The Real Cost of Fracking (16 page)

But where would the Smiths go? Would they stay in this area because of the business?

This time, it was Andrew who answered immediately: “No! I’ll fold up at this point. I’ll be sixty-two.”

In September 2011, approximately two years after moving to their current residence, Ann sent a letter to the PADEP with photos detailing the dumping of drilling wastewater on nearby dirt roads. She is concerned that once the material is dried, the contaminants in the wastewater will be inhaled and will cover crops grown for animals and people. She worries about runoff into streams, marshes, and swamps. And she is concerned about rural water wells and the Amish children who often walk these roads. Months later, she sent me an update—the dumping continues, often in the wee hours of the morning, despite the No Brine signs in her township.

In early December 2012, just months after I first met the Smiths, Ann noticed an article in the newspaper announcing that liquefied natural gas export terminals would be built in the United States and that the immediate ramifications of this action would be increased exploration. Out of fear that drilling would drive them out yet again, she called a realtor and unofficially placed her home on the market.

Soon after, Andrew suffered two heart attacks within a week. Ann was worried about the business, although Andrew has told her to let the business die should he die. But luckily, he’s still alive, and she’s trying to learn it fast.

I remembered my talk with them a few months earlier, when I had asked about their plans and Ann had abruptly said that she would be dead in two years and she definitely expected to go first. Andrew had stood beside her, appearing strong and vibrant, and had laughed. “She’s always saying that.”

Andrew’s massive heart attack, and then another three days later—this wasn’t in Ann’s plans.

Living in the shadow of Edwin Drake’s oil well, moving from house to house, but never escaping the area, the Smiths have managed to survive financially but their health has been devastated. In the sense that they have let go of each home when the health consequences became overwhelming, they have overcome solastalgia. In another sense, however, northwestern Pennsylvania is their home and they have never left it, despite the consequences. As I write this, I think of this vibrant and fiercely intelligent couple with a wonderful sense of humor, looking at each other and trying to guess who will be the first to die before his or her time.

When you think of a typical farm, you might envision a small, idyllic couple of acres with several species of animals. But in reality, there’s a range of farms, from tiny family plots to massive factory operations. Vast factory farms with economies of scale and modern farming techniques supply the majority of the food found in our supermarkets, but with significant environmental impacts.
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In part because of health (e.g., the overuse of antibiotics and the use of bovine growth hormone) and environmental concerns about factory farming, smaller farms—particularly organic farms—are making a comeback. Nevertheless, what they all share is the need for clean water and clean air. And no matter the scale, consumers expect their food to be free from chemical contaminants and pathogenic organisms.

The production of food in the midst of unconventional drilling operations raises questions about the safety of food raised near such operations. As for food producers, the gas drilling boom in Pennsylvania has been promoted as a boon for farmers who lease their land and the savior of the family farm. Farms that had been going out of business can now buy new machinery, rebuild the barn, and pay off loans. However, some farms reluctantly go out of business because of gas drilling. Farming has been intertwined with the oil and gas industry in Pennsylvania for 150 years. Only in the last few years has gas drilling become increasingly profitable and increasingly disruptive. The strain that this gas industry expansion has put on food production and the associated issues of food safety are the themes of this chapter and
chapters 6
and
7
.

We have spent considerable time over the last few years with farmers: not large producers, but owners of relatively small family farms—those with the most to gain or lose from gas drilling. Making general statements about how farmers feel about this issue is impossible, as each farmer has his or her unique and sometimes colorful perspective. The only refrain that we have heard consistently is that farmers do not want to be told how to do their jobs or what they can or cannot do with their land. The main concern of these farmers is that gas drilling represents a landowner’s rights issue. But even this leads to a range of opinions.

The issue of horizontal gas wells that use hydraulic fracturing has been dealt with very differently in Pennsylvania than in New York. In recent years, Pennsylvania has had a Republican-dominated legislature and a Republican governor, Tom Corbett, whose election campaigns have been supported by the generosity of the oil and gas industry. For the most part, laws have been passed that generally favor efficient extraction of oil and gas at the expense of the environment and health of the citizens of the commonwealth.
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In March 2013, the PADEP agreed to have the nonprofit organization State Review of Oil and Natural Gas Environmental Regulations (STRONGER) review the department’s regulatory program. STRONGER’s September 2013 report indicated that the PADEP does in fact have regulations consistent with the standards expected by industry.
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Little consideration was given to public health, food safety, or the implementation of the regulations.

In New York, the legislature is split between a Democratic-controlled Assembly and a Republican-controlled Senate, with a relatively conservative Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo. For the last four years, New York has not permitted horizontal drilling with high-volume hydraulic fracturing, but has permitted most other forms of oil and gas extraction. Although by early 2014, the decision on whether to permit the use of unconventional oil and gas extraction in the state is awaiting a review by the New York State Department of Health, the regulations proposed by the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) are among the worst in the country.
⁴

Even though New York has not yet been touched by the shale gas boom, some people argue that when the rigs move in, farmers will finally get the money for their new barn and tractor, or maybe this will be the one thing that will save the family farm. The main concern of these farmers is that gas drilling represents a landowner’s rights issue—“don’t tell me how to use my land.” Other farmers want nothing to do with drilling; they are worried about environmental degradation and do not want to lease their surface or mineral rights. They, like the farmers who embrace drilling, do not want anyone telling them what they may or may not do with their land, but if enough of their neighbors lease, they may be forced into a drilling unit against their will with minimal compensation. This is New York’s compulsory integration law. This law (actually an amendment of Title 9 of Article 23 of the Environmental Conservation Law)
⁵
was written by Tom West (a lawyer with gas company clients),
⁶
sponsored by Republican senator George Winner,
⁷
and unanimously passed in the New York State Senate in June 2005. This was before shale gas extraction was on the radar of most New Yorkers (but very much on the mind of the oil and gas industry), and the compulsory integration law was thought to be a device to protect landowners.

Consider a conventional fossil fuel source such as a pool of oil or a pocket of gas, far beneath the surface but under both your property and your neighbor’s. If your neighbor puts in a vertical well and sucks the gas or oil out, then the gas or oil is also taken from your property despite your being the rightful owner. There are many flaws in this argument even for traditional wells, but subtlety is not the forte of the New York State Senate. In the case of unconventional gas and oil, the concept completely falls apart. The well actually invades the property of a landowner forced into a drilling unit against her will. In these unconventional wells, the gas or oil would not be extracted unless the well is allowed to pass below the landowner’s property. The only rationale for this law is to make extraction of hydrocarbons easier, which is, in fact, the oxymoronic mission of the NYSDEC.
⁸

In the shale gas areas of Pennsylvania, the drilling operations have been under way for a number of years and the laws have been a bit more complicated. The one thing that is hard to find in Pennsylvania is a farmer who has not leased land. The reason, of course, is that until recently, most land has been leased for small sums of money and the wells that have been drilled have been small, with little disruption in terms of noise, air, or water pollution or increased traffic. Few people thought twice about leasing their land; it was seen as a way to earn a bit of spending money with little risk.

Only in the last couple of years, with the introduction of large-scale horizontal high-volume drilling, have some farmers viewed leasing as a mistake—something that could possibly drive them off the land. Although compulsory integration, similar to what is the law in New York, exists for drilling in some formations, such as the Utica Shale (specifically, “any formation below the Onondaga horizon”),
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it does not apply to the prized Marcellus Shale because it lies above the geological marker referred to as the “Onondaga horizon.”
¹⁰
Interestingly, if a farmer is integrated into a drilling unit for the Utica Shale, then she has lost her right to negotiate a lease for other formations. In the summer of 2013, Governor Corbett signed into law Act 66 of 2013,
¹¹
which allows operators to pool leases into a single unit in all formations. This applies only to existing leases. Thus, it differs from the rules for compulsory integration of deep shale layers in Pennsylvania and the compulsory integration law in New York, which applies to all formations.

In Pennsylvania, the Clean and Green Act states that agricultural land should be assessed at the value for agricultural use rather than the fair market rate.
¹²
That is, the land may be more valuable if it were divided and sold as building lots in a subdivision (fair market rate) than it would be if it were used solely for agriculture. If the land is used for agricultural purposes, the Clean and Green Act requires that it be assessed on its agricultural value, which can significantly decrease a farmer’s property tax bill. Placing a well on farmland removes this preferential assessment because the land is no longer being used for agriculture. In at least one case that we have investigated, compensation was written into the lease agreement to account for the fact that part of the land would now be an industrial site rather than a farm. The agreement became a problem because the entire farm lost its Clean and Green assessment, even though the compensation was only for the part of the farm that was disturbed by the drilling operation. What’s more, because the well that was drilled was a test well, the farmer received no royalties that could have potentially offset the new taxes. So in the end, the farmer was forced to pay additional property taxes without full compensation.

Given complexities like these, the wide range of opinions even among farmers who have leased their land is not surprising. Some landowners are simply thrilled with the income, others like the money but have mixed feelings about the consequences of drilling, and others are very angry about the loss of their air, water, land, and way of life. In the next two chapters, we tell the stories of farmers who have suffered losses due to drilling on or near their land. These are not environmentalists; they are farmers with an ingrained skepticism of environmentalism. They don’t want anyone—especially environmentalists—telling them how to farm, but they have nonetheless lost control of the use of their land because of drilling activity.

It is this intersection between drilling and farming that has the potential to affect lives outside of shale gas areas. Sometimes, when we go to the grocery store, we see produce, meat, fish, or dairy products labeled as “local,” with or without the name of the individual farm on the label. But in the vast majority of cases, we really don’t know where the products were produced—all we know is that they originated on a farm. If we don’t know where they came from, how can we be sure our food and water are safe, given that the food could have been produced—or in the case of water, collected—in an area undergoing intensive drilling operations? On the one hand, gas drilling is similar to other heavy industry in that it has the potential to pollute air and water. However, a factory is typically not located in the middle of a cornfield or within a few feet of a pond that is the source of water for a beef cattle herd or a spring that provides drinking water for a community. But gas wells, compressor stations, processing plants, condensate tanks, and wastewater impoundments are intermingled with food production. We have seen condensate tanks venting volatile organics in a corn field, a wastewater impoundment adjacent to a field of squash, cows grazing near drilling rigs, and deer walking across drilling pads. The only honest answer to the question of whether our food and water are safe from this process is that we really don’t know.

In cases of illegal dumping or leakage, the effects are catastrophic and the crops are not viable. In a large cornfield with a condensate tank at one edge, the risk may be minimal outside a small radius around the tank, but the same might not be said for a large processing facility that releases massive quantities of toxic substances into the air. Another potential for food contamination comes from practices known euphemistically as
land farming
,
land treatment
, and
land spreading
¹³
—the disposal of drilling waste (drill cuttings, muds, or fluids) or wastewater on farmland that depends on soil microbes to degrade the hydrocarbons. Land farming involves multiple applications of drilling waste or wastewater to farmland, whereas land spreading and land treatment refer to a onetime application. In addition to the many types of toxic chemicals that are released from the shale during drilling and hydraulic fracturing, both drilling waste and wastewater contain radioactive compounds, mostly in the form of radium-226 and radium-228.
¹⁴
While both are hazardous substances, radium-226 is of particular concern because it can remain in the environment for thousands of years (its half-life is approximately sixteen hundred years). The states and countries allowing land farming, land treatment, and land spreading have different regulations, and the impact on agriculture has not been extensively studied. In lieu of definitive answers, some producers are rejecting milk from dairies engaged in land farming because of the high cost of testing for contaminants.
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