Sootypaws Journal

Risk assessment involves categorizing and one of the side-effects of categorizing is creating clusters or communities -- those affected and those not, for instance. Risk assessment, though, goes further and arranges communities within a hierarchical order.

This sort of thinking makes sense in a triage situation or an emergency where response has to be quick and effective. We believe that since there is no public discussion about these categories or the way they are constructed, that the process is open to a bias, no matter how "scientific" or "objective" it may be. One of the biases built into the EPA's (and the state's) process of risk assessment is the desire not to create a remediation procedure that is too costly to industry or business. Permitting and other functions, either on a national or on a state level, also have to be concerned with the economic cost to industry.

We believe a bias can be shown to be present if the process is not working -- if people are getting sick or if the environment is showing degradation. That's already happening, isn't it? Witness global warming. Witness the eradication of aquatic life in 30-some miles of Dunkard Creek that wanders through West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Witness the concerns of residents in the coal fields of West Virginia about underground coal slurry injection and their poisoned drinking water. ( Read more... )

While we're working on the last post in the Risk Assessment series, I thought some photos taken recently showing what we're up to, might be fun. Here goes!

		We had a few cooler days in early September and Kitty Boy and Bobo snuggled close to keep warm. They're lying in the middle of the yard in the hosta bed.
		We redid the floors for the house to match those of the addition in early September. We had to pack everything in the house and move it into the addition to have the floor clear. Bobo thought this box was just the place to lie in and Kitty Boy is on top seeing if he can get Bobo to play.
		Last week I got the sides of the road clear so we could get our truck through to some stacks of firewood in the woods.
		Molly is throwing pieces of firewood into the truck while I take pictures.
		And back at our house, Molly is throwing pieces of firewood out of the truck while I take pictures. Molly wants everyone to know that I didn't just take pictures.
		This is the pile after three truck loads. We brought back one more load and then several evenings were spent stacking it.
		Last week Molly got to finish her welding table project she started in 2007. Family illness and death in 2007 and 2008 really threw us for a loop and we're just now getting some things that needed to get finished, done. For those who want to know, she's using a MIG welder to weld one of the legs to the table top.

More soon!

This is a follow-up post to The Numbers where we provided laboratory analysis results for a sample of pit waste at a natural gas well site. Risk assessment is a huge topic so we'll be splitting the post into two parts. In this part we'll discuss some features of the site that have to be taken into consideration and use information on a table we've created with various screening levels and other information for the chemicals analyzed by the laboratory in the sample.

We're not doing a full assessment of the site; what we're doing is trying to find is out if a full assessment toward remediation is necessary.

The state's DEP Office of Environmental Remediation has several publications that have been helpful to us. These are all associated with their program of voluntary remediation. A Plain Language Guide to Human Health Risk Assessment is a description of the process of analysis and decision-making. There is a helpful checklist at the end which is taken from Appendix A of West Virginia Voluntary Remediation and Redevelopment Act Guidance Manual which is a much more technical document written for remediation specialists. The third element in the publication mix is the De Minimis tables which are part of 60 Code of State Regulations 3. These tables provide screening levels for a large number of chemicals. (The state's and EPA's tables use exponents such as E-01 or E+02 with concentration, e.g., 3.89E-01. E-01 is equal to X 10^-1 and E+02 is equal to X 10². For the example 3.89E-01, the concentration is then 0.389. We find this method of presentation to be a pain and much prefer either a uniform parts per billion presentation or as we've presented the figures in our table. A scientific calculator will easily convert positive and negative exponents.)( Read more... )

We'll be referring to the table we have available for download for the screening levels for assessment.

For this state, assessment of soil contamination proceeds in a systematic manner (see the Decision Tree document). The sample's concentration is compared to background levels -- either uncontaminated soil from or near the site or state background levels. If the sample's concentration is lower than the background level, then there is no problem. If the concentration is higher then the next stage of assessment is made. For our samples, arsenic and lead were higher than the maximum concentrations in the state's background levels. Barium and chromium were lower so those metals aren't considered a concern. (Canada is currently creating national guidelines for acceptable concentrations of chemicals in soil. These limitations will be in force, even if the soil background concentration is higher.)

The next step is to compare arsenic and lead concentrations to the soil to groundwater screening levels. The EPA recently changed their screening levels (June 2009) and we're using the EPA's current screening levels for this region. The sample's concentrations for lead and arsenic were both higher than the soil to groundwater screening levels (arsenic is also higher for the state's soil to groundwater screening level -- these for some reason are about 20 times higher than the EPA's). Typically this means that groundwater needs to be tested for these elements.( Read more... )

We did 13 soil tests on the site using Hach chloride test strips. In one large area, within a perimeter of torn plastic (approximately 15 by 100 feet), we found elevated chloride in 3 locations: greater than 650 mg/l at S5 (and nearby in two earlier tests), 333 mg/l at S6 and 136 mg/l at S7. This was along a line through the area of the site where the pit had been during drilling. We believe the black plastic is pit liner, used to wrap the solid drilling waste before the contents of the pit were shallowly buried under a few inches of soil. Pennsylvania requires 18 inches of cover, the Argonne National Laboratory recommends 3 feet of cover, West Virginia has no guidance.

Here are some photos to show what we saw:

		This photo was taken looking eastward with Molly barely visible in the background. The red circles show the position of some of the blocks with flags we set out around the perimeter of exposed black plastic. The bare area in the foreground had the highest chloride concentration.
		The black plastic stuck up out of the ground and was thick -- nearly impossible to tear. There are deer tracks in the soil.
		This is the same area as the first photo, looking westward. The S numbers point to small circles, their locations along a line about 28 feet apart from each other.

( Read more... )

In late August the pit holding fracture flowback "water" for natural gas well 47-017-05815 was breached near Sherwood in Doddridge County (the north central part of the state). The pit was constructed within feet of Buckeye Creek (the state has no requirement for a minimum distance between ground or surface water for pits -- see our Pits post) so the "water," at least 2500 gallons, went into the creek.

The red gelled liquid has had a negative effect on wildlife. People were told "it was 'just oil' and hadn't killed any fish and okay to be in" -- kids swim and play in the Creek. Already, before the spill, a decline in fish and mussels had been noted by residents and some of the fish had raised nodules on the skin.

Here are some photos:

		Buckeye Creek was a good place to fish for bass and muskie. The contamination is plainly visible from fracture flowback chemicals and formation material (the color may be do to high iron) from a Marcellus well. Gels are created by chemicals which can include diesel fuel or ethylene glycol, neither of which is good to swim in. A similar fracture gel release in Pennsylvania caused a fish kill.
		A high chloride concentration is a feature of fracture flowback but we don't think chloride killed this muskrat near its den. High chloride will kill fish and other aquatic organisms.
		Two ducks were unable to fly.

Louanne (who furnished these photos and information) has a letter she wrote to Governor Manchin available online. The last I've heard, the gunk has been skimmed from the Creek but is lying in piles beside the Creek.

We'd been considering collecting a sample for laboratory analysis, if for no other reason than to confirm the chloride tests we've being doing for soil and water. James Otton found Hach strips extremely accurate, but our way of doing things might not achieve the same results.

The problem was, we didn't have the slightest idea how to go about collecting a sample or getting it analyzed.

In July we began working at a well site where drill waste was either exposed on the surface of the pad or was close to the surface. This was a well drilled several years ago and, like others we've examined this year, has a problem pit.

The state DEP has a downloadable list of certified laboratories and that was our starting point. We wanted to find out if there was a problem with NORM since this was a Marcellus well. Testing for radionuclides narrowed our choices quite a bit; most labs don't do radiological analysis. (The downloadable list indicates by categories what each laboratory can analyze.)

I contacted Pace Analytical through their website and a representative quickly got in touch with me.

We spoke with two laboratories and their questions were similar, beginning with "What's the name of your business?" Pace had no problem working with an individual, the other laboratory wasn't sure they could. They also weren't aware of a method for testing chloride in soil, which didn't give us a lot of confidence in them.

Samples are either "soil" or "water" and the quantity submitted and how the samples are collected is important. This Texas publication gives a lot of good general information. Our Pace representative told us that we could, for soil, double bag the sample using baggies or use a mason jar, and that a quart mason jar would hold more than enough. (If it were a water sample we would have needed to collect a gallon.) A sample for metals needs to be kept cool, radiological samples can be shipped without cooling.

We used a wide mouth Ball jar to hold the sample we collected at the well site. Because we also wanted tests for metals, we used a latex glove as a barrier between the metal lid and sample. If we'd had one, we could have used a plastic lid. (A glass container is good for samples to be tested for metals and organics, a plastic container is good only for samples to be tested for metals. A metal lid is no problem for a sample to be tested for organics.) To collect the sample, we used a stainless steel serving spoon; a plastic spoon would have worked just as well. (The Texas publication provides all the information a person needs for sample collection and is written for the non-scientist.)

Keeping the sample cool during shipping required a special cooler. This FedEx publication provides useful shipping and packing information. We found a 1 1/2 inch thick Styrofoam shipping cooler and box on eBay. If you think you'll be shipping samples to a lab, prepare well in advance. Ask around, perhaps someone you know already has a shipping cooler or two.

The price for analysis wasn't as much as we feared, at least for metals. Both labs quoted $10 for each metal. Metals are calcium, sodium, iron, barium, arsenic, boron, etc. They all cost the same to analyze. Chloride was $15 which wasn't bad either. Metals testing was relatively quick -- two weeks. Radium 226 and radium 228 analysis cost a lot more ($100) and took 30 days.

The analysis results arrived by email in the form of a 16 page report which has pages of technical language in the analysis narrative and quality control sections. To help understand the report, we've found this Alaska state publication extremely helpful. For further information, searching on the web has also been useful.

The lab's analysis has been insightful and worth the trouble and expense. In the next post we'll give the numbers.

Molly and I first met 40 years ago on Labor Day weekend at a party during freshmen orientation at college. She was wearing jeans and a luxurious yellow sweater and was willing to crawl under a desk to say hi to me.

I was able to remember her first name and the dorm she lived in (no mean feat for someone who is name-challenged) and called her the next day from the campus switchboard (I had no idea where her dorm was). We met shortly after at an on-campus movie and our friendship blossomed. We played in the rain, talked a lot or listened to music in my room. Molly introduced me to Blues and Muddy Waters.

She left college after second semester and my best friend and I visited her in Ohio the next summer after she’d had Daria. She returned to college a year later, living off campus not far from my mom’s. Until she and Daria found an apartment, they stayed with my mom. One of my mom’s dogs had just had puppies and I think Daria learned how to bark before she learned to talk.

I came back from semester abroad and Molly had left the state with the man she would marry and I didn’t see her again until years later, though we corresponded in the days before email, the slow way.

In 1977 Molly and Daria came to visit me in Florida for a month and after they left Molly and I decided to live together. I moved to Ohio in 1978 and I count the best years of my life beginning then, though that first meeting in 1969 was the ending of the dark ages for me.

Moving to the woods in 1991, after Daria was in college, was the beginning of our biggest adventure.

We've seen and heard a presentation by Ray Renaud of the Wetzel County Action Group about what's happening in north Wetzel County in northern West Virginia (just below the panhandle) where there's a tremendous amount of drilling activity taking place. Right now the wells being drilled are for Marcellus shale but other companies are getting ready to move in including CNX which is an operator specializing in coalbed methane.

This is a very rural area with only a few roads and those are narrow, about 10 feet wide. Because of all the drilling there is a lot of traffic as equipment and materials are hauled to and from sites. Twenty-four hours a day, as many as 47 trucks an hour.

The well sites are huge with pads covering acres and pits just about as large. Multiple horizontal wells are being drilled and fractured on each pad before the operator moves to a new site. Fracturing requires large amounts of water and sand.

The scale of everything and its effect on the community and environment is hard to imagine. A copy of the presentation as a PowerPoint document is available online but it is a large download, almost 50 MB.

Ray said we could use some of the photos from the presentation.

		The roads are narrow and wind up and down steep hills. Most of the equipment is much heavier than the roads were designed and built for -- cars and light trucks. This is a holding structure for sand used in fracturing a well. There will be a large number of these tanks on the pad.
		Because of all the traffic there's a lot of accidents. This truck has rolled over, its cab partially crushed on the guard rail. We wrote a post a while back about injuries and accidents in the oil and gas industry. About 25% of deaths are caused by road accidents.
		Traffic jams can last for hours and hours. These trucks are parked in front of the volunteer fire department, blocking fire trucks if there were to be an emergency.
		The scale of everything is either huge, large or enormous. In the foreground on the right is a three-story barn. In the middle ground is a large volume pit holding fracture fluid. Operators "dewater" rivers and streams for all the used in drilling and fracturing, turning good water into waste.
		This is a photo taken at night showing just a portion of a pad during drilling a horizontal well. Drilling goes on day and night. Once two wells are drilled on this pad the equipment will be moved to another pad to drill two more wells. Eventually there will be 6 wells on this pad.
		The EPA waived sedimentation control requirements for the oil and gas industry. This means that oil and gas sites don't need to use silt fencing or other control to protect streams, rivers and lakes. The rivers in Wetzel County are now running thick slurry instead of clear water.

Our own gas well study has focused on problems at well sites and older ones at that. What's happening in Wetzel County, West Virginia, and in parts of Pennsylvania, Texas and Arkansas and a host of other places is the future writ large as the oil and gas industry converts rural America into an industrial wasteland.

We've been busy the past couple of weeks working on learning as much as we can about coalbed methane and water produced with natural gas during a coalbed methane well's lifetime. West Virginia is accepting comments for the revised general permit for land application of coalbed methane produced water.

While the new permit is different from the general permit for land application of liquid drill waste in that the allowed chloride concentrations are much lower (maximum of 1,000 mg/l), coalbed methane produced water would be discharged on the forest floor daily for years (just how long depends on the well and location).

Bernardo Garcia of the Office of Oil and Gas at the state's Department of Environmental Protection opened his office to us on 20 August where we spent hours examining discharge reports, vegetation surveys, permit applications and more so that we'd be able to understand how the program works. A rough survey of discharge reports seems to indicate that the majority of discharges have chloride under 250 mg/l and we saw wells where the chloride was under 100 mg/l. There were instances where the chloride concentration went over 1,000 mg/l (some wells have produced water with highly variable concentrations of chloride) but those instances were not usual.

We also saw reports for surface water monitoring. Chloride does not stay in soil and will eventually end up in ground and surface water. There were instances where there were momentary surges in chloride in surface water but they seemed unrelated to land application. It's hard to be absolutely sure though.

We'll be making comments for the permit but we believe that the state is moving in the right direction with baseline laboratory analysis of ground or surface water and soil before land application begins and continual analysis during the long-term discharge at each site. A hydrogeologic study will be required for the site as part of the permit application for operators expecting to discharge at the upper concentrations of chloride allowed. The state will require the monitoring of some heavy metals (barium and selenium).

Coalbed methane used to be released into the atmosphere -- it was a way to remove methane from coal seams before mining. Today coalbed methane is about 5% of the country's total natural gas production and that level is increasing. The U.S. EPA didn't determine effluent limitation guidelines (ELGs) for coalbed methane when they made guidelines for the oil and gas industry (40CFR435) and the EPA is in the midst of a study toward such guidelines. The docket for that study provides a wealth of source material.

Two items of local interest in the docket are a report on a visit to two wells operated by CDX in West Virginia (docket number EPA-HQ-OW-2006-0771-0968) and notes from a teleconference between the EPA and people at the state's Department of Environmental Protection (EPA-HQ-OW-2006-0771-1010). The teleconference unfortunately shows just how little information the DEP had when they were creating the original permit in 2007. We can't provide direct links for these documents, but they and others can be found on the docket (on our computer the CDX well report was on page 155 of the docket) and downloaded.

Part II of the EPA's 2006 Technical Support Document for the Effluent Guidelines program (section 6) was useful in providing information about the regulatory framework, various state programs, and methods of dealing with coalbed methane produced water.

Another document that has been helpful was created at Canada's The Pembina Institute -- Protecting Water, Producing Gas. This lengthy paper focuses on issues with coalbed methane exploration but also deals with conventional and nonconventional (tight shales like Marcellus) natural gas exploration and environmental issues.

This is the time of year when turtles spend a lot of time in puddles or muddy areas. Around here, it is the gas well road where we most often see turtles, though there are spots on our road that we'll also find them. Seeing them makes it sound easy. Sometimes turtles are extremely hard or impossible to see because they are completely buried in the mud or have a mud covering over their shell.

Because turtles are in ruts in the road, they are at risk of being run over. Molly has a sign up at the gate warning people about the turtles, but unless someone is willing to stop and get out to check, it's impossible to see most turtles from a vehicle.

Here are some photos:

		This turtle was looking at me when I took the photograph. Sometimes they duck their heads under the water or into the mud.
		Here's a turtle that is almost completely hidden. Its head is down in the water. A couple of days after this photo was taken, fearing for the little guy, I dug out the mud around him. Heavy rains were expected that nigh, he was in a low spot and I was afraid he'd not be able to get out.
		Here's a turtle in a rut. A driver would hardly think twice before driving here.
		Last Thursday I was cleaning out a ditch from a muddy spot in our road. In one shovel full of silt, there was a small turtle (its shell was about 3 inches long) that I hadn't seen beforehand. I thought I might have hurt her, so I carefully put the soil on the ground and checked. There were no cuts in the shell.
		I was more careful in my digging and after a minute, when I checked back, I saw the turtle burrowing into some loose mud. She's completely hidden now -- can't see her, can you?

We've added a page to our website about chloride using text taken from our comments to the West Virginia DEP about proposed Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) water criteria standards. We thought it was important to explain some of the effects chloride has on the environment since it is usually the analyzed constituent in drilling waste with the highest concentration. We've created links to the chloride page from other pages in the Drilling Waste Management section of our site.

We weren't planning on it, but we've begun an environmental assessment at a new well site, this one drilled several years ago. The owners of the property asked us to check their spring which is down hill from the site (about 300 feet from the edge of the site). They had expressed their concern earlier when they met with the company before the well was drilled, that they wanted the waste to be disposed of off the site because of that spring and the associated cistern and were assured it would be. They believed that pit waste was buried on site and it was possible that the slope down to the spring had also been landsprayed with pit waste.

When we went with one of the property owners to the well site we saw problems immediately. Molly saw there'd been a large spill when condensate had been pumped out of the storage tank for the well (condensate is crude oil and brine). There were also large pieces of thick black plastic sticking up out of the ground over a large area where the pit had been (almost 1500 square feet) and vegetation was absent. The well site looked and smelled "sick."

We took two soil samples in the area of what had been the pit for testing later. We left the well site and went down to their house in the hollow and walked with the owners to the spring and cistern. It was about a quarter mile, through lush woods, refreshing after the well site. There were several varieties of ferns on the banks, including maiden hair fern. We were able to test the cistern's water for chloride on the spot and it was less than 30 mg/l which is what we'd expect for uncontaminated surface water or soil. That doesn't mean that the spring is unaffected by the well, a single test for chloride won't demonstrate that.

We've been busy since then on the site measuring and taking samples and when we have it finished we'll present the findings for our third environmental assessment. The two soil samples we took on that first day -- both tested over 650 mg/l for chloride (beyond the upper limit of the test we're using).

This post will be an illustrated miscellany with a bit about the bookshelves in the addition, a bit about a plant getting ready to flower, and pieces of pit liner. A lot has happened in the past couple of weeks plus there's the ongoing research we've been doing, but there's no time to write about that at the present moment.

So, instead of a bunch of words, here are some pictures with their captions.

		Last April we had a post about the new bookshelves in the addition. This and the next photo shows the shelves filled. We have more books than shelves so there are stacks we'd like to have on the shelves but don't have room for. The shelved books in this photo are Old and Middle English texts with a smattering of Old French.
		A foam pad with bolster is in one of the sections -- perfect for reading and napping. The bolster is against the theater section of the library, plays from Sophocles to August Wilson.
		This is a rattlesnake plantain growing by the road in front of the house. We've only seen these flower a couple of times we've been here.
		The leaves have distinctive markings and stay green all year, even through winter.
		The spire's blooms are just starting to open. The whole plant is less than a foot tall.
		These are pieces of what we think are pit liner from two gas well sites. The pieces on the right are from an older site, the pieces on the left are from a much newer site. These are from wells where the buried waste pits have been exposed and the liner fragments were lying loose on the ground. This is something we shouldn't be seeing.

We've begun our experimental testing of the effects of chloride in our woods and while we're not ready yet to present any findings as such, we do have some results to give an idea of what we're seeing.

What we've tried to do is to imitate what happened at Fernow in terms of concentration and load of chloride with the hope that we'd maybe see some of the effects the Forest Service experienced when liquid drill waste was landsprayed in their woods.

About 80,000 gallons of waste was sprayed on about a half an acre at Fernow. The concentration was either at around 6,210 mg/l (as shown by Berry Energy's Discharge Monitoring Report) or about 14,000 mg/l (as found by the Forest Service's own testing). We created an experiment for both concentrations at 4 gallons per square foot in extremely small test plots, too small to get anything but an idea.

		We used table salt (sodium chloride) as our source for chloride in the tests we've done so far. The sandwich bag on the left holds the appropriate amount of salt for four gallons at 6,200 mg/l. The bag on the right holds salt for four gallons at 14,000 mg/l. This is how much salt is to be deposited per square foot.
		We used bent pieces of 3 inch 16 gauge steel to separate the test plot from the surrounding forest. The steel rests on the surface. This is the 14,000 mg/l plot and the plant in the middle foreground is one of those species that showed effects. This and the next two photos were taken before application of the chloride.
		Small maple seedlings were in both plots.
		The 6,200 mg/l plot had a small hickory (?) sapling that would show the effect of applied chloride.
		This is from the 14,000 mg/l plot after application and shows a suffering maple seedling in the center and another plant that has lost most of its leaves.
		Maple seedlings showed subtle effects after a week. There were color changes and a mottling on the surface of the leaf. Some leaves showed a dark coloration at the edges.
		After a week and a half the effects of chloride in both plots was evident for the maple seedlings. The dark coloration at the edges is plainly visible on the leaf in the center of the photo. Molly remarked when she saw this photo that it looks like a photo she'd seen of a rose plant that wasn't getting enough water. Too much chloride in the soil has a drought effect on plants.
		The hickory sapling didn't show effects immediately but, again, after a week and half there is the mottling on the surface and discoloration on the edges of the leaves. This was in the plot that received 6,200 mg/l chloride.

Soil samples from both plots taken a week after application and after several light rains showed over 300 mg/l chloride.

We intend to create other experiments to study the effects of chloride at various concentrations and loads on vegetation. The state permits land application of up to 25,000 mg/l. We believe the problem isn't so much the concentration but the load, the amount of chloride per acre (or per square foot in the case of our test plots). In either case, vegetation must survive or else the purpose of spraying on vegetation is lost. If vegetation can't take up the chloride and store it safely then the chloride will end up in surface and ground water. Chloride acts as a transport for heavy metals, such as cadmium, found in drill waste. In some instances naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) are brought to the surface during drilling or production and chloride acts as a transport for these also.

An update on Bobo -- he's doing a lot better and has really liked the cooler weather the past couple of days. Both he and Kitty Boy were on the front stoop this morning where he was giving Kitty Boy's head a bath. Later on he was enjoying watching Kitty Boy jump at hosta flower stalks.

It's been a hectic and eventful past couple of weeks and that's the reason there's been no posts or updates. A friend passed away and while Molly was out of town to be with him and his wife just about everything that could go wrong did. Bobo got sick, all kinds of crazy things happened at my mom's down in the hollow which eventually required a trip to the emergency room for her, and so on.

I don't drive which made everything even more crazy. Thank goodness for kind and helpful neighbors.

Bobo had an infection in his salivary gland, the one under his jaw on his left side, and after a course of antibiotics he's doing a lot better. The gland is still swollen and we're waiting to see if something major is happening that caused the infection, like cancer. Needle biopsies didn't find cancerous cells which is a relief.

In 2006 Bobo fell seriously ill and during the exam at the vets, after an x-ray, it was discovered that he had a large, inoperable mass next to his heart. He beat the respiratory infection (that was a long 4 weeks for everyone involved) and the mass became much smaller in size. The mass is still there, still small, but we think that may make surgery a risky option if that is required.

Having Kitty Boy as a buddy has been so good for Bobo, even when he's been sick. When he's felt like it, they both play. When he hasn't felt so good, Kitty Boy does a good job respecting Bobo's wishes.

Friday a week ago, just before Molly came back home, Bobo, Kitty Boy and I spent some time outside in the north side of the house before they both had to come in for the day. The blue blanket means a party and of course there were treats. Kitty Boy played with his stick (he's the only cat we've known who really loves to chew and toss a stick). Bobo watched and got pats from me.

		Kitty Boy on the blanket on his back with the stick right next to him (the stick is next to his right side). Kitty Boy's fur is filling in nicely after his surgery. Bobo looks small in this photo but he's a really big cat who weighs easily twice as much as Kitty Boy.
		Kitty Boy has large, slanted, beautiful bright eyes.</font>
		Mister Bobo relaxing while Kitty Boy is darting here and there. Everything Kitty Boy does fascinates Bobo. We used an electric shear to trim Bobo's very long fur so he'd be more comfortable in the summer. The whitish fur on his side is is an extremely thick undercoat.
		Kitty Boy exploring. The north side of the house is mostly moss with a few wild weeds and a bit of grass.

More soon!

Last year when we began our Gas Well Study we were pretty much limited to what we could see, smell or hear at a gas well site. This year we've begun testing for chlorides at some well sites.

A large number of constituents are found in gas well waste and brine. There are heavy metals and hydrocarbons, like benzene, but chlorides have the highest concentration. In West Virginia there are criteria for chlorides in waste and for water quality. Here's a new page on the website explaining how we test for chlorides.

We've created an environmental assessment for one site we've tested and an interim assessment for another. The Environmental Assessment for 47-039-02026 gives the results for testing soil at a number of locations. We found a correlation between deer tracking and elevated chlorides in soil. That's a confirmation of what we thought we were seeing at a number of sites.



The Interim Environmental Assessment for 47-079-00731 and 47-079-01492 presents our findings from water and soil testing at this complex site where two gas wells are very close together. Water is entering the closed pit, draining down the fill slope into a log and brush sediment barrier. The water leaves the barrier and passes the lower well to eventually leave the site and enter the Pocatalico River. We found elevated concentrations of chlorides at each step of the water's journey.

Being able to evaluate the unseen is an exciting step for us.

Kitty Boy finally got to go outside on Monday; it had been a little over two weeks since his operation.

His recovery has been speedy and he's becoming more and more proficient at moving around on three legs. Play with Bobo has really helped. It's amazing the things he can do now: use the cat doors, run across the yard (it's hard to tell he's missing a leg when he's running), chase Bobo, be chased by Bobo, and he's started going up trees! Only three feet or so, but that's a great beginning.

Now that Kitty Boy can use the cat doors he can more easily move through our house. There's a cat door between the house and the addition (we don't heat the addition during the worst part of winter) and another between the addition to the screened porch in back. Anytime he wants he can be almost outside. The west porch is a favorite spot of Bobo's and now Kitty Boy's. There's another kitty door from the outside onto the front porch (which gets blocked with a wood slide at night when everyone is in). In the summer using that door allows the cats to come in and out of the house whenever they want during the day when we're home.

		Kitty Boy on the prowl on one of the graveled paths in our yard.
		Before his operation, Kitty Boy didn't use his nose to explore. He's an eager sniffer now.
		Bobo and Kitty Boy passing each other. They both are incredibly close -- the best of friends.
		Chances are Kitty Boy and Bobo aren't far apart during their day outside.

We've been doing soil tests at one well site for chlorides and have recently finished the second batch. We've had some of our theories confirmed but at the same time we have more questions.

At this well site we found elevated chlorides at three spots, all of which showed unusual signs of deer activity. We call it deer tracking. It's not unusual to find deer tracks in the soil or mud at a remote site. What is unusual is to find a large number of tracks overlaying each other in one particular spot. Deer are visiting the site, using the contaminated spot as a mineral lick. I understand from one person that this also has happened at a site after landspraying, not just large numbers of deer but also bears being attracted.

The environmental assessment page for 2026 on our website shows the spots with unusual deer tracking for the first batch of soil tests -- by the separator and in an area we call the notch. We visited the site again today after a week of heavy rains and the notch was filled with water. There was an oil sheen that we hadn't seen before because we'd always visited the site when the notch was a lot drier. The notch could be part of an exposed pit (because of black plastic in the notch and pieces of plastic down the hillside).

The second batch of tests included the ditch behind the tank where in early 2008 condensate leaking from the tank went down the hillside.

		This photo was taken from down the hillside a little and shows the ditch and tank. The ditch still shows signs of the crude petroleum and brine contamination and is another area on the site showing unusual deer tracking.
		This photo shows the oily sheen visible on the mud in depressions left by deer hooves. It's sort of pretty, isn't it? The sample from this spot, after mixing with distilled water for testing for chlorides, smelled strongly of condensate. Chlorides were 42 mg/l here, much higher than uncontaminated tested areas on the site but lower than by the separator or in the notch.
		This photo shows deer and raccoon tracks elsewhere on the site. Normally uncontaminated areas of a site will have markings like this.

We hope to begin doing soil tests at other sites now that we've had a chance to begin to figure out "how to see what we're looking at."

An update on Kitty Boy: he's doing fine and is quite eager to go outside. He's been romping with Bobo inside and practicing on a balled-up piece of paper, batting it about quickly and accurately with his one front paw. He's ready to go and begin exploring the yard on Monday.

Kitty Boy has been recovering well in spite of a minor setback on Tuesday. We discovered inflammation and swelling at one end of the line of sutures where his arm had been amputated. It started to drain just before Molly took him to the vet where they completely drained the abscess. Molly came back home with antibiotics and a very eager Kitty Boy. Once the infection began to drain he was a cat with a lot of get up and go.

We've been giving the affected area warm compresses two times a day and flood the spot with hydrogen peroxide to help keep it clean. Molly took him back on Friday to the vets and he had his sutures removed from his surgery a week ago. He's healing well and unless infection reappears he doesn't need to go back.

Now that he feels a lot better he's eager to go outside but we're keeping him in until he's completely healed, probably another week. The photo is of Kitty Boy and Bobo on the screen porch at the front of the house.



On Monday, before Kitty Boy showed signs of infection, Molly and I went to the state's Department of Environmental Protection offices in Kanawha City to attend a public meeting. The meeting was to present materials for the Water Quality Standards triennial review. Presentations were made on mercury, iron, nutrients and Total Dissolved Solids (TDS). The presentations and supporting materials along with the state regulation that is affected can be seen at the DEP Division of Water and Waste Management, Water Quality Standards Program web page.

Our concern was TDS, a measure of salinity. The state plans on instituting TDS concentrations in 2011 in its water quality regulation as a result of water quality problems in the north part of the state. These problems were most pronounced for the Monongahela River which goes into Pennsylvania and is an important drinking water source for a large number of people in the Pittsburgh area.

A problem that we see is that the current DEP permit for landspraying natural gas well drill waste isn't working. This creates a potential for a large amount of salts entering the state's waters. An additional problem is that drillers have been using municipal waste disposal facilities for fracture flowback which can be extremely saline. The quantities of waste for horizontally drilled wells can be tremendous, a quarter to a half million gallons or more per well.

One of the things the presenter on TDS mentioned was that the DEP had tested the fracture flowback for a Marcellus horizontal well. I emailed him that evening and he sent me the data which I'm "processing." Chlorides/TDS were extremely high, much higher than I expected. Organics such as benzene and toluene were also higher than usual. They also tested for radioactive substances and the concentrations of radium 226 and 228 were also high.

Conventional waste management in a brine treatment program would lower concentrations for chlorides and metals such as barium (barium was high, lead and mercury were low in the DEP test) but aren't able to deal with radioactive substances. As best that I can tell, waste such as that tested by the DEP could only be disposed of by reinjecting underground at a special disposal well.

More soon!

Tuesday a week ago a cat who had an injured arm appeared in our yard. Bobo didn't mind (he often chases strangers away) and we started feeding him. Thursday we were able to entice him inside, first onto a porch and then into the house. Again, Bobo didn't mind.

The cat got a temporary name of Kitty Boy and quickly became the darling of both Bobo and Molly (and me too). He was more than half starved and even though we'd been feeding him outside, it definitely wasn't nearly enough. The right arm had been seriously injured and we planned to take him to vet if we couldn't find his people.

Here are two pictures of Kitty Boy taken on Sunday after he moved in, one showing his sweet face and the other his injured right arm. In the first, where he's standing, he's holding his arm and paw off the floor though it's not that obvious in the photo.





Molly took him to the vet on Wednesday after we were pretty sure that his strength and trust in us was enough to stand the ordeal. Going to the vet begins with a 3/4 mile ATV ride over a bumpy road to where the vehicles are parked. After the x-ray the vet gave Molly the bad news. Kitty Boy had been shot and the bullet had passed through his arm, barely missing his chest (a smidgen closer would have been too close), but had destroyed the bone. His right arm would need to be amputated.

He had the surgery on Thursday and we picked him on Friday. He was happy to get back to his new home (ATV ride and all) and hopped about on three legs to check out his food dish and the litter box. He even was able to manage the three steps down to the house addition.



This photo was taken first thing Saturday morning and he's not awake yet. The redness is some bruising from the surgery and the red spot below the sutures is one of the bullet's holes.

The first three days after the surgery are the when problems are most likely to appear and we're just past two days and counting. So far, though, Kitty Boy's been doing really well -- much better than I ever expected so soon.