – as well as expansion and new construction where we need it most.
We cannot forget that these projects create economic expansion and jobs for our people as well.
I’ve been told, many times, and I know many of you have heard as well, that the money that we appropriated for highways in last year’s general session allowed many contractors to run full crews through the summer – providing both needed highway repairs and jobs for Arkansans.
So this bill is not an “either-or” proposition.
We are encouraging the gas industry to continue to invest in exploration and production, and at the same time creating new economic activity in the construction industry.
It’s a prudent, targeted approach designed to turn one economic windfall into additional expansion of our State’s economy.
Opportunities such as this one appear very infrequently, so when they do arrive, we must make the most of them.
You have already made historic strides toward excellent education for our children and tax relief on the necessities of life for everyday Arkansans.
I call upon you to take one more step, one that 24 legislatures before you could not take, but one that will benefit all Arkansans today, and help build a strong infrastructure for the Arkansas of tomorrow.
Vice Mayor Jordan asks legislators to pass severance tax
Severance Tax
As cities work hard to provide comprehensive transportation programs and fund needed projects, I support Governor Beebe’s natural gas severance tax proposal recently announced by the Governors office. Raising over 14.5 million annually in tax revenues for the municipal aid fund — would allow these severance tax revenues to go towards targeted city streets and an equally a similar amount for county roads thus reducing the further tax burdens on communities like Fayetteville. This is just another step in diversifying available revenues outside of local sales tax collections. I support this severance tax, and below is the communications I sent to our locally elected officials.
I am writing to encourage you to support and vote for Governor Beebe’s proposed legislation to increase the state severance tax on natural gas and dedicate 95% of the revenue as special revenues to be distributed as provided by the Arkansas Highway Revenue Distribution Law, § 27-70-201 et seq. Our constituents deserve a safe and efficient public transportation system, and I know that you share my commitment to doing all we can to achieve that result.
No one can deny that our transportation needs are great nor that the funding for our transportation system in Northwest Arkansas is inadequate to met those needs. As a member of the City Council and as Chair of the Street Committee, I am well aware of both the transportation needs and the construction costs for well designed streets. This legislation will not solve all of our transportation problems, but the revenue would be a significant contribution toward that goal.
Governor Beebe's proposal would generate an estimated $57 million next year and about $100 million annually by 2012. If 95 percent of that revenue is distributed under the Highway Revenue Distribution law, it eventually will mean an additional $14.25 million annually for the Municipal Aid Fund for streets and an additional $14.25 annually for the County Aid Fund for county roads, as well as an additional $66.5 million for state highways.
Thank you for your consideration of my request that you support this important legislation in the upcoming Special Session. I appreciate your dedication to public service, and I look forward to working with you on other issues of mutual concern in the future.
Sincerely,
Lioneld Jordan
1600 Arrowhead
Fayetteville , AR 72701
As cities work hard to provide comprehensive transportation programs and fund needed projects, I support Governor Beebe’s natural gas severance tax proposal recently announced by the Governors office. Raising over 14.5 million annually in tax revenues for the municipal aid fund — would allow these severance tax revenues to go towards targeted city streets and an equally a similar amount for county roads thus reducing the further tax burdens on communities like Fayetteville. This is just another step in diversifying available revenues outside of local sales tax collections. I support this severance tax, and below is the communications I sent to our locally elected officials.
I am writing to encourage you to support and vote for Governor Beebe’s proposed legislation to increase the state severance tax on natural gas and dedicate 95% of the revenue as special revenues to be distributed as provided by the Arkansas Highway Revenue Distribution Law, § 27-70-201 et seq. Our constituents deserve a safe and efficient public transportation system, and I know that you share my commitment to doing all we can to achieve that result.
No one can deny that our transportation needs are great nor that the funding for our transportation system in Northwest Arkansas is inadequate to met those needs. As a member of the City Council and as Chair of the Street Committee, I am well aware of both the transportation needs and the construction costs for well designed streets. This legislation will not solve all of our transportation problems, but the revenue would be a significant contribution toward that goal.
Governor Beebe's proposal would generate an estimated $57 million next year and about $100 million annually by 2012. If 95 percent of that revenue is distributed under the Highway Revenue Distribution law, it eventually will mean an additional $14.25 million annually for the Municipal Aid Fund for streets and an additional $14.25 annually for the County Aid Fund for county roads, as well as an additional $66.5 million for state highways.
Thank you for your consideration of my request that you support this important legislation in the upcoming Special Session. I appreciate your dedication to public service, and I look forward to working with you on other issues of mutual concern in the future.
Sincerely,
Lioneld Jordan
1600 Arrowhead
Fayetteville , AR 72701
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette says Governor calls special legislative session to pass severance tax
Governor calls special session
BY SETH BLOMELEY
Posted on Thursday, March 27, 2008
Gov. Mike Beebe issued the proclamation late Wednesday calling the 86 th General Assembly into special session starting Monday at noon to raise the severance tax on natural gas.
The proclamation, commonly referred to as the “call,” states that Arkansas is “rich in natural resources that enhance the economic well-being” but that they must be removed “responsibly and with the appropriate returns to the people.” Beebe, a Democrat, said earlier in the day that he now has 32 votes in the 35-member Senate to pass the tax and 81 votes in the 100-member House.
The measure has bipartisan support with at least six of the eight Republican senators signaling their support and about a dozen likely House yes votes from GOP members.
The administration has forecast that as much as $ 100 million a year could be received from the tax within a few years.
Beebe has said he wants to put 95 percent of that money toward state highways, and city and county roads. The other 5 percent could go for state general revenue.
The tax now collects about $ 660, 000 a year and is based on the volume of gas extracted. Beebe’s plan would make its market value a factor in the tax rate.
Natural-gas production companies pay the tax and will deduct a proportion of the money royalty owners get from them to help pay the tax. The percentage will depend on the percentage of returns that the royalty owners receive, usually about one-eighth.
Natural-gas experts have said the tax won’t be passed on to utility customers’ bills. Beebe’s plan contains a number of exemptions for new wells and for existing wells with low production. They will pay a rate that will be lower than the new rate but higher than the existing one.
Beebe has said some people wanted a higher tax and some wanted a smaller tax and that the final rate and exemptions in his plan were results of compromise with the industry.
Without that compromise, Beebe has said the tax couldn’t get through the Legislature. Under Amendment 19 to the state constitution, the rate of the severance tax cannot be raised apart from approval by the voters in an election or, in an emergency, by a three-fourths majority of the House of Representatives and the Senate. That would be 27 votes in the Senate, 75 in the House.
There are four other items on the special-session agenda.
One has to do with a marriage law passed in 2007 that left open the possibility that girls of any age could get married with their parents’ consent. Legislators have said that wasn’t their intent. Beebe said he’d like to strike that law and defer the cleanup in the state’s marriage-age laws to the 2009 regular session, which will begin in January.
Another issue has to do with a 2007 law that allows Pulaski County school districts to receive state dollars to offset legal fees if the districts are declared by a federal judge to be “unitary” (meeting desegregation requirements ). The law sets a June deadline, and Beebe would like to extend the deadline to November because a federal judge needs more time to consider the matter. Beebe expects the special session to last no more than three days, which is the minimum time needed to pass legislation and follow constitutional requirements in doing so.
Special sessions are generally short. Governors set their agendas and usually try to seek consensus from the Legislature beforehand to avoid drawn-out debate that could kill legislation and end up being a waste of time.
The longest special session in modern times was during the winter of 2003-04 when education funding was the topic. It lasted 61 days.
Special sessions cost the House and Senate about $ 25,000 a day combined, according to the estimates of legislative employees.
The proclamation’s agenda also calls for appropriations to pay the expenses of the special session and to confirm gubernatorial appointments. Hundreds of appointments await consideration, according to Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample.
Arkansas’ severance tax is three-tenths of 1 cent per 1, 000 cubic feet of gas. Set in 1957, it doesn’t take into account growth in the price of gas, which has greatly increased since then.
Beebe’s tax would be 5 percent on the proceeds production companies get on the sale of the gas, minus the cost of delivery.
Natural-gas industry experts have said the cost wouldn’t be passed on to customers’ utility bills because the price utilities pay production companies is largely set by the national market.
The plan calls for a 36-month reduced rate of 1. 5 percent for high-cost new wells and a 24-month reduced rate of 1. 5 percent for all other new wells. Another reduced rate of 1. 25 percent is possible indefinitely for low-producing wells, new or old.
Beebe announced Friday that he would call the special session.
Information for this article was contributed by Charlie Frago and Michael R. Wickline of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
BY SETH BLOMELEY
Posted on Thursday, March 27, 2008
Gov. Mike Beebe issued the proclamation late Wednesday calling the 86 th General Assembly into special session starting Monday at noon to raise the severance tax on natural gas.
The proclamation, commonly referred to as the “call,” states that Arkansas is “rich in natural resources that enhance the economic well-being” but that they must be removed “responsibly and with the appropriate returns to the people.” Beebe, a Democrat, said earlier in the day that he now has 32 votes in the 35-member Senate to pass the tax and 81 votes in the 100-member House.
The measure has bipartisan support with at least six of the eight Republican senators signaling their support and about a dozen likely House yes votes from GOP members.
The administration has forecast that as much as $ 100 million a year could be received from the tax within a few years.
Beebe has said he wants to put 95 percent of that money toward state highways, and city and county roads. The other 5 percent could go for state general revenue.
The tax now collects about $ 660, 000 a year and is based on the volume of gas extracted. Beebe’s plan would make its market value a factor in the tax rate.
Natural-gas production companies pay the tax and will deduct a proportion of the money royalty owners get from them to help pay the tax. The percentage will depend on the percentage of returns that the royalty owners receive, usually about one-eighth.
Natural-gas experts have said the tax won’t be passed on to utility customers’ bills. Beebe’s plan contains a number of exemptions for new wells and for existing wells with low production. They will pay a rate that will be lower than the new rate but higher than the existing one.
Beebe has said some people wanted a higher tax and some wanted a smaller tax and that the final rate and exemptions in his plan were results of compromise with the industry.
Without that compromise, Beebe has said the tax couldn’t get through the Legislature. Under Amendment 19 to the state constitution, the rate of the severance tax cannot be raised apart from approval by the voters in an election or, in an emergency, by a three-fourths majority of the House of Representatives and the Senate. That would be 27 votes in the Senate, 75 in the House.
There are four other items on the special-session agenda.
One has to do with a marriage law passed in 2007 that left open the possibility that girls of any age could get married with their parents’ consent. Legislators have said that wasn’t their intent. Beebe said he’d like to strike that law and defer the cleanup in the state’s marriage-age laws to the 2009 regular session, which will begin in January.
Another issue has to do with a 2007 law that allows Pulaski County school districts to receive state dollars to offset legal fees if the districts are declared by a federal judge to be “unitary” (meeting desegregation requirements ). The law sets a June deadline, and Beebe would like to extend the deadline to November because a federal judge needs more time to consider the matter. Beebe expects the special session to last no more than three days, which is the minimum time needed to pass legislation and follow constitutional requirements in doing so.
Special sessions are generally short. Governors set their agendas and usually try to seek consensus from the Legislature beforehand to avoid drawn-out debate that could kill legislation and end up being a waste of time.
The longest special session in modern times was during the winter of 2003-04 when education funding was the topic. It lasted 61 days.
Special sessions cost the House and Senate about $ 25,000 a day combined, according to the estimates of legislative employees.
The proclamation’s agenda also calls for appropriations to pay the expenses of the special session and to confirm gubernatorial appointments. Hundreds of appointments await consideration, according to Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample.
Arkansas’ severance tax is three-tenths of 1 cent per 1, 000 cubic feet of gas. Set in 1957, it doesn’t take into account growth in the price of gas, which has greatly increased since then.
Beebe’s tax would be 5 percent on the proceeds production companies get on the sale of the gas, minus the cost of delivery.
Natural-gas industry experts have said the cost wouldn’t be passed on to customers’ utility bills because the price utilities pay production companies is largely set by the national market.
The plan calls for a 36-month reduced rate of 1. 5 percent for high-cost new wells and a 24-month reduced rate of 1. 5 percent for all other new wells. Another reduced rate of 1. 25 percent is possible indefinitely for low-producing wells, new or old.
Beebe announced Friday that he would call the special session.
Information for this article was contributed by Charlie Frago and Michael R. Wickline of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Majority of gas wells qualify for exemption under Beebe's tax plan
Majority of [Gas] wells qualify for exemptions under Beebe's tax plan
Last Update: 3/25 8:29 am
LITTLE ROCK (AP) - The vast majority of the Arkansas' natural gas wells qualify for exemptions reducing their tax rates under a severance tax proposal to be considered at a special session later this month, according to state data.
Only 5 percent of the state's wells are classified as wells that would pay the full tax rate that has been proposed by Gov. Mike Beebe as a way to fund additional highway improvements, according to numbers provided by the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration and the state Oil and Gas Commission.
Beebe last week announced that he would call a special session beginning March 31 to consider raising the tax for the first time since 1957, saying he has more than enough votes necessary in both chambers to pass the tax hike. Beebe's proposal would place a 5 percent base tax on gas-sale proceeds received by producers with lowered rates for some wells. Passing the tax hike requires 27 votes in the Senate and 75 in the House.
Last Update: 3/25 8:29 am
LITTLE ROCK (AP) - The vast majority of the Arkansas' natural gas wells qualify for exemptions reducing their tax rates under a severance tax proposal to be considered at a special session later this month, according to state data.
Only 5 percent of the state's wells are classified as wells that would pay the full tax rate that has been proposed by Gov. Mike Beebe as a way to fund additional highway improvements, according to numbers provided by the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration and the state Oil and Gas Commission.
Beebe last week announced that he would call a special session beginning March 31 to consider raising the tax for the first time since 1957, saying he has more than enough votes necessary in both chambers to pass the tax hike. Beebe's proposal would place a 5 percent base tax on gas-sale proceeds received by producers with lowered rates for some wells. Passing the tax hike requires 27 votes in the Senate and 75 in the House.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Friday, March 21, 2008
Beebe calls special session on Severance Tax, reports The Morning News
Please see
Beebe calls special session on severance tax, by The Morning News or look in today's paper for details.
Beebe calls special session on severance tax, by The Morning News or look in today's paper for details.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Danger of injecting chemicals beneath ground on drilling sites
From: Sue Skidmore [mailto:sue@hon-our-earth.net]
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2008 3:28 AM
To: MO-MultiIssue@yahoogroups. com; MO Rural Crisis Center; MPC
Subject: hideous
Importance: High
From: Tom Kruzen [mailto:kruzen3@hotmail.com]
Friends,
This article was posted on www.grassrootsozark.net by our Heartwood friend, Shawn Porter in Arkansas. He alerted us to not only this practice of injecting into groundwater such toxic and carcinogenic chemicals as diesel, benzene, xylene, toluene and ethyl benzene to bring up natural gas but that the USDA Forest Service may allow this practice in the newly proposed oil and gas drilling in the Quachita and Ozark National Forests in Arkansas. This hideous idea allegedly came from the demented mind of dick cheney while he was at Halliburton. Please read the article, funnel your rage to the appropriate political leaders below and think of ways to stop this! Please pass this article on to everyone you know!
-Tom Kruzen, volunteer
Missouri Water Sentinels
The River Reporter
Narrowsburg, New York
March 6-12, 2008
Congress investigates possible water contamination caused by gas well drilling
Local group considers legal action
By TOM KANE
UNITED STATES — Gas drilling companies in the nation are being accused of injecting toxic chemicals into the ground without government or industry oversight.
The U.S. House of Representative’s Oversight and Government Reform Committee is investigating the process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, used in the creation of gas wells, which allegedly has caused contamination of the drinking water in several locations around the country. In the fracking process, water, sand and other materials are injected deep into underground wells at high pressure to force out gas, which can then be recovered.
Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA), chair of the committee, began hearings on October 31, 2007 on the subject of diesel fuel and other toxic chemicals being mixed into the fracking fluid. He also sent a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) asking if the EPA was effectively monitoring a 2003 Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) that was intended to eliminate these injections into the underground sources of drinking water.
Waxman said in the October memo that while the EPA claimed that it was actively monitoring the drilling, “the basis for your statement appears to be less than impressive: a hastily collected set of three e-mails amounting to just half a dozen sentences.”
In the hearings Waxman held, a succession of scientists—a medical toxicologist, a national recognized endocrinologist, a member of Trout Unlimited, a senior policy analyst of a national defense council and several landowners—claimed that gas companies not only injected diesel fuel into the fracking liquid as a part of their drilling, but also injected benezine, toluene, ethyl benzene and xylene into the liquid, which in turn contaminated drinking water, causing serious physical ailments in residents.
The Waxman hearings
According to Chemical and Engineering News, which reported on the hearings in a February 8 article, hearing witness Dr. Theo Colborn, a Ph D. in zoology and president of the Endocrine Disruption Exchange, a non-profit group that focuses on health problems from low-dose chemical exposures, said, “The toxic chemicals are employed for fracturing operations and are added to alter the underground strata to allow methane to escape up the well pipe. We have identified 171 products used in Colorado containing altogether 245 different chemicals, 92 percent of which have adverse health effects.”
Dr. Daniel T. Teitelbaum, an occupational physician and toxicologist, in testimony before the committee, said, “There is no data base of those exposed as workers or as residents near the extraction or processing. Although there have been documented health complaints by residents, no government agency has asked for an investigation,” he said. “The fact that neither government nor industry has undertaken these critical exposure/outcome health studies is inexcusable.”
Lack of oversight
Opponents of the drilling process claim that the lack of oversight goes back to an energy policy meeting convened by Vice President Dick Cheney, held back from Congressional oversight, that recommended that Congress exempt hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act. The exemption was passed as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
Halliburton, of which Cheney is a former CEO, created the fracking technique.
At the time, an editorial comment from the Oil and Gas Accountability Project (www.ogap.org), a non-profit group with the mission of working with tribal, urban and rural communities to protect their homes and the environment, made the following report after studying the procedure of fracturing: “The National Energy Bill currently pending before the Congress includes this exemption. If passed, states, municipalities, and individual property owners will have to bear the burden of any clean-up, health risk and loss of property values associated with ground-water contamination caused by hydraulic fracturing.”
Local opposition
A group of residents and friends called Damascus Citizens for Self Government have been attempting to educate residents on the dangers that can accompany gas drilling and fracturing. Upon learning of the Waxman hearing alleging the dangers of the widespread practice of fracturing, the group has contacted renowned environmental attorney Richard Lippes, who served as counsel to plaintiffs of the famous Love Canal case.
“We are in conversation with Mr. Lippes and are examining our options at this time,” said Barbara Arrindell, a spokesperson for the group..
“I have agreed to represent the group and to investigate if the option of going to court would be useful,” Lippes said. “Oil and gas drilling may adversely affect the local environment and we would do whatever is necessary to provide protection to the people and their property.”
Lippes also represents the Upper Delaware Preservation Coalition in its fight against the New York Regional Interconnect’s proposal to build a power line through the area.
Representative Henry A. Waxman (D - 30)
DC Phone: 202-225-3976
DC Fax: 202-225-4099
Email: http://www.house.gov/waxman/contact.htm
Bond, Christopher S.- (R - MO)
274 RUSSELL SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
202) 224-5721
Web Form: bond.senate.gov/contact/contactme.cfm
McCaskill, Claire- (D – MO
717 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
202) 224-6154
Web Form: mccaskill.senate.gov/contact.cfm
Lincoln, Blanche L.- (D - AR
355 DIRKSEN SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
202 224-4843
Web Form: lincoln.senate.gov/webform.html
Pryor, Mark L.- (D - AR)
255 DIRKSEN SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
202) 224-2353
Web Form: pryor.senate.gov/contact/
Obama, Barack- (D – IL
713 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
202) 224-2854
Web Form: obama.senate.gov/contact/
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D- NY)
Phone: 202-228-0282
Fax: 202-224-4451
http://clinton.senate.gov/contact/webform.cfm
McCain, John- (R - AZ
241 RUSSELL SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
202) 224-2235
Web Form: mccain.senate.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=Contact.Home
To find out your legislators, go to:
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/cgi-bin/newseek.cgi?site=ctc&state=ny
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2008 3:28 AM
To: MO-MultiIssue@yahoogroups. com; MO Rural Crisis Center; MPC
Subject: hideous
Importance: High
From: Tom Kruzen [mailto:kruzen3@hotmail.com]
Friends,
This article was posted on www.grassrootsozark.net by our Heartwood friend, Shawn Porter in Arkansas. He alerted us to not only this practice of injecting into groundwater such toxic and carcinogenic chemicals as diesel, benzene, xylene, toluene and ethyl benzene to bring up natural gas but that the USDA Forest Service may allow this practice in the newly proposed oil and gas drilling in the Quachita and Ozark National Forests in Arkansas. This hideous idea allegedly came from the demented mind of dick cheney while he was at Halliburton. Please read the article, funnel your rage to the appropriate political leaders below and think of ways to stop this! Please pass this article on to everyone you know!
-Tom Kruzen, volunteer
Missouri Water Sentinels
The River Reporter
Narrowsburg, New York
March 6-12, 2008
Congress investigates possible water contamination caused by gas well drilling
Local group considers legal action
By TOM KANE
UNITED STATES — Gas drilling companies in the nation are being accused of injecting toxic chemicals into the ground without government or industry oversight.
The U.S. House of Representative’s Oversight and Government Reform Committee is investigating the process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, used in the creation of gas wells, which allegedly has caused contamination of the drinking water in several locations around the country. In the fracking process, water, sand and other materials are injected deep into underground wells at high pressure to force out gas, which can then be recovered.
Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA), chair of the committee, began hearings on October 31, 2007 on the subject of diesel fuel and other toxic chemicals being mixed into the fracking fluid. He also sent a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) asking if the EPA was effectively monitoring a 2003 Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) that was intended to eliminate these injections into the underground sources of drinking water.
Waxman said in the October memo that while the EPA claimed that it was actively monitoring the drilling, “the basis for your statement appears to be less than impressive: a hastily collected set of three e-mails amounting to just half a dozen sentences.”
In the hearings Waxman held, a succession of scientists—a medical toxicologist, a national recognized endocrinologist, a member of Trout Unlimited, a senior policy analyst of a national defense council and several landowners—claimed that gas companies not only injected diesel fuel into the fracking liquid as a part of their drilling, but also injected benezine, toluene, ethyl benzene and xylene into the liquid, which in turn contaminated drinking water, causing serious physical ailments in residents.
The Waxman hearings
According to Chemical and Engineering News, which reported on the hearings in a February 8 article, hearing witness Dr. Theo Colborn, a Ph D. in zoology and president of the Endocrine Disruption Exchange, a non-profit group that focuses on health problems from low-dose chemical exposures, said, “The toxic chemicals are employed for fracturing operations and are added to alter the underground strata to allow methane to escape up the well pipe. We have identified 171 products used in Colorado containing altogether 245 different chemicals, 92 percent of which have adverse health effects.”
Dr. Daniel T. Teitelbaum, an occupational physician and toxicologist, in testimony before the committee, said, “There is no data base of those exposed as workers or as residents near the extraction or processing. Although there have been documented health complaints by residents, no government agency has asked for an investigation,” he said. “The fact that neither government nor industry has undertaken these critical exposure/outcome health studies is inexcusable.”
Lack of oversight
Opponents of the drilling process claim that the lack of oversight goes back to an energy policy meeting convened by Vice President Dick Cheney, held back from Congressional oversight, that recommended that Congress exempt hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act. The exemption was passed as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
Halliburton, of which Cheney is a former CEO, created the fracking technique.
At the time, an editorial comment from the Oil and Gas Accountability Project (www.ogap.org), a non-profit group with the mission of working with tribal, urban and rural communities to protect their homes and the environment, made the following report after studying the procedure of fracturing: “The National Energy Bill currently pending before the Congress includes this exemption. If passed, states, municipalities, and individual property owners will have to bear the burden of any clean-up, health risk and loss of property values associated with ground-water contamination caused by hydraulic fracturing.”
Local opposition
A group of residents and friends called Damascus Citizens for Self Government have been attempting to educate residents on the dangers that can accompany gas drilling and fracturing. Upon learning of the Waxman hearing alleging the dangers of the widespread practice of fracturing, the group has contacted renowned environmental attorney Richard Lippes, who served as counsel to plaintiffs of the famous Love Canal case.
“We are in conversation with Mr. Lippes and are examining our options at this time,” said Barbara Arrindell, a spokesperson for the group..
“I have agreed to represent the group and to investigate if the option of going to court would be useful,” Lippes said. “Oil and gas drilling may adversely affect the local environment and we would do whatever is necessary to provide protection to the people and their property.”
Lippes also represents the Upper Delaware Preservation Coalition in its fight against the New York Regional Interconnect’s proposal to build a power line through the area.
Representative Henry A. Waxman (D - 30)
DC Phone: 202-225-3976
DC Fax: 202-225-4099
Email: http://www.house.gov/waxman/contact.htm
Bond, Christopher S.- (R - MO)
274 RUSSELL SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
202) 224-5721
Web Form: bond.senate.gov/contact/contactme.cfm
McCaskill, Claire- (D – MO
717 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
202) 224-6154
Web Form: mccaskill.senate.gov/contact.cfm
Lincoln, Blanche L.- (D - AR
355 DIRKSEN SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
202 224-4843
Web Form: lincoln.senate.gov/webform.html
Pryor, Mark L.- (D - AR)
255 DIRKSEN SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
202) 224-2353
Web Form: pryor.senate.gov/contact/
Obama, Barack- (D – IL
713 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
202) 224-2854
Web Form: obama.senate.gov/contact/
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D- NY)
Phone: 202-228-0282
Fax: 202-224-4451
http://clinton.senate.gov/contact/webform.cfm
McCain, John- (R - AZ
241 RUSSELL SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
202) 224-2235
Web Form: mccain.senate.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=Contact.Home
To find out your legislators, go to:
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/cgi-bin/newseek.cgi?site=ctc&state=ny
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Developers give short notice of their plan to meet with Town Branch Neighborhood, City Council members. Neighbors surprised.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Green Drinks every first Wednesday at Smiling Jacks behind Dickson Street Bookstore
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
5:30 pm to 7:00 pm
GREEN DRINKS!
A FIRST-WEDNESDAY-OF-EVERY-MONTH SOCIAL will be at Smiling Jack's Fresh Foods behind Dickson Street Bookstore.
Offering all natural, organic, and locally grown foods, wine, and beer in a cozy college-town restaurant atmosphere.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Governor's support needed on conservation issues
When do we get a strong statement from Governor Beebe on the environmental issues we face in Arkansas? The ADEQ and other state agencies involved with environmental conservation still appear to be operating under antiquated, Republican-promulgated rules.
Turn the inspectors lose and stop the abuse!
Turn the inspectors lose and stop the abuse!
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Governor's, Sheffield Nelson's plans differ
Beebe negotiating on severance tax 2/27/08
According to The Morning News, "Beebe opposes Nelson's plan because it would divvy proceeds of the tax increase among higher education, highway improvements and local governments. The governor wants to earmark an increase strictly to highways."
Nelson's plan is obviously written from an insider's perspective. He knows what is reasonable from the industry standpoint and he wants to spread the proceeds to benefit more people. However, neither plan mentions environmental problems related to gas production and drilling.
An equal share to guarantee environmental protectioin would help everyone. At a minimum, the fee should provide ongoing funding for a huge staff of inspectors with the power to instantly enforce environmental laws on well sites and roads built to drilling sites.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Gas-well sites pollute in many ways
Center for Watershed Protection free download of stream-protection brochures
PLEASE CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE
Gas-well sites require large areas of surface disturbance
PLEASE CLICK ON IMAGES TO RESTORE.
Who pays to restore these sites? The severance tax should be raised and a large fund created to guarantee that no site is left unrestored.
Fayetteville shale natural-gas exploration in Arkansas of special concern
PLEASE CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE.
Severance Tax in Arkansas is far too low
We need it raised before the cost of environmental damage starts hitting landowners and government agencies.
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