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The twelve personal injury attorneys at Dougherty Leventhal and Price LLP are handling serious personal injury and workers compensation cases in North Central Pennsylvania. The Law Firm includes six (6) Super Lawyers as voted by Philadelphia Magazine and is representing accident victims in Bradford, Susquehanna, Tioga, Potter, Wyoming. Sullivan and Wayne County. DLP has handled numerous serious injury cases involving tractor trailers, cars, motorcycles, defective products and other types of negligence. Recently, Attorneys Joe Price and Tom Cummings attended a seminar in Houston , Texas to help the firm represent clients injured or killed while involved in the drilling industry or when involved with a vehicle used in the gas drilling industry. The firm has represented clients from many communities including Wellsboro, Coudersport, Mansfield, Towanda, Athens, Waverly. Montrose, Sayre, Tunkhannock and other towns. If you suffer injuries as a result of an accident or while at work, please contact any of our lawyers at dlplaw.com or call 570-call-dlp.

April 5, 2010

EILEEN GODIN Times Leader Correspondent

Well-water testing in advance of natural gas drilling operations in parts of Luzerne County could give homeowners with wells knowledge, a baseline for future testing and a legal leg to stand on if their water becomes tainted, some experts say.

Marcellus Shale gas drilling is coming into Luzerne County this summer. EnCana Oil and Gas USA Inc., based in Denver, Colo., will be starting a site in Lake Township off Zosh Road in June or July.

Drilling could also be coming to other mostly Back Mountain area communities. Some area groups have voiced strong opposition to the drilling, and some landowners in counties where drilling is already taking place have said their water wells have been inversely affected by gas drilling activities.

EnCana Community Relations Adviser Wendy Wiedenbeck said her company has drilled 8,700 gas wells and has not had “any instance of well water becoming contaminated.” She said EnCana takes great pains not to damage water wells.

“It is in our best interests not to impact water supplies,” she said. Wiedenbeck said that besides using the standard cement casing at the gas-drilling site to protect underground water sources, a second cement casing will be used for added protection.

She said the casings are inspected regularly throughout the life of the well.

Encana’s zero tolerance of spills means its employees are specially trained for operating valves at drilling operations or transporting liquids, she said.

All spills are reportable, and the federal Environmental Protection Agency has a toll-free line to report them at (877) 919-4372.

“We are very proud of our environmental record,” she said.

To be prepared, residents within a mile radius of the drilling sites are advised to have their well water tested, Wiedenbeck said.

The trick is knowing what kind of testing is needed and the proper way to take a sample.

Aqua-Tech Laboratory Director Joseph F. Calabro, Mountain Top, said well water owners should have a state Department of Environmental Protection-certified lab do the testing. Someone who is certified with the lab should draw the water and a chain of custody for the water sample should be followed, he said.

A chain of custody for the sample is a log that is signed and dated by the person taking the water sample and given to the lab, where it is signed and dated upon receipt. Calabro said this log will stand up in court.

A listing of state-certified labs, by county, can be found at http://water.cas.psu.edu. Click on “information” on water issues related to Marcellus drilling. Then, on the right side of the screen, click on “find a lab.”

Calabro said homeowners should know what is normally in their well water. He said small amounts of minerals such as barium, sodium, manganese and iron, are already in well water, along with many other minerals.

He said that once this baseline for what’s in the water is established, then testing for industry-specific indicators can be performed.

He advised that if homeowners notice a change in taste, clarity or smell of their water, they should have it tested right away.

Concerned that nervous residents could be charged for more testing that what is really needed, he said he is willing to attend municipal meetings to discuss minerals and industry-specific indicators to watch for.

Wilkes University geologist Brain Ora said he is hoping homeowners will be willing to share their testing results to compile a database, by zip code, to show water quality history. He said that over time the database will track changes of water quality.

Copyright: The Times Leader

By Steve McConnell (Staff writer)
Published: March 30, 201

Philadelphia City Council urged an environmental regulator Thursday to deny two natural gas drilling permits slated for an energy company seeking to move ahead with its stalled operation in Wayne County.

The 17-member city council unanimously approved a resolution that asks the Delaware River Basin Commission to conduct an environmental impact study of natural gas drilling in the Delaware River watershed prior to approving any permits.

David Forde, chief of staff for Councilwoman Blondell R. Brown, who sponsored the resolution, said the council is concerned natural gas drilling in the watershed could have a downstream impact on city residents who depend on it for drinking water.

“We did some research and saw the concern folks had were legitimate,” Mr. Forde said.

According to the resolution, 15 million people rely on the Delaware River watershed for drinking, agricultural and industrial uses. This includes 2 million people who are customers of the city’s public water department.

Requested by Louisiana-based Stone Energy Corp., the permits are part of only a handful of industry requests before the commission, which has jurisdiction over water resources. None has been approved.

In a county that has not seen any producing Marcellus Shale wells, the permits involve a prospective Marcellus Shale site in Clinton Twp., Wayne County. The issue is bringing the City of Brotherly Love and this predominately agricultural county much closer than ever imagined.

Energy In Depth, an industry organization, called the city “not very brotherly” since the action infringes on county residents’ private property rights to lease for energy development, said the organization in a press release.

An environmental impact study, an intensive and time-consuming endeavor, would determine whether natural gas drilling poses a legitimate threat to the Delaware River watershed, a 13,539-square-mile area that encompasses nearly all of Wayne County and is known for its pristine water quality and world-class trout waters.

Commission spokesman Clarke Rupert said Monday the regulator is considering conducting such a study. A decision on a $250,000 appropriation request by the commission is not expected until late 2010.

The Philadelphia resolution also calls for a complete ban on natural gas drilling in the basin until such a study has been conducted.

At a public hearing last month in Pike County, an overwhelming majority told Delaware River Basin Commission officials to nix Stone Energy’s Wayne County plan until an environmental impact study is completed.

Stone Energy Corp. is seeking commission approval to hydraulically fracture its Clinton Twp. well and to withdraw up to 700,000 gallons of water a day from the West Branch of the Lackawaxen River in Mount Pleasant Twp.

The commission staff halted operations there in 2008 for lacking a permit. The company has received the go-ahead from the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Contact the writer: smcconnell@timesshamrock.com

Copyright: The Times Tribune

April 6, 2010

The state House Majority Policy Committee will hold a public hearing to discuss environmental issues surrounding the Marcellus Shale and the Chesapeake Bay at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, April 13 at Lycoming College.

State Rep. Rick Mirabito, a committee member, will host the meeting to be held in Wendle Hall, Room D-001, 700 College Place, Williamsport.

Among those attending the hearing will be Marel Raub, Pennsylvania director of the Chesapeake Bay Commissions; Matt Royer, Chesapeake Bay Foundation attorney; and Eric Conrad, project manager, Oil and Gas Partnership, North Central Workforce Investment Board.

Others expected to attend will be representatives from Trout Unlimited and the Responsible Drilling Alliance.

The hearing will include public discussion.

Copyright: Sungazette.com

By Jon Hurdle

WELLSBORO, Pennsylvania (Reuters) – At a windswept rail yard at Wellsboro in northern Pennsylvania, dozens of railcars wait to load thousands of tons of sand onto trucks that will take the cargo to natural gas rigs across the state.

The freight railroad, which runs 35 miles north to Corning, New York, had its busiest year in more than two decades in 2009, fueled by demand from a booming natural gas industry, which uses sand in hydraulic fracturing operations.

Revenue doubled last year for Wellsboro & Corning Railroad, owned by Tom Myles and sons Tom Jr. and Bill, and the sand-hauling contracts that began a year ago are due to double revenue again in 2010 and make up 80 percent of business.

It’s a windfall for the Myles — who bought the railroad’s rolling stock for $750,000 in January 2008, expecting to serve two local manufacturing companies — and for Wellsboro, which has a population of about 3,200, and its surrounding farms.

“This is a huge opportunity for us to operate at these levels,” said Bill Myles, manager of the railroad’s operations. The company has just spent $1.5 million on four powerful new locomotives, is laying new track and has hired new workers.

Like many rural towns, Wellsboro is getting rich from the rush to develop the Marcellus Shale, a formation stretching from New York to West Virginia that contains enough natural gas to satisfy U.S. demand for 20 years or more, experts say.

It is expected to become the most productive of America’s shale gas fields.

The boom has also transformed the lives of some local farmers who, after struggling financially for years, now find themselves with six- or seven-figure checks from the gas companies in return for leasing their land for drilling.

Tim Gooch, a partner in the Wellsboro office of the accounting firm ParenteBeard LLC, recalled a dairy farmer client who had run up about $500,000 in debt over 20 years because of depressed milk prices and rising farm costs.

But then in 2008, the farmer got a gas-lease check for $800,000, allowing him to pay off his debts and own his 300 acres outright for the first time, Gooch said.

“Some of them have had tears in their eyes, thinking they may have to give up the farm,” said Gooch. “The gas checks have allowed them to stay on their land.”

Energy companies are paying around $2,500 an acre — a lump sum of about $375,000 for a typical 150-acre farm, he said. And more money will also flow into local economies from gas royalty payments, which are yet to be paid in significant quantities.

‘TIP OF THE ICEBERG’

Surging Marcellus gas demand tripled applications for Pennsylvania drilling permits this year to 5,200; produced twice the expected revenue from a recent auction of state lands for drilling, and encouraged Exxon Mobil to bid $31 billion for drilling company XTO late last year.

In Tioga County surrounding Wellsboro, the biggest local operator, East Resources Inc., drilled 42 Marcellus wells in 2009 and expects to sink another 200 this year. The company and its affiliates employ about 60 people in the county and it expects its work force there to grow by 30 percent in 2010.

Bob and Marsha Chesko own the Sherwood Motel in downtown Wellsboro and say it was full, or nearly so, throughout the 2009/10 winter — an unprecedented experience in their seven years there — due to an influx of workers at nearby gas rigs.

In previous years, the hotel’s winter occupancy struggled to reach 40 percent and traditionally depended largely on the summer trade of tourists visiting the picturesque northern Pennsylvania countryside.

The Chesko’s previously set aside money from the summer tourist trade to see them through lean winter months, but this year the jump in winter business has allowed them to meet running and renovation expenses without dipping into reserves.

And with the expected growth in the area’s gas industry, Bob Chesko said: “It’s just the tip of the iceberg. Some say it’s going to be a 20-year project.”

But some Wellsboro locals have raised concern over damage to roads from heavy truck traffic, worries about possible water contamination from the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, and unease that their quiet rural life style is being lost.

“I caught myself feeling very sad,” said Mary Worthington, treasurer of the local chamber of commerce, as she recently watched a constant stream of gas-industry trucks and mud-spattered pickups grind past her town-center office.

But Todd Coolidge, branch manager of Citizens & Northern Bank in Wellsboro, where the median income of $38,000 is well below the state average of $50,000, said those worries are outweighed by the new gas money.

Business has picked up at gas stations, auto repair shops, restaurants, realtors, and even the local movie theater, said Coolidge, adding, “I have seen so many businesses that it has touched in a positive way.”

(Editing by Michelle Nichols and Todd Eastham)

Copyright: Reuters

April 6, 2010

Copyright © 2010, The Morning Call

A few years ago every geologist involved in Appalachian Basin oil and gas knew about the Devonian black shale called the Marcellus. Its black color made it easy to spot in the field and its slightly radioactive signature made it a very easy pick on a geophysical well log.

However, very few of these geologists were excited about the Marcellus Shale as a major source of natural gas. Wells drilled through it produced some gas but rarely in enormous quantity. Few if any in the natural gas industry suspected that the Marcellus might soon be a major contributor to the natural gas supply of the United States – large enough to be spoken of as a “super giant” gas field.

Copyright: Geology.com

Natural gas captured from organic shale formations is not new to the oil and gas industry; shale gas has been produced since the early 1800s (DOE, 2009).  Most shale gas formations have historically been deemed economically impractical to drill due to the available technology and relative abundance of domestic conventional natural gas sources.  However, recent technological advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing along with increasing demand for natural gas and recent price trends for natural gas, have allowed previously inaccessible reserves to become technologically feasible and economically efficient to recover (DOE, 2009).

The Annual Energy Outlook for 2009, recently released by the United States’ Energy Information Administration, projects an increase of 0.5% total primary energy consumption annually through 2030 (EIA, 2009).  The majority of this demand increase will come from the residential sector’s demand for additional electricity (EIA, 2009).  Currently, coal-fired electricity generation dominates the electricity generation sector at approximately 49% of total U.S. domestic generation capacity (EIA, 2009).  However, due to emerging concerns and public policy developments regarding greenhouse gases and renewable portfolio standards for a sustainable energy supply, lower carbon energy sources needed for electricity generation are expected to gain marketplace demand (EIA, 2009).  Unfortunately, conversion from a fossil fuel-dependent energy economy to a low-carbon energy economy will take time and significant capital investment for infrastructure development (DOE, 2009).  A recent Wall Street Journal article cites Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club as viewing natural gas as a “bridge fuel” from carbon-intensive fossil fuels, such as coal and petroleum, to cleaner future fuel sources (Casselman, 2009).

In order to meet the expected increased demand for natural gas without increasing dependence on foreign imports, development of domestic unconventional natural gas sources will need to grow rapidly.  Production from unconventional natural gas sources, namely organic shales, tight sand formations, and coal-bed methane, currently account for approximately 50% of the total domestic natural gas production (DOE, 2009), this total production from unconventional resources was estimated at 8.9 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) per year in 2007 (ALL, 2008c).  Of the 8.9 Tcf of unconventional natural gas produced in the United States in 2007, 1.2 Tcf was from shale formations; however, shale gas production is expected to grow to 4.2 Tcf by 2030, accounting for an estimated 18% of the total U.S. gas production in 2030.  Unconventional sources combined are predicted to grow to nearly 56% of total U.S. domestic natural gas production (EIA, 2009).  To date, four evolving shale gas plays (Haynesville, Marcellus, Fayetteville and Woodford) are estimated to have over 550 Tcf of total recoverable gas resources, these formatiosn are expected to be capable of providing sustainable production of 2-4 Tcf of natural gas annually for decades (DOE, 2009).  Of these four, the Haynesville Shale and Marcellus Shale may have the most significant additions to domestic reserves of natural gas in recent decades.

Copyright: GoMarcellusshale.com

By MARC LEVY (AP) – 5 days ago

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania’s high court sided Wednesday with the natural gas industry in a dispute with landowners who had sought to invalidate the leases they signed before the Marcellus Shale rush intensified and drove up land values.

In a 6-0 decision, the Supreme Court upheld a Susquehanna County judge’s ruling that validated lease agreements that subtract drilling costs from the calculation of landowners’ natural gas royalties.

“Certainly we’re very pleased,” said Pittsburgh lawyer Kevin C. Abbott, who had filed friend-of-the-court briefs in the case on behalf of Chesapeake Energy Co. and other gas companies. “It does certainly look like a victory for the oil and gas industry.”

The decision is expected to settle dozens of other cases pending in Pennsylvania’s state and federal courts.

In this case, landowner Herbert Kilmer and others had sued ElexCo Land Services Inc. and Southwestern Energy Production Co., contending that such leases were invalid because state law guarantees landowners a minimum one-eighth royalty from the production of oil and gas on their land.

Justice Max Baer, who wrote the court’s decision, noted that the term “royalty” and the method of calculating a one-eighth share is not defined by the state’s Guaranteed Minimum Royalty Act. However, he cited various texts on the industry that say a royalty is paid from the net amount remaining after deduction of certain production and well development costs.

Kilmer’s lawyer, Laurence M. Kelly, said Wednesday evening that he was unaware of the decision and did not want to comment until he had read it.

Industry representatives have suggested the lawsuits were sour grapes on the landowners’ part because they had signed leases at values well below what their neighbors were negotiating months or years later from companies pursuing the Marcellus Shale.

Some geologists predict that the formation below a large swath of Appalachia could become the country’s biggest gas field.

The case was being closely watched by the company executives, who worried that a decision against their companies could invalidate tens of thousands of leases and throw the industry into chaos.

In addition, the royalty issue was being raised in more than 70 lawsuits filed in Pennsylvania’s federal and state courts by plaintiffs seeking a judgment that the leases they signed were never valid.

Judicial decisions in two of the cases raised the prospect of a myriad of different legal opinions.

In Susquehanna County, the judge in the Kilmer vs. ElexCo case had handed the companies an initial victory, saying the law does not specifically prohibit the subtraction of costs.

Separately, a federal judge in Scranton hearing a case against Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. denied a motion to dismiss the case, saying the law’s silence did not necessarily mean the costs can be legally deducted.

Kilmer appealed to state Superior Court, but industry lawyers asked the Supreme Court to step in and effectively settle the matter for everyone.

It did, and heard arguments in September.

Opinion: http://www.courts.state.pa.us/OpPosting/Supreme/out/J-78-2009mo.pdf

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Original Article may be found here.