Last night people opposed to drilling a few wells at the U.S. Steel Edgar Thomson Plant in a Pittsburgh suburb turned up to complain that somehow a noisy, air-polluting steel plant will be made even nosier and more polluting by drilling a few shale wells on the property. It’s an absurd position to argue, but there you go.
NOTE: We’ve added a handy update from Merrion, outlining this project.
A privately owned oil and gas company headquartered in New Mexico–Merrion Oil & Gas Corp.–has signed a lease with U.S. Steel to drill a series of shale wells on the Edgar Thomson Works property in Allegheny County. The original plan was to drill one Marcellus well to begin with, and after testing, expand that more Marcellus wells. However, Merrion is not ruling out deeper wells to tap the Utica. According to a recent news account, Merrion has filed plans to drill three initial wells.
Environmentalist wackos and a few neighbors expressed concerns about “impacts” from drilling on the roughly 21,000 people who live within a two-mile radius of the plant. Again, how can it be any worse than the impacts they already experience from living near a steel plant?!
The PA Dept. of Environmental Protection held a public meeting last night at the Braddock Volunteer Fire Department. Of the 40 people who lined up to make comments on the record, 39 of them spoke against the project. Judging by the video we saw, the usual amount of snark, innuendo, ignorance and outright lies laced their comments.
Before the hearing, a Merrion rep spoke with the Pittsburgh Business Times:
Ryan Davis, Merrion’s operations manager, told the Business Times that Merrion has extensive experience drilling in urban environments. It’s one of the largest drillers in Farmington, New Mexico, a city of 45,000 regular residents and 150,000 or so visitors on the weekend. It has worked successfully with a group that manages the wildlife impact in that heavy oil and gas region.
“We’ve partnered with them on the development of our (New Mexico) wells in this area so we could minimize the impact on the surface and utilize a lot of access roads to coexist with their maintenance roads so we were minimizing the surface disturbance for their projects,” Davis said.
Davis said Merrion will bring the same strategy to the work at the Edgar Thomson Works, including safeguards of water, stormwater and sediment, air quality noise and dust abatement. The plan calls for a reduced number of trucks that will go in and out of the plant during the drilling and fracking process.
“We’re sourcing water on site from U.S. Steel and that will eliminate a significant amount of trucks that will be associated with the project,” Davis said. Other trucks could be eliminated by the use of rail. Emissions will be designed to be reduced. There will be a pad liner put down before drilling begins so that any spill can be contained in the liner. Dust will also be abated, and as many operations as can be done during the daylight will be scheduled.
Davis said the company wants to be a good neighbor and it’s mindful of the impact of drilling. If there are needs to address or mitigate issues that come up, Merrion is willing to do so. It’s also undertaking a 72-hour ambient noise story for the area.
“We put up noise abatement equipment where we are close to neighborhoods or parks or anything where people are going to be outside or be impacted by the noise,” Davis said.
None of the neighbors are within 500 feet of the well pad due to the DEP-imposed setback. U.S. Steel has a building within 300 feet but they have provided a waiver, Davis said. It’s not expected to impact any U.S. Steel operations. U.S. Steel will be the primary customer and receive the gas from a 2,770-foot pipeline.
“There will be some coordination efforts as we lay our (pipe)line to them but for the most part there will be no overlap or impact,” Davis said. (1)
Here’s how it went at the meeting last night:
The founder of New Mexico’s Merrion Oil & Gas company, J. Greg Merrion, once demanded, “THAT’s the deal. TAKE it or LEAVE it!” according to a brief history of the company on its website.
Merrion’s great grandson operated with similar moxie Wednesday evening at a public comment session in Braddock, more than 1,700 miles from the company’s Farmington, NM headquarters.
Merrion sat stoically as every single person, except for one, commented in opposition to his company’s plans for a fracking operation on the U.S. Steel property in Braddock.
“You know, it’s kind of what we anticipated,” Merrion said after the meeting.
Merrion said he had been on a North Braddock community Facebook page prior to the meeting, where he saw there would be opposition to the three permits his family company has applied for with the state of Pennyslvania.
Approximately 200 people filled a Braddock fire hall for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (Pa. DEP) public comment meeting that began at 6 p.m. and lasted well past the scheduled end time of 8 p.m.
The public was invited to comment on three permits Merrion Oil & Gas is seeking from the state, in order to conduct unconventional horizontal drilling on part of the U.S. Steel property in Braddock.
The process is also known as “fracking,” which has become increasingly controversial in recent years as studies have questioned the environmental impacts and possible health consequences of the practice.
Merrion Oil & Gas is seeking approval for an Erosion and Sediment Control Permit, Utility Line Stream Crossing Permit and a Drill and Operate Well Permit.
The well operations would be primarily located in North Versailles Twp, but also stretch include East Pittsburgh and North Braddock Borough (all in Allegheny County).
A young mother who said she is hoping to have another child soon, said she is concerned about potential birth impacts of living near a fracking site. At least one study has indicated that children born close to fracking sites have lower birth weights.
Multiple people who said they were born and raised in Braddock, expressed concerns over possible links between industrial practices in the area and cancer.
“My brother just died of cancer. We all lived in this area our whole lives. How much more pollution do you want to give us?” said Tony Buba.
One of the chief concerns about many people in attendance was that Merrion said they had not completed or submitted a preparedness plan or an emergency response plan to the DEP. Merrion was unable to specify when a plan would be completed or submitted.
DEP officials at the meeting said they would be able to approve the permits with the plans being submitted, but said any drilling activity could not commence until the plans were submitted.
Multiple residents raised concerns over what they described as a lack of emergency responders in the area equipped to deal with a potential explosion, spill, or other hazard. Residents cited local volunteer fire departments and questioned whether U.S. Steel’s own fire brigade would prioritize its property, staff, and employees over local residents.
Members of the crowd were often combative and repeatedly jeered both members of the DEP and the two representatives of Merrion Oil & Gas.
Some people who commented referred to recent well explosions close to Pittsburgh and questioned what Merrion would do to prevent and/or respond to a similar situation should it occur.
“What’s the risk? Fortunately where that well exploded, nobody lived within a mile of it, but there are 20 plus thousand people here that live within a mile of this gas well,” said one woman who commented during the meeting.
But the DEP said it would only respond directly to comments submitted by mail when the DEP writes its comment response document. That means comments made at the meeting Wednesday would not necessarily be addressed directly in the DEP’s final decision letter.
“No decisions have been made at this point. We’re really just here to provide information and to listen to what the public has to say,” said DEP spokeswoman Lauren Fraley.
Fraley explained that DEP officials were limited to looking at whether permit applications meet state legal requirements and would base their final decision on those requirements, not based on how local residents feel about the project.
Fraley said public comments are taken seriously though and can guide DEP officials to certain questions of law.
“It really has to be rooted in what the law dictates and whether an application would meet that bar,” Fraley said.
According to the Pennsylvania DEP, all or a portion of those municipalities, along with neighboring borough Braddock, are are designated environmental justice areas where 20 percent of more of the community lives below the poverty line and/or 30 percent are non-white minority; populations that have historically borne more adverse environmental impacts.
U.S. Steel, for example, was fined $170,000 in 2016 because workers were exposed to asbestos and this year health officials ordered U.S. Steel to stop its violation of federal sulfur dioxide standards at three Pittsburgh-area processing plants following a Christmas Eve fire that affected pollution control at one of its plants.
The proposed fracking project involves construction of an unconventional gas well pad, two access roads, and five fresh-water storage tanks. Additionally, Merrion intends to construct a 2,770 ft natural gas pipeline and a 2,990 ft fresh water pipeline.
The proposed project area is located on property owned by U.S. Steel at the Mon Valley Works Edgar Thomson Steel Plant, which would be the sole consumer of the natural gas extracted.
Neither U.S. Steel representatives nor Merrion representatives explained how the New Mexico based oil and gas company became aware of the project or came into contact with U.S. Steel.
A portion of the site would discharge stormwater to the North Braddock Borough MS4 Storm Sewer System along Braddock Ave. Other portions of the site would discharge stormwater to Turtle Creek and unnamed tributary to Turtle Creek. The total disturbed area is 13.4 acres according to the Pa. DEP.
The Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) oversees air quality within Allegheny County. The DEP is directing any questions regarding air quality and whether an air quality permit is necessary for the proposed activity, to the ACHD.
The Erosion and Sediment Control permit application is currently under technical review according to the DEP. The DEP said Merrion submitted a response to deficiencies with the Utility Line Stream Crossing permit application that DEP is currently reviewing and said DEP issued a second technically deficiency letter regarding the Drill and Operate Well Permit application on March 20. Applicants are allowed to revise and resubmit applications once DEP points out deficiencies.
A final decision is likely months away but public comments are due by Monday (April 1). (2)
Click link #2 below to view a video showing some of the speakers at last night’s session.
(1) Pittsburgh (PA) Business Times (Mar 27, 2019) – Exclusive: Hear from the company that wants to drill at U.S. Steel plant
(2) Pittsburgh (PA) WTAE TV (Mar 28, 2019) – Dozens speak against proposed fracking in Braddock
After posting this article, we received the following fact sheet about the project from a Merrion rep:
This post appeared first on Marcellus Drilling News.