The PA Land Trust Proves "Trust" has Nothing to Do With It

The Pennsylvania Land Trust released some of its own research last week that should quite frankly embarrass anyone who belongs to the group.


According to the "study," which was hardly scientific, 43 major drillers in PA had 1400 some violations to date since 2008. Or was it 900 some? Or 1500 as the Patriot News reported? I guess it doesn't matter -- like the use of accurate research techniques in this case. Or even accuracy in violation description. Anyway, the media sure couldn't figure out what they were saying -- they reported all of these numbers.

First, JW Operating is not a driller. They're a service company. They can get violations as well, and may have even drilled a well of their own, but its wrong to include them in company with major E&P's like Talisman and Chief. The study calls the companies addressed "major" drillers. JW is not a "major" driller.

Second, not all of these drillers drill the same kind of wells. For instance, MDS drills almost all vertical wells in the Marcellus. Most of the other big guys do multiple horizontals on one pad. Once again, apples and oranges. MDS is a local spin off of another local driller, that mainly does conventional work. I would hardly put them in the same box as Anadarko, Chesapeake or Range Resources.

If you look at the study and read some of the descriptions of of violations, there are major mistakes here. My personal favorite in the description of remediation violations. Here the Land Trust gives a description of well plugging or closing which occurs when the well is no longer producing. In fact, drillers are required to remediate land that's been drilled on when their work putting the well into production is complete. What that basically means is land where wells are actively producing gas has to be remediated on and around the pad. There is equipment left behind there, like tanks and tending equipment, but there is no rig, the ground is reseeded, and vegetation is regrown there. Here's a picture of what a site like this (worked on by one of the so-called big violators here) looks like.


There's another interesting omission here. Sure there are violations -- no permitted business operates without them. Ask US Steel or Horseheads Co. In fact, its not commonly known, but DEP can actually give a well site operator a violation for doing something BETTER than it told DEP in the permit it would do something. So, if during operations, the well drillers find there is a better, gasp, more environmentally responsible way of doing something, DEP can actually issue a notice of violation to them, if that better practice was not included in the permit in the list of "best practices" the company said it would be using. Stupid, huh? When people should be getting patted on the back for innovation, they get slammed. Anyone who's ever worked in government regulation knows some of these could well be paperwork violations. For instance -- some one pulled the posted permit from the cute little tube at the site entrance and didn't put it back fast enough. Or, as in the early days, some activist with a little savvy stole it from the tube and called DEP to tell them the operator didn't have their paperwork posted.

In reality, violations get listed when inspectors -- particularly the green (not eco/but wet behind the ears) ones, make mistakes or don't know how to properly interpret a reg. Or as I discussed in an earlier entry, just don't communicate well with the people on the site. They go back to the office, send their report off to their supervisor, then, once approved off to the person who's name is on the permit, usually someone in corporate, and then, after someone reads it and alerts the site team to fix it, the inspector is back saying "You didn't do what I said to do."

So take those 900, er, 1400, er 1500 violations with a grain. The Land Trust can't even correctly identify what those violations are.

And just for good measure, there's likely a little bit of sour grapes here, too. Big surprise. If you don't know what a land trust does, it purchases a land owner's development rights to their property to "conserve" green space. Prices are usually not even near what a developer -- or a gas royalty -- would pay. Sounds ok though, until they tell you they'd also like you to set up a fund to sustain (basically upkeep) your property. So in essence, they pay below what someone else would, and then ask you to keep paying for keeping it up, as if you'll ever reap any other benefit from it. Needless to say, they don't do so good with this with average property owners. I know, because I explored it once to conserve a historic piece of property I own.

Funny thing is, drilling, in the last few years, has preserved more small Pennsylvania farms than the Land Trust could hope to. And no one gave up their development rights, or was asked to pay to upkeep something they had no hope of benefiting from any longer. Nope -- they got a first bonus payment, and then for those where wells have made it through cries of "go slowly!" to drilling, a sustaining royalty payment. Check out PIOGA's web site for details: www.PIOGA.org.