NORTHERN CAMBRIA — Judy Armstrong remembers the day she first saw gas bubbles coming out of the Susquehanna River near her home in Bradford County.

“Some of them were as big as a basketball,” Armstrong said.

Armstrong, 53, moved in November to Northern Cambria Borough to escape what she says is water polluted with methane gas – from Marcellus Shale drilling – that has robbed her of her health.

She moved into the Cambria-Somerset region just as drilling activity is beginning to increase here.

John Slesinger of Elton said his water went bad last December after a well was drilled nearby in Adams Township.

“I just woke up one day and all of a sudden it was salty,” Slesinger said. “There was no doubt something was wrong.”

He said his water appeared to be improving during the summer, but turned bad again after the fracking of the well started in September.

He said he contacted the state Department of Environmental Protection, where representatives told him “there is not enough evidence to show the gas well is the source of my problem,” he said.

Under state law, any time a water source goes bad within 1,000 feet of a Marcellus well, the driller must prove that the operation is not too blame.

For any problems with a private well beyond that proximity, it’s up to the property owner to prove that the drilling process caused the trouble, said Bryan Swistock, Penn State water-resources expert.

Slesinger said his private well is 2,600 feet from the Marcellus site.

‘Pace of drilling’

Jan Jarrett is the executive director of PennFuture, a statewide environmental watchdog organization. She said there are a laundry list of environmental concerns related to Marcellus gas extraction, and water is at the top of that list.

“It’s not just the fracking and the chemicals, but the transportation of the water,” Jarrett said.

The impact on forests, because of clearing done to accommodate well pads and transmission lines – and the speed with which the work is happening – can’t be ignored, she said.

“I think the pace of drilling is constrained only by the lack of availably of more drilling rigs,” Jarrett said.  

The water volume used to drill each of the wells concerns Len Lichvar, director of the Somerset County Conservation District and member of the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission.

The vertical drilling process takes about 1 million gallons of water while horizontal hydro-fracking – breaking through the shale to release the gas – can consume 5 million gallons.

Well drillers east of Cambria County must seek approval from the Susquehanna River Basin Commission for water use for such a gas well.

Water from much of Cambria and Somerset counties and points west flows to the Ohio River. No such commission provides water-use safeguards for those waterways.

In the early spring, a subcontractor hauling water for a Chief Gas & Oil well pulled water from an unpermitted site on the Casselman River. The violation was noticed after the hauler damaged a concrete launch area built by volunteers.

A lot of people keep an eye on the industry, but as the number of wells grows, so do the concerns and the responsibilities related to monitoring the well sites, Lichvar said.

At first, land disturbance permit applications went to the counties first for review and comment, then were sent on to DEP. But the county review and approval step has been eliminated, and all Marcellus well applications go directly to DEP.

“DEP will say their permitting is just as good, but the (gas industry) wanted to make sure they could get as many permits as possible as quickly as possible,” Lichvar said.

“I can’t prove it, but I know it. I’ve got a brain.”

Robb Piper said taking the counties out of the approval process resulted in a loss of local revenue, and forces DEP to hire people to handle the permitting process.

“We had people on staff; they had to hire people,” Piper said. “We certainly could have done as good a job as the state is doing.”

‘We’ve raised our fees’

DEP has taken its share of hits, thanks to the state budget crunch. But the state’s environmental secretary, John Hanger, said his agency has worked to beef up staff in the Bureau of Oil and Gas Management.

“We’ve been cut to the bone outside the area of gas drilling,” he said in a recent interview. “We’ve raised our fees to hire inspectors.”

The fast pace of drilling is a concern to Charles Christen, director of operations for the Center for Healthy Environmental Communities at the University of Pittsburgh.

“We have felt we are moving too fast. We need to give people some answers,” Christen said. “This is another major industry coming into an already polluted state.”

But the concerns go beyond the environment to the question of equity, he said.

“We need to look at what happens if you lease to somebody and your neighbor doesn’t,” he said. “There should be compensation for the person who has to deal with noise and disruption and isn’t getting any money.”

Ralph Kisberg, a member of the Williamsport-based Responsible Drilling Alliance, said problems occur on average once in every 150 wells.

“One is 150 seems insignificant – unless it’s a well on your property,” he said.

More than 1,400 notices of violation have been handed out by the DEP since January 2008.

Pennsylvania Independent Gas and Oil Drillers Association Executive Director Lou D’Amico said the violation numbers can be misleading.

One leak on a well pad could result in 12 to 18 violations depending on the number of wells located on the pad.

“It’s still one leak incident regardless of the number of violations,” D’Amico said.

The Pennsylvania Land Trust Association reported that more than 900 of the violations were identified as having or likely to have an impact on the environment.

‘Environmentally sensitive’

State Sen. John Wozniak, D-Westmont, views the Marcellus gas as a huge opportunity for economic development benefits in rural Pennsylvania communities, but it has to be done responsibly.

“Our mission is to make sure it is done in an environmentally safe manner,” Wozniak said.

A growing concern for PennFuture and others is the volume of state-owned forest land being leased to the gas companies for drilling.

Pennsylvania has 1.5 million acres of state land over the Marcellus shale and 700,000 acres are already under lease, said Christina Novak, press secretary for the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

“It doesn’t mean there is a well under every acre. There are currently 25 wells,” Novak said. “With what’s underneath (the forest) we have the potential for several thousand wells over the next 20 to 25 years.”

PennFuture thinks the remainder of the forest above Marcellus Shale could be left alone.

“The intact forest we have is going to be busted up,” Jarrett said.

PennFuture is calling for a study on the effects of the drilling on wildlife, water, public recreation and general health of the state’s forest before more land is opened for drilling.

Two months ago, Gov. Ed Rendell imposed a moratorium on further state forest leasing, a move DCNR secretary John Quigley supported.

“We think the rest of the acreage is recreationally or environmentally sensitive,” Novak said.

Governor-elect Tom Corbett has indicated that he will lift the leasing ban.

‘The next big question’

On the horizon are steps the industry will take to move the natural gas from the compressor stations to the heavy population hubs on the eastern seaboard, Christen said.

“The next big question is the transmission lines they are going to have to build to move the energy to market,” he said.

As the rush to drill wells picks up, state and local emergency management officials are becoming increasingly aware of the need to be prepared to respond.

Rick Lohr, Somerset County emergency management director, said that while well-fire experts would be brought in to extinguish any fires, local firefighters likely will play a role.

“They’re going to get the first call, but they’re going to be support,” Lohr said.

“They’ll go secure the scene, but they won’t go in and put the fire out.”

Somerset County has already provided some training to local fire responders, training that in some cases included representatives from the gas industry.

Cambria County emergency management officials said they are staying abreast of the training and many of the fire companies have members who have had awareness training.

“It’s not like (gas well fires) are brand new,” said Ron Springer, Cambria County emergency management director. “It’s taking what we’ve already learned and applying it to this new area.”

Training is also being offered by the office of Pennsylvania Fire Commissioner Ed Mann at the state fire training academy in Lewistown.

The Pennsylvania Independent Gas and Oil Association and the Marcellus Shale Coalition also offer training support.

Mann now offers a weekly e-newsletter called the “Marcellus Shale Examiner”  for emergency services personnel who want to follow the industry.