Insurance Claim

New York is the third largest consumer among the United States of natural gas.  And it’s also the area from where most of the hot air arises when it comes to purposeful misinformation and blatant hypocrisy.  I don’t believe a correlation exists between the two, but I’m sure their legislators in Albany could be talked into spending more money the state DOESN’T have to study possible connections between the two and the anti-drill crowd could then include that argument in their already never-ending arsenal of reasons why they don’t want NG drilling in their state.  I will take this moment to remind you, these reasons, as ludicrous as they sound to those of us around the industry, have managed to keep a drilling moratorium in place for three long years now.

Some of you might have heard about the ATGAS well in Bradford County PA where workers lost control of the wellhead during fracturing of the well on April 19, and because of the massive rain torrents received this spring, it was determined some of the fluid probably leaked into the nearby river.  Before the incident was even a couple of hours old, the gloom-and-doom crowd was lamenting how many gallons of heavily chemically laced fluid might have gone into the stream and what ramifications it would have.  They played armchair quarterback, criticizing everything from the amount of time it took for officials to be contacted, to the engineering of the equipment and demanded if a moratorium in Pennsylvania isn’t going to be enacted, then even more regulations need to be put in place.  From initial reports, it appears the water pressure took out one bolt, which compromised the other bolts’ ability to keep the wellhead in place.  Initial water testing results show no environmental impact has been experienced by the river life, the amount of fluid lost is much, much less than original reports, and Chesapeake has released the chemicals used in the frac phase for this well onto fracfocus.com.  My very smart husband has run the numbers and the amount of chemicals used were minimal. 

Now, in comparison, did anyone hear what happened in Vestal, New York on Monday?  A 15-foot concrete wall responsible for holding 580,000 gallons of sewage material within three treatment cells, shattered without warning Monday, causing an unprecedented and unquantifiable release from Broome County's major wastewater treatment plant AND it dumped into a nearby creek.  Keep in mind, Broome County is a hot spot for pro versus no drill arguments.  On Tuesday, the failure had as of yet went unexplained and it was unknown the amount of wastewater that had found its way to the creek.  You would think the environmentalists who rally the cry “Drilling is Evil” might have been tempted to take on a new cause.  Nope, they hardly batted an eye, just kept right on using the same tiring arguments against drilling:  namely bad industry practices, use of dangerous chemicals, and improper oversight.  An inspection of the structure this year in February found at least 157 deficiencies at the plant, many of which were structural concerns probably as a result of inadequate construction management.  Partially treated wastewater (as far as I can tell, still unknown) and about 250 tons of “rock media” ran into the creek and a parking lot.  Only about half of the rock media is expected to be recoverable.  And while the plant continues to process the wastewater best as it can, the discharged water now has higher nitrogen content than previously.  One pro-drilling advocate, noticing the lack of concern and no noticeable decrease of the anti-drill activity, has deemed it selective outcry.

And while we are on a crappy subject – (feel free to roll your eyes!) Late last year a small company, Inflection Energy, approached the Village of Owego, NY, and offered to buy their effluent, their wastewater, for using in their fracing operations.  The debate which ensued shows it’s not just the hydraulic fracturing the anti-gassers oppose, but anything that does or could pertain to drilling.  They swept in like hawks to protect (read: sway opinion with their fear-mongering techniques) this little town from all the troubles that would ensue, with their major focus being on the increased truck traffic.  Never mind the amount of trucks going to and from the already existing industrial area or the fact there is an existing train depot where transport takes place.  In a press release dated March 22 this year, the lone supporter of the deal, Owego Mayor Ed Arrington, issued the following.  Reminding his constituents that Inflection was responsible for all start-up costs, he stated, “The only way Inflection could recoup their cost was to buy water (from the town) and pay property rental (to the town) for access to the river.” He also expanded on what the loss of the deal would mean to village taxpayers. “Federally mandated upgrades… to the Village Wastewater Treatment Facility (in order to bring them into compliance with the new Chesapeake Bay water quality standards) have an estimated cost of 7.2 million dollars. What that means to the taxpayers is that without the deal with Inflection Energy … sewer bills could increase by approximately 40%, this is in addition to the 38% increase implemented in 2010… the village taxpayers have lost the potential to receive 50.5 million dollars [over the next 10 years].” http://owegopennysaver.com/index.php/2011/03/27/owego-board-votes-t...

Speaking of the Chesapeake Bay (quickly), the AG of Maryland, in another waste of taxpayers’ money and the ever wonderful political posturing of which only an avid anti would engage has decided to sue Chesapeake Energy over the aforementioned incident in Bradford County, just in case some of the frac chemicals wind up in the Bay.  Truly folks, for those of you who are fans of its reading material, some of this sounds like something from The Onion.  But, even if I wanted to, I don’t think I possess the necessary imagination to even start making some of this stuff up.  I DO know, for much longer than drilling has been occurring in the Marcellus, there has been a long-standing understanding that you don’t eat more than two fish per month caught out of local rivers.  It seems over the years, the waterways been subjected to considerable amounts of mercury.

I’ll leave you with one other water related anecdote and then call it good for this post.  The Delaware River Basin is in or is the watershed for NYC.  It covers three states and a small sliver of it might lie within a provable Marcellus region.  Shortly after catching wind that drilling could conceivably occur within the basin, the Delaware River Basin Commission took it upon itself to rewrite the DRBC’s regulations on industrial activities.  The new draft regulations would effectively prohibit ALL gas drilling.  For once, the two sides agreed the DRAFT regulations were unsatisfactory, the pro-drilling side arguing they were overstepping state regulations, and the opponents arguing they weren’t restrictive enough, because they didn’t ban drilling all together.

One of the major quarrels in this region is the amount of water used in hydraulic fracturing is “too much” and will eventually be detrimental to the streams and rivers.  The argument is set forth in such a way by the other side, they would have people believing water withdrawn to be used for fracing (apparently only fracing – other withdrawals are OK?) cause the rivers to dry up.  One interesting, trivial (to them) piece of information they tend to leave out; leaks in the Basin’s aqueduct are responsible for the loss of 10 to 35 million gallons of water EACH DAY!

View the original article here

As I ponder how best to start this blog, I suppose it would be most logical to start from the beginning of the journey. Of course I didn’t think of it that way at first. All I wanted to do was correct a media article. But I get ahead of myself…

My husband and I relocated to NE Pennsylvania two years ago this July, both of us having for the most part been born and raised in Wyoming State, always in or around some sort of mining or drilling of. He broke out drilling the CBM fields of the Powder River Basin and then moved onto bigger and better rigs in the Piceance Basin in Colorado. After the field there died for a little while around Obama’s election he transferred to Pennsylvania. Knowing how difficult it was on our family even with his work being a simple day’s drive away, and considering the extra flight expenses, we made the difficult decision to leave our home.

The first year here wasn’t bad. In fact, despite all the trepidation I’d had about moving, I was completely in love with our new home. Our daughter was at the age we didn’t want to move her again, so we started looking for a home to purchase as we looked forward to being a part of our small community. While getting to know people at our new church, we got asked a lot of questions. It was evident as this play was ramping up the communication between O&G companies and the locals was sadly lacking. We did our best to answer questions the O&G companies should have been answering, but as the “new family in town”, you don’t immediately attain a circle of friends.

It was about nine months ago I discerned a change in attitude via the two local newspapers. While there had been little coverage regarding the industry in the year preceding, Letters to the Editor opposing the industry were finding their way into print, and the seedlings of misinformation were planted. The Dimock Jugheads were starting their rants and Gasland was released on HBO. One newspaper’s coverage, Wyalusing’s Rocket-Courier, was well-balanced, despite the LTEs, but one newspaper, the Wyoming County-Examiner, printed incomplete and mostly biased articles. Because of my questioning his bias, my Letters to the Editor must be written to exact rules if I want my letters to “see the light of day”. The Editor’s words not mine. Other authors don’t have to play by the rules, but pro-industry letters must. I know of at least one other author who has had these restrictions placed on him, which is sad because he has valuable information regarding the Dimock situation. How sad is it that you not only won’t cover the other side of drilling, but won’t allow the truth of a situation to be read in your newspaper? Same thing happens with nearest newspaper to Dimock, the Montrose Independent. Same editor and same policies, with the one difference being there is a definite lack of ANY drilling-related news, because Cabot's office is located there and many business and people have benefited from the drilling occurring in Susquehanna County.

Around this same time I became aware of the drilling moratorium in New York. Tons and tons of anti-drill organizations abound. If you want a stark contrast to the information being propagated by both sides, Google “fracking” versus hydraulic fracturing. Don’t forget to take a gander at NYRAD’s site, the front-runner of all anti-drilling organizations. Please note, opponents have successfully hijacked the original meaning of the word. One proud anti stated, they now use “fracking” to indicate every aspect of the gas extraction process from “the moment the landman knocks on the door until the last lawsuit is settled.” Part of this new re-education process includes cult-like meetings and appearances of people with concerns about our water. Their arguments are all basically the same – emotion driven, little or no fact. Because they HAVE fought a well-organized battle, forming a battle plan before the first round was fired, it caught many unaware. They have been very effective at appearing there are many, when in reality they are a vocal minority. Yet they capture so much of the media attention, it has made the middle ground pro-drillers feel they are the minority and makes them less likely to speak up or speak out. And when they do, they are quick to burn gas company supply sheds or damage pro-driller property with spray-painted swastikas and hate remarks.

Meetings are held by those with an agenda under the form of information forums. I have attended a handful of these meetings since January and unluckily, not enough pro-drillers come out to support the industry. Instead those who attend in search of information are subjected to speeches about how HF fluid will make its way up through the formations and all water will be contaminated. This is highlighted by cases in Dimock, Wyoming, and other places – high profile cases in which newspapers jumped the gun in blaming natural gas companies, but no follow-up given to clear their names when the actual causes were found to be something other than NG.

There’s more, but I will let it stand for that now. I stay busy in my self-imposed position of domestic energy advocate. In just the next three weeks I will be attending the showing of the film “Frack” in Montrose (tomorrow) with a following appearance by Dish Texas ex Mayor Tillman. “Frack” is apparently an even more poorly done imitation of “Gasland”. I have some questions I would like to ask, but am unsure I will be able to stay until that point. They may not even let me in the door. First, the Montrose Theater is owned by one of the Dimock litigant’s relatives, thus the venue’s willingness to show the film, second a suggested $5 donation is being asked – I myself am not willing to cough up more than 2 cents – to give them that much of my mind if I can stay.

Then I will be attending a showing of Gas Odyssey in Windsor next week and lending my support to a panel of pro-drilling speakers. This event is being held in one of the more contentious areas of New York, around the area of Otsego and home to a number of elite and wealthy who are trying to “kill the drill”, but that’s a whole other subject for another entry and much purely speculation on my part at this time. The week after that, I and the producers of Gas Odyssey are traveling all the way up to Albany for “Lobby Day” to address staffers. They walk, we talk if they ask questions. (I do NOT do speaking engagements!) At least some find my experiences valuable regarding many years of being involved with the field.

If you like, I will try to post something each week if there is enough interest. If you have any questions in the meanwhile, please feel free to ask.

Comment by Overshot on April 27, 2011 at 8:10pm Please keep us updated Sherry.
I know what you have encountered in the groups you have (tried) to address, an openly hostile, non-reasoning audience that does NOT want to engage in a reasonable and reasoned discussion.
Keep the faith sister, don't lose hope. Comment by Lesa R on May 16, 2011 at 9:09am

So far most of the people I have met who go around saying "No Fracking" cannot give me any explanation other than ,"Well it is soooo bad."

There was a forum on PBS a few months ago, and it upset my husband enough that he wrote the station and also told me that we would not be sending our pledge in this year. I really hate the media sometimes.

Comment by Amber Horn on May 19, 2011 at 7:53pm People fight that which they do not understand. If they really understood a well-drilled/cased/cemented/perfed and fraced well, perhaps they wouldn't be so hostile......then again, it seems our nation praises ignorance...Comment

View the original article here

 

New York is the third largest consumer among the United States of natural gas.  And it’s also the area from where most of the hot air arises when it comes to purposeful misinformation and blatant hypocrisy.  I don’t believe a correlation exists between the two, but I’m sure their legislators in Albany could be talked into spending more money the state DOESN’T have to study possible connections between the two and the anti-drill crowd could then include that argument in their already never-ending arsenal of reasons why they don’t want NG drilling in their state.  I will take this moment to remind you, these reasons, as ludicrous as they sound to those of us around the industry, have managed to keep a drilling moratorium in place for three long years now.

Some of you might have heard about the ATGAS well in Bradford County PA where workers lost control of the wellhead during fracturing of the well on April 19, and because of the massive rain torrents received this spring, it was determined some of the fluid probably leaked into the nearby river.  Before the incident was even a couple of hours old, the gloom-and-doom crowd was lamenting how many gallons of heavily chemically laced fluid might have gone into the stream and what ramifications it would have.  They played armchair quarterback, criticizing everything from the amount of time it took for officials to be contacted, to the engineering of the equipment and demanded if a moratorium in Pennsylvania isn’t going to be enacted, then even more regulations need to be put in place.  From initial reports, it appears the water pressure took out one bolt, which compromised the other bolts’ ability to keep the wellhead in place.  Initial water testing results show no environmental impact has been experienced by the river life, the amount of fluid lost is much, much less than original reports, and Chesapeake has released the chemicals used in the frac phase for this well onto fracfocus.com.  My very smart husband has run the numbers and the amount of chemicals used were minimal. 

Now, in comparison, did anyone hear what happened in Vestal, New York on Monday?  A 15-foot concrete wall responsible for holding 580,000 gallons of sewage material within three treatment cells, shattered without warning Monday, causing an unprecedented and unquantifiable release from Broome County's major wastewater treatment plant AND it dumped into a nearby creek.  Keep in mind, Broome County is a hot spot for pro versus no drill arguments.  On Tuesday, the failure had as of yet went unexplained and it was unknown the amount of wastewater that had found its way to the creek.  You would think the environmentalists who rally the cry “Drilling is Evil” might have been tempted to take on a new cause.  Nope, they hardly batted an eye, just kept right on using the same tiring arguments against drilling:  namely bad industry practices, use of dangerous chemicals, and improper oversight.  An inspection of the structure this year in February found at least 157 deficiencies at the plant, many of which were structural concerns probably as a result of inadequate construction management.  Partially treated wastewater (as far as I can tell, still unknown) and about 250 tons of “rock media” ran into the creek and a parking lot.  Only about half of the rock media is expected to be recoverable.  And while the plant continues to process the wastewater best as it can, the discharged water now has higher nitrogen content than previously.  One pro-drilling advocate, noticing the lack of concern and no noticeable decrease of the anti-drill activity, has deemed it selective outcry.

And while we are on a crappy subject – (feel free to roll your eyes!) Late last year a small company, Inflection Energy, approached the Village of Owego, NY, and offered to buy their effluent, their wastewater, for using in their fracing operations.  The debate which ensued shows it’s not just the hydraulic fracturing the anti-gassers oppose, but anything that does or could pertain to drilling.  They swept in like hawks to protect (read: sway opinion with their fear-mongering techniques) this little town from all the troubles that would ensue, with their major focus being on the increased truck traffic.  Never mind the amount of trucks going to and from the already existing industrial area or the fact there is an existing train depot where transport takes place.  In a press release dated March 22 this year, the lone supporter of the deal, Owego Mayor Ed Arrington, issued the following.  Reminding his constituents that Inflection was responsible for all start-up costs, he stated, “The only way Inflection could recoup their cost was to buy water (from the town) and pay property rental (to the town) for access to the river.” He also expanded on what the loss of the deal would mean to village taxpayers. “Federally mandated upgrades… to the Village Wastewater Treatment Facility (in order to bring them into compliance with the new Chesapeake Bay water quality standards) have an estimated cost of 7.2 million dollars. What that means to the taxpayers is that without the deal with Inflection Energy … sewer bills could increase by approximately 40%, this is in addition to the 38% increase implemented in 2010… the village taxpayers have lost the potential to receive 50.5 million dollars [over the next 10 years].” http://owegopennysaver.com/index.php/2011/03/27/owego-board-votes-t...

Speaking of the Chesapeake Bay (quickly), the AG of Maryland, in another waste of taxpayers’ money and the ever wonderful political posturing of which only an avid anti would engage has decided to sue Chesapeake Energy over the aforementioned incident in Bradford County, just in case some of the frac chemicals wind up in the Bay.  Truly folks, for those of you who are fans of its reading material, some of this sounds like something from The Onion.  But, even if I wanted to, I don’t think I possess the necessary imagination to even start making some of this stuff up.  I DO know, for much longer than drilling has been occurring in the Marcellus, there has been a long-standing understanding that you don’t eat more than two fish per month caught out of local rivers.  It seems over the years, the waterways been subjected to considerable amounts of mercury.

I’ll leave you with one other water related anecdote and then call it good for this post.  The Delaware River Basin is in or is the watershed for NYC.  It covers three states and a small sliver of it might lie within a provable Marcellus region.  Shortly after catching wind that drilling could conceivably occur within the basin, the Delaware River Basin Commission took it upon itself to rewrite the DRBC’s regulations on industrial activities.  The new draft regulations would effectively prohibit ALL gas drilling.  For once, the two sides agreed the DRAFT regulations were unsatisfactory, the pro-drilling side arguing they were overstepping state regulations, and the opponents arguing they weren’t restrictive enough, because they didn’t ban drilling all together.

One of the major quarrels in this region is the amount of water used in hydraulic fracturing is “too much” and will eventually be detrimental to the streams and rivers.  The argument is set forth in such a way by the other side, they would have people believing water withdrawn to be used for fracing (apparently only fracing – other withdrawals are OK?) cause the rivers to dry up.  One interesting, trivial (to them) piece of information they tend to leave out; leaks in the Basin’s aqueduct are responsible for the loss of 10 to 35 million gallons of water EACH DAY!

View the original article here

 As I ponder how best to start this blog, I suppose it would be most logical to start from the beginning of the journey. Of course I didn’t think of it that way at first. All I wanted to do was correct a media article. But I get ahead of myself…

My husband and I relocated to NE Pennsylvania two years ago this July, both of us having for the most part been born and raised in Wyoming State, always in or around some sort of mining or drilling of. He broke out drilling the CBM fields of the Powder River Basin and then moved onto bigger and better rigs in the Piceance Basin in Colorado. After the field there died for a little while around Obama’s election he transferred to Pennsylvania. Knowing how difficult it was on our family even with his work being a simple day’s drive away, and considering the extra flight expenses, we made the difficult decision to leave our home.

The first year here wasn’t bad. In fact, despite all the trepidation I’d had about moving, I was completely in love with our new home. Our daughter was at the age we didn’t want to move her again, so we started looking for a home to purchase as we looked forward to being a part of our small community. While getting to know people at our new church, we got asked a lot of questions. It was evident as this play was ramping up the communication between O&G companies and the locals was sadly lacking. We did our best to answer questions the O&G companies should have been answering, but as the “new family in town”, you don’t immediately attain a circle of friends.

It was about nine months ago I discerned a change in attitude via the two local newspapers. While there had been little coverage regarding the industry in the year preceding, Letters to the Editor opposing the industry were finding their way into print, and the seedlings of misinformation were planted. The Dimock Jugheads were starting their rants and Gasland was released on HBO. One newspaper’s coverage, Wyalusing’s Rocket-Courier, was well-balanced, despite the LTEs, but one newspaper, the Wyoming County-Examiner, printed incomplete and mostly biased articles. Because of my questioning his bias, my Letters to the Editor must be written to exact rules if I want my letters to “see the light of day”. The Editor’s words not mine. Other authors don’t have to play by the rules, but pro-industry letters must. I know of at least one other author who has had these restrictions placed on him, which is sad because he has valuable information regarding the Dimock situation. How sad is it that you not only won’t cover the other side of drilling, but won’t allow the truth of a situation to be read in your newspaper? Same thing happens with nearest newspaper to Dimock, the Montrose Independent. Same editor and same policies, with the one difference being there is a definite lack of ANY drilling-related news, because Cabot's office is located there and many business and people have benefited from the drilling occurring in Susquehanna County.

Around this same time I became aware of the drilling moratorium in New York. Tons and tons of anti-drill organizations abound. If you want a stark contrast to the information being propagated by both sides, Google “fracking” versus hydraulic fracturing. Don’t forget to take a gander at NYRAD’s site, the front-runner of all anti-drilling organizations. Please note, opponents have successfully hijacked the original meaning of the word. One proud anti stated, they now use “fracking” to indicate every aspect of the gas extraction process from “the moment the landman knocks on the door until the last lawsuit is settled.” Part of this new re-education process includes cult-like meetings and appearances of people with concerns about our water. Their arguments are all basically the same – emotion driven, little or no fact. Because they HAVE fought a well-organized battle, forming a battle plan before the first round was fired, it caught many unaware. They have been very effective at appearing there are many, when in reality they are a vocal minority. Yet they capture so much of the media attention, it has made the middle ground pro-drillers feel they are the minority and makes them less likely to speak up or speak out. And when they do, they are quick to burn gas company supply sheds or damage pro-driller property with spray-painted swastikas and hate remarks.

Meetings are held by those with an agenda under the form of information forums. I have attended a handful of these meetings since January and unluckily, not enough pro-drillers come out to support the industry. Instead those who attend in search of information are subjected to speeches about how HF fluid will make its way up through the formations and all water will be contaminated. This is highlighted by cases in Dimock, Wyoming, and other places – high profile cases in which newspapers jumped the gun in blaming natural gas companies, but no follow-up given to clear their names when the actual causes were found to be something other than NG.

There’s more, but I will let it stand for that now. I stay busy in my self-imposed position of domestic energy advocate. In just the next three weeks I will be attending the showing of the film “Frack” in Montrose (tomorrow) with a following appearance by Dish Texas ex Mayor Tillman. “Frack” is apparently an even more poorly done imitation of “Gasland”. I have some questions I would like to ask, but am unsure I will be able to stay until that point. They may not even let me in the door. First, the Montrose Theater is owned by one of the Dimock litigant’s relatives, thus the venue’s willingness to show the film, second a suggested $5 donation is being asked – I myself am not willing to cough up more than 2 cents – to give them that much of my mind if I can stay.

Then I will be attending a showing of Gas Odyssey in Windsor next week and lending my support to a panel of pro-drilling speakers. This event is being held in one of the more contentious areas of New York, around the area of Otsego and home to a number of elite and wealthy who are trying to “kill the drill”, but that’s a whole other subject for another entry and much purely speculation on my part at this time. The week after that, I and the producers of Gas Odyssey are traveling all the way up to Albany for “Lobby Day” to address staffers. They walk, we talk if they ask questions. (I do NOT do speaking engagements!) At least some find my experiences valuable regarding many years of being involved with the field.

If you like, I will try to post something each week if there is enough interest. If you have any questions in the meanwhile, please feel free to ask.

Comment by Overshot on April 27, 2011 at 8:10pm Please keep us updated Sherry.
I know what you have encountered in the groups you have (tried) to address, an openly hostile, non-reasoning audience that does NOT want to engage in a reasonable and reasoned discussion.
Keep the faith sister, don't lose hope. Comment by Lesa R on May 16, 2011 at 9:09am

So far most of the people I have met who go around saying "No Fracking" cannot give me any explanation other than ,"Well it is soooo bad."

There was a forum on PBS a few months ago, and it upset my husband enough that he wrote the station and also told me that we would not be sending our pledge in this year. I really hate the media sometimes.

Comment by Amber Horn on May 19, 2011 at 7:53pm People fight that which they do not understand. If they really understood a well-drilled/cased/cemented/perfed and fraced well, perhaps they wouldn't be so hostile......then again, it seems our nation praises ignorance...Comment

View the original article here