Additional wells coming to M.I.P.
MUB public water service utility and NNE energy company settle most of their disputes
From an Article by David Beard, Morgantown Dominion Post, TheDPost.com, May12, 2015
Morgantown, WV – The Morgantown Utility Board (MUB) and Northeast Natural Energy (NNE) have largely resolved their differences over water safety concerns related to three planned horizontal gas wells at the Morgantown Industrial Park (MIP).
MUB General Manager Tim Ball said in an email Monday, “MUB and NNE have discussed the planned drilling at MIP, and have resolved all the technical details.”
Two matters remain unresolved. MUB had wanted Northeast to provide a $1 million bond payable to MUB to cover potential water supply disruptions. It also wanted Northeast to list MUB as an additional insured on its insurance coverages.
Those issues were unresolved and have been left at an “agree to disagree” status, Ball said. Northeast’s President Mike John and Vice president for regulatory affairs Brett Loflin echoed that assessment.
“We’re confident we have everything in place” to protect the water and the environment, John said.
Because the well pad is directly upstream from MUB’s Monongahela River water intake, MUB began discussions with Northeast back in October about several safety concerns, primarily well casings, berms and liners, water testing and the composition of the drilling fluid.
“Subsequent discussions,” Ball said, “have clarified that secondary containment and impervious liners will be provided to the same standard as was used in 2011. Those discussions also persuaded us that the details proposed by NNE regarding casing pipes and grouting thereof were appropriate.”
Northeast explained to MUB and to The Dominion Post that it is using current “best practices,” which are different from those employed when it drilled its first two wells in 2011.
Northeast’s two producing wells at the site are called MIP 4H and 6H. The three permitted wells are MIP 3H, 5H and SW, for “science well.”
The science well, or research well, is a project conducted in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy, WVU and Ohio State University. It’s a vertical well planned to go 8,000 feet deep into the Helderberg formation — a limestone formation between the Marcellus and Utica shales.
“We feel pretty good about the project,” John said Monday of the industrial park. “There will be a lot of opportunities for folks to get a good look” at the operations.
Ball had been concerned that synthetic drilling fluid might pose more harm than water-based fluid, in the event of a spill. But email exchanges with WVU’s Tim Carr, Marshall Miller professor of energy, assured him that the synthetic fluids are biodegradable and eco-friendly.
Also, Carr told him, researchers from WVU, Ohio State, the U.S Geological Survey and the National Energy Technology Laboratory will be on site daily taking samples during early stages, and weekly or monthly later as water production decreases. That will continue for the five years of the project.
“MUB will continue to do its own monitoring,” Ball said, “but we will take advantage of the WVU data to reduce the scope of our program, so that MUB will monitor for additional parameters that are not measured by WVU.”
Permits for MIP 3H and 5H were issued April 7, and for MIP SW on March 6, DEP records show. John and Loflin said Monday that little work has been done so far other than moving some dirt.
NOTE: The schools near the well pad(s) as well as the businesses in the Morgantown Industrial Park are still at substantive risk from air pollution excursions from these extra high pressure drilling and fracking operations. Leaks, fires or explosions are not uncommon with such operations. Duane Nichols, Mon-Valley Clean Air Coalition.
See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net
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