Personal
account from the Marcellus Shale
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When Chris and Stephanie Hallowich built their family’s new home on 10 pristine acres in Mount Pleasant Township near Hickory Pa, there wasn’t much Marcellus production activity close by. Over the next few years, several gas wells, a large impoundment dam, a cryogenic gas processing facility and a compressor station were all constructed within several thousand feet of their home.
The impoundment dam went from holding fresh water to flowback, and holes developed in the plastic liner. Results from water tests on their well water began showing bizarre chemicals like acrylonitrile, as well as toluene, ethyl benzene, tetra-chlorethylene and styrene.
They found out one of the chemicals is incredibly dangerous to breathe in when showering, even more so than from dermal contact or ingesting it. Since the Pennsylvania DEP doesn’t test well water for any volatile organic compounds, they weren’t much help to the Hallowich family.
As Stephanie put it, “People don’t know where to go, people don’t know what to do. People call the DEP because they’ve got water problems and the DEP tests for 14 things, and their water’s black and oily, and the DEP says there’s nothing in it, it’s safe to drink! Nobody’s testing for VOC’s and there are hundreds of those that they’re using all over the country, all the different companies, to frack with. Who are we supposed to go to? The burden falls upon the landowner to pay for all this testing.”
See 1:48 mark of the video above
for a look at In the meantime, the cryogenic facility, which was initially built without the proper local permits, began to enlarge. Then the compressor station doubled in size from two compressors to four. Soon the children were experiencing nose bleeds, similar to what has been reported from residents of Dish, Texas, another small area overpopulated with compressor stations.
The Hallowich family also began to notice how much better they felt when they were away from their “Gasland” property for any extended period of time. Stephanie Hallowich explains it this way, “We have a gas plant and compressor station next door, and we’ve had a lot of air issues, where it smells really bad, we get burning eyes, burning throats, headaches, ringing ears; we don’t know what’s coming out. We recently had some air testing done and it’s shown that there are high levels of volatile organic compounds (VOC) coming out of these plants. And with the compressor station and the plant being so close together, and two completely different companies, they each have their own air permit. First of all, they should never be allowed that close together because the emissions are too extreme. The DEP doesn’t look at the cumulative effect of these emissions coming out so we’re getting kind of a double whammy of what would be allowed anywhere else.”
She continues, “When the man came to take the air sampling tests, he didn’t even have the equipment completely out of the car and the alarm went off for the VOC’s, and the alarms goes off at 50 parts per million. We were above that, just in our driveway. There was no odor that day, nothing that would give us a clue that we were being exposed to that. That’s where my kids play, their swing set is right next to that. That’s where they spend all their time. We have a wind sock in the background because we watch which way the wind blows so we know if anything is coming from the plant or compressor. The levels are so high, and with what they have breathed in, we don’t know what the long term effects are going to be.
The only logical choice for the Hallowich family was abandoning their new home for the sake of their own health. They aren’t the first Marcellus Shale
Refugees and surely won’t be the last. |
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INDEPENDENT AIR QUALITY TESTING |
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Photos of Marcellus activities near her home |
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Fracking a nearby well |
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Construction of the Stewart Impoundment |
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Temporary water pipelines run from Cross Creek Lake |
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Pipes like these led to holes in the plastic pit liner |
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Water supply line |
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Gas well behind her house |
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Another gas well near her house |
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Construction of the dew point control facility in her "backyard" |
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Construction activities |
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Compressor |
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Initial construction of a second facility in her "backyard" Stewart Compressor Station |
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Drilling activities out back |
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| December 5, 2011 Bible Camp flare on Agape Road can be seen to the rear left of the Hallowich's former house and Frac pit that has been re-lined with a new black plastic liner |
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| LINKS Fracking Damage Cases and Industry Secrecy New! Hallowich settlement in court National Geographic story June Chappel's story Ron Gulla's story Acrylonitrile blog |
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