"Why we need to study first and drill when it's safe"

Elizabeth Tatham, Intelligencer Soapbox guest opinion, April 8, 2011:

Letters will be accepted by the Delaware River Basin Commission until April 15 at 5 p.m., and emails can be sent to Stephanie@delawareriverkeeper.org before April 14 at noon, to be printed and delivered to the DRBC office. Unless there are enough of them to convince the governors of Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Delaware and President Obama's representative to wait two years for the EPA study to show how gas drilling can be done safely in the Delaware Basin, drilling can begin this fall.

From Nockamixon and Buckingham in Bucks County to the Delaware River's headwaters in New York state, gas drilling will seriously impact the people and environment in this basin. The proposed regulations will unfortunately not protect our water because they allow practices that have been harmful to drinking water in western and northeastern Pennsylvania and other states.

Gas companies can discharge diluted and treated drilling wastewater into the Delaware River and its tributaries through sewage plants, even though the Environmental Protection Agency advises against this practice because not all of the carcinogenic, radioactive and otherwise toxic chemicals can be removed. Drinking, cooking and bathing in contaminated water can cause illness in people and animals. Small children are especially vulnerable. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection called the Monongahela River "impaired by gas drilling" a year ago.

"Impoundments" - uncovered holding ponds as large as football fields - will be used to store highly toxic wastewater, which contains drilling chemicals, huge amounts of salt and heavy metals from deep in the ground, like barium, mercury and arsenic and often radioactive materials, all of which come up with the gas and returning wastewater. These ponds are also called "central treatment facilities" in the regulations because the liquid is diluted and treated there for later use in gas drilling or to be shipped to sewage plants.

Enclosed containers will be used on the well pads, but these wastewater ponds will be between the pads. Methane laced with drilling chemicals can be blown by the wind for more than 100 miles, causing asthma and other illnesses. A multihospital study in Texas showed that children in heavy drilling areas had a rate of asthma three times higher than in the rest of the state.

Overflowing during flooding is another hazard, since it spreads the toxins over soil and into groundwater, endangering aquifers. One of these impoundments exploded in Wayne County last year, with flames 75 feet high. The liner of the pond burned up, exposing the toxins to the ground underneath.

Deep wastewater injection wells will also be permitted by these regulations, even though they have been linked to earthquakes in Arkansas, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Texas. The Geological Society of Arkansas recorded 800 earthquakes in the Greenbrier area where these wells operate since September. A Feb. 27 earthquake was measured at 4.7, the strongest in 35 years.

Aquifer contamination by methane, with drilling chemicals migrating upward, is another threat from both deep injection wells and regular gas wells.

The DRBC's proposed well pad setbacks of 500 feet from any body of water - and in the case of Pennsylvania, only 200 feet from an occupied home - are totally inadequate to protect our water and our health. The DEP shut down three gas wells a year ago for contaminating 19 water wells in Dimock. A gas well exploded in Clearfield County last summer, spewing gas, wastewater and toxic chemicals for 16 hours before it was finally controlled. More than a thousand families in this country can't drink their own well water because it contains drilling chemicals and other contaminants from deep in the ground.

With tens of thousands of gas wells projected for our basin, the DRBC has a tremendous responsibility to get it right the first time. Waiting for the EPA study to show how and if gas drilling in this densely populated area can be done safely is prudent and necessary. Our children and grandchildren deserve this cautious step.

Let's not trade their water for gas.

Elizabeth (Betty) Tatham directed the YWCA of Bucks County for more than a decade before she retired. She now volunteers for the Delaware Riverkeeper, the League of Women Voters and the World YWCA. She lives in Holland.