ALERT ~ Underground Injection Well (UIC) Proposed in Fayette Co. PA for Fracking Brine Water

Public Comments Needed for Nicholson Township, Fayette County UIC Well

From an Advisory of Jim Rosenberg, Fayette Marcellus Watch, Fayette Co., PA, 7/1/23

In Pennsylvania, Underground Injection Control (UIC) wells are regulated *directly* by EPA. If a UIC well is being constructed by converting a conventional extraction well, PA-DEP must also issue a permit for the conversion. Unfortunately, EPA discloses NOTHING to the public about these permits until it is about to issue the permit! (As opposed to PA-DEP, which releases information about permits shortly after they are received.)

Here in Fayette County we are faced with our first experience of a proposed UIC well for disposing of fracking waste water. A company called G2 STEM LLC has applied for a UIC well in Nicholson Twp to be converted from a conventional well called Orville Higinbotham 1. EPA has scheduled a tentative virtual hearing on this permit for July 11, *BUT* they will only hold the hearing if “enough” people request the hearing, and requests must be received by July 4. For more information, EPA’s public announcement page for this permit is located here:

https://www.epa.gov/pa/underground-injection-control-uic-program-notice-draft-permit-g2-stem-llc-pas2d061bfay

To request a hearing, please send E-mail by July 4 to:

Kevin Rowsey at this address ~ R3_UIC_Mailbox@epa.gov

Please put in the subject: “Request for Hearing for permit PAS2D061BFAY”

The public notice page states: “Requests to hold this public hearing must be received via email or telephone to EPA by July 4, 2023. When requesting a public hearing, please state the nature of the issues you propose to raise. EPA expressly reserves the right to cancel this hearing unless a significant degree of public interest is evidenced by July 4, 2023.”

Some talking points are presented below as bullet points you can consider:

o The evaluation of this application takes no account of the blowout that occurred at Yasenosky 2. This demonstrates that an Area Of Review radius of 1/4 mile is too small.

o The Environmental Justice Review is inadequate. The Administrative Record Index refers to an Environmental Justice Review but this has not been supplied to the public. The well is located in an Environmental Justice Area as defined by DEP.

o The well is way too close to houses. In particular, the house at parcel 24-04-0082 is within 112 meters of the well.

o The proposal does not include any provision for a Monitoring Well.

o The monitoring requirements are not based on scientific data regarding likely contents of injected waste water. In particular, there is no requirement for monitoring radioactivity.

o There is no requirement for monitoring air pollution from truck traffic.

Here is the location of the Orville Higinbotham 1 well:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=39.839878&mlon=-79.854504#map=15/39.839878/-79.854504

Attached you should find a Google Map satellite photo of the well site and a map of the well vicinity (above). The large orange circle on the map shows a radius of 1/2 mile; any homeowner within that radius should have standing in any zoning hearing on this issue by default. The smaller red circle shows a radius of 1/4 mile; this gives the Area Of Review applied for by G2 Stem and accepted by EPA. The purple squares are conventional wells labeled by permit number. To locate Yasenosky 2, follow just west of due north from Orville Higinbotham 1 to find well # 051-24048.

Discussion of The Notorious Yasenosky 2~ On July 18, 2013, the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Technical Advisory Board held the 2nd day of a two-day meeting at the Westmoreland County Conservation District. One of the purposes of this meeting was to review DEP’s proposed changes to the 25 PA Code Chapter 78a regulations governing unconventional oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania. Included in that forthcoming proposed rule was a requirement that the operators of such wells conduct a survey BEFORE hydraulic fracturing for orphan and abandoned wells within 1000 feet of a horizontal well bore. At this meeting, DEP itself presented two photographs of a blowout at the Yasenosky 2 well where fracking jumped to an abandoned well causing the blowout. Those two photographs are attached. One shows the well casings blown out by the blowout, and the other shows the plume. They were taken by DEP. Not only were they convincing evidence of why requirement of the AOR Summary Review report is necessary, and has been adopted into 25 PA Code Chapter 78a, they are convincing evidence of why the Orville Higinbotham 1 well site is a completely inappropriate location for an injection well. They also demonstrate why an Area Of Review of radius 1/4 mile is too small. The AOR in this case must be expanded to a minimum 1/2 mile.

Environmental Justice Review ~ The Administrative Record Index for permit PAS2D061BFAY includes item 10, purported Results of Environmental Justice Screening performed by EPA staff (March 15, 2023). However, no such document has been included with the documents for this permit provided to the public. In fact, the entirety of Nicholson Twp consists of Environmental Justice Areas as defined by DEP. In particular, EPA has not given any indication whatsoever as to why DEP’s Environmental Justice Area designation was ignored. Whatever environmental justice evaluation supposedly took place, it should be redone and issuance of this permit must be at the least postponed.

Proximity to Houses ~ A satellite photograph of the vicinity of Orville Higinbotham 1 shows several houses very close to the well. This is unacceptable. In particular, the middle of the southern edge of parcel 24-04-0082 is approximately 112 meters (less than 125 yards) from the well, and the satellite photo there is a house located on this parcel. It is completely outrageous to even think of locating a UIC well that close to a house. There is widespread discontent in Fayette County that the setback for unconventional oil and gas wells of 500 feet from any house established by 25 PA Code is way too small; surely a UIC well within 367 feet is horrific and might be in violation of 25 PA Code.

No provision for a Monitoring Well ~ The customary method of monitoring whether material injected at a UIC well site has stayed where it is supposed to is by the use of monitoring wells. This proposal does not include *any* mention of even a single monitoring well. This is unacceptable.

Monitoring requirements need to consider the produced water ~ There is now ample science giving details on the likely hazards of produced water, including the likelihood of radiation. It is outrageous that EPA’s monitoring requirements seems oblivious to this science and seems to be based on generic drinking water measurements rather than monitoring for known risks from produced water. In particular, there is no provision for monitoring for radionuclides.

Requirement to monitor for air pollution needed ~ EPA regulates air pollution in Pennsylvania only indirectly, via the DEP SIP (State Implementation Plan). However, EPA surely has the authority to require a UIC well site to get an air pollution permit from DEP, and should definitely do so in this case considering the proximity to houses and the intense amount of truck traffic required to deliver wastewater to the UIC well.