Natural Gas Forum For Landowners
Because Community Is Everything

The whole natural gas and oil leasing and production issue is confusing enough wihout being fed mis-information by those who we trust to report the facts about the news that affects our daily lives.

The above headline and the information it contained was rightly challenged by Pete Grannis in a letter to William Parment.

This type of newspaper reporting is unconscionable in that it blatantly mis-represents the facts about natural gas drilling in New York State and strongly suggests that the author prefers to incite public fear rather than present factual information.

Contrary to the headline only 10 of the 270 incidents occurred during the drilling process. 7 at gas well sites, 2 at the same oil well and one at a salt mine.

Since 1979 10,400 wells have been drilled... of the nine involving gas and oil, one involved gas migration and home evacuation. One reported as an explosion and a second was a fuel tank hit by lightning.

44 occurred at gas well sites after drilling and stimulation were completed.

106 were at oil wells (numbering nearly 14,000) and none involved explosions, water well contamination or evacuations.

Over the 30 years, the article states 270 accidents but actually only 51 were reported, 7 during drilling and 44 occurred at the site.

The remaining number of accidents were not drilling related. 53 were lightning strikes, vehicle accidents, ice control on roadways, transmission line leaks, etc... 40 of the 270 were at abandoned well sites. 17 were brine tank leaks or overflows.

Over 30 years the percentage is .0001% drilling to accidents.

Here is the pdf of the full letter sent to Bill Parment