Environmental Baseline Monitoring Project. Phase II, final report

This report is submitted in compliance with the conditions set out in the grant awarded to the British Geological Survey (BGS), for the period April 2016 – March 2017, to support the jointly-funded project "Science-based environmental baseline monitoring". It presents the results of monitoring and/or measurement and preliminary interpretation of these data to characterise the baseline environmental conditions in the Vale of Pickering, North Yorkshire and for air quality, the Fylde in Lancashire ahead of any shale gas development. The two areas where the monitoring is taking place have seen, during the project, planning applications approved for the exploration for shale gas and hydraulic fracturing. It is widely recognised that there is a need for good environmental baseline data and establishment of effective monitoring protocols ahead of any shale gas/oil development. This monitoring will enable future changes that may occur as a result of industrial activity to be identified and differentiated from other natural and man-made changes that are influencing the baseline. Continued monitoring will then enable any deviations from the baseline, should they occur, to be identified and investigated independently to determine the possible causes, sources and significance to the environment and public health. The absence of such data in the United States has undermined public confidence, led to major controversy and inability to identify and effectively deal with impact/contamination where it has occurred. A key aim of this work is to avoid a similar situation and the independent monitoring being carried out as part of this project provides an opportunity to develop robust environmental baseline for the two study areas and monitoring procedures, and share experience that is applicable to the wider UK situation. This work is internationally unique and comprises an inter-disciplinary researcher-led programme that is developing, testing and implementing monitoring methodologies to enable future environmental changes to be detected at a local scale (individual site) as well as across a wider area, e.g. ‘shale gas play’ where cumulative impacts may be significant. The monitoring includes: water quality (groundwater and surface water), seismicity, ground motion, soil gas, atmospheric composition (greenhouse gases and air quality) and radon in air. Recent scientific and other commissioned studies have highlighted that credible and transparent monitoring is key to gaining public acceptance and providing the evidence base to demonstrate the industry’s impact on the environment and importantly on public health. As a result, BGS and its partners initiated in early 2015, a co-ordinated programme of environmental monitoring in Lancashire that was then extended to the Vale of Pickering in North Yorkshire after the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (BEIS) awarded a grant to the British Geological Survey (BGS). The current duration of the grant award is to 31st March 2018. It has so far enabled baseline environmental monitoring for a period of more than 12 months. With hydraulic fracturing of shale gas likely to take place during late 2017/early 2018, the current funding will allow the environmental monitoring to continue during the transition from baseline to monitoring during shale gas operations. This report presents the monitoring results to April 2017 and a preliminary interpretation. A full interpretation is not presented in this report as monitoring is continuing and it is expected that there will be at least six months of additional baseline data before hydraulic fracturing takes place. This represents up to 50% more data for some components of the montoring, and when included in the analysis will significantly improve the characterisation and interpretation of the baseline. In addition to this report, the BGS web site contains further information on the project, near real-time data for some components of the monitoring and links to other projects outputs, e.g. reports and videos (www.bgs.ac.uk/research/groundwater/shaleGas/monitoring/home.html)

Recommendations for environmental baseline monitoring in areas of shale gas development

Environmental monitoring plays a key role in risk assessment and management of industrial operations where there is the potential for the release of contaminants to the environment (i.e. air and water) or for structural damage (i.e. seismicity). The shale-gas industry is one such industry. It is also new to the UK and so specific environmental regulation and other controls have been introduced only recently. Associated with this is a need to carry out monitoring to demonstrate that the management measures to minimise the risk to the environment are being effective. While much of the monitoring required is common to other industries and potentially polluting activities, there are a number of requirements specific to shale gas and to what is a new and undeveloped industry. This report presents recommendations for environmental monitoring associated with shale-gas activities and in particular the monitoring required to inform risk assessment and establish the pre-existing environmental conditions at a site and surrounding area. This baseline monitoring is essential to provide robust data and criteria for detecting any future adverse environmental changes caused by the shale-gas operations. Monitoring is therefore required throughout the lifecycle of a shale gas operation. During this lifecycle, the objectives of the monitoring will change, from baseline characterisation to operational and post-operational monitoring. Monitoring requirements will also change. This report focusses on good practice in baseline monitoring and places it in the context of the longer-term environmental monitoring programme, recognising the need to transition from the baseline condition and to establish criteria for detecting any changes within the regulatory framework. The core suite of environmental monitoring activities currently required to support regulatory compliance, i.e. meet environmental and other permit conditions, encompasses monitoring of seismicity, water quality (groundwater and surface water) and air quality. Recommendations for each of these are included in this report. Additionally, recommendations for a number of other types of environmental monitoring are included – radon in air, soil gas and ground motion (subsidence/uplift). These are not associated directly with regulatory compliance but can provide information to support interpretation of statutory monitoring results. They are also considered important for public reassurance. Health impacts arising from radon and damage caused by ground motion are both issues of public concern in relation to shale gas

Preliminary assessment of the environmental baseline in the Fylde, Lancashire

This report presents the collated preliminary results from the British Geological Survey (BGS) led project Science-based environmental baseline monitoring associated with shale gas development in the Fylde, Lancashire. The project has been funded by a combination of BGS National Capability funding, in-kind contributions from project partners and a grant awarded by the Department of Business Energy and Investment Strategy (BEIS). It complements an on-going project, in which similar activities are being carried out, in the Vale of Pickering, North Yorkshire. Further information on the projects can be found on the BGS website: www.bgs.ac.uk. The project has initiated a wide-ranging environmental baseline monitoring programme that includes water quality (groundwater and surface water), seismicity, ground motion, atmospheric composition (greenhouse gases and air quality), soil gas and radon in air (indoors and outdoors). The motivation behind the project(s) was to establish independent monitoring in the area around the proposed shale gas hydraulic fracturing sites in the Fylde, Lancashire (Cuadrilla Resources Ltd) before any shale gas operations take place. As part of the project, instrumentation has been deployed to measure, in real-time or near real-time, a range of environmental variables (water quality, seismicity, atmospheric composition). These data are being displayed on the project’s web site (www.bgs.ac.uk/lancashire). Additional survey, sampling and monitoring has also been carried out through a co-ordinated programme of fieldwork and laboratory analysis, which has included installation of new monitoring infrastructure, to allow compilation of one of the most comprehensive environmental datasets in the UK. The monitoring programme is continuing. However, there are already some very important findings emerging from the limited datasets which should be taken into account when developing future monitoring strategy, policy and regulation. The information is not only relevant to Lancashire but will be applicable more widely in the UK and internationally. Although shale gas operations in other parts of the world are well-established, there is a paucity of good baseline data and effective guidance on monitoring. The project will also allow the experience gained, and the scientifically-robust findings to be used, to develop and establish effective environmental monitoring strategies for shale gas and similar industrial activities

Seasonal Variations of Seismic Activity on Mars?

We analyze the sequence of seismic events of different types as recorded by the SEIS instrument of the InSight mission. After several weeks without any detection, event counts started to increase at the end of May 2019. The majority of recorded events belongs to the class of 2.4 Hz events, which prominently excite a continuously observed natural resonance frequency. Comparison with expected event counts from a constant-rate Poisson process shows a repeated, step wise increase of the event rate with time. At the same time, event amplitudes, and hence magnitudes, are found to increase as well