Home>Oil & Gas>In 'Gasland' community, new tests revive old drilling debate In 'Gasland' community, new tests revive old drilling debate

[Smokin Joe]

In 'Gasland' community, new tests revive old drilling debate
Michael Rubinkam, Associated Press via PennEnergy

http://www.pennenergy.com/articles/pennenergy/2017/09/oil-and-gas-in-gasland-community-new-tests-revive-old-drilling-debate.html?cmpid=enl_pennenergy_pennenergy_daily_petroleum_2017-09-06

DIMOCK, Pa. (AP) — The well water at Ken Morcom and Kim Grosso's house is laced with so much explosive methane that a Pennsylvania environmental regulator who went there to collect samples this summer decided it would be safer to coast her SUV down the driveway.

Morcom and Grosso want to leave but doubt they could sell a house with tainted water. So, a few weeks ago, they asked the gas driller they blame for polluting their well to buy them out.


A patchwork of homes and farms about 150 miles north of Philadelphia, the community became a battleground for pro- and anti-drilling forces after state regulators found that Cabot — one of the biggest drillers in the vast Marcellus Shale gas field — had contaminated 18 residential wells with methane. Homeowners sued, accusing the company of polluting their water with toxic chemicals and methane. Activists and celebrities descended.
>snip<
The testing has resurrected an old debate about the groundwater in Dimock, whose plight was the focus of the Emmy Award-winning documentary "Gasland."

Excerpts, more at the link.
http://www.pennenergy.com/articles/pennenergy/2017/09/oil-and-gas-in-gasland-community-new-tests-revive-old-drilling-debate.html?cmpid=enl_pennenergy_pennenergy_daily_petroleum_2017-09-06


My opinion: I'm not sure why no one seems to have rigged up a separator to remove  the methane from their water and used the free Methane.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

All ground water contains methane.  It is very easy for methane, which flows easily through rock, to percolate through layers of strata.

To contend that gas is resulting from well frac of the Marcellus is absurb.

In the case of this part of the Marcellus, heavier components are present that should also show up in groundwater if its origin was there.

Looks like a shakedown attempt.

And I understand some do have separators to extract methane, if enough is present.

[Smokin Joe]

All ground water contains methane.  It is very easy for methane, which flows easily through rock, to percolate through layers of strata.

To contend that gas is resulting from well frac of the Marcellus is absurb.

In the case of this part of the Marcellus, heavier components are present that should also show up in groundwater if its origin was there.

Looks like a shakedown attempt.

And I understand some do have separators to extract methane, if enough is present.

My first thought was that it looked like a shakedown attempt. I knew of Methane in the Groundwater in the region as an undergrad, back in the '70s, because I knew a guy who had built a reinforced spring house to cover his pump, with a hinged roof. When the pressure switch sparked within the explosive limits, it blew the roof open and all he had to do was go put it back. (instead of rebuild the whole thing).

I'd separate and tap the methane off the pressure side with its own pressure tank, choke it back with a regulator, and use it, myself.

A couple of runs through a single column gas chromatograph of that raw headspace gas should tell whether the methane was normally in the formation or whether it compared to the raw gas from the producing formation.  Just the C1:C2 ratio should do it, but throw in C3 and C4 for good measure, and I'd wager the whole scam would be done.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

My first thought was that it looked like a shakedown attempt. I knew of Methane in the Groundwater in the region as an undergrad, back in the '70s, because I knew a guy who had built a reinforced spring house to cover his pump, with a hinged roof. When the pressure switch sparked within the explosive limits, it blew the roof open and all he had to do was go put it back. (instead of rebuild the whole thing).

I'd separate and tap the methane off the pressure side with its own pressure tank, choke it back with a regulator, and use it, myself.

A couple of runs through a single column gas chromatograph of that raw headspace gas should tell whether the methane was normally in the formation or whether it compared to the raw gas from the producing formation.  Just the C1:C2 ratio should do it, but throw in C3 and C4 for good measure, and I'd wager the whole scam would be done.

my thought the same to fingerprint.

No way Cabot has not done that already. 

I had our water well tested a couple of years ago when 3D was shot across the ranch.  Did it cause 30 yrs ago when 2D was shot they ruined the water well and it had to be redrilled.

[Smokin Joe]

my thought the same to fingerprint.

No way Cabot has not done that already. 

I had our water well tested a couple of years ago when 3D was shot across the ranch.  Did it cause 30 yrs ago when 2D was shot they ruined the water well and it had to be redrilled.

Seismic has been known to break loose solids and nail up a water well, but those shots are shallow compared to anything pumped in on a frac job. When I had a short turn as a 'juggie', we used vibes, and they tended to not do damage to water wells like the shothole crews occasionally did.

If they have done chromatography, and it was ambiguous, run mass spec on the gas and pick up any trace elements. That should nail it down, one way or the other. If their wells were properly constructed, there really should be no way that Cabot caused a problem.

[Bigun]

I have seen newly completed water wells in my area burn for three or four days before the methane was burned off.

[Smokin Joe]

I have seen newly completed water wells in my area burn for three or four days before the methane was burned off.

Methane is not so uncommon. And not uncommon in the Appalachians or the Alleghenies in water wells. It is a question of whether people wanted lemonade or to have someone (be ordered to) give them the orchard.  Besides, if they back down now, someone might get the bright idea to send 'em a bill.

[Suppressed]

my thought the same to fingerprint.

No way Cabot has not done that already. 

I work with a guy whose job was just that...checking out these claims so they could pay off and gag order the real ones and not the ones that they hadn't caused. 

It wasn't Cabot, but another player in the region.

[Joe Wooten]

All ground water contains methane.  It is very easy for methane, which flows easily through rock, to percolate through layers of strata.

To contend that gas is resulting from well frac of the Marcellus is absurb.

In the case of this part of the Marcellus, heavier components are present that should also show up in groundwater if its origin was there.

Looks like a shakedown attempt.

And I understand some do have separators to extract methane, if enough is present.

That shakedown technique is part of the leftist playbook and has been sued in several applications over the years. Before the methane in wells thing in PA, it was used to shakedown Exelon nuclear over supposed groundwater contamination with tritium. By the time the late 1990's rolled around, chemical detection technology had progressed to being able to easily detect parts per trillion, and a routine test of groundwater around the Braidwood plant detected tritium for the first time, and even though it was orders of magnitude lower than EPA limits, a panic was started by anti-nuke groups that Exelon was at fault. Never mind that the wells in question were sandpoint wells created by driving a 20-30 ft long perforated steel pipe into the sandy soil to access the very shallow water table left after all the local swamps were drained, and this water was heavily contaminated with fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, and human/pig/cow/chicken fecal matter, folks were panicked into blaming the tritium and Exelon.

Exelon tried fighting it with facts, but to no avail. The dhimmicraps who controlled the Illinois government got on the bandwagon early and kept hammering them. They finally gave in and gave millions of dollars to finance new water systems for these folks and the developers who were developing new housing tracts near the Braidwood and Dresden plants. It did not help that they later found leaking underground pipes that carried tritiated water at the plants, even though this was not the source of most of the tritium detected in the sandpoint wells. The lawyers and antinuke groups got most of the money, but the locals did get new municipal water systems to replace the sandpopint wells.