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In
2008 we visited 21 well sites, 19 of which were operated by
one company. Since then we've visited other sites, and this
section of Sootypaws describes what we saw in 2009, including
the two wells from 2008 not included in our Gas
Well Study, 2008.
Our
Gas Well Study, 2009 is available for download (it's a
1.6 MB Adobe Acrobat document). The Study has three sections.
The first is the Well Survey, supplemented by this website.
The second section provides summaries of our findings from
the three environmental assessments we did in 2009. The final
section is devoted to waste management and discusses our own
study of the effects of high chloride solutions on woodland
vegetation, imitating what happens in land application of
liquid drill waste.
For
2009 we included an environmental
assessment component to our study. This involved an expanded
site review and testing for contamination by chloride and
other chemicals. Assessments for three sites are available
for download. The Environmental
Assessment for 47-039-05714 included laboratory testing
of exposed pit waste which found elevated arsenic and lead.
All
wells are in Putnam or Kanawha Counties, West Virginia.
See
the first well.
We
also revisited sites we examined in 2008. Reasons include
checking progress (like recently drilled well 1492)
and expanding the area examined at a site (2026).
One
site that was reexamined (April 2009) was 570
from last year in preparation for a complaint
to the EPA for noncompliance with 40 CFR 112. Nothing
had been done to repair the inadequate dike as of February
2010.
We
saw a continuing verification of our findings in our Gas
Well Study, 2008 about the types of problems we can expect
to find at a site and their relative frequency. These problems
include missing or incorrect API number (47% of the sites
visited in 2009) or inadequate secondary containment for condensate
storage tanks (56% of the sites with tanks). Overall, 53%
of the sites visited in 2009 weren't in regulatory compliance.
To
get an idea of the types of problems we've seen there's a
page of examples with links to more information about
that well.
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