-----Original Message-----
From: Rachel Treichler <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Mon, Nov 16, 2009 1:16 pm
Subject: [FL-SIERRA] Compressor Stations a side-effect of Marcellus
Drilling
Excellent research and reporting by Sue Heavenrich.
http://marcelluseffect.blogspot.com/
Monday, November 16, 2009CompressorStations a side-effect of Marcellus
Drilling
The current message to landowners situated over the Marcellusshale is
that if they want to lease their land for good money, theyneed to
provide a way for the gas company to get the gas out and sendit to
market. That means allowing drilling on their land and
allowingpipelines.
It also means allowing gas compressor stations, and over the pastsummer
Chesapeake Energy constructed a new and larger compressorstation just a
few miles from here. Gathering lines from six localwells carry natural
gas to the station on Federal Road in Erin, NY. Thecompressors increase
the gas pressure so it can be pushed into theMillennium Pipeline (which
carries the gas off to NYC).
Chesapeake threw the on-switch last month andalready two of the nearby
neighbors are complaining about the noise.
“It runs 24 hours a day seven days aweek,” said Richard Usack who
lives close to 500 feet away. “It soundslike a lawnmower running
outside my window all the time. This isruining my life.”
And it’s not just the noise that bothersUsack. “At night it’s lit up
like a Christmas tree,” he said, and thoselights shine into his windows
all night long. Usack has calledChesapeake a couple of times about his
concerns, and they’ve sentsomeone down to measure the sound. But they
don’t share the resultswith Usack.
What really bothers Usack, though, is thatthe town didn't have a site
review or notify neighbors about theproject. Sure, he sold the one-acre
parcel to Columbia a few years back- and Columbia sold it to Chesapeake
- but Usack didn’t realize theywould use it for such a large compressor
because the town has zoning.And that area is zoned
residential/agricultural, not industrial. Thecompressor, he says, is
industrial in nature.
According to the Town Code Enforcementofficer John McCracken,
Chesapeake, already had an existing compressorthere. Therefore, they
were exempt from everything except the buildingpermit for the structure
surrounding the compressor.
Flipping through the blueprints on hisdesk, McCracken reads off a few
design specifications: ahospital-grade muffler; estimated engine power
around 700 hp; noiselevel expected to be 40 decibels at the site. Oh
yeah, and it's poweredby natural gas. More about that later.
McCracken estimates that Erin will seeanother five compressor stations
as the Marcellus shale is developed.To place an essentially industrial
activity in the currently zonedresidential/agricultural district will
require special use permits, henotes adding, “If towns don’t have
zoning, they won’t be able tocontrol where compressor stations are
located.”
This is becoming a problem south of theborder, in Bradford County, PA.
Brian Davis, Bradford County planner,says the county has no zoning and
already there are three compressionstations. He expects more to come.
Residents may have little say about wherea compression station goes,
but that doesn’t mean they’ll keep mum.When people complained about the
noise at a compressor station nearAlbany, the company installed
acoustic blankets inside the compressorstation buildings to help muffle
the sound.
Right now nobody in Erin is thinking aboutpotential air quality
concerns. That's because there's only onecompressor in town. But Calvin
Tillman, the mayor of Dish, Texas, warnsthat emissions from gas-powered
compressor stations like the one inErin have the potential to pose
serious problem.
In a phone interview last week he explained some of the problems
Dishresidents were experiencing. But we have eleven compressor engines,
heemphasized. The problem is, they are located just outside the
townboundaries, and just beyond town jurisdiction. Dish has no control
overwhere those compressors are located.
"Texas allows the companies to permit each station separately,"
Tillmanexplained. It's done with "permit by rule". As long as each
compressordoes not reach or exceed the allowable emissions threshold
they arepermitted. "They don't consider the cumulative effect of all
thecompressors in the area," he said.
The air in Dish got so bad that the folks in town voted to use a
chunkof taxpayer money - 15 percent of their annual budget - to fund an
airquality study. Of course, the energy companies have been saying
ourstudy wasn't well done, Tillman said. But now the Texas Commission
ofEnvironmental Quality is conducting their own studies and, according
toTillman, their results support the earlier Dish study. Results
areposted on the town website at www.townofdish.com
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