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AAPG
EXPLORER
ACE paper
Data Reveals
Safety Dynamics
For Marcellus
By LOUISE S. DURHAM
EXPLORER Correspondent
Check out a variety of news sources
for environmental-oriented stories
associated with shale drilling/hydraulic
fracturing, and you’ll find a variety of
opinions, accusations and such, particularly
in the public domain.
Many of them are far out.
Tales of methane-filled tap water from the
kitchen faucet that reportedly catches fire
when exposed to a lighted match are but
one of many examples.
“There are not a lot of clear messages in
the popular media,” noted Deborah Glosser,
doctorate program student in the Geology
and Planetary Sciences department at
the University of
Pittsburgh.
“The folks on
the environmental
side have their
preconceived notions,
and the industry has its
own interests,” Glosser
said. “It’s good to look
GLOSSER
at the data and decide
for ourselves.”
She has looked
at plenty of HSE (health, safety and
environment) data in Pennsylvania,
alongside her academic adviser, Penn State
geology professor Daniel Bain.
Bain also is an NETL (National Energy
Technology Laboratory) collaborator through
the RUA (Regional University Alliance).
Glosser’s interest in the HSE data stems
from her research project focusing on HSE
incident reporting in Pennsylvania. The
results will be incorporated into her doctoral
dissertation – and will be the focus of a
paper she’ll be presenting at the upcoming
AAPG Annual Convention and Exhibition in
Pittsburgh.
She currently is funded by the NETL via
Bain’s RUA contract, with prior funding from
NETL as an ORISE (Oak Ridge Institute for
Science and Education) fellow.
“This is the first comprehensive study
that’s looked at incident reporting in
Pennsylvania over time and in the context
of actual drilling,” Glosser said. “It’s still a
project in progress.
“Since I wrote the abstract (for the AAPG
presentation), the Pennsylvania Department
of Environmental Protection, which is
Pennsylvania’s equivalent to the EPA,
released more data on penalties,” Glosser
noted. “Penalties are separate enforcement
mechanisms from notices of violation (NOV).”
See Safety, page 75
Deborah Glosser will present the
paper “Dynamics of Marcellus Shale
Environmental Health and Safety Incident
Reporting in Pennsylvania” at 2 p.m.
Monday, May 20, at the AAPG Annual
Convention and Exhibition in Pittsburgh.
Glosser is a doctorate candidate in
the Geology and Planetary Sciences
department at the University of
Pittsburgh.
Her talk is part of a Division of
Environmental Geosciences session titled
“Evaluating Environmental Impacts from
Shale Gas Development.”
46 MAY 2013 WWW.AAPG.ORG