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Cow deaths have couple questioning water quality
And there the carcass remains, waiting for someone to tell Greenwood what killed it.
Could it be, as a representative from the state Department of Environmental Protection told him, bad "farmer's luck?" Or could it be, contrary to the industry's claims, that something used in the process of drilling for natural gas contributed to the animal's death?
Terry and his wife, Kathy, did not own the gas rights to their property in West Pike Run Township. Those were sold in 1921, allowing Dominion Exploration and Production Inc. of Indiana, Pa., to drill on their farm.
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A month later, as Kathy Greenwood began filling a pan with water to make spaghetti, she noticed the water was cloudy. Her husband reported it to the DEP the following day, and an inspector was immediately sent to the farm.
What the DEP found were higher than normal levels of iron and manganese in their drinking water. In an order dated March 27, 2008, the DEP required Dominion to drill a new drinking well for the Greenwoods and restore a water supply for farm operations.
Dan Donovan, a spokesman for Dominion, said the Greenwoods did not have a water quality issue, but one of quantity. In addition to drilling the couple a new drinking well, Dominion has submitted a plan to the DEP to provide a water trough for cattle, he said. Currently, the company is paying to have a 2,000-gallon water buffalo on the property filled every four days to provide the farm's 35 head of cattle with water.
The Greenwoods had four separate water sources on their property: a well and spring for the house and a spring and pond for cattle. While water for human consumption is tested prior to drilling, other sources are not, leaving Greenwood to wonder whether hydraulic fracturing chemicals leached into a farm pond where his cows drank.
The Greenwoods lost 10 cows that year, including the four born blind and one born with a cleft palate.
Donovan said the DEP found high levels of cow manure in the pond. Nothing in the drilling process contaminated the pond, he said.
A DEP spokeswoman was unable to provide information on the pond testing. Some diseases, such as bovine virus diarrhea, can affect fetal calves during the gestational period, causing a number of birth defects, including ocular ones.
Greenwood has since fenced off the pond so his livestock can no longer drink from it, and the couple do not drink from their new water well for fear it may be contaminated.
Greenwood receives some royalties from the gas drilling on his property but says it does not make up for what he has lost.
"All this did was cost me money," Greenwood said. "We just went backward."
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: 11/9/2009
You will never get the truth. The DEP will blame it on anything but the gas companies. The governor is alreay in the back pockets of the gas companies. They are not being taxed and the sites and our public gamelands are being opened to drilling. Hey deer hunters are you going to actually eat the deer you get this year not knowing where they are getting their water from?
Terry Greenwood : 11/9/2009
Atlas killed my water well also. They never tested it before drilling. When the fracked the well it sent something into our well. My well is 800 feet away from their gass well. The law states it needs to be 1000 feet away. They gave us city water.
Greenwood : 11/9/2009
Don't get too excited about city water, It kill my goldfish it is so dirty
Cow Manure=Gas Industry Problems : 11/9/2009
So they find cow manure in his water wells and the gas industry is to blame? Sounds like he had bad water wells that were literally full of "you know what." A lot of shallow wells don't even use "fracking" fluids. They use nitroglycerin and compressed air.
Greenwood : 11/9/2009
I had a different problem with a gas drilling outfit and called the DEP the way they acted I thing they were getting paid by the drilling outfit I had to call the township supervisor for help Wife had to go the hospital and Doctor told her not to go back into the house until everything was cleaned had to say in a hotel for a week.J
: 11/9/2009
I am w/i 1000ft of a drilling operation. I never had my water cloud like this. Of course it isn't because of drilling.
water woes : 11/10/2009
I also had a similar problem when they were drilling on neighbors land water went from perfectly clear to cloudy. I drawed a glass and sat it in the window when all that crap settled it looked like cement in the bottom of the glass. Called DEP even showed them my glass of cement, but nothing ever comes of it, I had to buy water, eventually just moved. DEP is worthless in my eyes
: 11/13/2009
this is why darwin was way ahead of his time. " in the struggle for survival the fittest win out at the expense of their rival" its time to adapt people. change with the times. gas drilling is hear to stay. learn to adapt to it or become the "extinct" species.
Shale Drilling : 11/16/2009
I think some of us should question what is going on instead of seeing $ http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/11/10-2
Shale Drilling : 11/18/2009
It is your own interest that is at stake when your neighbor's wall is ablaze. HORACE Epistles xviii, 80
The DEP is the devil. : 11/20/2009
I think we should all light the gas wells on fire like they do in the middle east. Maybe then the DEP would pull its head out of its butt and see the reality of what is going on.
