EPA: Chesapeake illegally buried W.Va. streams

November 23, 2010 by Ken Ward Jr.
http://blogs.wvgazette.com/watchdog/2010/11/23/epa-chesapeake-illegally-buried-w-va-streams/

Here’s a new gas drilling story from Vicki Smith over at The Associated Press:

The Environmental Protection Agency says a subsidiary of Chesapeake Energy has promised to restore four northern West Virginia streams it filled illegally while building roads and laying pipeline for Marcellus shale gas drilling projects.

EPA spokeswoman Donna Heron confirmed Monday that federal inspectors cited Chesapeake Appalachia LLC after four site visits this fall in Wetzel and Marshall counties. In one case, inspectors found that Blake Fork stream and a picturesque waterfall near New Martinsville had been completely filled with gravel for a road.

Ed Wade, who took before and after photographs of the 20-foot wide stream, said many people used to visit the waterfall because of its beauty.

“I don’t know if there was a miscommunication about where the road should go or what,” he said, “but they just took their dozers and ripped it out.”

Blake Fork and three other streams affected by Chesapeake’s drilling activities are tributaries of Fish Creek, which flows into the Ohio River.

Chesapeake spokesman Matt Sheppard said the company is working with EPA on what he called “isolated issues concerning earth-moving activity.”

“As this matter is currently undergoing federal regulatory review, it would be inappropriate to offer public comment at this time,” he wrote in an e-mail, adding that Chesapeake is committed to responsible natural gas development.

Heron said Chesapeake has indicated it will abide by the EPA’s administrative compliance orders, which were issued in October and earlier this month.

Chesapeake is among dozens of companies rushing to tap the Marcellus shale field, a vast, mile-deep natural gas reserve underlying most of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York and portions of Ohio. It is believed to hold trillions of cubic feet of gas, but breaking it free from the rock requires horizontal drilling and water-intensive hydraulic fracturing technologies.

How to better monitor the industry is a growing concern among environmentalists and property owners, who are looking to lawmakers for help preventing problems with water pollution, erosion and road destruction, among other things.

The compliance orders say some of Chesapeake’s violations in Wetzel and Marshall counties date to 2007.

Chesapeake was cited for illegally filling in Laurel Run near Cameron between January 2007 and December 2009. The filling of Blake Fork began in January 2008, the administrative orders show.

Violations on Lynn Camp Run and Middle Fork Lynn Camp Run, both near New Martinsville, began in January 2010, the EPA said. The Middle Fork project involved not only construction of a well pad but also the installation of buried pipeline.

The EPA says all four projects were done without a legally required permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The compliance orders require Chesapeake to remove the fill and restore the streams and wetlands “to pre-disturbance conditions.”

Wade, a 40-year-old boilermaker, said it took several years to get state and federal regulators to adequately respond to his complaint about Blake Fork.

“How are they going to put the waterfall back?” he wonders now.

Wade is also skeptical Chesapeake will change its ways.

“If someone’s watching them, they do right. It’s like a little kid: If they can get away with it, they’re going to,” he said. ” … They don’t care. It’s all about their bottom line.”

Vicki’s story comes after a blog item from the Natural Resources Defense Council, following up on a report by the CBS show 60 Minutes:

Last Sunday night, CBS’s 60 Minutes aired a report on natural gas production in America, including concerns about the environmental impacts. Interviewed on the program was Aubrey McClendon, the CEO of Chesapeake Energy, one of the country’s largest producers of natural gas and widely considered a leader in the field.

Yet recent – and as of yet unreported – findings by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reveal that Chesapeake is also a company that violated the Clean Water Act four times in one county in West Virginia. In October and November 2010, EPA initiated four Clean Water Act enforcement actions against Chesapeake Energy. Through field investigations, EPA documented illegal discharges of dredge and fill material at several Chesapeake drilling sites in Wetzel County. It appears that the company built access roads for giant trucks directly through a stream without the permits required under section 404 of the Clean Water Act. We thank EPA for investigating activities in this remote corner of Appalachia.

Here’s the 60 Minutes piece:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7054210n

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EPA cites Chesapeake for illegally filling streams