Shale Gas Drilling: A Changed Environment

Fenced In

Photograph by Scott Goldsmith, National Geographic

As drilling in the Marcellus shale continues, energy companies find themselves increasingly embroiled in private battles, like the ongoing dispute with the Hallowich family, whose home—shown here in the background about 150 yards (137 meters) behind the water impoundment—is surrounded by energy company operations.

The Hallowiches believe that their well water has been polluted by the natural gas drilling operations. But even they acknowledge that there is no definitive proof to identify the source of the chemicals. The Hallowiches say they should have been warned to test their water for chemicals before drilling began. Because they didn't, they have no baseline against which to compare current readings. Range Resources spokesman Matt Pitzarella says that because Pennsylvania never has had requirements that homeowners test their private drinking water wells, the potential is great for clashes between residents and the new gas industry. In regions where chemicals and minerals entered aquifers long ago from both farming and coal mining, Pitzarella says the gas industry is being blamed unfairly for pollutants.

Published October 22, 2010

Homeowners' Nightmare

Photograph by Scott Goldsmith, National Geographic

Chris and Stephanie Hallowich bought ten acres of long-fallow farmland in southwestern Pennsyvlania for $20,000, and began to build what they thought would be their dream home.

The yellow, two-story home in Mount Pleasant Township was completed in November 2007—and soon surrounded by four natural gas wells, a gas processing plant, a compressor station,  pipelines, a three-acre water impoundment, and a gravel access road with heavy truck traffic. Now they fear that their well water is contaminated and their children are breathing pollutants, all stemming from the industry's operations. Over the past year, they estimate they have had to pay $5,000 to have water delivered and stored in a tank and pumped throughout the house for cooking, bathing, and drinking. "It's ruined our lives. That's what it comes down to," says Chris. "It's ruined our plans that we had for the kids. It's ruined what we thought was our perfect ten acres."

Published October 22, 2010

A Dream Deferred

Photograph by Scott Goldsmith, National Geographic

Nestled on a wooded hill far from the main road, the Hallowich home has a swing set and a garden on rolling land where they thought their children would be able to run.

But even as they were building, their bucolic view was being replaced by an industrial panaroma. Instead of the sound of bird calls and the scent of new-mown grass, the Hallowiches listen to the wheeze of tractor-trailor brakes and and breathe diesel fumes and worse.

Published October 22, 2010

The View

Photograph by Scott Goldsmith, National Geographic

From the living room window of the Hallowich home in the heart of the Marcellus shale drilling operations, it is not unusual to glimpse trucks driving to and from the industrial facilities that surround the family.

The Hallowiches believe they have suffered burning eyes, throats, and other symptoms when gas was released into the air during apparent equipment malfunctions. The Hallowiches have hung a windsock in their back yard so they can see when air currents are blowing from the direction of the gas facilities, in which case they keep the children indoors. Conrad Dan Volz, director of the Center for Healthy Environments and Communities at the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health, believes the Marcellus air pollution risk is largely being overlooked, and that the industry is due for additional scrutiny.

Published October 22, 2010

Water Bills

Photograph by Scott Goldsmith, National Geographic

In what has become a monthly ritual for the Hallowich family, Chris Hallowich, in T-shirt and shorts, helps with a water delivery to his home in July 2010.

The family initially continued to use its well water, even after drilling began nearby, assuming it was safe. The Hallowiches say they were never notified to have their water tested. And, as Stephanie recalls, she was not originally worried about the gas operations. “Just water and sand,” she says, is what she understood would be used in the shale gas process. But as the gas operations encroached, Stephanie contacted groups opposed to natural gas drilling elsewhere in the state, who urged the family to test for a variety of chemicals. One testing company found acrylonitrile, a chemical used to make a wide variety of plastics, and trace levels of a number of other chemicals. But state regulators said the only substance that showed up consistently at a level of concern was the mineral manganese, a potential neurotoxin which is a problem in southwestern Pennsylvania and could be naturally occurring.

Without tests that definitively show the make-up of the drinking water before and after gas drilling, cases like this one become entangled in seemingly endless dispute.

Published October 22, 2010

Clearing the Air

Photograph by Scott Goldsmith, National Geographic

A tree framed by darkening clouds serves as part of a border for a  gas processing facility in the Marcellus shale.

People living adjacent to the drilling sites contend trees are being damaged by air pollutants from the drilling process. The claims are unproven so far, but some are calling for more oversight. “If any new industry moved into an area and essentially wanted to build a factory, they would have to submit all these environmental plans,” says Conrad Dan Volz, a University of Pittsburgh researcher. “This industry, because it’s more diffuse over such a large geographic area, has avoided getting that kind of scrutiny. The [federal] Clean Air Act is very much devised to regulate the largest industrial processors, not necessarily an industrial process spread through an entire region.”

Published October 22, 2010

Searching for Light

Photograph by Scott Goldsmith, National Geographic

Ali Hallowich stretches her arms out to catch a lightning bug on land near her home in Mount Pleasant Township, Pennsyvania, which is located alongside gas drilling and processing operations in the Marcellus shale.

The Hallowich family once considered the bucolic area a perfect site for their dream home, but now they are so worried about polluted water and air that they simply want to sell their house and move. Both the state's chief industry regulator and the gas industry maintain that if it's done properly, there’s no threat to drinking water when chemically treated water and sand are blasted underground to fracture shale to produce gas. But accidents and industry resistance to oversight continue to raise concerns.

Published October 22, 2010

Trouble at Home

Photograph by Scott Goldsmith, National Geographic

The Hallowiches gather in front of the television after dinner.

The family sees little resolution of its troubles, except through the legal system. Range Resources says it made a verbal offer to buy the Hallowich property, while leaving them the mineral rights, for about $200,000. But the Hallowiches, who have put their house on the market for close to $500,000, say they never received a verbal or written offer from Range. They say that although the company invited them to talk, those negotiations broke down. They wanted not only reimbursement for their home, water and legal fees, but also an escrow account for medical monitoring for the family. The couple say they did not want to sign away their right to sue, since their problems are bigger than polluted well water. “Do you want to buy my house?” asks Stephanie. “Our house and property are worth nothing. Even if we found somebody who’d be willing to buy it, there’s probably not a bank that would finance it.”

Published October 22, 2010

Measuring Safety

Photograph by Scott Goldsmith, National Geographic

Lights from an instrument to measure air quality illuminate the Hallowich family property.

The family is participating in a study by the Center for Healthy Environments and Communities at the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health to monitor for any particles in the air. Even industry supporters, who cheer the arrival of a cleaner fuel source to replace coal and oil, say there have been too many accidents and too much mistrust sown by industry secrecy and resistance to further oversight. “This gas industry has a great product, but how they drill it and how they produce it is going to go a long way to deciding whether the American people embrace it or actually reject it,” says Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Hanger, the state’s chief industry regulator.

Published October 22, 2010