L.R. Kimball

The Secret of Better Air Quality

by Scott Roberts

Some secrets are hard to keep while other things, like the USA’s improved air quality, seem to be secrets in spite of themselves.  Yet, according to the EPA, the air is much, much better.   For instance, 60% less of the 6 main pollutants (ozone, PM_2.5, PM₁₀, lead, NO₂, CO, and SO₂) in 2008 compared to 1970.  In contrast, over the same period, population and energy consumption grew by 45% and miles driven increased by 163%.  It’s a real success story but one lost amidst the air stories of today.  You know, stuff like climate change. 

Thanks to shale gas, there is a plentiful supply of natural gas and its use can lead to even better air across the country.  For example, natural gas vehicles produce 90+% less CO, 25% less CO₂, and up to 60% less NO_x.  Since cars emit over half of the pollution in our air (80% if you live in a city) this is significant.  All of that plus the prosperity of producing energy at home. 

Emissions from oil and gas exploration were not a big deal so long as it was taking place in the Saudi desert or the jungles of Venezuela, but now, with the Marcellus, concerns are being raised.  Things like methane leaked during drilling and emissions from rig engines or compressors.    EPA now requires operators to inventory releases and submit the information.  PADEP recently announced requirements for Pennsylvania’s Marcellus industry to complete a more exhaustive inventory.  Producers and state governments struggle with 30+ years of EPA flip-flopping on what emissions should be ‘aggregated’ or summed together and which should be treated separately. 

Permitting for new wells and the infrastructure necessary to bring the gas to market is crucial.  But the science is unique, the rules complicated and processes can vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.  High quality work by seasoned professionals will help get permits in a timely fashion. 

With thousands of wells, each with tens of features to consider, and thousands of miles of pipelines with hundreds of compressors each having tens of features, the inventory task is huge.   Efficient data management will be as important as accurate collection.   Wise selection of the type of data management systems can make the job easier and can provide managers with new viewpoints.  For example, a geographic information system (GIS) allows data users to use the data collected to see trends across broad areas and varying topography. 

The next time you see a woe-is-me news story about shale gas and air pollution think about the ‘secret’ of our success.  This is not some kind of insurmountable problem.  With their can-do spirit America’s engineers can help us all breathe easy about being energy secure.

Progress in Williamsport, PA

Until recently, most Pennsylvanians would think of the Little League World Series when they heard of Williamsport.   A few may think of small airplanes since, from the 1930’s to the 1960’s, the region was the home of the Piper Cub.   Others may think of the ‘Millionaires’, the curious name of the Williamsport High School’s sports teams, and some of those may even link the moniker to the late 1800’s when, thanks to the lumber industry,  Williamsport sported more millionaires than any other town in America.      However, today the name ‘Williamsport’ is being linked with prosperity, growth, opportunity and progress. 

Modern Williamsport’s renaissance is driven by energy.   Like other smaller metro areas, the region’s biggest employers are in the health care, education, retail, and manufacturing sectors.  However, the region is also the gateway into a large part of the Marcellus Shale fairway.  The county has 15 separate businesses in the mineral extraction business and the 491 employees of those companies enjoy an average annual wage of over $71,000, more than twice the county average.  Combine these jobs with the 8915 manufacturing jobs paying roughly the state average wage ($45,000 annually) and you have healthy and sustainable micro economy and the very picture of prosperity. 

Prosperity leads to opportunity and opportunity leads to growth.  Visible and tangible growth is progress.  In Lycoming County, bridges are being rebuilt, rail lines restored and the airport improved.  Local businesses and local governments are investing in improvement projects, revitalization of the downtown, and construction of new hotels, new single and multi-family housing, sprucing up parks and the library, and improving municipal services.    

Progress doesn’t just happen.  Goods and services are required.  The knowledge of the architect and engineer needs combined with the skill of the construction worker.  Once the construction phase is complete then others operate and maintain the project.  In this way the very act of progress, of growth, becomes the driver for prosperity and creates new and different opportunity.  The recent opening of L. Robert Kimball’s Williamsport office,  after successfully working on projects like the Trade and Transit Intermodal Center,  the Church Street Transportation Center, the new Kohl’s and Cinemaplex, and  the Armed Forces Reserve Center, is evidence of this very phenomenon.   

I expect that Williamsport will remain famous for the Little League World Series.  After all, it is one of the best sporting events on earth.  I also expect, and have witnessed, this same progress in other Pennsylvania communities.   This progress is being founded on prosperity created in the community and it is a sustainable prosperity which will create new opportunity.    That is, to borrow a phrase, ‘rest of the story’ about Piper Aircraft.    In 1930, William T. Piper, fresh from success in exploring for oil near Bradford, Pennsylvania, bought a bankrupt aircraft manufacturer to make his vision of a low-cost airplane, the Piper Cub, take flight.  Success breeds success and prosperity breeds prosperity. 

Can the shale industry help with acid mine drainage?

by Scott Roberts

Last blog I discussed why the rhetorical hanging of Pennsylvania’s abandoned mine drainage (AMD) problems around the neck of the modern gas industry was flawed.  However, Pennsylvania’s mine drainage problem is real and, keeping in the classical motif, a true Gordian knot.   Alexander the Great’s solution of this legendary puzzle was to use his sword to cut the knot in half. His solution is often used as a metaphor for an intractable problem solved by a bold stroke.   Today there is a real possibility that AMD, the most intractable of our environmental problems, can be solved by bold action. 

AMD pollutes, degrades, kills or impairs over 5,000 miles of Pennsylvania’s rivers and streams.  Some of those streams have been dead for over a century and there is no reason to expect they will be naturally remediated in the foreseeable future.  For the past 30 years, Pennsylvania’s mining industry has successfully used sophisticated geo-chemical analyses to prevent modern mines from adding to the problem.   At the same time, companies with responsibility for discharges from older mines have been funding trusts or posting additional bond to make sure the water from their mines remains treated in perpetuity.  For AMD from abandoned mines with recoverable coal, it is possible to ‘remine’ the site which eliminates safety hazards, returns the land to usable condition and improves water quality.   For the rest, treatment is the only option.

Treatment of mine drainage generally involves the neutralizing acid, oxidizing the iron, manganese and aluminum in the water and allowing adequate time for those metals to settle out.  Systems can use either passive techniques like anoxic limestone beds and wetlands or active techniques where the process requires people, machines and power.   Both take money to design, build and operate. 

In the past almost all of the money for these projects came from Pennsylvania programs like the late ‘60’s era Operation Scarlift or the much more recent Growing Greener programs.  Thanks to leadership by Pennsylvania’s Congressional delegation future funding will come from fees paid by the coal mining industry across the nation and granted to the state for abandoned mine reclamation.  But the potential amounts available are far less than the amounts needed to deal with the problem today and into the future.  It really is a knotty and intractable problem.

However, the need for water to hydraulically fracture shale gas wells can be the sword that slices through the knot.   Bold action on the part of government, both federal and state government, can make this solution a reality.  Issues like liability, quality, transportation and waste management can be solved.   A small portion of the value of the water can be captured to create the long term financial instruments necessary to keep the water treated forever.  Cleaning up Pennsylvania’s AMD streams will rival any environmental restoration project anywhere. 

Personally, I believe that the shale gas industry would jump at the chance of being the Alexander which cuts this knot.

Marcellus Shale Economic Impact is Hot Topic for PA Legislators

L.R. Kimball Staff Members Speak to Pennsylvania Legislature About Marcellus Shale Economic Impact

In early June, L.R. Kimball Vice Presidents for Business Development, Dave French and Tanya McCoy-Caretti testified at a public hearing on the impact of Marcellus Shale drilling in Pennsylvania.  The hearing was held in South Park, PA, and was sponsored by the Joint Legislative Air and Water Pollution Control and Conservation Committee.  Opening remarks were made by State Representative Scott Hutchinson of Jefferson County, the Committee Chairman. 

According to Rep. Hutchinson the hearing was held as part of an effort by state lawmakers to gather up-to-date information about the variety of effects the growing Marcellus Shale drilling industry has on communities in Pennsylvania. 

French and McCoy-Caretti spoke about how Marcellus Shale exploration and drilling could affect businesses that are not directly tied to the oil and gas industry, such as municipalities and local governments, airports, developers and transportation agencies.  Presentations were also given by the Penn State University Cooperative Extension Office, Pennsylvania County Commissioners Association, Allegheny County Health Department and H20 Resources, Inc.

The Albatross of Marcellus Shale Drilling

by... Scott Roberts

When I was in seventh grade, I read Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’.   More precisely, my seventh grade English teacher made me read it.    Poems from the late 1700’s are rarely the reading of choice for 12 year old boys.    But, since I still remember it 45 years later, I’ll give that teacher kudos for making me read it.  If you haven’t read it, you still may know of it.  Two of Taylor’s creations are familiar to this day --and both come to mind as I read news stories about Pennsylvania and the development of the Marcellus Shale.  They are the verse ‘Water, water everywhere nor any drop to drink’ (I learned the hard way that the correct word is ‘nor’ vs. ‘not’) and the cliché of having an albatross hung around ones neck.

Coleridge’s Mariner kills an albatross and his shipmates -- believing he killed their good luck charm-- hang the bird’s corpse around the mariner’s neck.  Rhetorically, the opponents of Marcellus development hang the orange water of Pennsylvania’s historic mine drainage problem around the neck of the modern gas industry.  Recently the media has been reporting concerns from stakeholders such as this one: "Everybody testifies there's never been an incident [of drinking water contaminated by fracking] but we haven't done it in this geology, and it's not 25 years from now. Nobody had ever found acid mine drainage in the first 25 years of coal-mining, either. Some of this stuff takes time."  This argument is, like the albatross -- just superstition. 

Mine drainage is the result of a naturally occurring chemical weathering process, the oxidation of pyrite.  Early settlers in Western Pennsylvania named plenty of places ‘Yellow Creek’, ‘Redstone’ and ‘Sulfur Run’.  When rock is broken, as it by mining but also by any kind of earth moving including road construction (remember I-99) or landslides, exponentially more surface area is exposed to weathering.  When the rock contains pyrite, then it is the pyrite that is attacked; and to compound matters, a bug called Thiobaccillius Ferroxidans, will make the rubble its home and catalyze the reaction.  The oxidation of pyrite releases energy versus consuming it (known as an exothermic reaction), so once it starts, it keeps going on all by itself. 

In contrast is Pennsylvania’s historic oil and gas industry.  Go ahead and Google old photos from Titusville and Oil City.  And look closely at them.  You’ll see oil and brines flowing away from the wells into the region’s rivers.  Then, Google photographs of Drake Well State Park or other places in the region today.  They’re green, lush, and full of wildlife and home to many Pennsylvanians.  The old time pollution was not cleaned by industry, nor by the local citizens, nor by some government agency.  Instead, it was, (completely the opposite to the formation of mine drainage) naturally remediated by chemical weathering processes.  Since the exploration and production of oil and gas doesn’t unleash a self-perpetuating chemical reaction, any pollution created is finite. 

While I remember ‘Rime’ it is far from my favorite poem—which is Rudyard Kipling’s ‘If’.  The albatross reminds me of the verse in ‘If’ about truth being ‘…twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools…’   It’s time we lift the rhetoric off from the neck of this debate, and start talking facts.  

Natural Gas: To Avoid Stray Gas Migration, the Best Offense Is a Good Defense

As the level of Shale drilling activity increases, public and regulatory concerns about the impact that drilling may have on potable ground water sources, areas aesthetics and other natural resources also grows. One of these concerns is that drilling is a major contributor to stray gas migration.

The best way for owners and operators to manage stray case migration is to avoid incidents from the start. But even large scope of operations and the nature of drilling can put the most well-designed, engineered and implemented drilling programs and well installation activities at risk for stray gas migration.

To reduce the likelihood of this event, operators should conduct an appropriate and timely investigation of a reported incident. This will ensure that additional time and resources are not required to correct any possible investigation errors and will reduce the likelihood of costly, protracted litigation. Sufficient attention needs to be paid to background conditions and potential migration pathways to properly identify the true source of gas migration or other contaminant releases.

Proactive Surveying

What is the best strategy to protect the environment and nearby communities, as well as the time and resources of owners and operators?

Like other situations, the best offense is a good defense. Operators and owners wishing to generate objective data to support a claim that their wells are not a source of stray gas migration should consider conducting pre-drilling or pre-alteration surveys.

Employment and the Marcellus Shale Factor

by Scott Roberts on May 17

My blogging raised some eyebrows last weekend.

We were in Shippensburg for my youngest daughter’s graduation. After the speeches and while we waited for her name to be called so we could, hopefully, make enough of a ruckus to embarrass her (that of course being the general purpose for the whole ceremony) I mentioned that I had written my first blog.

The reaction was open-mouthed slack-jawed amazement. Knowing the grammar challenges that I picked up as a kid at Johnstown High School and my use of the Hawaiian typing method (Whack-a-key), I understood. I thought about this blog because I was thinking about opportunities for the Class of 2011 and that those opportunities are the real reason we need to get it right on natural gas exploration in Pennsylvania.  

Each month the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry publishes a report on employment. You can find here.

April’s report notes that there are 30,700 jobs in the ‘Mining and Logging’ category. This is the category where the jobs of people actually working on the exploration and production of natural gas are found.  Probably less than 10,000 of that total are actually miners and loggers. The real eye-popping number is the 26.3% increase in these jobs in the period from March 2010 to March 2011. Only the development of the Marcellus can account for this change. 

Marcellus Shale - An Unexpected Windfall for Williamsport Regional Airport

Marcellus Shale is helping to fuel the future of development at the Williamsport Regional Airport located in north central Pennsylvania by accommodating companies that supply drilling support companies.

How? One company was looking for 25 acres on which to build a pipe yard to serve the industry and it needed a site near an airport, a railroad line and a highway. Williamsport Regional Airport was a perfect fit because it was bound on the north by a rail line, was located a half-mile from I-180 and offered a nearly 7,000 foot runway that would support the industry’s jets. Nice setup!

L.R. Kimball helped the airport realize this opportunity by working closely with them to provide the air spacing of five different scenarios for the development, including the development itself, two buildings on the property, the pipeyard and the crane that would be used to construct the building.

We also helped to make the appropriate pen-and-ink changes in the airport layout plan and handled the environmental impact categorical-exclusion filing.

We send our congratulations to Williamsport for capitalizing on this opportunity. In the past two years, they’ve experienced 50-percent growth in general aviation traffic, almost all of it attributable to Shale drilling and the new development there is expected to pay big dividends in job growth. Almost 75 new well paying jobs for managers and yard workers will need to be filled locally.

Marcellus Shale: Takeaways from Chesapeake's Recent Well Control Failure

>>> Guest post by Scott Roberts, P.G.

Blogging…..add this to something that I never thought I’d be doing. It’s very interesting new territory for a self-described ‘Fred Flintstone'. Nonetheless, I have been asked to provide you with my observations and thoughts on the hot button issues, legislative developments, misconceptions, events and any other items of interest that I may stumble across related to the drilling for, and production of natural gas. Given such a large field of inquiry and being a person with thoughts and opinions on most anything, I see no reason not to give it a go. 

So, how about ‘hot topics’? Chesapeake Energy's well control failure from two weeks ago continues to be in the news so let’s take a look at it.

From all reports it appears that, despite the fluids from the well reaching a stream, the stream’s ecosystems were not impacted. That is good news. But the bad news is that a well control failure is, obviously, a failure and, as such, should be prevented to the greatest degree possible. Some will say it never should have happened, others will say it can’t be fully prevented except by outlawing natural gas exploration and production. 

What I say is that we need to need to face the fact that we are all human and ‘to err is human’.  I say that the inalienable right recognized by the Declaration of Independence of the ‘pursuit of happiness’ by definition recognizes that not all pursuits will be successful and that, therefore, failure is also an inalienable human right. I say that, when those two premises are combined, perfection is not achievable.  Finally, as a conclusion to this line of thought, that how we deal with the failures that occur is a more important measure of character than the much more commonplace finger-pointing. So, I say, it happened. 

We should learn from it, and that we should use those lessons to minimize the potential for the same accident to happen again. 

Scott Roberts Answers Your Natural Gas Questions: Part One - The Extraction Process

As mentioned in an earlier post, we've engaged Scott Roberts, P.G., former Deputy Secretary for Mineral Resources Management at the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PA DEP), as an adviser.

We sat down with him last month for an in-depth discussion about the Marcellus Shale extraction process, the implications to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and beyond as well as his thoughts on some of the issues and challenges facing the industry. We thought we would share what he had to say.

Q: How is Marcellus Shale extracted?

A: Marcellus Shale is an important opportunity for Pennsylvania and other states along the Northern Appalachian Basin as it is a domestic source of clean burning energy for America. 

The process includes a number of important steps. The first is establishing ownership of or receiving a lease for the land and minerals beneath the earth’s surface. Additionally, proper permits for everything from drilling the well, to bonds for roads and permits for well pads must be secured. 

After the permits are in place, the drill site is leveled off and stabilized. Next, rigs are brought in to drill vertically and horizontally through the Marcellus Shale and to install a solid steel casing. The next step is to open up the inside of the pipe, using a perforation gun, lowered into the well by a work-over rig.

Then, over a few days, hydraulic fracturing takes place. During this process, water, sand and small quantities of hydrochloric acid, friction reducers, scale inhibitors and biocides are pumped under high pressure into the well, breaking up the Marcellus Shale and allowing the gas to move through from the pores of the rock.