Bear Lake Marcellus Wastewater Injection Wells On the way to Bear Lake Pa! What may be in store for the future! Lion or "Lyin'"? Entering Bear Lake The first anti-dump sign we saw We saw many signs in town! Many different signs! Residents from all political backgrounds oppose the Injection Wells! Gloria, John, and Janet Great signage! "Regular people" wanting to protect their quiet town Nearly everybody in town is on board .... ... Even the first responders who may be most at risk! There are many Amish in the area, how well will they fair against non-stop, heavy, speeding tank trucks filled with poisonous and radioactive chemicals? Now here is a plethora of signs! Each one unique! Most of the signs are hand made- a true grass roots movement! I couldn't help but notice how well kept some of the properties are The swamp and the game lands will be changed forever if this Injection Well is allowed to operate I'm told this is a spring fed swamp! Some people just want to vote Corbett out of office, while others, myself included would like to see him get some well deserved jail time! These really are old wells they want to put the poisons down! ..... to jail! What will be left? Homes will be worthless! Lion and Lyin' are interchangeable! It seems the EPA and the DEP are bought and paid for! The Tamarack Swamp in the background .... teaming with wildlife This is the main well site Tamarack Swamp is just down the hill in the background One of many abandon (and unplugged!) wells! Two dented and rusty storage tanks I'm told they plan to use This is another entrance to the Injection Wells, note another abandon and unplugged well just above the car headlight "LLC" or NO RESPONSIBILITY OR LIABILITY AT ALL? This well is in Pa, but just barely! The other side of the narrow dirt road is NY state! Another view of the main site This is just too ironic! It would be funny if it were not sad! "Do not litter". Putting poisons and radioactive materials into the ground, and ultimately into the water table is OK, but littering is against the law! I wish it were that easy! I really wish it was THAT easy! Tamarack Swamp! A real national treasure! Looks good on paper! How rusty do you think that pipe is considering it was put in in 1987 and it goes through a "salt zone"? ..... Just because it says something ..... I measured the TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) in Tamarack Swamp at a very low 28PPM! What a shame if this were to change! Bear lake- Rolling farms and pristine forests! Federal Environmental Review Board Rejects Warren County Disposal Well Permit (State Impact NPR) From the link: Federal Environmental Review Board Rejects Warren County Disposal Well Permit July 2, 2012 | 6:45 PM By Susan Phillips The fed­eral Envi­ron­men­tal Appeals Board has told EPA, Region 3, they must redo their analy­sis regard­ing pro­posed frack water dis­posal wells in War­ren County. The EPA had granted a per­mit to Bear Lake Prop­er­ties to con­vert two for­mer nat­ural gas wells into dis­posal wells. The pro­posal would send the waste water from nat­ural gas drilling oper­a­tions back down into a for­ma­tion called the Med­ina Whirlpool Sands. Only five such dis­posal wells exist in Penn­syl­va­nia. But two res­i­dents of the area filed an appeal to the Board. Bill Peif­fer and Tom Stroup filed a peti­tion for review regard­ing six issues. The Board rejected all but one. In its deci­sion, released on Mon­day, the Board said EPA offi­cials with Region 3, based in Philadel­phia, did an inad­e­quate job in sur­vey­ing the drink­ing water wells in the area. After a pub­lic com­ment period, the EPA heard from res­i­dents who named addi­tional drink­ing water wells that were not listed in Bear Lake Prop­er­ties’ orig­i­nal appli­ca­tion. The EPA told the com­pany to redo the assess­ment. But the appeals board agreed with peti­tion­ers Peif­fer and Stroup, say­ing the two stud­ies revealed incon­sis­ten­cies and raised sig­nif­i­cant ques­tions about the integrity of the EPA’s analysis. The board rejected all of the other issues, includ­ing the peti­tion­ers’ claim of about 70 undoc­u­mented aban­doned wells in the area that could serve as con­duits for the frack water to pol­lute drink­ing water sup­plies. The Board con­cluded that the EPA has com­plied with the reg­u­la­tions regard­ing pres­sure and mon­i­tor­ing require­ments at the well­head, which they say would pre­vent migra­tion of fluid up any unknown aban­doned well. “EPA has also required in the pro­posed per­mits mon­i­tor­ing of the fluid level in the injec­tion zone dur­ing injec­tion oper­a­tions to ensure that pres­sure cre­ated by the injec­tion oper­a­tion will not cause migra­tion of fluid up aban­doned wells that could exist. By mon­i­tor­ing fluid level, and mak­ing sure that it remains safely below the low­er­most USDW, then even if an aban­doned well were to exist ( i.e., a well that might have been drilled in the past with­out hav­ing infor­ma­tion of pub­lic record), the mon­i­tor­ing would detect and pre­vent fluid migra­tion into the low­er­most USDW.” The wells sit near the Tama­rack Swamp, in North­west­ern Penn­syl­va­nia, just across from the New York state bor­der. Bill Peif­fer and Tom Stroup are con­cerned that the dis­posal wells will pol­lute the swamp and drink­ing water supplies. The deci­sion means EPA Region 3 needs to revisit the per­mit, con­duct a new assess­ment of the drink­ing water wells in the area, and open up the per­mits to a new pub­lic com­ment period.