Landscape consequences of natural gas extraction in Bradford and Washington Counties, Pennsylvania, 2004-2010

Abstract

Increased demands for cleaner burning energy, coupled with the relatively recent technological advances in accessing unconventional hydrocarbon-rich geologic formations, led to an intense effort to find and extract natural gas from various underground sources around the country. One of these sources, the Marcellus Shale, located in the Allegheny Plateau, is undergoing extensive drilling and production. The technology used to extract gas in the Marcellus Shale is known as hydraulic fracturing and has garnered much attention because of its use of large amounts of fresh water, its use of proprietary fluids for the hydraulic-fracturing process, its potential to release contaminants into the environment, and its potential effect on water resources. Nonetheless, development of natural gas extraction wells in the Marcellus Shale is only part of the overall natural gas story in the area of Pennsylvania. Coalbed methane, which is sometimes extracted using the same technique, is often located in the same general area as the Marcellus Shale and is frequently developed in clusters across the landscape. The combined effects of these two natural gas extraction methods create potentially serious patterns of disturbance on the landscape. This document quantifies the landscape changes and consequences of natural gas extraction for Bradford County and Washington County, Pennsylvania, between 2004 and 2010. Patterns of landscape disturbance related to natural gas extraction activities were collected and digitized

Potential reduction in terrestrial salamander ranges associated with Marcellus shale development

“…The Nature Conservancy has projected new well pad numbers and locations for Pennsylvania (Johnson, 2010), and is currently working on projections across the entire play (T. Gagnolet, personal communication), but predicting regional patterns of energy development is exceedingly complex. Furthermore, our analysis is limited to the impacts of gas development in the interior Marcellus shale, and does not include adjacent, less productive, areas of the Marcellus shale or other gas extraction development such as coalbed methane wells, which often occur in the same area (Slonecker et al, 2012), and which would increase the potential loss of habitat and the resulting reduction in species' ranges. Regardless of these limitations, our conservative estimates indicate that habitat loss will not be insignificant, as evidenced by our estimation of $20% forest loss throughout the ranges of these five species if the upper estimate of new well pads are developed.…”

Popular Epidemiology and “Fracking”: Citizens’ Concerns Regarding the Economic, Environmental, Health and Social Impacts of Unconventional Natural Gas Drilling Operations

“…In Bradford County, there were over 1,000 active wells at the time of this study-more than in any other county in the state [25]. For each drilling site, an estimated nine acres per well pad, with an additional 21 acres of indirect edge effects, are converted for UNGDO operations, altering habitat and landscape through loss and fragmentation [26].…”

Shale Gas: A Review of the Economic, Environmental, and Social Sustainability

“…[157,158] Furthermore, depending on the site, roads may have to be constructed to allow equipment and materials to be transported. [116,159] All of this may also affect the local ecology,b ut the effects are still largely unknown, apart from afew studies.F or example,one study has suggested that specialized species and habitatsa round well pads are most at risk because of land and food-chain fragmentation.…”