Conversations from the Region: Water Roads

Our region will always try to define the Marcellus experience. Some think it’s good; some see an irreversible threat; some think of it as both. What we need is a commitment to make Marcellus development better and safer. While not everyone may be on board, there is a clear swing towards improving operations and technology to make development better and safer. I thought I would share two recent items.

Last week, I was involved in a conversation with some folks that weren’t convinced any improvements or progress are being made to reduce the impact of Marcellus Shale development. I thought I would share how this conversation went.

“There are still problems with gas companies destroying local roads. How are taxpayers going to handle that?”

No doubt that development activity is hammering local roads. There are lots of heavy trucks traveling on roads that were never built to handle the use. But there is a change underway to make this work better. This summer PennDOT issued guidelines primarily for the gas industry, but also for other heavy haulers. These guidelines included mandatory roadway maintenance and repair strategies. These strategies have to be submitted to PennDOT within 24 hours of a report of critical road condition. The strategies outline the contractor to be used, what materials will be used to repair to road, if the material will be replaced prior to June 30 following the winter, and so on. All actions relating to the strategies will be paid for by the gas companies. An article by John Beauge in the September edition of Northeast Pennsylvania Business Journal describes how Chesapeake Energy has spent $15 million since spring repairing roads in Lycoming, Sullivan, Bradford, and Tioga counties and their plan is to spend another $15 million before the end of 2010. The inconvenience of a damaged road isn’t avoided; but the cost is being passed from the tax payer to the gas company. A good and necessary step I think.

This summer, Williamsport Sun-Gazette published a letter to the editor that describes the frustration citizens have with how water used in Marcellus development is regulated. The writer stated:

“It will be a cold day when I save a few gallons of water as long as the gas companies are using millions per day.”

I can understand how people felt this way as Lycoming County teetered on the edge of a drought. But in many cases the gas companies already had their water withdrawals shut down. Using flow data, the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) establishes a “flow by restriction” for anyone that applies for a permit to withdraw water for Marcellus use. This rule is simple: Once the water quantity in a river or stream approaches that flow by restriction level no water can be withdrawn. When the stream or river rises above that level, no withdraws can occur for an additional 48 hours. This regulation deals with just the water quantity in our rivers. In addition, SRBC has installed 24 monitoring stations mostly in northern PA to keep track of pH levels, temperature, dissolved solids, turbidity, and other quality measurements. By the end of 2010 there should be a total of 50. This information will be available “real-time” on the SRBC website. The cost of these stations was paid for by the gas industry, not taxpayers. To me this seems like a focused and transparent approach to make development safer.

Soon I’ll be posting some other conversations and comments from around the region. If you have a concern or comment, send it in. I’ll give you a response. Thanks.