Synergies and Tradeoffs Among Environmental Impacts Under Conservation Planning of Shale Gas Surface Infrastructure

Abstract

Hydraulic fracturing and related ground water issues are growing features in public discourse. Few have given much attention to surface impacts from shale gas development, which result from building necessary surface infrastructure. One way to reduce future impacts from gas surface development without radically changing industry practice is by formulating simple, conservation-oriented planning guidelines. We explore how four such guidelines affect the locations of well pads, access roads, and gathering pipelines on state lands in Pennsylvania. Our four guidelines aim to (1) reduce impacts on water, reduce impacts from (2) gathering pipelines and (3) access roads, and (4) reduce impacts on forests. We assessed whether the use of such guidelines accompanies tradeoffs among impacts, and if any guidelines perform better than others at avoiding impacts. We find that impacts are mostly synergistic, such that avoiding one impact will result in avoiding others. However, we found that avoiding forest fragmentation may result in increased impacts on other environmental features. We also found that single simple planning guidelines can be effective in targeted situations, but no one guideline was universally optimal in avoiding all impacts. As such, we suggest that when multiple environmental features are important in an area, more comprehensive planning strategies and tools should be used.

Energy production and well site disturbance from conventional and unconventional natural gas development in West Virginia

“…Therefore, new policy should focus on reducing the impacts associated with UOG development, since UOG well permitting is trending upward in WV and the entire Appalachian basin. Research has shown that a 38% reduction in environmental impacts can be achieved with a 20% increase in well construction cost (Milt et al 2016 ). Results from the current study suggest that even more benefits could potentially be realized from restoration activities associated with COG wells and infrastructure without impacting energy production.…”

Performance of a cap and trade system for managing environmental impacts of shale gas surface infrastructure

“…While this approach would more directly enforce local priorities for each impact, it would limit development options within sites. Further, because many impacts are positively correlated and some are negatively correlated (Milt et al, 2015), the link between an impact's cap and the resulting development choice could be confounded by choices driven by other impact caps (Bennear and Stavins, 2007), and thus presents a challenge to matching environmental goals to policy outcomes. This is a unique characteristic of regulating multiple impacts through multiple, impact-specific caps.…”

Climate change vulnerability of terrestrial vertebrates in a major refuge and dispersal corridor in North America

“…As a result, in the Great Smoky Mountains, there are over 30 species of salamanders and more tree species in an area of ~2000 km 2 than are found in the whole of Europe (Pickering et al, 2002). Nonetheless, the Appalachians are experiencing rapid climate change in addition to other anthropogenic disturbances such as urban expansion, energy development, mining and non‐native species introductions, which threatens the rich biodiversity that resides in the region (Brown et al, 2005; Giam et al, 2018; Milt et al, 2016).…”