Gas Drilling in the Finger Lakes: How Will It Affect Us?
Friday, 31 July 2009

By Sandy Podulka

http://www.greenstar.coop/images/stories/featureimgs/farm-and-marcellus-wells_hi_res.jpg

The powerful and poorly-regulated natural gas-drilling industry is moving into our area, and so far it’s been very much under the public radar. The numerous unconventional gas wells planned will dramatically transform our landscape—bringing the greatest change since the original forests were cut. Gas drilling will touch every aspect of our lives. If we can better understand the risks involved, we can work to help mitigate the damage and to better protect ourselves and our community.
Drilling in the Marcellus Shale

The Finger Lakes region sits above the Marcellus shale, a rock layer 6,000 to 8,000 feet deep that underlies Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Eastern Ohio and the Southern Tier and Catskill regions of NY. It is thought to contain the third largest natural gas deposit in the world — the biggest in the US — worth over a trillion dollars. Because gas in the Marcellus shale is dispersed throughout the rock, it is costly and difficult to extract. But the recent surge in gas prices has made it profitable, so the gas industry is poised to begin intensive extraction in our area. They are waiting for the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to produce its Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS). By setting statewide regulations for drilling in the Marcellus shale, the SGEIS will streamline permitting and allow companies to proceed without doing individual Environmental Impact Statements for each drilling site. When a draft comes out in September, the public will have just 30 days to make written comments. DEC will then produce a final SGEIS, and a flood of drilling permits is expected to be approved soon after that.

The maximum well density allowed is one per 40 acres, but companies will probably group wells on more widely-spaced “pads” of five to 15 acres: these cleared industrial sites host drill rigs, compressors, tanker trucks, dozens of huge holding tanks and, often, open lagoons of hazardous waste.

The Millennium Pipeline, which runs from Corning to Rockland County, will transport the gas to NYC and beyond. Eventually, every individual well will connect to it through smaller pipelines, forming a massive network snaking throughout our region.


Hydraulic Fracturing and Water Use

Until now, gas wells in our area have been drilled vertically into other rock layers, whose gas is in large, pressurized pockets: once you have drilled into the shale, the gas automatically rises.

To extract the dispersed gas in the Marcellus shale, however, companies drill vertically to the shale and then turn and drill horizontally, up to a mile or more. They then inject fluid (“fracking fluid”) under extremely high pressure to shatter the rock and release the gas trapped inside. This process, developed by Halliburton, is called hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking.

On average, 3.5 million gallons of fracking fluid are injected per hydrofracking, and wells may be fracked many times over their 40-year life spans. This fluid contains many toxic chemicals. The gas industry refuses to publicly disclose the specific chemicals used, claiming they are proprietary. But scientists analyzing samples from spills around the country and various documents have identified more than 200 chemicals, including benzene, toluene, xylene, kerosene, methanol, formaldehyde, ethylene glycol (antifreeze) and hydrochloric acid. Many of them cause cancer, nervous system disorders, developmental disorders, skin and lung problems, endocrine disruption and reproductive damage; 65 of them are classified as hazardous waste (see www.endocrinedisruption.com/chemicals.photos.php ).

The fresh water used for hydrofracking is withdrawn from local streams, lakes and aquifers free of charge—a local gift to the gas industry.


What Can We Do?

• Learn as much as you can about hydraulic fracturing, and make sure your friends and neighbors are aware of the issues. For more information see:

www.shaleshock.org (local)

www.catskillmountainkeeper.org/node/290

www.un-naturalgas.org/index.htm

www.damascuscitizens.org/index.html

www.earthworksaction.org/pubs/LOguide2005book.pdf

• Contact DEC personnel and state legislators to request that the public comment period for the draft SGEIS be extended to 60 or 90 days and include public hearings (see www.shaleshock.org/get-involved/ for contact info for federal, state, local and DEC officials).

• When the draft SGEIS comes out, make detailed comments on any regulations you think are inadequate to protect our health and safety.

• Fax or call your US Representatives and Senators to request their support of the Frac Act: H.R. 2766 and S.1215. These bills repeal the Safe Drinking Water Act Exemption and require public disclosure of the chemicals in fracking fluid.

• Contact your state legislators and ask that ECL Section 23-0303 be amended to restore the ability of local governments to enforce zoning, noise and other local ordinances to protect their residents and sensitive areas. Ask, also, that local governments become involved agencies for State Environmental Quality Review, which will aid their requesting environmental review of drilling permits issued in sensitive local areas. In addition, request that local government officials be notified immediately when drilling permits are issued within their jurisdiction.

• Contact your local officials to make sure they are preparing for gas drilling: setting up overweight vehicle taxes, enhancing emergency response preparedness, collecting baseline data on land and water quality and sensitive areas, and developing taxes to insure that gas companies, and not residents, pay for the damages arising from gas drilling.

Disposal and Water Contamination

Some of the fracking fluid remains underground forever; the rest is pumped out. What comes out is even more hazardous than what went in because fracturing releases radioactive materials, heavy metals and salts. The result is millions of gallons of very toxic fluid, which presents a huge disposal problem. One option is treatment, but it is unclear whether current waste treatment facilities in New York will be able to handle waste fracking fluid without violating their discharge limits. Thus waste may need to be trucked to appropriate facilities in Pennsylvania.

Another disposal option, “deep-well injection,” is to pump the waste into non-producing gas wells. This is highly controversial because toxic water may migrate through fractures in the rock layers and contaminate local aquifers and drinking wells.

Wastewater also may be stored on site in open, plastic-lined lagoons. These may leak and are hazardous to wildlife. Alternatively, waste may be stored on site in huge steel tanks, which seems to create the fewest environmental hazards.

Despite industry claims to the contrary, thousands of problems, including spills, leaks and the seepage of contaminants into drinking water supplies, have been documented in fracking operations around the country. Houses, water wells and pipelines have exploded, and people have found methane levels in their water so high that they could light it on fire! Although human error and regulation short-cutting may sometimes be to blame, more disturbing concerns arise from the imprecise nature of hydrofracking itself: when gas companies fracture the shale, they have little control over exactly where fractures will develop, so fracturing fluids and natural gas can move in unexpected directions, ending up in aquifers and water wells.

Gas drilling also generates air pollutants, some of which interact with sunlight to produce ozone, which causes or aggravates numerous respiratory problems. In formerly pristine parts of rural Wyoming, gas drilling at the well density allowed in our area has created ozone levels higher than those in Los Angeles. Furthermore, unlike gas and oil production from traditional wells, extracting Marcellus shale gas is extremely noisy—large compressors run around the clock for years to suck out the unpressurized gas.
Regulations

The oil and gas industry, as a result of its massive wealth and lobbying power, is exempt from the federal Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, Superfund Law, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and the Toxic Release Inventory of the Right to Know Act (see www.ewg.org/reports/Free-Pass-for-Oil-and-Gas/Oil-and-Gas-Industry-Exemptions ). The RCRA exemption is almost comical in its application: although 65 of the chemical constituents of fracking fluid are classified as hazardous under federal laws, the gas industry is exempt from having to treat them as hazardous once they have come back out of a well (see www.ewg.org/book/export/html/26648 ).

Moreover, in 1981, NY Environmental Conservation Law 23-0303 removed the right of towns and counties to regulate gas drilling; it is exempt from all local ordinances, including noise and planning laws, except those covering road use and real property taxes.

This leaves only the DEC to regulate and oversee gas drilling. But the DEC itself has gas leases on more than 83,021 acres of state land, which in 2006 earned nearly $9 million for NYS, raising potential conflicts of interest. More concerning is that the DEC has only 19 inspectors for the more than 13,000 wells already active in the state. What level of environmental oversight can be provided with such limited staff?
Impacts on Landowners 
and Communities

Already, at least a third of the land area in Tompkins County has been leased to gas companies. Most leases grant surface rights, which allow activities such as drilling, access road construction and long-term storage of fracking fluids. Landowners receive money when they sign leases and royalty payments if a productive well is drilled on or extends below their property. Some welcome the much-needed money, but others are alarmed and regret leasing; at the time they signed, hydraulic fracturing was not being used here.

Landowners trying to sell property are discovering that many people do not want to buy land with leases, and some banks rarely give mortgages to people buying homes on land with gas leases—unless surface rights are removed. People whose drinking water supplies are contaminated or who live near large drilling operations are finding their property values decreasing dramatically.

Landowners near gas drilling are strongly advised to get their private water wells and surface water tested by a state-certified lab before drilling begins (a cost of approximately $500 per well)—if no pretesting is done, they will be unable to prove fault, and thus have no hope of receiving compensation if their water becomes contaminated (see www.communityscience.org/gaswells.html).

If at least 60 percent of the land around you is leased, you may be forced to have your land included in a “spacing unit.” This “compulsory integration” allows the gas company to drill horizontally and inject toxic fracking fluids under your property, but they may not set foot on your land. They must pay you the standard 12.5 percent royalty for any gas they take. Even if you are not forced into a spacing unit, eminent domain may be used to route pipelines across your land.

Many communities have incurred high costs for hosting gas drilling (see http://nercrd.psu.edu/Publications/rdppapers/rdp43.pdf ). In addition to increased dust, noise and traffic (the fracking of just one well requires about 1,000 tanker loads), there are significant monetary costs: repair of severe road and bridge damage from heavy trucks, and increased emergency response personnel and training to deal with spills, chemical fires and explosions. And, what effect will industrialization and pollution have on our local industries, such as farming, wineries and tourism?
The Larger Picture

Some argue that we should support natural gas—a “cleaner” fuel than coal and oil—because it contributes less to global warming. Gas looks much less rosy, however, when the environmental and societal costs of its extraction are considered. Moreover, it is still a fossil fuel—and both its extraction and burning contribute significantly to global warming. We must ask the critical questions: To what lengths and level of environmental destruction are we willing to go to delay the inevitable switch to true alternative energy, such as solar, tidal and wind power? Will we destroy the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, our offshore fisheries, the remaining mountains of West Virginia, the Finger Lakes Region and the Catskills (the source of New York City’s drinking water) to get at every last drop and wisp of fuel? How can we effectively change our National Energy Policy so that no one and no area must bear these burdens?

Even as we continue to use fossil fuel, it is unconscionable not to ask: Are there some places whose best uses, even though they harbor vast amounts of fossil fuel, are tourism, recreation, wilderness, wildlife habitat, farming, wine-producing or peaceful country living?

http://www.greenstar.coop/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=455&Itemid=149

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http://www.shaleshock.org/

Drilling rigs and tanker trucks won't roll into the Southern Tier to extract wealth from the Marcellus Shale until pipelines have been laid to keep it flowing.

That will be no small task.

According to information from the state Department of Public Service, pipeline permitting applications could quadruple from current levels as multi-national energy companies lay the infrastructure to tap the Marcellus.

State regulators anticipate a network of them crisscrossing the Southern Tier to be built before Marcellus wells are developed.

That's far different from the process for conventional gas wells and it's another issue a limited number of state regulators will face with the Marcellus.

For now, permitting is on hold, while state regulators update a plan to deal with the unconventional drilling methods to tap the Marcellus, a massive gas field running under the Southern Tier and throughout the Appalachian Basin. That plan is expected to be completed early next year.

In Pennsylvania, the surge in Marcellus prospecting has been so strong the Department of Environmental Protection created a new office in Williamsport and 37 new positions to oversee permitting and production. The positions were added -- despite a statewide hiring freeze -- to Pennsylvania's Office of Mineral Resources Management, which oversees nearly 600 employees handling natural gas regulation and other issues.

Pennsylvania has the advantage of an infrastructure that allows gas to move quickly from drilling sites to the Tennessee Pipeline. New York, however, not only lacks the infrastructure, it also must deal with less regulators.

Officials in New York have few answers as to how only 17 inspectors in the Bureau of Oil & Gas Regulation -- part of the state's Department of Environmental Conservation -- will be able to handle a rush of permits and intensive drilling activity expected on this side of the border. The Department of Public Service has about 15 people dedicated to pipeline issues.

Permits are necessary to ensure construction of pipelines serve the public interest and minimize environmental damage.

http://www.theithacajournal.com/article/20091109/NEWS01/911070360/1126/NEWS/Pipelines+a+must+for+Marcellus+drilling+to+take+place

The state's depiction of a clean, tightly regulated natural gas industry just got a shot of muck in the eye.

As the debate over the merits of Marcellus Shale development reaches a crescendo, an Ithaca researcher has culled a list of 270 files documenting wastewater spills, well contamination, explosions, methane migration and ecological damage related to gas production in the state since 1979.

Walter Hang, president of Toxic Targeting, compiled the files using the Department of Environmental Conservation's own hazard substances spills database.

Hang runs an environmental research firm that sells data to interested parties, including engineers, consultants and municipalities. He also has a background as an environmental advocate, and he relishes the role as a public watchdog.

"We're students of how you clean this crap up," he said. "That's what we really care about."

DEC officials responded that the proportion of files relating to the oil and gas industry is small -- less than 0.1 percent -- of the total number of spills recorded on the database.

Hang said his company publicly released the list Monday to show regulation of the state's gas industry is "fundamentally inadequate."

"All we wanted to do is test the fundamental assessment the DEC often makes: Existing regulations are just fine," he said.
Fracking regulations

By Hang's assessment, they are a long way from fine. Only 60 of the 270 cases were actually caught by DEC regulators. Many were called in by residents, public safety officials, affected parties or "people who just stumbled over them," he said.

The complaints are related to traditional wells drilled through the decades, most of them in the Southern Tier and western New York.

They come to light as the state creates regulations for a new type of horizontal drilling that would be used to develop the Marcellus, the largest natural gas reserve in the country, running under the Southern Tier and throughout the Appalachian Basin. In addition to drilling horizontally through bedrock, Marcellus production requires a process called hydraulic fracturing -- pumping millions of gallons of water and chemical additives into wells under high pressure to fracture the bedrock and release gas.

The process would produce volumes of waste hundreds or thousands of times greater than what has been produced from traditional wells.

"I don't have anything against drilling, but we have enough pollution around here already, and this is going to be drilling on an unprecedented level," Hang said.

Debate over the merits and drawbacks of drilling has been fierce for the last 18 months, prompting DEC officials to suspend Marcellus permitting until it develops regulations for it. A public hearing on the proposal is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday at Chenango Valley High School in the Town of Fenton.

One of the most commonly documented problems is methane migration, which means natural gas flows from production formations and goes places where it shouldn't, such as water wells, basements or barns.

In Dimock, Pa., state regulators have ordered Cabot Oil & Gas to replace 13 water supplies ruined by methane migration near drilling operations into the Marcellus. One well exploded.

DEC spills data show the problem has a history in New York, even without the Marcellus.

In Freedom, for example, 12 families were evacuated in 1999 after gas moved through a fault and surfaced in a neighborhood 1 1/2 miles away, bubbling up in ponds, ditches, barns, basements and yards. The disaster was caused by equipment failure on a drill rig, although no fines or penalties were recommended, according to the file from the DEC's spills database.

It's one of the 270 cases Hang highlights. Some are more recent.

In 2003, about 100,000 gallons of brine spilled, contaminating Shanada Creek in Independence after a valve broke, according to the record.

In May of this year, a 300-gallon diesel fuel spilled after an explosion and fire at a Nornew rig in Lebanon.
Accidents 'rare'

The DEC has determined regulations being crafted for horizontal drilling and fracking used in Marcellus production would not apply to traditional wells. Hang, holding the list of problems as Exhibit A, argues the entire regulatory process needs to be rebuilt from scratch.

"They say their existing regulations are completely adequate, and their own data clearly shows this isn't true," he said.

In public meetings about drilling on state land in the summer of 2005, DEC regulators presented slide shows emphasizing how effectively drill pads and pipelines are reclaimed as lush wildflower-filled fields and meadows after drilling, characterized as a short-term disturbance.

During public meetings crowded with residents concerned about the effects of Marcellus Shale production last year, representatives from the state's Division of Mineral Resources pointed to the industry's successful history in New York as evidence it was prepared for Marcellus development

Asked how local emergency responders could prepare for a spill, fire or explosion without knowing what chemicals are used in the hydraulic fracturing process, Linda Collart, regional supervisor with the DEC's Division of Mineral Resources, responded: "We don't anticipate any significant emergencies. ... These things are rare."

Asked whether the state was ready for an influx of new drilling activity beyond all historical comparisons, Collart responded: "We have been doing fine so far. ... No problems."

DEC officials, confronted with Hang's list late last week, stood by that assessment.

Dennis Farrar, chief of DEC's Emergency Response Spills Unit, said less than 300 instances out of more than 300,000 shows oil and gas issues are disproportionately small.

"In the scheme of things, this is not really a problem," Farrar said.

The agency also tracks problems through its Oil and Gas Division, said Jack Dahl, director for the Bureau of Oil & Gas Regulation. Late last week, he could not provide the number of complaints that division has responded to or the outcome.

More than three-quarters of oil and gas problems on the spills database were caught by somebody other than a DEC staff member, according to Hang's assessment. That's further evidence the Division of Mineral Resources -- with about 17 inspectors -- lacks the manpower to oversee traditional well development, let alone the Marcellus, he said.

As many as 2,000 to 4,000 Marcellus wells could be developed in Broome County in coming years, according to an economic development report commissioned by the county.

State regulators say they don't foresee problems.

"The question is, how often do they actively look for problems?" said Phil Sears of AKRF, a multidisciplinary environmental consulting firm based in New York City. "Not a whole lot."

http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009911080372

Make a bunch of reassuring noise, trot out an inadequate, underfunded regulatory mechanism, and then business as usual. SOP for your self identified liberals and most conservatives too, the differences are moot, business is business.

Damning New Evidence Raises Concerns About Threats to New York's Water from Gas Drilling

By Byard Duncan, AlterNet. Posted December 11, 2009.

New York may be the next state to become embroiled in a mess of litigation and public outcry over a controversial drilling technique.


Shortly after Laurie Lytle and her husband purchased a home near Geneva, NY in September 2006, they noticed a yellow flier tucked in their door frame. Chesapeake Energy, one of the nation's largest developers of natural gas, had come knocking, wondering if the Lytles were interested in leasing their land for exploration. "Sign with Chesapeake Energy," Lytle recalled the flier saying: "We can give you money for not doing much."

Lytle threw it out. When she found an identical flier in the same spot a few days later, she threw that one out, too.

It wasn't long before Chesapeake ditched the paper and sent a representative to the Lytles' home -- a guy named Ivan. The amount of money he was willing to pay increased every time the couple voiced their doubts about drilling -- every time they told him his sum was "a joke." First it was $289 for the lease. Then it was more. Then more. At the end of three weeks' negotiations, Chesapeake had upped its offer to approximately $4,000, Lytle said.

"They really were pushing to get the deal done," she told me. "They really wanted us to sign."

The Lytles did eventually sign, on Feb. 7, 2007, with one contractual addendum: Were they to experience any problems with their drinking water, the responsibility would fall on Chesapeake to cover the damage. The company agreed, and for months no drilling took place. Then October came, cloudy and cold. Chesapeake finally began exploration, employing a technique called hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking for short), which involves shooting millions of gallons of water and chemicals deep underground to break up rock formations and release natural gas. Just one day after the drilling started, Lytle noticed that something had gone wrong with her water quality.

"I went to go to the bathroom and the toilet water was gray," she said. "There was sediment in it."

She called Chesapeake, which told her to wait a few days for the hazy residue to clear. When it didn't, the company cut her a check for the "damages": $273.17 for the installation of a depth filter, and $150 to cover five months' rental of said depth filter. In total, Chesapeake dished out $423.17. The Lytles' settlement was petite in its monetary value, but large in its political implications. New York has thus far not counted itself among the cluster of states (Alaska, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Ohio, Texas, Wyoming and Pennsylvania) to report cases of water contamination near fracking sites. According to the New York Department of Environmental Conservation's (DEC) Web site, "The types of problems reported to have occurred in states without such strong environmental laws and rigorous regulations haven't happened here." This may no longer be the case.

Additionally, the Lytles' problem has significant repercussions for New York's exploitation of the Marcellus Shale, an enormous, goldfish-shaped rock formation that stretches from Syracuse to northern Tennessee and is believed to contain 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. A contentious issue, Marcellus drilling has already hit snags in Dimock, PA, where 14 families recently filed suit against Cabot Oil and Gas for allegedly contaminating their water; and in central New York, where anti-fracking signs adorn many front yards and drilling has been mired for months in a complex approval process.

This process (the state has completed a draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement, or dSGEIS, to determine whether or not hydrofracking in the Marcellus is safe) was most recently complicated by findings that allege decades of negligence on the part of New York's DEC. According to a November study conducted by Toxics Targeting, an Ithaca, NY-based environmental research company, there have been 270 cases of oil and gas spills in New York over the last 30 years -- 65 of which have yet to meet cleanup standards.

One incident, which occurred in Freedom, NY in 1999, involved equipment faults on a drill rig. In a matter of minutes, methane gas migrated more than 8,000 feet (the state only mandates that drills be 1,000 feet from a public water supply, or 150 feet from a private well), bubbling up in nearby ponds. It seeped through neighbors' fields. Twelve families had to be evacuated.

The DEC's record of another mishap -- this one from Dec. 16, 2002 -- pretty much speaks for itself:

BUCKEYE COAST PIPELINE Spill: 0270494, "THE PIPELINE BREAK OCCURRED BEHIND THE MAUER'S SHOP AT 9732 SNIPERY ROAD AND WAS ON A SLOPE. THE BRINE THEN FLOWED INTO AN AREA THAT LOOKS LIKE A HARD BOTTOM SWAMP. ALL THE TREES IN THIS AREA ARE DEAD. IT APPEARS THERE IS A COUPLE OF ACRES KILLED; ALL THE TREES ARE STILL DEAD IN THIS AREA, BUT THE GRASSES AND SHALLOW ROOTED VEGETATION IS COMING BACK ALL ACROSS THE IMPACTED AREA. PB ENERGY HAS TAKEN OVER OWNERSHIP OF THE PIPELINE AND WILL WORK OUT A SETTLEMENT WITH BOTH PROPERTY OWNERS. THEY MAY TRY PLANTING SOME SALT RESISTANT TREES IN THE SWAMP AREA.

The DEC has defended its existing standards, even in light of evidence from Walter Hang, president of Toxics Targeting. Less than 300 spills out of 300,000 potential incidents is a good percentage, said Dennis Harrar, chief of the department's emergency response spills unit. "In the scheme of things, this is not really a problem," he recently told a local paper. But Hang disagrees. Cases like these, he argues, illustrate serious problems with both the DEC and its template for Marcellus drilling.

On Dec. 9, Hang issued a petition to New York Governor David Paterson, urging him to completely scrap the state's dSGEIS. The letter, whose 6,061 signatories include Congressman Eric Massa, New York Assembly Representative Barbara Lifton and Ithaca Mayor Carolyn Peterson, calls on Paterson to go back to the drawing board: "The "slickwater, horizontal drilling, hydrofracking" required to break up and release gas from the highly impermeable rock requires vast quantities of water and generates a wide array of toxic concerns," they argue.

"The largest problem is that [the sGEIS] is based on the assumption that the existing regulations adequately protect the public," Hang told me. "They don't."

"It's a complete theoretical model," he added. "It's an idealized model of what's supposed to happen."

One signature on Hang's petition came from Laurie Lytle, who has recently begun to worry that the filter Chesapeake helped install may not be catching some of the chemicals used in hydrofracking. Chesapeake tested her water in early 2008, but didn't disclose a complete list of its "proprietary" chemical ingredients. Lytle has been drinking her water for about two years now -- "a nice long time for those chemicals to be affecting my body and my family's bodies."

"I want to know what's in the water, and how it might be affecting my health and my property values," she said, holding a Chesapeake brochure that claims, "Property values can be positively correlated with production."

"I think I was misled in one respect."

http://www.alternet.org/water/144492/damning_new_evidence_raises_concerns_about_threats_to_new_york%27s_water_from_gas_drilling?page=entire

Cracking Down on Fracking

by Amy Goodman

Mike Markham of Colorado has an explosive problem: His tap water catches fire. Markham demonstrates this in a new documentary, “Gasland,” which just won the Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize. Director Josh Fox films Markham as he runs his kitchen faucet, holding a cigarette lighter up to the running water. After a few seconds, a ball of fire erupts out of the sink, almost enveloping Markham’s head.

The source of the flammable water, and the subject of “Gasland,” is the mining process called hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.”

Fracking is used to access natural gas and oil reserves buried thousands of feet below the ground. Companies like Halliburton drill down vertically, then send the shaft horizontally, crossing many small, trapped veins of gas and oil. Explosive charges are then set off at various points in the drill shaft, causing what Fox calls “mini-earthquakes.” These fractures spread underground, allowing the gas to flow back into the shaft to be extracted. To force open the fractures, millions of gallons of liquid are forced into the shaft at very high pressure.

The high-pressure liquids are a combination of water, sand and a secret mix of chemicals. Each well requires between 1 million and 7 million gallons of the fluid every time gas is extracted. Drillers do not have to reveal the chemical cocktail, thanks to a slew of exemptions given to the industry, most notably in the 2005 Energy Policy Act, which actually granted the fracking industry a specific exemption from the Safe Drinking Water Act. California Congressman Henry Waxman, chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has just announced an investigation into the composition of the proprietary chemicals used in fracking. In a Feb. 18 letter, Waxman commented on the Safe Drinking Water Act exemption: “Many dubbed this provision the ‘Halliburton loophole’ because of Halliburton’s ties to then-Vice President Cheney and its role as one of the largest providers of hydraulic fracturing services.” Before he was vice president, Dick Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton.

In an earlier investigation, Waxman learned that Halliburton had violated a 2003 nonbinding agreement with the government in which the company promised not to use diesel fuel in the mix when extracting from certain wells. Halliburton pumped hundreds of thousands of gallons of toxic, diesel-containing liquids into the ground, potentially contaminating drinking water.

According to the Department of Energy, there were more than 418,000 gas wells in the U.S. as of 2006. Since the Environmental Protection Agency lacks authority to investigate and regulate fracking, the extent of the pollution is unknown. Yet, as Josh Fox traveled the country, becoming increasingly engrossed in the vastness of the domestic drilling industry and the problems it creates, he documented how people living near gas wells are suffering water contamination, air pollution and numerous health problems that crop up after fracking. It’s personal for Fox: He lives in Pennsylvania, on a stream that feeds into the Delaware River, atop the “Marcellus Shale,” a subterranean region from New York to Tennessee with extensive natural gas reserves. Fracking in the Marcellus Shale could potentially contaminate the water supplies of both New York City and Philadelphia. Fox was offered almost $100,000 for the gas rights to his 19 acres, which led him to investigate the industry, and ultimately to produce his award-winning documentary.

There is virtually no federal oversight of fracking, leaving the budget-strapped states to do the job with a patchwork of disparate regulations. They are no match for the major, multinational drilling and energy companies that are exploiting the political goal of “energy independence.” The nonprofit news website ProPublica.org found that, out of 31 states examined, 21 have no regulations specific to hydraulic fracturing, and none requires the companies to report the amount of the toxic fluid remaining underground.

Reports indicate that almost 600 different chemicals are used in fracking, including diesel fuel and the “BTEX” chemicals: benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes, which include known carcinogens.

Dr. Theo Colborn, zoologist and expert on chemical pollution from fracking, appears in “Gasland,” saying, “Every environmental law we wrote to protect public health is ignored. ... We can’t monitor until we know what they’re using.”

Fox ends “Gasland” with an excerpt of a congressional hearing. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., and Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., aggressively question gas industry executives about water contamination. The two have submitted a bill, the proposed FRAC Act, which would remove the “Halliburton loophole,” forcing drillers to reveal the chemical components used in fracking. It’s time to close the door on the Cheney energy policy and take immediate steps to protect clean water.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/02/24

Feds Warn Residents Near Wyoming Gas Drilling Sites Not To Drink Their Water

by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica

The federal government is warning residents in a small Wyoming town with extensive natural gas development not to drink their water, and to use fans and ventilation when showering or washing clothes in order to avoid the risk of an explosion.

The announcement accompanied results from a second round of testing and analysis in the town of Pavillion by Superfund investigators for the Environmental Protection Agency. Researchers found benzene, metals, naphthalene, phenols and methane in wells and in groundwater. They also confirmed the presence of other compounds that they had tentatively identified last summer and that may be linked to drilling activities.

"Last week it became clear to us that the information that we had gathered" "was going to potentially result in a hazard -- result in a recommendation to some of you that you not continue to drink your water," Martin Hestmark, deputy assistant regional administrator for ecosystems protection and remediation with the EPA in Denver, told a crowd of about 100 gathered at a community center in Pavillion Tuesday night. "We understand the gravity of that."

Representatives of the EPA and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, which made the health recommendation, said they had not determined the cause of the contamination and said it was too early to tell whether gas drilling was to blame. In addition to contaminants related to oil and gas, the agency detected pesticides in some wells, and significant levels of nitrates in one sample -- signs that agricultural pollution could be partly to blame. The EPA's final report on Pavillion's water is expected early next year.

ProPublica first drew attention to Pavillion's water in late 2008, and reported extensively on the EPA's ongoing investigation there last August.

EnCana, the oil and gas company that owns most of the wells near Pavillion, has agreed to contribute to the cost of supplying residents with drinking water, even though the company has not accepted responsibility for the contamination.

EnCana spokesman Doug Hock told ProPublica in an e-mail that the petroleum hydrocarbon compounds the EPA found "covers an extremely wide spectrum of chemicals, many of which aren't associated with oil and gas."

"ATSDR's suggestion to landowners was based upon high levels of inorganics -- sodium and sulfate that are naturally occurring in the area," he said.

EPA scientists began investigating Pavillion's water in 2008 after residents complained about foul smells, illness and discolored water, and after state agencies declined to investigate. Last August the EPA found contaminants in a quarter of samples taken during the first stage of its investigation, and the agency announced it would continue with another round of samples -- the set being disclosed now.

In the meeting Tuesday, the agency shared results from tests of 23 wells, 19 of which supply drinking water to residents. It found low levels of hydrocarbon compounds -- various substances that make up oil -- in 89 percent of the drinking water wells it tested. Methane gas was detected in seven of the wells and was determined to have come from the gas reservoir being tapped for energy. Eleven of the wells contained low levels of the compound 2-butoxyethanol phosphate -- a compound associated with drilling processes but that is also used as a fire retardant and a plasticizer.

The scientists also found extremely high levels of benzene, a carcinogen, and other compounds in groundwater samples taken near old drilling disposal pits. Some of the samples were taken less than 200 yards from drinking water sources and scientists expressed concerns that the contaminated water was connected to drinking water wells by an underground aquifer.

"The groundwater associated with some inactive oil and gas production pits" "is in fact highly contaminated," Ayn Schmit, a scientist with the EPA's ecosystems protection program, told residents. But she also cautioned that the EPA has not determined the cause of the contamination and is continuing its investigation.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/09/02-1

Buried Secrets: Is Natural Gas Drilling Endangering U.S. Water Supplies?

by Abrahm Lustgarten
ProPublica, Nov. 13, 2008, 2 p.m.

In July, a hydrologist dropped a plastic sampling pipe 300 feet down a water well in rural Sublette County, Wyo., and pulled up a load of brown oily water with a foul smell. Tests showed it contained benzene, a chemical believed to cause aplastic anemia and leukemia, in a concentration 1,500 times the level safe for people.

The results sent shockwaves through the energy industry and state and federal regulatory agencies.

Sublette County is the home of one of the nation's largest natural gas fields, and many of its 6,000 wells have undergone a process pioneered by Halliburton called hydraulic fracturing [2], which shoots vast amounts of water, sand and chemicals several miles underground to break apart rock and release the gas. The process has been considered safe since a 2004 study [3] (PDF) by the Environmental Protection Agency found that it posed no risk to drinking water. After that study, Congress even exempted hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act. Today fracturing is used in nine out of 10 natural gas wells in the United States.

Over the last few years, however, a series of contamination incidents have raised questions about that EPA study and ignited a debate over whether the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing may threaten the nation's increasingly precious drinking water supply.

An investigation by ProPublica, which visited Sublette County and six other contamination sites, found that water contamination in drilling areas around the country is far more prevalent than the EPA asserts. Our investigation also found that the 2004 EPA study was not as conclusive as it claimed to be. A close review shows that the body of the study contains damaging information that wasn't mentioned in the conclusion. In fact, the study foreshadowed many of the problems now being reported across the country.

The contamination in Sublette County is significant because it is the first to be documented by a federal agency, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. But more than 1,000 other cases of contamination have been documented by courts and state and local governments in Colorado, New Mexico, Alabama, Ohio and Pennsylvania. In one case, a house exploded after hydraulic fracturing created underground passageways and methane seeped into the residential water supply. In other cases, the contamination occurred not from actual drilling below ground, but on the surface, where accidental spills and leaky tanks, trucks and waste pits allowed benzene and other chemicals to leach into streams, springs and water wells

It is difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of each contamination, or measure its spread across the environment accurately, because the precise nature and concentrations of the chemicals used by industry are considered trade secrets. Not even the EPA knows exactly what's in the drilling fluids. And that, EPA scientists say, makes it impossible to vouch for the safety of the drilling process or precisely track its effects.

"I am looking more and more at water quality issues…because of a growing concern," said Joyel Dhieux, a drilling field inspector who handles environmental review at the EPA’s regional offices in Denver. “But if you don't know what's in it I don't think it’s possible."

Of the 300-odd compounds that private researchers and the Bureau of Land Management suspect are being used, 65 are listed as hazardous by the federal government. Many of the rest are unstudied and unregulated, leaving a gaping hole in the nation's scientific understanding of how widespread drilling might affect water resources.

Industry representatives maintain that the drilling fluids are mostly made up of non-toxic, even edible substances, and that when chemicals are used, they are just a tiny fraction of the overall mix. They say that some information is already available, and that releasing specific details would only frighten and confuse the public, and would come at great expense to the industry's competitive business.

"Halliburton's proprietary fluids are the result of years of extensive research, development testing," said Diana Gabriel, a company spokeswoman, in an e-mail response. "We have gone to great lengths to ensure that we are able to protect the fruits of the company's research…. We could lose our competitive advantage."

"It is like Coke protecting its syrup formula for many of these service companies," said Scott Rotruck, vice president of corporate development at Chesapeake Energy, the nation’s largest gas driller, which has been asked by New York State regulators to disclose the chemicals it uses.

Thanks in large part to hydraulic fracturing, natural gas drilling has vastly expanded across the United States. In 2007, there were 449,000 gas wells in 32 states, thirty percent more than in 2000. By 2012 the nation could be drilling 32,000 new wells a year, including some in the watershed that provides drinking water to New York City and Philadelphia [4], some five percent of the nation's population.

The rush to drill comes in part because newly identified gas reserves offer the nation an opportunity to wean itself from oil.

Natural gas, as T. Boone Pickens said recently, is "cleaner, cheaper… abundant, and ours." Burning gas, used primarily to heat homes and make electricity, emits 23 percent less carbon dioxide than burning oil. Gas is the country's second-largest domestic energy resource, after coal.

The debate over water arises at a critical time. In his last days in office President George W. Bush has pushed through lease sales and permits for new drilling on thousands of acres of federal land. President-elect Barak Obama has identified the leasing rush as one of his first pressing matters and is already examining whether to try to reverse [5] Bush's expansion of drilling in Utah.

State regulators and environmentalists have also begun pressing the gas industry to disclose the chemicals they use and urging Congress to revisit the environmental exemptions hydraulic fracturing currently enjoys.

But in the meantime, the drilling continues.

In September, the Bureau of Land Management approved plans for 4,400 new wells in Sublette County, despite the unresolved water issues. Tests there showed contamination in 88 of the 220 wells examined, and the plume stretched over 28 miles. When researchers returned to take more samples, they couldn’t even open the water wells; monitors showed they contained so much flammable gas that they were likely to explode.
'Big Wyoming'

News that water in Sublette County was contaminated was especially shocking because the area is so rural that until a few years ago cattle were still run down Main Street in Pinedale, the nearest town to the gas field. The county is roughly the size of the state of Connecticut but has fewer people than many New York City blocks. With so little industry, there was little besides drilling that people could blame for the contamination.

"When you just look at the data…the aerial extent of the benzene contamination, you just say...This is huge,” says Oberley, who is charged with water study in the area. “You’ve got benzene in a usable aquifer and nobody is able to verbalize well, using factual information, how the benzene got there.”

Sublette County, Wyo. (Credit: Abrahm Lustgarten/ProPublica)

Sublette County, Wyo. (Credit: Abrahm Lustgarten/ProPublica)
Other signs of contamination were also worrying residents. Independent tests in several private drinking wells adjacent to the anticline drilling showed fluoride -- which is listed in Halliburton’s hydraulic fracturing patent applications and can cause bone damage at high levels -- at almost three times the EPA’s maximum limit.

"We need the gas now more than ever," says Fred Sanchez, whose water well is among those with high levels of fluoride. But gazing off his deck at the prized trout waters of the New Fork River, he wonders whether drilling has gone too far. "You just can't helter skelter go drilling just because you have the right to do it. It's not morally right to do it. There should be some checks and balances."

Further east, in the town of Clark, the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality found benzene in a residential well after an underground well casing cracked. In Pavilion, another small town, a series of drinking water wells began running with dark, smelly water, a problem a state official speculated might be linked to drilling nearby.

"There is no direct evidence that the gas drilling has impacted it," says Mark Thiesse, a groundwater supervisor for the Wyoming DEQ. "But it sure makes you wonder. It just seems pretty circumstantial that it’s happening."

On federal land, which is where most of the Sublette County wells are located, the BLM governs leasing and permitting for gas development, with secondary oversight from the state and only advisory input from the EPA. When the contaminated water results were first reported, both the BLM and the state downplayed their significance.

The EPA’s regional office in Denver sharply disagreed. But because it has only an advisory role in the federal review process, and hydraulic fracturing is exempted from the Safe Drinking Water Act, there was little the EPA could do. It rebuked the BLM in a strongly worded letter and gave the development plans in Sublette County a rare "unsatisfactory" rating. It also recommended that the project be stopped until further scientific study could be done.

The BLM, backed by a powerful business lobby, ignored that recommendation. Why do a study if you can’t prove something is wrong, industry argued.

Drilling operators said the benzene came from leaky equipment on the trucks that haul water and waste to and from the drill sites -- and in one or two cases, EPA scientists say that was likely. One theory put forth by the BLM blamed the benzene contamination on malicious environmentalists "hostile to gas production," an accusation the agency later said it had no evidence of.

Thiesse, the DEQ supervisor, recounted a meeting where the debate dwindled down to semantics: "I called it contamination, and somebody said is it really contamination? What if it's naturally occurring?"

Leaky equipment on trucks was one reason put forth by drilling operators for benzene contamination. Above, trucks are seen hauling water and waste to and from drilling sites. (Credit: Abrahm Lustgarten/ProPublica)

Leaky equipment on trucks was one reason put forth by drilling operators for benzene contamination. Above, trucks are seen hauling water and waste to and from drilling sites. (Credit: Abrahm Lustgarten/ProPublica)
The industry insisted, as it has for years, that hydraulic fracturing itself had never contaminated a well, pointing to an anecdotal survey done a decade ago by the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, a coalition of state regulatory bodies and, again, to the 2004 study by the EPA [3] (PDF).

"You have intervening rock in between the area that you are fracturing and the areas that provide water supplies. The notion that fractures are going to migrate up to those shallow formations -- there is just no evidence of that happening," says Ken Wonstolen, an attorney representing the Colorado Oil and Gas Association who has worked with the petroleum industry for two decades. "I think fracturing has been given a clean bill of health."

A flurry of mail from industry representatives to the BLM said the sort of study the EPA wanted would needlessly slow production. "BLM's restrictions on drilling in the Intermountain west have seriously reduced the supply of natural gas reaching consumers," wrote the American Gas Association.

Washington leaned down on Pinedale too. The message, according to Chuck Otto, field manager for the BLM: Make this happen by November. The 4,400 new wells were approved in September without any deadline for cleaning up the contamination or further research. State regulators told ProPublica that hydraulic fracturing was not even considered as a possible cause.

"The BLM looks at it more as a business-driven process," Otto said. "It's not like I have Vice President Cheney calling me up and saying you need to get this done. But there definitely is that unspoken pressure…mostly from the companies, to develop their resources as they'd like to see fit…to get things done and get them done pretty fast."
A Compromised Study

The 2004 EPA study [3] (PDF) is routinely used to dismiss complaints that hydraulic fracturing fluids might be responsible for the water problems in places like Pinedale. The study concluded that hydraulic fracturing posed "no threat" to underground drinking water because fracturing fluids aren't necessarily hazardous, can’t travel far underground, and that there is "no unequivocal evidence" of a health risk.

But documents obtained by ProPublica show that the EPA negotiated directly with the gas industry before finalizing those conclusions, and then ignored evidence that fracking might cause exactly the kinds of water problems now being recorded in drilling states.

Buried deep within the 424-page report are statements explaining that fluids migrated unpredictably -- through different rock layers, and to greater distances than previously thought -- in as many as half the cases studied in the United States. The EPA identified some of the chemicals as biocides and lubricants that “can cause kidney, liver, heart, blood, and brain damage through prolonged or repeated exposure." It found that as much as a third of injected fluids, benzene in particular, remains in the ground after drilling and is “likely to be transported by groundwater."

The EPA began preparing its report on hydraulic fracturing in 2000, after an Alabama court forced the agency to investigate fracturing-related water contamination there under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Political pressures were also mounting for the agency to clarify its position on fracturing. The 2001 Energy Policy, drafted in part by the office of Vice President Dick Cheney, a former Halliburton CEO, noted that “the gas flow rate may be increased as much as 20-fold by hydraulic fracturing.” While the EPA was still working on its report, legislation was being crafted to exempt hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Before that happened, however, the EPA sought an agreement with the three largest hydraulic fracturing companies, including Halliburton, to stop using diesel fuel in fracturing fluids. Diesel fuel contains benzene, and such a move would help justify the report’s conclusion that no further studies were needed.

Signs put in all directions to drilling sites in Wyoming. (Credit: Abrahm Lustgarten)

Signs put in all directions to drilling sites in Wyoming. (Credit: Abrahm Lustgarten)
"Our draft is pending release," a senior EPA official wrote to Halliburton’s counsel in an August 2003 e-mail. "It would certainly strengthen our preliminary position not to continue studying the issue…if the service companies were able to remove diesel all together, or even move in that direction."

In a subsequent meeting, an EPA official’s handwritten notes show that a Halliburton attorney asked federal officials, "Are we willing to entertain regulatory relief in other areas; eg: fewer inspections?"

"Willing…," was the reply from Tracy Mehan, then the EPA’s assistant administrator for water.

A Halliburton spokesperson declined to comment on this exchange.

The diesel agreement [6] (PDF) was signed. But according to the EPA, it isn't legally enforceable and the agency hasn't checked to see if diesel is still being used. Furthermore, the agreement applies only to fluids used in a specific kind of gas drilling, not all drilling across the United States.

Mehan did not return calls for comment about his negotiations. Roy Simon, associate chief of the Drinking Water Protection Division's Prevention Branch at EPA headquarters in Washington says the "EPA still stands by the findings outlined in the (2004) report."

But one of the report’s three main authors, Jeffrey Jollie, an EPA hydrogeologist, now cautions that the research has been misconstrued by industry. The study focused solely on the effect hydraulic fracturing has on drinking water in coal bed methane deposits, typically shallow formations where gas is embedded in coal. It didn’t consider the impact of above-ground drilling or of drilling in geologic formations deep underground, where many of the large new gas reserves are being developed today.

"It was never intended to be a broad, sweeping study," Jollie says. "I don’t think we ever characterized it that way."

Nevertheless, a few months after the report’s release, the sweeping 2005 Energy Policy Act was passed. Almost no attention was paid to the three paragraphs that stripped the federal government of most of its authority to monitor and regulate hydraulic fracturing’s impact on the environment. By default, that responsibility would now fall to the states.

“That pretty much closed the door,” said Greg Oberley, an EPA groundwater specialist working in the western drilling states. “So we absolutely do not look at fracking...under the Safe Drinking Water Act. It’s not done.”
Waste Hazards

On April 30, 2001 a small drilling company now owned by the Canadian gas company Encana fractured a well at the top of Dry Hollow, a burgeoning field in western Colorado that has seen one of the fastest rates of energy development in the nation.

The well sat at the end of a dirt drive among pinion pines and juniper at the crest of a small mesa overlooking the Colorado River. It was also less than 1,000 feet from the log farmhouse where Larry and Laura Amos lived.

As usual that day, water trucks lined up like toy soldiers on the three acre dirt pad cleared for drilling just across the Amos’ property line. They pumped 82,000 gallons of fluids at 3,600 pounds of pressure thousands of feet into the drill hole.

Suddenly the Amos' drinking water well exploded like a Yellowstone geyser, firing its lid into the air and spewing mud and gray fizzing water high into the sky. State inspectors tested the Amos well for methane and found lots of it. They did not find benzene or gasoline derivatives and they did not test fracking fluids, state records show, because they didn't know what to test for.

The Amoses were told that methane occurs naturally and is harmless. Inspectors warned them to keep the windows open and vent the basement, but they were never advised to protect themselves or their infant daughter from the water. It wasn't until three years later, when Laura Amos was diagnosed with a rare adrenal tumor, that she started challenging the state about the mysterious chemicals that might have been in her well.

Misted waste fluid rises from waste pits at a Wyoming well site. (Credit: Abrahm Lustgarten/ProPublica)

Misted waste fluid rises from waste pits at a Wyoming well site. (Credit: Abrahm Lustgarten/ProPublica)
Much of what is known about the makeup of drilling fluids comes from the personal investigations of Theo Colborn, an independent Colorado-based scientist who specializes in low-dose effects of chemicals on human health and has testified before Congress [7] (PDF) on drilling issues. Although she opposes drilling, her research is referenced by scientists at the EPA, at the United States Geological Survey and at state-level regulatory agencies and is widely believed to be the most comprehensive information available.

Spurred by reports of water contamination in Colorado, Colborn painstakingly gathered the names of chemicals from shipping manifests that trucks must carry when they haul hazardous materials for oil and gas servicing companies. Whenever an accident occurred -- a well spill in Colorado, or an explosion at a drilling site in Wyoming – she gathered the data that became available after water and soil samples were tested for contaminants, adding the results to her list.

Industry officials say they use such tiny amounts of chemicals in the drilling – of the million or so gallons of liquid pumped into a well, only a fraction of one percent are chemicals – that they are diluted beyond harmful levels. But on some fracturing sites that tiny percentage translates to more than 10,000 gallons of chemicals, and Colborn believes even very low doses of some of the compounds can damage kidney and immune systems and affect reproductive development.

In Garfield County, there were signs this was already happening. Animals that had produced offspring like clockwork each spring stopped delivering healthy calves, according to Liz Chandler, a veterinarian in Rifle, Co. A bull went sterile, and a herd of beef cows stopped going into heat, as did pigs. In the most striking case, sheep bred on an organic dairy farm had a rash of inexplicable still births -- all in close proximity to drilling waste pits, where wastewater that includes fracturing fluids is misted into the air for evaporation.

Among Colborn’s list of nearly 300 chemicals -- some known to be cancer-causing -- is a clear, odorless surfactant called 2-BE, used in foaming agents to lubricate the flow of fracking fluids down in the well. Colborn told Congress in 2007 [7] that it can cause adrenal tumors.

Laura Amos, who suffered from such a tumor, pressed Encana on whether the compound had been used to fracture the well near her house. For months the company denied 2-BE had been used. But Amos persisted, arguing her case on TV and radio. In January 2005, her lawyers obtained documents from Encana showing that 2-BE had, in fact, been used in at least one adjacent well.

"Our daughter was only six months old when fracturing blew up our water well," Amos wrote in a letter to the Oil and Gas Accountability Project [8], an anti-drilling group. "I bathed her in that water every day. I also continued breast-feeding her for 18 more months...If there was a chemical in my body causing my tumor, she was exposed to it as well."

In 2006, Amos stopped talking to the media after she accepted a reported multi-million settlement from Encana. The company was fined $266,000 for "failure to protect water-bearing formations and…to contain a release of (gas production) waste." Yet investigators also concluded, without further explanation, that hydraulic fracturing was not to blame.

Asked about the Amos case and the rash of complaints in the area, an Encana spokesman said the company disagreed with the state's judgment on the Amos case and emphasized that there was no proof that fracturing had caused the explosion. Environmentalists had created a climate of fear in the community, he added.

"The concerns residents have expressed -- and some of them are legitimate and heartfelt concerns -- a lot of them are out of misinformation," said Doug Hock. "Just because chemicals are used at a site does not create risk. We have a proven process that helps us ensure that there are no pathways."
'The Tipping Point'

In the past 12 months a flurry of documented incidents has made such reports harder to dismiss.

"We've kind of reached the tipping point," says Dhieux, the EPA inspector in Denver. "The impacts are there."

In December 2007, a house in Bainbridge, Ohio exploded in a fiery ball. Investigators discovered that the neighborhood’s tap water contained so much methane that the house ignited. A study [9] released this month concluded that pressure caused by hydraulic fracturing pushed the gas, which is found naturally thousands of feet below, through a system of cracks into the groundwater aquifer.

The raised platform used by Encana at some of its drill sites helps to protect the underlying landscape. (Credit: Abrahm Lustgarten/ProPublica)

The raised platform used by Encana at some of its drill sites helps to protect the underlying landscape. (Credit: Abrahm Lustgarten/ProPublica)
In February a frozen 200-foot waterfall was discovered on the side of a massive cliff near Parachute, Colo. According to the state, 1.6 million gallons of fracturing fluids had leaked from a waste pit and been transported by groundwater, where it seeped out of the cliff. In a separate incident nearby in June, benzene was discovered in a place called Rock Spring. Three weeks later a rancher was hospitalized after he drank well water out of his own tap. Tests showed benzene in his water, and the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission cited four gas operators, not knowing which one was responsible for the spill. Colorado state records show more than 1,500 spills since 2003, in which time the rate of drilling increased 50 percent. In 2008 alone, records show more than 206 spills, 48 relating to water contamination.

As more contamination cases are documented, state governments and Washington are being pressured to toughen oversight. One aim is to institutionalize the precautionary measures some companies are already experimenting with.

When ProPublica visited an Encana drilling operation in Pinedale, for example, the company was placing its drill rigs on raised platforms to protect the underlying landscape and using rubber pools to catch spilled fluids before they could seep into the soil. Drilling companies in New Mexico have begun storing waste in enclosed steel tanks rather than open pits.

Such efforts can add 10 percent to drilling costs, but they also dramatically lessen the environmental risks, an Encana employee said.

State regulators and Washington lawmakers though are increasingly impatient with voluntary measures and are seeking to toughen their oversight. In September, U.S. Congresswoman Diana DeGette and Congressman John Salazar, from Colorado, and Congressman Maurice Hinchey, from New York, introduced a bill that would undo the exemptions in the 2005 Energy Policy Act. Wyoming, widely known for supporting energy development, has begun updating its regulations at a local level, as have parts of Texas.

New Mexico has placed a one-year moratorium on drilling around Santa Fe, after a survey found hundreds of cases of water contamination from unlined pits where fracking fluids and other drilling wastes are stored. "Every rule that we have improved...industry has taken us to court on," said Joanna Prukop, New Mexico’s cabinet secretary for Energy Minerals and Natural Resources. "It’s industry that is fighting us on every front as we try to improve our government enforcement, protection, and compliance…We wear Kevlar these days.”

The most stringent reforms are being pursued in Colorado. Last year it began a top-to-bottom re-write of its regulations, including a proposal to require companies to disclose the exact makeup of their fracking fluids -- the toughest such rule in the nation.

Cathy Behr (Credit: Abrahm Lustgarten/ProPublica)

Cathy Behr (Credit: Abrahm Lustgarten/ProPublica)
In mid-August, the Colorado debate intensified when news broke that Cathy Behr, an emergency room nurse in Durango, Colo., had almost died after treating a wildcatter who had been splashed in a fracking fluid spill at a BP natural gas rig. Behr stripped the man and stuffed his clothes into plastic bags while the hospital sounded alarms and locked down the ER. The worker was released. But a few days later Behr lay in critical condition facing multiple organ failure.

Her doctors searched for details that could save their patient. The substance was a drill stimulation fluid called ZetaFlow, but the only information the rig workers provided was a vague Material Safety Data Sheet, a form required by OSHA. Doctors wanted to know precisely what chemicals make up ZetaFlow and in what concentration. But the MSDS listed that information as proprietary. Behr’s doctor learned, weeks later, after Behr had begun to recuperate, what ZetaFlow was made of, but he was sworn to secrecy by the chemical’s manufacturer and couldn’t even share the information with his patient.

News of Behr’s case spread to New York and Pennsylvania, amplifying the cry for disclosure of drilling fluids. The energy industry braced for a fight.

"A disclosure to members of the public of detailed information…would result in an unconstitutional taking of [Halliburton’s] property," the company told Colorado’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. "A number of studies have concluded there are no confirmed incidents of contamination of drinking water aquifers due to stimulation operations…EPA reached precisely this conclusion after undertaking an extensive study."

Then Halliburton fired a major salvo: If lawmakers forced the company to disclose its recipes, the letter stated, it "will have little choice but to pull its proprietary products out of Colorado." The company’s attorneys warned that if the three big fracking companies left, they would take some $29 billion in future gas-related tax and royalty revenue with them over the next decade.

In August, the industry struck a compromise by agreeing to reveal the chemicals in fracturing fluids to health officials and regulators -- but the agreement applies only to chemicals stored in 50 gallon drums or larger. As a practical matter, drilling workers in Colorado and Wyoming said in interviews that the fluids are often kept in smaller quantities. That means at least some of the ingredients won’t be disclosed.

"They’ll never get it," says Bruce Baizel, a Colorado attorney with the Oil and Gas Accountability Project, about the states’ quest for information. "Not unless they are willing to go through a lawsuit. When push comes to shove, Halliburton is there with its attorneys."

Asked for comment, Halliburton would only say that its business depended on protecting such information. Schlumberger and BJ Services, the two other largest fracturing companies, did not return calls for comment.

Lee Fuller, vice-president for government relations at The Independent Petroleum Association of America, said the oil and gas industry’s reluctance to release information about drilling chemicals is to be expected. "These operations are ones where companies have spent millions of dollars," he says. "They are not going to want to give up that competitive advantage. So I would fully expect that they will try to protect that right as long as they possibly can."

http://www.propublica.org/article/buried-secrets-is-natural-gas-drilling-endangering-us-water-supplies-1113

Don't know how I missed this whole thread until now...fracking hey...
Posting the following under actions, but for your consideration here:

The EPA hearing, originally scheduled for August 12th in Binghamton, on the subject of Hydraulic Fracking has been rescheduled as follows:

New Dates and Venue:
September 13 & 15, 2010
Broome County Forum Theater
236 Washington St.
Binghamton, NY 13901-2715
Map

The EPA will hold 4 identical sessions during a two day session:

Monday, September 13, 2010
· 12:00pm - 4:00pm (pre-registration begins at 10:30am)
· 6:00pm - 10:00pm (pre-registration begins at 4:30pm)

Wednesday, September 15, 2010
· 12:00pm - 4:00pm (pre-registration begins at 10:30am)
· 6:00pm - 10:00pm (pre-registration begins at 4:30pm)

We'll announce carpool/bus info. as they are organized.

From the Environmental Protection Agency's Announcement:

All individuals who pre-registered for the August 12 meetings will retain their registration for the September 13 and 15 meetings. Because the timing of the sessions has changed from a one-day event to a two-day event and EPA has added another meeting session, EPA needs pre-registered individuals to specify the session they would like to attend.

1. Pre-registered speakers for the August 12 session will be sent an e-mail from the Cadmus Group requesting they select one preferred session in which to provide verbal comment. The email notification will provide instructions on how to choose a session. Speakers who pre-registered using the telephone registration will be contacted by Cadmus by phone to confirm their preferred session.

2. Pre-registered attendees (those who opted not to give verbal comment) will be asked to indicate the session they would like to attend via the registration website. The registration website is located at http://hfmeeting.cadmusweb.com and will open beginning at 9:00 am on Friday, September 3, 2010. Online and telephone registration will remain open through 5:00 pm, September 10, 2010.

EPA is expecting room-capacity crowds at the Binghamton meeting sessions. Pre-registering to attend the meetings will help EPA plan the meeting logistics and decreases the time one would wait to enter the meeting compared to one who registers onsite. Pre-registering for a meeting session does not reserve an individual's place at the session unless one is a pre-registered speaker. Some wait time for entrance into meeting sessions may occur if the room capacity is met. Those who do not pre-register may still register to attend or provide verbal comment on the day of the meeting. Verbal comments from individuals registered on-site will be accommodated as time allows.

EPA would appreciate public comment on the following documents:

Proposed Selection Criteria for Case Study Considered for EPA's Hydraulic Fracturing Study PDF (4 pp, 128 K, About PDF)
Proposed Conceptual Model for EPA's Hydraulic Fracturing Study PDF (4 pp, 160 K, About PDF)

More info on fracking at:
Frack Action
http://www.ucdw.org/ucdw_news/fracking.html

http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/pennsylvania-intelligence-bulletin-no.-131-aug.-30-2010#document/p4

thanks.

Anti-Frackers as "terrorists"

http://redactednews.blogspot.com/2010/09/israeli-company-targets-us-dissidents.html

Big Driller may be watching you.

According to recently leaked documents, the Pennsylvania Office of Homeland Security has been tracking anti-gas drilling groups and their meetings — including a public screening of the film “Gasland,” a documentary about the environmental hazards of natural gas drilling.

The office has included the information in its weekly intelligence bulletins sent to law enforcement agencies.

The bulletins are also sent to gas companies drilling in the Marcellus Shale.

Activists and environmental groups have responded with outrage and some alarm.

“There’s something dead-fishy here. ... Something is rotten,” activist Gene Stilp said. He has called for a formal House and Senate inquiry into the activities of the Homeland Security Office.

State Homeland Security Director James Powers explained that he has been including anti-gas drilling activist information in his triweekly intelligence briefings for about a month because there have been “five to 10” incidents of vandalism around the state related to the natural gas industry, which is one of the sectors he is charged with monitoring.

One of those incidents, he said, involved someone shooting a natural gas container tank with a shotgun in Venango County.

Powers said the briefings are sent to local law enforcement and the owners and operators of “critical infrastructure.”

Comparing himself to Tommy Lee Jones’ character in the film “The Fugitive,” Powers said, “I don’t care” which side of the issue someone is on — or if he or she is innocent. “My concern is public safety.” However, the “intelligence” in the briefings includes lists of public meetings the state has determined anti-drilling activists plan to attend.

“I find it kind of creepy that the state is compiling information on the innocuous activity of citizens,” said Jan Jarrett, president of PennFuture, a group that has expressed concern about drilling issues.

When one of these intelligence bulletins was spotted on a pro-drilling Internet site and disseminated among anti-drilling activists, Powers sent an e-mail of reprimand to the woman who e-mailed it.

He mistakenly thought she was pro-drilling.

In the e-mail, Powers told the woman the “sensitive information” she disseminated is not meant for the public, but only for those “having a valid need to know.”

He added, “We want to continue providing this support to the Marcellus Shale formation natural gas stakeholders, while not feeding those groups fomenting dissent against those same companies.”

Powers sent copies of his e-mail to the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response as well as to Pam Witmer, a lobbyist with the Bravo Group, which lobbies for the gas industry.

The first is a contractor for Homeland Security and the second is a “civilian lead” for the energy sector, said Powers.

The intelligence bulletin that was made public includes notice of six public meetings that, according to Homeland Security, “have been singled out for attendance by anti-Marcellus Shale Formation natural gas drilling activists.”

They include: township ordinance and zoning meetings in Butler, Wayne and Allegheny counties; a Pittsburgh City Council meeting; a Pennsylvania Forestry Association meeting in Williamsport; and a screening of “Gasland” in Philadelphia.

The bulletin also includes information on anarchists, “black power radicals,” Ramadan, the “Jewish High Holiday season” and anti-war activists.

“What is next?” asked Stilp. “An enemies-of-gas-drilling list compiled by the government so that police can keep an eye on them? Public surveillance for private companies is not the democratic way. It’s not the way Pennsylvania government is supposed to run.”

“We don’t track groups,” Powers said.

Which public meetings the anti-drilling folks were planning to attend was supplied by the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response, a Philadelphia firm contracted with the state Office of Homeland Security to provide information for the intelligence briefings.

When asked if ITRR was tracking groups — specifically, people opposed to drilling in the Marcellus Shale or attending showings of “Gasland” — Powers replied, “I don’t know, I haven’t asked them.”

Powers did indicate that someone — either ITRR or state employees, he wouldn’t specify which — was monitoring the “Web traffic” of anti-drilling groups.

Mike Perelman, codirector of ITRR, would not say if his firm was tracking anti-drilling activists.

“We have a very strict policy that we don’t discuss client matters, period,” said Perelman. “We respect the confidential relationship between us and the client.”

Gary Tuma, Gov. Ed Rendell’s spokesman, said, “It is part of Homeland Security’s responsibility to alert local law enforcement, local officials and potential victims” to any possible problems.

He said the inclusion of anti-drilling activity in intelligence bulletins “by no means brands groups that speak publicly on one side or the other of an issue as troublemakers.” The information has been included “because there have been acts of vandalism.”

Powers added that a lot of times anti-drilling activists show up without obtaining a permit to protest, “and that in itself is a violation of the law.”

When it was noted that citizens do not need a permit to attend public meetings and express dissenting opinions, Powers said, “You’re looking at it out of context. I get to see everything over time.”

Powers said that when anti-drilling activists attend public meetings, “their presence may spark something else.” He said he didn’t want to see public meetings “escalate to physical criminal acts.”

Tuma later elaborated that ITRR is paid through a grant from the federal government to monitor online activity in critical infrastructure areas. And Tuma said that if they found evidence of pro-drilling activity, “the answer is yes, they would notify the Department of Homeland Security about it.”

When Powers was asked if he had included the planned activities of pro-drilling groups in any of his bulletins, he was at a loss. “I’m trying to think ... I see your point. ... This seems to be a very polarizing issue around the state.”

When asked if the state had compiled a list of people associated with anti-drilling groups, Powers said, “Not that I know of, not in my office.”


Read more: http://www.centredaily.com/2010/09/14/2206710/documents-show-homeland-security.html#ixzz0zeUqw8HR

The spin makes me ill:

The DEC's new Strategic Forest Management Plan for NY State Forests provides
for leasing for natural gas exploration and use of water for gas extraction.

These forests include 786,000 acres (but not do not include the Adirondack or Catskill Forest Preserves.)
The comment period ends Oct 29. Full plan at http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/64567.html

You still think it's a wise idea to assign water withdrawal management to this same agency that wants to facilitate gas drilling and water withdrawal in our state forests?
name removed...



Strategic Plan for State Forest Management (DRAFT)

This draft plan and generic environmental impact statement (GEIS) will guide the future management of the state's 786,329-acre State Forest holdings and is being made available for public review and comment. Key goals focus on ecosystem health and diversity, economic benefits, recreational opportunities, forest conservation and sustainable management.

Comment Period

Public comment is encouraged and will be accepted September 1, 2010 through 4:45 p.m., Friday, October 29, 2010. Please review the plan and submit comments by email to State Forest Strategic Plan. Comments may also be mailed to Strategic Plan for State Forest Management, NYS DEC, 625 Broadway, Albany, NY 12233-4255.

Documents

<28D54FAD33564B8A817CA7DAE259BCFB>


Full Draft Plan (PDF, 9.92 MB)
This is a large file and may take a long time to download.

Cover -- Chapter 1 (PDF, 4.51 MB)
Chapter 2 -- Chapter 5 (PDF, 4.41 MB)
Chapters 6 -- 7 and Appendices (PDF, 1.26 MB)

Executive Summary (PDF, 3.68 MB)
A brief 12 page overview of the draft plan.

Public Hearings

The public is encouraged to attend one of the following scheduled hearings. Each meeting - unless otherwise noted in bold - will consist of two parts:
6:30 p.m. - 7:00 p.m., One-on-one Information Session
7:00 p.m. - 9:30 p.m., Public Hearing
Date

Location
Thursday,
September 30

Region 1 - Long Island
DEC Region 1 Headquarters
SUNY Stony Brook - Room BO2
50 Circle Road
Stony Brook
Thursday,
September 30

Region 2 - New York City
* Relocated as of Sept. 10th
DEC Region 2 Headquarters
Annex Building
11-15 47th Avenue
Long Island City
Thursday,
September 23

Region 3 - Hudson Valley
DEC Region 3 Headquarters
Main Conference Room
21 South Putt Corners Road
New Paltz
>
> Executive Summary
>
> State Forest Overview
>
> State Forests are located throughout New York State and include over 786,000 acres of Reforestation Areas, Multiple‐Use Areas, Unique Areas and State Nature and Historic Preserves. Wildlife Management Areas, Forest Preserve, Conservation Easements and State Parks are not included in the category of State Forests.
> Mineral Resources The leasing and development of natural gas and oil resources can provide jobs and income to the State while increasing domestic energy supplies. Oil and natural gas are valuable resources which can provide energy and revenue, as well as the opportunity for improvements to the existing infrastructure of the State Forests (such as improving access through upgrading existing roads, culverts and gates). ‐ 10‐ ‐ 11 ‐ As with any other human activity on State lands, oil and natural gas exploration and development can impact the environment. The biggest risks from natural gas exploration and development are potential impacts on underground aquifers and residential water wells in the immediate area of drilling. While techniques used today are far more advanced and protective of ground water, there are still remote risks ‐ as with almost any construction or development project. The Department will incorporate all available technologies and methods to reduce these risks.
>
>
>
> Recommended actions include: • Apply a hierarchical approach that classifies areas of each State Forest into specific categories. • Adapt the draft guidance for pipelines on State Forests to the DEC policy system and expanding it to include guidance on strategies for dealing with existing pipeline corridors and establishment of new pipeline corridors. If the issue of existing unauthorized pipelines cannot be sufficiently addressed at the policy level, propose legislation to resolve the issue. • Finalize and adopting the current draft policy on seismic exploration. • Adopt policies addressing disposal by injection and carbon capture and sequestration. • Adopt a policy on tract assessments for oil and gas leasing, based on mineral character and expected mineral activity, site condition, and public use. • Adopt a policy on water use for oil and gas extraction, based on information in the Division of Mineral Resources GEIS.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=9213646&mesg_id=9218402

That is what I saw around here 3-4 years ago.

http://www.greenstar.coop/images/stories/featureimgs/farm-and-marcellus-wells_hi_res.jpg

I thought WTF kind of drilling operation is that? They have moved on, you know. It was never a "drilling" operation. Turns out, Halliburton had quietly gotten the Michigan legislature to change the law so that they could go for gas under people's property withoiut their permission

As of this summer there is widespread - begrudging and reluctant - acceptance that the ground water here is fucked, and is it dawning on people that A) this is very significant damage - almost unthinkably bad B) it is permanent C) they were massively conned, and furthermore conned in such a way that has them questioning everything. This cuts to the bone.

Mary - "accidents" at the "moment of fracking?" Fracking is the "accident." It is not as though things might go wrong, things are being intentionally made to go wrong every time it is done.

Previous operations involved drilling through the shale, with the companies reassuring people that "accidents" - shattering the shale which was widely acknowledged to be a bad thing - were unlikely. This is a knowing and intentional massive shattering of the shale - the very thing that the companies previously acknowledged would be a bad thing should it happen and reassured people would not happen. When the people here were approached to sign lease deals, they were led to believe - given absolutely no reason to think otherwise - that the same conditions were in place.

As of this week, the eastern half of the state is now under assault and the lease hustling sharks have descended. There is extreme economic depression over there. Checks will be waved under people's noses. They will be lied to. The activists have slowed the fuckers down in New York, but no worry for them. They are just moving operations back here where people are more desperate and there is less opposition. It is a juggernaut. We need to fully appreciate that.

"accidents" at the "moment of fracking?" Fracking is the "accident." Of course, of course, of course, as is leaking, spills, poor construction. But the INDUSTRY says there have never been accidents due to Hydro frackting at all,again which they say is the actual breaking of the shale...that is the most blatent lie of all, but also they don't even consider anything else their fault...

http://wcexaminer.com

everyday they have stories related to hydro fracking...

http://www.donnan.com/Marcellus-Gas_Hickory.htm

This one shows contributions to PA politicians by the gas lobby. http://www.marcellusmoney.org/candidates

http://gasdrillingawarenesscoalition.wordpress.com/2010... /

http://www.earthworksaction.org/SplitEstate.cfm

http://solveclimate.com/blog/20090929/fracking-accident...

http://frackmountain.wordpress.com/beta /

thanks to a duer

Cabot and DEP clash over Dimock water contamination
by laura legere

A clash between the state's environmental regulators and gas driller Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. over the cause and solution for contaminated water wells in Dimock Twp. escalated on Tuesday, with the Cabot CEO accusing the Department of Environmental Protection of waging "a public war against us."

The late- day salvo - in the form of a press release and 29-page letter from Cabot CEO Dan O. Dinges to DEP Secretary John Hanger - came hours after Mr. Hanger described as "very unfortunate and false" an advertisement by Cabot published Tuesday morning in area newspapers that criticized his department and its plan for replacing the contaminated private water supplies in Dimock.

Mr. Hanger could not be reached on Tuesday night to respond to Cabot's letter.

In the advertisement published in The Times-Tribune and the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin, Cabot challenged a state plan to compel the natural gas driller to replace the contaminated wells with an estimated 7-mile-long, $10.5 million public water line from Montrose, calling the proposal "unreasonable, unprecedented and ... unfair."

An official announcement of the water replacement plan will be made by Mr. Hanger on Thursday along Carter Road in Dimock, where the department found that Cabot contaminated 14 water wells with methane during its Marcellus Shale drilling operations.

Mr. Hanger said Tuesday he would not detail the plan, which he will explain on Thursday, but he said he was "disappointed" in Cabot's statements in the ad.

"Cabot would do better spending its money on fixing the problems it caused than buying ads," he said. "Frankly, the families in Dimock and the people of Pennsylvania deserve much better."

Mr. Hanger found "particularly false" Cabot's statement that the department has a "concerning" tendency "to communicate through the media instead of with the Company."

The secretary said he and his senior team have had weekly calls with Mr. Dinges and other company leaders about the water replacement issue since April. When Mr. Dinges was on vacation and unreachable by satellite phone during a crucial period in the discussions, Mr. Hanger and his advisers communicated with a Cabot team "fully about all these matters" in his absence, Mr. Hanger said.

DEP suspended portions of Cabot's extensive Marcellus Shale operations in Susquehanna County in April after it found that 14 of the company's gas wells in Dimock were improperly constructed or overpressured and were causing methane to seep into water wells.

The company has paid more than $360,000 in fines and was ordered to fix the affected water supplies, but at least 11 of the 14 families refused Cabot's proposed solution - methane elimination systems to be installed in each of the homes - saying the systems are inadequate to address the problems.

DEP is also conducting comprehensive testing of the well water in 34 homes in the Dimock area for a wide range of contaminants, including benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene and glycol, after a private testing firm hired by residents detected many of those chemicals in their water, including some at levels above federal drinking water standards.

In its ad on Tuesday, Cabot said it does not believe it caused the contamination and "intends to fight these allegations through its scientific findings."

It also criticized the logic of DEP's water replacement plan.

"No private business model would support such an investment (in excess of $10 million) for so few users," Mr. Dinges wrote in the ad. He said the water line is being planned without any study of the economic viability of the project, its physical impact on the route and how long it will take to install.

In the press release and letter distributed late in the day, Mr. Dinges went further with his criticisms, calling the department's behavior toward Cabot "arbitrary and unreasonable" and saying that the department has ignored evidence "proving (Cabot) is not responsible for methane gas migration into local water wells ... preferring instead to base unprecedented and costly mandates on biased and unscientific opinions and accounts."

In support of its position, the company said it drilled a new water well for a resident who lives in the 9-square-mile area identified by the department as affected by the methane contamination and did not detect any gas in that water, Cabot spokesman George Stark said.

In its press release, the company also cites local emergency response officials who said they found no evidence that an explosion blasted a concrete slab off a resident's water well on Jan. 1, 2009 - the incident that first spurred the department's investigation into methane migration.

Asked what else might have broken and tossed aside the slab, Mr. Stark said, "We don't have a theory as to how or why. What we do have is, when you have an explosion, there are certain tell-tale signs. And we didn't see any of those."

The attorney for Dimock families who have sued Cabot for damaging their water, property and health could not be reached Tuesday evening after Cabot released its letter.

In a statement released earlier in the day, attorney Leslie Lewis said she applauded the "courage and decisiveness" shown by the governor and Mr. Hanger on the water replacement issue and called the state's plan to provide centrally sourced water to the residents "a considered and necessary one."

She also criticized Cabot's advertisement Tuesday, calling it "just another example of Cabot's cynical attempts to divide the community, pitting neighbor against neighbor on the gas development issue."

"The issue is whether Cabot has contaminated residents' well water by their operations," she said. "The unequivocal finding of the DEP and PA government is 'yes'."

Contact the writer: llegere@timesshamrock.com

Might be that there is a 'clean' way to do this fraking, just not profitable or profitable enough.(or mebbe not, don't know the technical) Capitalism distorts everything.

I doubt that there is a clean way to do fracking - is there a clean way to dump oil into the gulf - better than BP did? - but even if there were, the shattering of the shale layer is a problem itself. We don't have fracking chemicals in the water here - yet, they are migrating around - but the more pure deep water that everyone draws from has been contaminated by the upper levels of water - very high mineral content and higher rates of bacterial contamination - because they smashed the shale between the two to smithereens.

Before the fracking started, "accident" meant inadvertently shattering the shale layer when drilling through it to get to pockets of gas. Fracking intentionally shatters the shale to extract gas contained inside the shale, apparently in micro-bubbles, yet the assholes continued to answer people questions about "accidents" as though the old model applied. That was the main deception. They also lied about the connection between signing away mineral rights, and what that actually meant for your property. They said "we can drill at an angle under your property anyway, so you may as well sign. Otherwise you will get nothing. May as well take the money - nothing changes either way." They are not "drilling at an angle" under people's property, they are fucking up the ground water underneath everyone's property and the "drilling at an angle" bullshit is all CYA.

but that might be a consideration in other capitalist shenanigans. What I mean is that what they say is or isn't possible is totally conditioned by the profit motive. Socially beneficial products of labor may not be produced cause somebody can't make a buck on it. I guess that speculation about environment/energy patents be hoarded by the big boys falls into that category.

That top water does suck, my well is supposedly 65', being a city boy I thought all well water was cool. Turned out it is ph5, acidic as hell. Didn't figure it out until all of the water turtles sickened and my sweeties hair started turning green. By the time we got it corrected a bunch of turtles died and I was paying a dollar a day for treatment.

this is never, ever clean, and all for profit...

"just not profitable or profitable enough"

why we don't have solar or wind...never will be peak sun or wind...

According to recently leaked documents, the Pennsylvania Office of Homeland Security has been tracking anti-gas drilling groups and their meetings — including a public screening of the film “Gasland,” a documentary about the environmental hazards of natural gas drilling.

The office has included the information in its weekly intelligence bulletins sent to law enforcement agencies.

The bulletins are also sent to gas companies drilling in the Marcellus Shale.

Activists and environmental groups have responded with outrage and some alarm.

“There’s something dead-fishy here. ... Something is rotten,” activist Gene Stilp said. He has called for a formal House and Senate inquiry into the activities of the Homeland Security Office.

State Homeland Security Director James Powers explained that he has been including anti-gas drilling activist information in his triweekly intelligence briefings for about a month because there have been “five to 10” incidents of vandalism around the state related to the natural gas industry, which is one of the sectors he is charged with monitoring.

One of those incidents, he said, involved someone shooting a natural gas container tank with a shotgun in Venango County.

Powers said the briefings are sent to local law enforcement and the owners and operators of “critical infrastructure.”

Comparing himself to Tommy Lee Jones’ character in the film “The Fugitive,” Powers said, “I don’t care” which side of the issue someone is on — or if he or she is innocent. “My concern is public safety.” However, the “intelligence” in the briefings includes lists of public meetings the state has determined anti-drilling activists plan to attend.

“I find it kind of creepy that the state is compiling information on the innocuous activity of citizens,” said Jan Jarrett, president of PennFuture, a group that has expressed concern about drilling issues.

When one of these intelligence bulletins was spotted on a pro-drilling Internet site and disseminated among anti-drilling activists, Powers sent an e-mail of reprimand to the woman who e-mailed it.

He mistakenly thought she was pro-drilling.

In the e-mail, Powers told the woman the “sensitive information” she disseminated is not meant for the public, but only for those “having a valid need to know.”

He added, “We want to continue providing this support to the Marcellus Shale formation natural gas stakeholders, while not feeding those groups fomenting dissent against those same companies.”

Powers sent copies of his e-mail to the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response as well as to Pam Witmer, a lobbyist with the Bravo Group, which lobbies for the gas industry.

The first is a contractor for Homeland Security and the second is a “civilian lead” for the energy sector, said Powers.

The intelligence bulletin that was made public includes notice of six public meetings that, according to Homeland Security, “have been singled out for attendance by anti-Marcellus Shale Formation natural gas drilling activists.”

They include: township ordinance and zoning meetings in Butler, Wayne and Allegheny counties; a Pittsburgh City Council meeting; a Pennsylvania Forestry Association meeting in Williamsport; and a screening of “Gasland” in Philadelphia.

The bulletin also includes information on anarchists, “black power radicals,” Ramadan, the “Jewish High Holiday season” and anti-war activists.

“What is next?” asked Stilp. “An enemies-of-gas-drilling list compiled by the government so that police can keep an eye on them? Public surveillance for private companies is not the democratic way. It’s not the way Pennsylvania government is supposed to run.”

“We don’t track groups,” Powers said.

Which public meetings the anti-drilling folks were planning to attend was supplied by the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response, a Philadelphia firm contracted with the state Office of Homeland Security to provide information for the intelligence briefings.

When asked if ITRR was tracking groups — specifically, people opposed to drilling in the Marcellus Shale or attending showings of “Gasland” — Powers replied, “I don’t know, I haven’t asked them.”

Powers did indicate that someone — either ITRR or state employees, he wouldn’t specify which — was monitoring the “Web traffic” of anti-drilling groups.

Mike Perelman, codirector of ITRR, would not say if his firm was tracking anti-drilling activists.

“We have a very strict policy that we don’t discuss client matters, period,” said Perelman. “We respect the confidential relationship between us and the client.”

Gary Tuma, Gov. Ed Rendell’s spokesman, said, “It is part of Homeland Security’s responsibility to alert local law enforcement, local officials and potential victims” to any possible problems.

He said the inclusion of anti-drilling activity in intelligence bulletins “by no means brands groups that speak publicly on one side or the other of an issue as troublemakers.” The information has been included “because there have been acts of vandalism.”

Powers added that a lot of times anti-drilling activists show up without obtaining a permit to protest, “and that in itself is a violation of the law.”

When it was noted that citizens do not need a permit to attend public meetings and express dissenting opinions, Powers said, “You’re looking at it out of context. I get to see everything over time.”

Powers said that when anti-drilling activists attend public meetings, “their presence may spark something else.” He said he didn’t want to see public meetings “escalate to physical criminal acts.”

Tuma later elaborated that ITRR is paid through a grant from the federal government to monitor online activity in critical infrastructure areas. And Tuma said that if they found evidence of pro-drilling activity, “the answer is yes, they would notify the Department of Homeland Security about it.”

When Powers was asked if he had included the planned activities of pro-drilling groups in any of his bulletins, he was at a loss. “I’m trying to think ... I see your point. ... This seems to be a very polarizing issue around the state.”

When asked if the state had compiled a list of people associated with anti-drilling groups, Powers said, “Not that I know of, not in my office.”


http://www.centredaily.com/2010/09/14/2206710/documents-show-homeland-security.html

EPA Requests Fracking Chemicals From Nine Companies
This story was updated on Sept. 29, 2010, with a statement from Halliburton that comprises the ninth paragraph.

by Angela Modany

The Environmental Protection Agency began to prepare for its upcoming study on the effects of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water by sending letters to hydraulic fracturing service providers that requested the list of chemicals used in the natural gas extracting process.

http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/Natural_Gas_Fracking.jpg
Although the natural gas industry rejects it, critics say fracking can poison water supplies. They also say it uses large amounts of fresh water and generates large amounts of wastewater with limited disposal options. Hydraulic fracturing injects high volumes of water, chemicals and particles underground to create fractures through which gas can flow for collection. (Image: Wespionage)

Nine companies received the letter, including BJ Services, Complete Production Services, Halliburton, Key Energy Services, Patterson-UTI, RPC Inc., Schlumberger, Superior Well Services and Weatherford.

Hydraulic fracturing, commonly referred to as “fracking,” uses a mixture of water, sand and chemicals blasted at high pressures to open up seams in rock, which allows natural gas to escape. The worry is that the chemicals in the fracking mixture contaminate the groundwater used for drinking. Companies that practice fracking have not disclosed the names of chemicals they use in the past because they say they are “trade secrets.” The EPA wants the companies to reveal the chemicals to help its upcoming study.

“By sharing information about the chemicals and methods they are using, these companies will help us make a thorough and efficient review of hydraulic fracturing and determine the best path forward,” EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said in a press release on Sept. 9.

According to the press release, the EPA requested the companies reply within seven days on whether they will voluntarily comply with the EPA’s request. The agency also asked that any information from the companies be given within 30 days. To companies who choose not to cooperate, the EPA gave this warning: “EPA is prepared to use its authorities to require the information needed to carry out its study.”

Stephanie Meadows, a senior policy adviser for the American Petroleum Institute, which represents oil and natural gas companies, was confused by the “threat.”

“I’m not sure how they would do that, or if they even have the authority to do that,” she told The New York Times. “I’m little disappointed with the threats, because I thought we’d made it clear all along that we want to be helpful.”

In the past, though, fracking companies have not been helpful and compliant. According to a Bloomberg Businessweek story from 2008, Halliburton, one of the companies who received the EPA’s letter, “threatened to cease natural-gas operations in Colorado if regulators there persisted in demanding the chemical recipe.”

Halliburton said in a statement this month that it would comply with the EPA's latest request for "chemical additives that typically comprise less than one-half of one-percent of our hydraulic fracturing solutions."

The EPA sent the letters days before its last public hearings on fracking in Binghamton, N.Y. The public hearings, which began in July, are a preliminary step before the EPA’s study begins in 2011. It will look at how fracking effects the environment, human health and drinking water.

According to the AP, the EPA anticipated so many supporters and opponents of fracking at these last hearings that they postponed them twice until they finally held them this week.

Fracking supporters, like the Independent Oil and Gas Association, say the practice helps decrease the nation’s dependency on foreign fuels and creates jobs.

Opponents are concerned about health and clean drinking water issues. “Protect our water. Stop fracking America,” one sign at the hearing said.

“There’s no way this can be done safely. It will toxify the air, water and soil,” Kathy Shimberg of Mount Vision, N.Y. told the AP.

With the last of the public hearings over, the EPA is now waiting for responses from the nine fracking companies as it prepares for its study. Jackson said: “EPA will do everything in its power, as it is obligated to do, to protect the health of the American people,” she said.

http://www.matternetwork.com/2010/9/epa-requests-fracking-chemicals-from.cfm

Fracking Chemicals Will Be Disclosed, Drilling Companies Say

Monday 13 September 2010

by: Stacy Feldman

EPA requests information on composition and potential hazards, ready to flex muscle if rebuffed.

The Obama administration urged gas companies to voluntarily disclose the toxic chemicals they inject in the ground in a type of natural gas exploration that uses hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

If companies rebuff the request - a seemingly unlikely event - environmental regulators could get tough.

In letters sent Thursday to nine leading providers of fracking services, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it is seeking data for the first time on the "chemical composition" of the drilling fluids and their hazards to human health.

The best antidote to hate speech and misinformation is truth. Click here to support real news.

The information is vital to the success of the agency's scientific review of fracking's impact on drinking water. Currently, there is no federal regulation of the poorly understood practice and a series of patchy state laws.

Full cooperation from gas firms is expected, EPA declared to the press.

"If not, EPA is prepared to use its authorities to require the information needed to carry out its study," it said.

Fracking giant Halliburton, a recipient of one of the letters, told SolveClimate News that it "will of course fully cooperate with the EPA's request."

A spokesperson for Schlumberger, a drilling-services contractor, said it, too, "will cooperate."

"We look forward to working with the agency to help ensure that this study draws on the best science and data," Stephen Harris told SolveClimate News.

Likewise, Baker Hughes, the oilfield services company, said it will comply: "We support what they're trying to do in terms of a fact-based, scientific study of hydraulic fracturing," Gary Flaharty, vice president of investor of relations, told SolveClimate News.

Some in the industry welcomed the EPA disclosure as a way to give fracking a credibility boost.

"We believe the EPA study presents an important opportunity to demonstrate once again that fracturing technology is safely managed, efficiently used, and well-regulated by the states," said Jeff Eshelman, spokesman for the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), a national trade association.
The controversial process pumps millions of gallons of water, chemicals, sand or plastic beads at high pressure deep into horizontal wells to pry loose gas from shale rock.

The chemicals used in the drilling fluids, developed by Halliburton in 1949, are exempt from regulation under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. The industry has been permitted to protect the list of chemicals as trade secrets.

Fracking fluids are known to contain human carcinogens, including benzene and naphthalene, as well as neurotoxins and endocrine disruptors.

Kate Sinding of the Natural Resources Defense Council expressed cautious optimism with companies' eagerness to cooperate with EPA.

"In the past [their practice] has been to hide behind this trade-secret, proprietary information veil," she told SolveClimate News, adding that pressure is clearly on to release the ingredients contained in the chemical stew.

"We're getting to a tipping point where the companies feel like they can't withhold this information from the public anymore."

Industry Says "Yes" to Disclosure, "No" to Federal Regs

Sinding said the "disclosure of the chemicals at this point is long past due."
But the industry claims the information is already available to U.S. officials and even the public.

"The information EPA's requesting is already in the possession of Congress," said Chris Tucker, a spokersperson for Energy in Depth, a coalition of natural gas and oil producers that supports fracking.

"Most of it has already been disclosed to state regulators as well, and a lot of it is available on the Internet," he told SolveClimate News.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Ca.), chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), chair of the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, demanded in recent months that 14 well operators disclose the list of chemicals used in their fracking liquids.

"The companies have responded to our requests, and we are in the process of reviewing and analyzing the data," Karen Lightfoot, a spokesperson for Rep. Waxman, told SolveClimate News.

Jim Smith of the Independent Oil and Gas Association of New York said fracking chemicals that will be blasted under the gas-rich Marcellus Shale in his state are already published by the Department of Environmental Conservation.

"We don't have a problem with the ingredients being disclosed," he told SolveClimate News.

However, all the industry groups remain staunchly opposed to federal regulation.

"We think it's better handled by the states," Smith said. "It would just become too cumbersome for the federal government to handle drilling activities in 30-plus states."

Tucker agreed: "It's well-regulated on the state level."

Many lawmakers see things differently.

In New York, for instance, the state senate voted 48 to 9 in early August to issue a moratorium that would stop permits for drilling in the Marcellus Shale until next May, to give the state ample time to evaluate the risks of groundwater poisoning in the drilling process. The state assembly is expected to take up the bill in the coming weeks in a special legislative session.

"There remains very strong support to passing [it]," said Sinding.

Water Pollution Cases Rise, Industry Denies Fault

As debate rages over fracking's future, water contamination complaints are on the rise across gas country.

Earlier this month, EPA found high levels of methane, benzene and 2-butoexythanol phosphate, a solvent in fracking fluids that experts say can cause kidney failure, in many of the 19 drinking water wells sampled in the tiny ranching town of Pavillion, Wyo., as well as in groundwater connected to the aquifer.

The town has seen a surge in fracked gas wells in recent years.

The analysis was done after residents said their water was making them sick. Residents complained of nausea, vision problems, fatigue, loss of the ability to taste and smell, as well as rare cancers, seizures and liver disease.

Industry officials deny such health claims. Tucker said there is "no proof" tying groundwater contamination to fracking.

"Hydraulic fracturing is one of the safest things that occurs at a well site," Tucker told SolveClimate News. "It's a post-drilling stimulation process, very short. It's done in days."

Halliburton said the chemicals account for less than one percent of the fluid that is injected underground.

While perhaps accurate, that small percentage is deceiving, said Sinding.

"If you're talking about millions of gallons of fracturing solution, you're still talking about potentially tens of thousands of pounds of chemicals," she said. "That's not insignificant at all."

Those numbers are set to rise. Analysts at IHS Cambridge Energy Associates predict shale gas will represent half of total domestic natural gas production by 2035, up from about 10 percent today.

EPA pledged this week to respond to heath concerns while its fracking study, due in late 2012, is carried out.

"EPA will do everything in its power, as it is obligated to do, to protect the health of the American people and will respond to demonstrated threats while the study is underway," said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson.

http://www.truth-out.org/fracking-chemicals-will-be-disclosed-drilling-companies-say63217

that a guy in New Paltz had, if he ever emails it to me, I'll share here; I did see toluene, dioxin, and benzene on the list, I know...bad news...

11/3 Pittsburgh: info at the top of the page here:

http://marcellusprotest.org/

timing and distance are too far for me...but share...

Finally saw Gasland, very good, very worth seeing, not the hyperbole I'd been lead to believe...people are great... :(

The ny state forest use for drilling is of huge concern (the people's back yard) and seems similar to the use of the federal bureau of land management land for drilling in the west (a disaster of huge proportion). It's a very small section of the multi hundred page state forest management proposal and should be removed IMO. Please check out the link above for the hyperlinks.

http://tinyurl.com/2bzahhe

INCIDENTS AND DEVELOPMENTS CONTINUE TO PROVE THAT GAS DRILLING ISN'T SAFE. HELP US TAKE ACTION!

The number of places where drilling has poisoned the water, air and land in communities keeps rising and we can expect that as drilling continues, these incidents will go up. This has not lessoned the pro-drilling forces from pushing for more drilling at every opportunity and with total disregard for the consequences. Below is a digest of some of the recent events that reinforces our need to be vigilant and active.

PENNSYLVANIA DEP LASHES OUT AT GAS DRILLING COMPANY FOR POLLUTING DRINKING WATER
depIn a public letter to citizens yesterday, Pennsylvania DEP Secretary John Hanger lashed out at Cabot Oil & Gas for denying their responsibility for water contamination in Dimock, PA. He said that there is overwhelming evidence that they are responsible for the gas migration that has caused families to be without a permanent water supply for nearly 2 years. He continued that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania will seek court orders to make Cabot pay for all costs relative to constructing a new 5.5 mile water main to bring drinkable water to Dimock, PA. Cabot's response has been to launch a public relations campaign and much misinformation concerning who will be party to that solution and who will end up paying for it. To read Secretary John Hanger's full statement, click here.

EPA TELLS RESIDENTS OF PAVILLION, WYOMING NOT TO DRINK THEIR WATER
Pavillion MapThe EPA has told the residents of Pavillion, a rural community on the Wind River Indian Reservation in central Wyoming, not to drink their water and to use fans and ventilation while bathing or washing clothes to avoid the risk of explosion. This warning came after the EPA found benzene, metals, naphthalene, phenols, methane and other contaminants in groundwater and area wells. The EPA has identified at least three water wells containing chemicals used in the fracking process, but will not say whether there is a definite connection until they complete their current study of the effects of fracking on water. While we understand that the EPA cannot make definitive statements until all of their scientific testing is in, this is another clear case of how fracking has poisoned the water in a community. Click here to join the thousands who have signed our petition asking the DEC not to greenlight gas drilling using hydrofracking until they can review the results of the EPA's scientific study. Read the petition and signatures here.

ORGANIC FARMER IN PA FILES LAWSUIT STATING THAT DRILLING POLLUTED HIS WATER AND LAND
A Pennsylvania organic tomato farmer, George Zimmerman has filed suit against Atlas Energy
Gas Drilling Site in Hickory, PA Atlas
Inc.for polluting his soil and water with toxic chemicals used in or released there by hydraulic fracturing. Water tests near his home found seven potentially carcinogenic chemicals above "screening levels" set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Baseline tests that were done on the property a year before drilling began were "perfect". However, tests done in June 2010 found arsenic at 2600 times acceptable levels, benzene at 44 times above limits and naphthalene 5 times above federal standards. These are substances that can't be made by nature, and yet that is what is now in the ground. If Zimmerman wins, it would be the first case to prove that hydraulic fracturing causes water contamination. He said he has invested about $11 million in the estate, which includes a winery and an heirloom-tomato business, but he now just wants to walk away because he believes it has been ruined by gas drilling. Zimmerman rates his chances of selling it, as "slim to none" because of the proven water contamination. For more on this story, click here:

Despite this clear and empirical evidence the rush to drill continues.

DEC PROPOSING TO ALLOW FRACKING IN OUR STATE FORESTS
state forests mapThe DEC has said that they are "inclined to consider natural gas developed on State Forests due in part to the fact that it is a cleaner burning energy alternative." That is, of course, the rationale that the gas industry uses. While it may be true that the burning of natural gas may produce fewer particulates and other polluting emissions than other fossil fuels, it also causes more strain on the water supply, introduces pollutants into the water supply, chemically poisons land in the case of accidental chemicals spills and more. Right now commercial mines in State Forests are prohibited. State forests were created precisely in order to protect these lands from development, and that status should be maintained. The DEC is taking public comment on its draft forest management plan until October 29. You can comment by emailing the DEC or mailing them at:
Strategic Plan for State Forest Management
NYS DEC, 625 Broadway
Albany, NY 12233-4255."

For a thorough analysis of the this issue read the story Julia Reischel in the Watershed Post

SMALL GAS PIPELINES CAN NOW BE BUILT IN NEW YORK STATE
Despite the fact that gas wells using hydrofracking are not yet approved in New York State, gasPIPELINE
companies can now apply for and get permission to build shale gas pipelines that connect their well pads to larger pipelines because approval of these smaller pipelines is not covered by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). The approval is done by the New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) who can approve pipelines that are up to 10 miles in length. Each pipeline is approved individually, and because PSC is not doing a cumulative impact analysis pipelines are likely to proliferate dangerously and with massive environmental degradation. On Wednesday October 20th, Mountainkeeper Program Director Wes Gillingham will testify at the PCS public hearing. The written comment period lasts until October 29th, 2010. We urge you to click here to submit written comments asking that all pipelines regardless of their length be under DEC approval jurisdiction.

THE DRBC HAS POSTPONED THE RELEASE OF THEIR DRAFT REGULATIONS
The DRBC did not release their draft regulations on drilling for natural gas using fracking last week DRKas they had previously scheduled. They have now delayed that release until November or December 2010. While some groups have hailed this as a "victory", it is unclear whether this delay is good news or bad news for safe gas drilling. Regardless of their intention, we have to keep up the pressure to require them to wait until the science has been reviewed and analyzed before releasing any regulations. We need to tell the DRBC Commissioners that it is essential that the cumulative impact study be completed before they issue draft regulations. Please write a letter to the Commissioners today calling on them to keep a moratorium on drilling in place until the results of the scientific studies can be reviewed and analyzed. Click here to send a letter to the Commissioners from the Delaware Riverkeeper's site.

Why do people keep calling this "drilling?" It isn't drilling. The lease sales assholes called it "drilling" to deceive people about it.

They are smashing rock to pieces with high pressure and then using toxic chemicals to capture and extract micro-deposits of gas within the rock. No "accidents" are happening. Ground water is being knowingly and intentionally and permanently destroyed.

"Drilling" is highly deceptive. The activism is failing spectacularly to communicate the truth about this to people, failing to rally people, and failing to create any serious opposition.

The activists are preventing opposition to this from forming. They are not informing the public, they are misleading and deceiving the public. The more of this people read, the stupider they are on the subject, the farther way they are from being able to understand it. They are not stopping anything, they are enabling fracking to go on. But who gives a shit about any of that, because they are "on the right side" and "at least they are doing something" and I am "just being negative and complaining" and "have no alternative solutions."

WTF does fucking "organic farmer" have to do with a fucking thing?

"INCIDENTS AND DEVELOPMENTS CONTINUE TO PROVE THAT GAS DRILLING ISN'T SAFE."

Fuck you. That is a lie, to support an agenda that is enabling fracking and promoting liberal activism.

"HELP US TAKE ACTION!"

Fuck you. You are lying. You are using this issue to promote yourself, and placing the public at great risk by doing so.

Fuck you with signing any fucking petition.

"Our need to be vigilant and active."

What bullshit.

This is a cause from heaven for liberal activists - it will just keep on giving and giving. It is a dream come true, and they are just wallowing in it. I just cannot imagine anything more morally depraved or politically reactionary than that.

that kills me, I called out the folks at the latest showing of Gasland, I asked who was trying to stop this altogether? I asked them if they were ready for the moratorium to be lifted and what they planned to do...the mountain keeper looked nervous, the woman from some other group said..."oooh, we can just wave a magic wand and solar panels and windmills will just appear...some of these people want to lease their land..." I wanted to smack her...

Patterson fired the NYSDEC head Pete Grannis for protesting the proposed firing of an additional 200+ workers...Being a lame duck my cynicism (realism?) makes me wonder how related this is to the hyrdo-fracking issue. Patterson is under heavy fire for this, but I'm not sure how great Grannis has been? which leads me to more wondering?:

http://www.adirondackcouncil.org/Groups_Grannis_Fired1010.html

Released: Friday, October 22, 2010

(ALBANY, NY) State lawmakers, environmental, conservation, and public health organizations today attacked Governor Paterson for the reckless termination of New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Alexander B. "Pete" Grannis. Governor Eliot Spitzer appointed Grannis to lead New York's primary environmental agency in 2007. The groups are calling for Paterson to reinstate Grannis and for the next governor to provide the DEC with resources necessary to responsibly safeguard New York's environment.

Press reports suggest that Pete Grannis was fired in response to the leak of an internal memo that reveals how the latest round of proposed budget and staff cuts will imperil the DEC's ability to monitor air and water pollution, clean up toxic oil and chemical spills, and keep an eye on out hazardous waste disposal and storage, among dozens of other critical functions. Staff and budget cuts also mean that new businesses moving to New York State must wait years for necessary permits and regulatory approvals, while polluters have little fear of enforcement and often escape regulatory oversight. According to the memo:

* Agency was told to lay off 209 staff, on top of 260 early retirement incentive approvals this year. This leaves the agency with 2,926 staff, a 23 percent reduction from 2007-08.
* The DEC is bearing 10 percent of all state layoffs, although the agency only accounts for 2.5 percent of the total state workforce.
* In the last 2.5 years, the agency has lost 595 employees, 16 percent of its workforce.
* The DEC's non-personal services budget (travel and equipment for inspections, oil clean ups) has been cut in half from 2007-08 to 2010-11.
* In 2007-08, the Spitzer Administration increased staff levels at the DEC and added 108 for a total of 3,775.

Pete Grannis has been an effective leader as head of the state Environmental Conservation Department and has been a big supporter of the Bigger Better Bottle bill and E-waste bills,¨ said Senator Antoine Thompson, Chair of the Senate Environmental Conservation Committee.

"The firing of Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Pete Grannis is one more in a long series of examples of the Paterson administration's open hostility to the environment. It is obvious that the performance of Commissioner Grannis was anything but poor. He performed his duty as New York's environmental caretaker with diligence, clarity and fearlessness. Commissioner Grannis stood firm against proposals to cut the DEC to nearly the lowest levels in its history, and he paid for it. Today we honor his courage to stand up for our water, land and air and to be a staunch advocate for his agency,¨ Assemblyman Robert Sweeney, Chair of the Assembly Environmental Conservation Committee.

"Commissioner Pete Grannis was fired for sounding the alarm and because the truth came out about the Department of Environmental Conservation. Budget cuts and staff attrition have pushed the agency to the brink. Instead of rising to the challenge and working to address these serious issues, the Governor's reaction was to fire the one person holding it all together. This wrong-headed move will cost New Yorkers dearly. A functional DEC is essential for the protection of our air and water quality and right now the agency is struggling to meet its responsibilities. We are seeing it locally with a permitting bottleneck further delaying responsible developments. Looking ahead, even if hydrofracking was safe, DEC does not even come remotely close to having the resources to enforce drilling regulations," said Assemblyman Kevin Cahill, Chair of the Assembly Energy Committee.

"PEF/encon, Division 169 of the Public Employees Federation, representing the 1700 (and rapidly diminishing Professional, Scientific and Technical Staff at NYSDEC), calls on the Governor to reinstate Commissioner Pete Grannis immediately. DEC is in turmoil as it is with drastically reduced staff at a time when there are numerous critically important environmental issues needing to be dealt with that have the potential for serious harm to public health and safety if not handled professionally and competently. We find it abhorrent that a Commissioner was fired without even the pretense of due process and having a chance to present his side of the story. The issues in the memo released to the public are not new to the professional staff--we have been telling the legislature and Governor for years that our staff shortages are resulting in drive-by inspections and triage management. It is almost criminal for the Governor and Legislature to pretend that this agency can fulfill its mission, statutory and regulatory responsibilities,¨ said Wayne Bayer, PEF/encon Executive Board and Shop Steward. 2

"Firing Pete Grannis is the Paterson Administration¡¦s final insult to New York¡¦s environment. The Governor has been tearing the Department of Environmental Conservation limb from limb over the last few years and now they¡¦ve cut off its head,¨ said Rob Moore, Executive Director, Environmental Advocates of New York. We're calling on Governor Paterson to reinstate Pete Grannis and we're calling on the next governor to responsibly provide resources to the agency and protect our shared environment.¨ more at link above and at the times article below...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/nyregion/22fired.html?_r=1

Paterson Fires Top Conservation Official
By DANNY HAKIM
Published: October 22, 2010



The Paterson administration fired Alexander B. Grannis, the commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation, in a surprise move on Thursday, after a dispute over cuts to the department’s budget.
Related

Green: Q. and A. With Pete Grannis (April 22)

The firing was precipitated by a memorandum that Mr. Grannis, known as Pete, sent to the administration laying out the dire effects a new round of layoffs would have on the agency. The memo was leaked to The Times Union of Albany, which reported on it this week. The administration was concerned about leaks from the agency and insubordination by Mr. Grannis, an administration official said Thursday night, speaking on condition of anonymity because of a lack of authority to comment on the firing.

Lawrence Schwartz, the secretary to the governor, asked Mr. Grannis to resign, but Mr. Grannis refused. E-mail traffic obtained by The New York Times between Mr. Schwartz and Mr. Grannis showed that relations between the two men deteriorated quickly.

“Either you cooperate with regards to your resignation or a release will go out saying you have resigned by the end of the day,” Mr. Schwartz wrote to Mr. Grannis on Thursday. “All the calls that you are having people make is not going to change the decision. You can either do this in a cooperative fashion or a hostile fashion. That is up to you.”

Mr. Grannis, in a reply, said: “Larry: in response to your ultimatums (set forth below), I will not resign from my position. As you know, I would have liked to discuss this with Governor Paterson directly, and was surprised that you would not permit me to speak with him.”

“I’m not concerned about the threat in your note that this will move forward in a ‘hostile fashion,’ ” he added.

Jessica Bassett, a spokeswoman for the governor, said of Mr. Grannis in a statement: “I can confirm that he was terminated today and that the termination is effective immediately. We have no further comment.”

In an interview, Mr. Grannis said, “We were asked to provide an analysis of how these layoffs would effect our agency’s operations, which we did, and somehow that got out.”

He said he did not leak the document and did not know who did, or if the leak came from his agency or the governor’s staff. He said he was disappointed that he was not allowed to speak to the governor before his firing.

“That I didn’t even have the courtesy of a phone call from the governor I find very surprising after four years of service,” he said.

Environmental activists assailed the move.

“It’s a huge loss,” said Rob Moore, of Environmental Advocates of New York, who was with Mr. Grannis at an environmental event in Saratoga Springs when Mr. Schwartz called and fired him Thursday night.

“Governor Paterson and Larry Schwartz have been dismantling the D.E.C. for two years, and they just cut its head off,” Mr. Moore added. “D.E.C. and the Office of Parks have been singled out for disproportionate cuts.”

The latest budget cuts come, however, as the state faces a more than $8 billion deficit next year and strains in the current budget, a somber reality that has had an impact on many state agencies.

“We’ve taken a terrible hit over time,” Mr. Grannis said. “We’ve lost 600 people in the last 18 months, and this would be 200 more.”

The agency’s workforce, now under 3,000, is at its lowest level in two decades, Mr. Grannis said.

http://www.alternet.org/story/148762/

"In the days following Tuesday's election, President Obama's first peace offering to hardliners across the aisle was telling: "We've got, I think, broad agreement that we've got terrific natural gas resources in this country," he said. At the same time he was giving the thumbs-up for natural gas drilling, Karl Rove was doing the same, appearing as the keynote speaker at Pittsburgh's David Lawrence Convention Center for the DUG (Developing Unconventional Gas) East Coast conference on hydraulic fracturing for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale."


A lot more at the article...

also here,

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all
address=389x9518599


was going to wait until tonight, but I gotta tutor and make food for a Bradley Manning fund raiser on Wednesday, hope to get back to it...

Cherry Valley maybe Thursday...

"in Cherry Valley, NY a protest will be held on Nov 11."



My last thread should have gone here, keeping it all together.

http://progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=220&topic_id=1796

thought I posted this yesterday? messenger questionable? message very scary...


http://health.change.org/blog/view/texas_schools_buy_into_gas_drilling_students_get_sick

The reports and symptoms are consistent with concentrations of toluene, xylene and benzene.

its disgusting...

http://www.the-leader.com/news/x1682974400/Pa-farmer-Natural-gas-drilling-a-nightmare

By Derrick Ek
Corning Leader
Posted Nov 16, 2010 @ 11:44 PM
Print Comment
Elmira, N.Y. —

Ron Gulla, a farmer from Hickory, Pa., says he had no idea what he was getting into when he leased his land for gas drilling.

“When I saw what was happening on my property, I couldn’t believe it,” Gulla said. “They totally misinformed us and misrepresented the lease.”

Over the past few years, he saw his farm – in a rural area just south of Pittsburgh – become a large industrial site over which he had no control, and had his water supply tainted by high levels of toxic chemicals, he said.

Gulla – who also sells construction and forestry equipment and once spent six years working in the oil and gas industry – tried to take out a mortgage loan to finance a lawsuit against the well operator, Range Resources, but was told by the bank that his land was basically worthless because of the drilling activity there.

Gulla told gutwrenching stories of other farmers in Washington County whose property was virtually ruined by drilling. Many of their calves have been born with strange deformities, he said. Cows and horses – even dogs – have been sickened or killed from drinking the water from streams and ponds near the well pads. Folks living near compressor stations have had serious health issues from air pollution, he added.

The farmers affected in his area have received nothing in compensation, he said.

“It’s been a nightmare for a lot of people,” Gulla said. “You’re going to hear some people say this is the best thing that’s happened to them, that it’s the best thing since sliced bread. And they’re making money, granted, but at what price, and what risk?”

Gulla was one of a half-dozen speakers to tell cautionary tales about the gas rush under way in Pennsylvania - and on the horizon in New York - at a public forum Tuesday night in a crowded parish hall at Trinity Episcopal Church in downtown Elmira.

The event was organized by area environmental groups People for a Healthy Environment, Coalition to Protect New York, Committee to Preserve the Finger Lakes, and Pax Christi Upstate New York. It was clearly not a balanced panel on the issue, although recent chamber of commerce forums touting the economic benefits of gas exploration haven’t been either: those have mostly featured speakers from the gas industry and pro-drilling elected officials.

Not all of Tuesday’s speakers spoke directly against drilling.

One of them, Lou Allstadt, is a retired Mobil Oil Corp. executive vice president and a past director of the U.S. Oil and Gas Association. A Cooperstown resident, he has extensively reviewed the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s proposed permitting guidelines - now being finalized - for high volume, horizontal hydraulic fracturing, and believes they are insufficient.

In his remarks, Allstadt gave a list of suggestions on how gas drilling might proceed safely in New York, some of which are being developed but are not yet widely implemented, he said.

Among them:

Developing a “green” fracking fluid, and ending government exemptions that allow the industry to use the fracking fluid it currently does. In the meantime, identifying markers should be added to fracking fluid, so if there is a case of suspected water contamination, it can be traced to the source, he said.

Using a closed loop system for drilling wastewater, rather than storing it in open, lined ponds where toxins can evaporate into the atmosphere. “It’s a bad system, and it doesn’t have to be that way,” said Allstadt, who also called for greater recycling of fracking fluid at well sites.

Allstadt also called for seismic testing prior to each time a well is fracked, to identify underground cracks and fissures that could lead to toxins migrating to aquifers, he said.

Better standards are needed for the casings that line well bores near the surface and protect aquifers, he claimed.

There should also be greater setback distances for well pads from drinking water sources and residential areas. Also, the state should give local governments a say in regulating drilling locations, Allstadt said.

Saying human error contributes to most drilling accidents, he called for more stringent training for drilling crews, which often have a high turnover, he said. He also called for making gas companies post multi-million dollar “performance bonds” to fund cleanups should any incidents occur.

Allstadt also said the DEC needs to greatly increase its mineral resources staffing levels, saying it would be “impossible” to properly monitor a shale drilling boom with its current staffing levels. He also called for the state to form a separate agency to issue permits and collect revenues, so the DEC can focus solely on protecting the environment.

Organizer Susan Multer of People for a Healthy Environment said she counted approximately 240 people at Tuesday’s forum.
Copyright 2010 The Corning Leader. Some rights reserved

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=9622213&mesg_id=9622213

From my email (Catskill Citizens for Safe Energy):

On edit: This gives people a little time to organize to stop this altogether...No resting on laurels...


New York State Assembly Passes a Moratorium Bill!

Paterson Expected to Sign It!

In an historic vote, the New York State Assembly enacted a temporary ban on hydraulic fracturing which will remain in effect until May 15, 2011. The bill, A11443B/S08129B was approved by the Senate last summer and is now on its way to Governor Paterson, who is expected to sign it into law.

The de facto moratorium that has been in effect for the past two years can be attributed to Governor Paterson because he ordered the NYS DEC to prepare a new environmental impact statement to set standards for issuing permits for high-volume hydraulic fracturing and the DEC has yet to finalize its work. By signing this bill, Governor Paterson will cement his reputation as the first Governor in the country to protect his citizens from the precipitous onslaught of dangerous and poorly regulated shale gas extraction.

The vote in the Assembly caps an incredible two weeks for those of us who have been working hard to combat the corporations that intend to turn our communities into sacrificial energy zones.

Pushback!

* On November 17th, the Broome County legislature rejected, for the second time, a plan to lease county lands for drilling. The 10-3 vote was an embarrassing setback for County Executive Barbara Fiala, who has recklessly been pushing fracking since landsmen first showed up in the county.

* On the same day, Pittsburgh became the first city in the nation to ban drilling outright. Residents of that city already have had a taste of fracking - literally. Beginning in 2008 the city's drinking water began turning smelly and brown after huge quantities of drilling wastewater were dumped into the Monongahela River, which supplies the city.

* The day after Thanksgiving, Governor Paterson acknowledged the role ordinary citizens have played in defeating dangerous drilling saying "This is a very good example of public participation. Our DEC…originally ruled that hydrofracking would not affect the water quality in the area, but we've received additional information and have not been able to come to a conclusion as to whether or not this is a good idea… We're not going to risk public safety or water quality… At this point, I would say that the hydrofracking opponents have raised enough of an argument to thwart us going forward at this time."



Mother Nature lends a hand

On November 18th drilling giant EnCana announced that it was pulling out of Luzerne County, PA because its exploratory wells indicated that "wells were unlikely to produce natural gas in commercial quantities." Is this the beginning of the unraveling of the much ballyhooed Marcellus Shale play, as predicted by Arthur Berman? Only time will tell…

The bold part from Paterson is pretty much bs, according to several people I know of in the NY DEC...there was never a consensus or ruling that hydrofracking was safe...

His phone lines are busy, busy, busy...

http://www.pressconnects.com/article/20101203/VIEWPOINTS02/12030307/1120/Marcellus-Shale-gas--Opportunity-or-oppression


America has a huge and growing appetite for energy. However, sustainable free-market solutions for meeting our energy needs are in their infancy and need constant encouragement by government (corporate welfare). Drilling for natural gas from Marcellus Shale appears to be a solution to some of the short-term problems associated with meeting these energy needs. Closer inspection of this scheme exposes the chimera that it really is.

The method used to liberate the trapped gas is not risk-free and may result in the poisoning of huge underground water supplies used by both rural and urban communities. Reports of this occurring are coming from Susquehanna County, Pa. For the city dweller, there is no upside windfall like there is for rural owners of large parcels of land. However, there are significant downside risks to everyone. This comes into focus most clearly when we consider our collective plight after our water supply has become poisoned by fracking fluids.

It must be remembered that nature has a terrific way of producing pure, clean water and most residents of our area use wells for their water supply. If these become contaminated, both rural and urban dwellers will suffer. Contamination of these wells will require costly treatment processes to bring toxin levels within "acceptable" limits. These limits are usually not zero, but set at a point in which in an "acceptably low" number of people will become ill and die. Neither you nor I will be consulted as to what an "acceptably low" number should be, but it won't be zero and it will be too late to do anything about it once our water has been poisoned.

If history can be relied upon to illuminate this scheme, it becomes clear that the profits will be pocketed by the gas corporations and the cleanup costs will be paid for by the taxpayers, ensuring that the wealthy become even wealthier at the expense of the lower classes.

We the people must not be hoodwinked into believing that fracking will solve any problems; in fact, it may create much bigger problems in the very near future. Now is the time for all citizens concerned about their health and their children's future to take action by joining New York Residents against Drilling (nyrad.org) and fighting to keep our air and water clean.

on edit posted here, for some silly reason:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9694282

"The method used to liberate the trapped gas is not risk-free and may result in the poisoning of huge underground water supplies used by both rural and urban communities. Reports of this occurring are coming from Susquehanna County, Pa. For the city dweller, there is no upside windfall like there is for rural owners of large parcels of land."

Not "risk free?" That implies that there is some way that it could go right. There is not.

"May result" in poisoning? It is intentional poisoning.

"No upside windfall like there is for rural owners?"

There is no "upside windfall" for anyone. The leases are written on the false assumption that these are long term extraction operations that could produce revenue for the land owner indefinitely. That is a lie, an intentional lie. Blow up the rock, inject toxins into the ground water (not accidentally, not a "risk" - a certainty) extract whatever gas you can, and move on leaving the area permanently damaged.

"The profits will be pocketed by the gas corporations and the cleanup costs will be paid for by the taxpayers?"

There is no possible "clean up" at any price.

"We the people must not be hoodwinked into believing that fracking will solve any problems?"

That has nothing to do with this.

"It must be remembered that nature has a terrific way of producing pure, clean water and most residents of our area use wells for their water supply. If these become contaminated, both rural and urban dwellers will suffer."

Doh. WTF?? Why must liberal activists talk to people as though they were children?

Someone posting a pro-fracking post would turn more people against it than anti-fracking posts like that one.

WILL result in poisoning...though whether the guy is a liberal talking to children, or somebody just getting his feet wet in writing an editorial isn't clear to me...

People tend to be timid, and the guy is woosy, might get better with time...it happens to some people...

the cost of WATER will be paid by the taxpayer, along with the medical bills...

maybe a response should be written to the Binghamton paper...

Materialism means looking at what is, not at what might be, not at how we feel about things, not at what we believe, it is not about how we think things should be, and it is not about "selling" or persuading people to come over to the right side or join the cause. On this issue, as well as on the immigration issue, we need to look at what is, at the objective reality. Almost no one is doing that.

That post by that person about fracking has been crafted to be persuasive, to be saying the "right" things with an eye toward what might "work" with people and not seem too radical and turn people off. The person is trying to be "fair" and "moderate" and "reasonable." That comes at the expense of accurately perceiving and describing the reality about it.

there is no indication of what the person's political persuasion is, just that he's trying to be polite, he probably has no clue what materialism is...and has been socialized to be mealy mouthed...many people have...

at the EPA and DEC hearings and the meetings of groups, the people who have been personally effected come from across the board...and the farmers, some proclaiming their patriotism, have been nearly apologetic when they say this is bad...they are trying to save other people is all they know...they say it how they say it, they are not thinking about being crafty...but they are often trying to sound reasonable and polite...their pathos is tangible, that said; and not whining...

Regarding this author here, like I said, he might be just getting into it, and listening to the wrong people, I just don't see an indication of a sophisticated liberal here, and I've run into several of those in these meetings, and called them out...

Not defending the guy because of anything other than I think you're reaching for it here...the evidence isn't that hard cut...

Nor do I think that people's backgrounds or intentions matter, nor do I think there are good guys and bad guys in this.

"Why must liberal activists talk to people as though they were children?"

I just don't see enough info for me to label him a liberal activist, or patronizing either, might just be a concerned citizen, or you might be right,the patronizing liberals are definitely out there.... I can't tell, and just nit-picking I guess...
all your other points were pretty good...

Nuff said? (gotta sleep...)

It is not dependent upon what a person claims to "be" or believe or what they call themselves. He is making a liberal argument. Not damning him - just criticizing his argument.

.

http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Paterson-order-tempers-drilling-veto-875785.php

some are calling this great, fucking idiots. Vertical fracking is just as bad...and now the gas companies can get everything all set up for switching to horizontal in May. Time to do a little more than call and click. One of the groups I called out for left gate keeping (Catskill Mountain Keepers), proclaims this a victory in today's email. Then they state the truth that vertical frack drilling isn't good. OH but we are the first state to declare there might be a problem, what good news!!! OOOH hoo! Lets have a scotch and frack water cocktail to celebrate.

The Saturday order was pretty slick too, as the bill wasn't up until midnight Monday. Not surprised, but what an asshole chickenshit maneuver.

Successful activism and achieving the purported goals of the activists are mutually exclusive. They "win" when they do some good activism, not when they do anything to stop the problem. Just like Obama. You see, he does not believe in extending the Bush tax cuts, so it is OK if he extends the Bush tax cuts - so long as he tells us that he doesn't believe in them. So you have to ask "which side are they on?" And the answer is they are not on our side. Therefore, no matter what sort of reasonable sounding noises they make or serious caring looks they get on their faces, they are the enemy, every bit as much as Haliburton is.

the vast majority of people I know who have been active on this are pissed as hell, not just at the governor, but the gate keepers as well...

A couple of days ago, liberals seemed to be in total rebellion to Obama, but today are slithering and sidling back into the fold. As always, a few will be "pissed" - at least for a while. Then they will be barraged with "it's better than nothing, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, at least we are doing something, Rome wasn't built in a day, it is better than the alternative, it is a step in the right direction." If fracking were stopped, the activists would lose a cause. To get the most mileage out of a liberal cause, it is important that the problem go on for a few decades at least. They should "partner" with Haliburton for "a greener future." Then they could get a lot of funding and really get the word out. Socially responsible fracking - that is what I am shooting for. You know - a reasonable compromise between "our need for energy" and the environment. We need to take all stakeholders into consideration.

Someone somewhere someday has to say "no" and mean it, and then organize around "no." It is like watching paint dry to watch the liberals slowly, slowly, slowly...lose. Meanwhile, they monopolize the cause and are jealous of and intensely hostile toward any utterance that is not in line with their sales pitch, that questions the approach they are taking in any way. So we all have to stand by and watch the liberals slowly, slowly, slowly...lose.

there was a lot of anger for a day or two, and then it morphed into "draft Bernie".


Liberal Theme Song:

Where have all the good men gone
And where are all the gods?
Where's the street-wise Hercules
To fight the rising odds?
Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed?
Late at night I toss and turn and dream
of what I need

[Chorus]

I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night
He's gotta be strong
And he's gotta be fast
And he's gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light
He's gotta be sure
And it's gotta be soon
And he's gotta be larger than life

Somewhere after midnight
In my wildest fantasy
Somewhere just beyond my reach
There's someone reaching back for me
Racing on the thunder end rising with the heat
It's gonna take a superman to sweep me off my feet

[Chorus]

Up where the mountains meet the heavens above
Out where the lightning splits the sea
I would swear that there's someone somewhere
Watching me

Through the wind end the chill and the rain
And the storm and the flood
I can feel his approach
Like the fire in my blood

for 3 hours now.

I wasn't familiar with that song. Thanks.

Turned on the water first thing this morning, as I do every morning. Every morning, first thing, I am reminded of fracking as the overpowering sulfurous smell hits me.

it's a god awful song but it sure seemed appropos ...

lol

I don't know why it came to mind but it sure does fit them.

http://www.justicewithpeace.org/files/u1/ObamaHope.jpg

Careful what ya wish for.

Exactly!!! Thank you!!! that's what I (and a few comrades) have been saying!!! NO means NO means NO compromises!

We are not fighting drilling.

I swear to God, Haliburton could be detonating underground nuclear explosions all over the country and the fucking activists would be passing around anti-nuke petitions. Then the debate would ensue - the activists would say "it is really bad!!" Haliburton would at first deny using nukes, and then fall back on "well a little bit but it is not so bad." Then the activists say "no it is really, really bad!!" and some judge will "look at both sides of the issue" and "weigh the evidence" blah blah. The news media will say "some say it is really really bad. Others say it is not so bad. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle." If the activists are really successful some politician will say "and when I am in the White House you won't have Haliburton blowing up the ground!!" and the crowds will swoon. "Oh, yes, yes, yes that is what I have been waiting to hear!!"

Fuck all that. None of this has anything to do with fracking. None of it. What the fracking tells us is that the capitalists can do whatever the fuck they want to do and we have no way to stop them. That is the problem, and you don't challenge that by starting some anti-fracking campaign. If they could do what they are doing with fracking, they could be doing anything. That is the lesson there. We are at great risk from all directions. Who knows what else is going on, and what else is coming? Nothing the anti-fracking people are doing or saying is addressing the real problem. What they are doing is weakening us - even if it stopped fracking, which it will not and can not do.

The way the activists are structuring this cause is deceptive and destructive - as though it were an anomaly, as though there were no larger issues - and peak oil and "our energy dependence" and "our addiction to oil" are NOT larger issues, they are merely larger fantasies in the minds of liberals.

Fuck, it is like being locked in a cell and having the guard come in and punch you and then starting an anti-punching movement. As though it is OK to be in the cell in the first place. As though it is OK that the guard has total power over you. As though it is OK that we all pretend we are not locked in a cell. Just so long as the guard stops punching us, we are happy. Of course, long before our anti-punching activism ever gets anywhere the guard has moved on to worse and worse abuse and more and more people are getting locked up with more and more denial that it is happening.

This old grey mare will continue to fight fracking...at the sites when need be...

Hit them where they care, the profits.

When the true fight against the ruling class starts in this country, I'll be on the front lines...but I don't see one on the horizon here, and for now I'll be a thorn wherever, and however, I can. I don't know enough to start that battle myself, I am not very eloquent nor persuasive. I do think this conversation, and the health care conversation, can lead to people recognizing that this is one tiny battle in the larger fight...but until a lot more people understand where this all comes from, we don't have a fight. And we do need to convince many. There are as many right wingers as liberals at the frack hearings, by the way.


You know what side I'm on. Start the big fight and I'm with you. Until then I'll fight any possibility of needless death...and continue to educate people as to the source of this all, and the need to remove the ruling class.

Do not ask for whom the bell tolls...

There is a big problem with the partisanship implied here, the spin to avoid the main problem...

[div class=excerpt "President Obama highlighted gas drilling as a potential area of common ground with Republicans."


December 14, 2010
Obama Admin Wants Study but Backs Northeast Shale Drilling
By MIKE SORAGHAN of Greenwire

The Obama administration supports a full study of the effects of gas drilling in the watershed that provides drinking water for Philadelphia and New York City, but it doesn't want to wait until it's finished for drilling to begin.

Gen. Peter "Duke" DeLuca of the Army Corps of Engineers outlined the position in a letter (pdf) written to Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) and released today.

The letter offers the first indication of the administration's position on gas drilling in the Northeast since the day after the Nov. 2 midterm election when President Obama highlighted gas drilling as a potential area of common ground with Republicans (Greenwire, Nov. 4).

DeLuca, the Army Corps' North Atlantic division engineer, is the federal representative on the Delaware River Basin Commission, which is developing regulations for gas drilling in eastern Pennsylvania and upstate New York.

Hinchey and local environmentalists want the commission to keep its drilling moratorium until its staff does a "cumulative impacts" study, a process that could take years. Drilling supporters want the commission to move ahead as quickly as possible and dislike that the commission has blocked drilling in Pennsylvania while drilling continues rapidly in the rest of the state.

DeLuca's letter, dated Nov. 24, received by Hinchey yesterday and released today, says that he has consulted extensively with other agencies and developed an administration position on drilling in the 13,539-square-mile watershed.

"The administration's position is to continue fully supporting the need for a cumulative impact study," DeLuca wrote. "Simultaneously, all these agencies support the DRBC's decision to develop and release draft natural gas regulations."

DeLuca said there was a "DRBC Federal Agency Summit" in October, at which he led a discussion about the importance of an impact study and asked agencies to suggest sources of money to conduct it.

The commission last week issued its proposed regulations, which would allow drilling to resume once they are finalized. The commission is planning to hold several hearings during a 90-day comment period (Greenwire, Dec. 9).

The commission, controlled by the governors of Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware and New Jersey along with DeLuca, backed off from earlier, stricter proposals on Marcellus Shale drilling but still proposed measures more restrictive than existing rules in the rest of Pennsylvania.

The long-delayed regulations have emerged as public awareness of "hydraulic fracturing" has increased. Enhancements in the fracturing process -- injecting millions of gallons of chemical-laced water deep underground at high pressure -- are what has opened up the formation in Pennsylvania, New York and surrounding states to development.

The gas drilling industry says fracturing is an established, safe technology that has long been well-regulated by the states. Supporters say the gas in the Marcellus Shale formation under Pennsylvania, New York and adjacent states could power the country for years and allow a switch from coal to a cleaner-burning fuel.

Many farmers have reaped big windfalls by allowing drilling on and under their land. And many see gas development as a significant job creator in the region (Greenwire, Sept. 13).

But drilling has contaminated creeks and ruined the water wells of homes near well sites. New York City and Philadelphia have rallied against drilling out of concern it could contaminate their water supply. Many are also concerned that the immense water needs of the industry could lower river levels and restrict water supplies.

Click here (pdf) to read the letter.

http://www.eenews.net/assets/2010/12/14/document_pm_01.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/12/14/14greenwire-obama-admin-wants-study-but-backs-northeast-sh-25319.html[/quote]

Here is the latest report you sent me from the anti-fracking organization:

[div class="excerpt"]Dear BLF,

On Saturday, we made big progress on our campaign to protect New York's drinking water. Gov. David Paterson barred a new and dangerous form of gas drilling - hydraulic fracturing, or 'fracking' - until July 2011! It is the first time that a state has stood up to Halliburton and the rest of the oil and gas industry and clearly said "no" to their relentless push to drill.

This victory was made possible by thousands of New Yorkers, like you, who spoke up to demand action. So thanks again for your activism and support.

But even after this victory, the fight is far from over - after all, Gov. Paterson's ban is temporary. That's why we're calling on the next governor to build on this progress and permanently protect our drinking water from dangerous gas drilling.

Please take a moment to e-mail Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo and urge him to pick up where Gov. Paterson left off, by permanently protecting our drinking water from dangerous drilling.

Unless Mr. Cuomo takes action early next year, the oil and gas industry will erase this weekend's victory and start fracking in New York in six months. This form of gas drilling is particularly dangerous, and contaminated the drinking water supply for 325,000 Pittsburgh-area residents in 2008. We cannot let that happen here.

Please call on Governor-elect Cuomo to protect our drinking water from gas drilling.

Thanks, as always, for making it all possible.

Anna Aurilio
Federal Legislative Director
Environment New York[/quote]

To that I say:

We do not consent to anything. Our assessment is that the real war is starting now.

No consent. No ceasefire. Secret and official measures have been scheduled to be taken up until 2014.

Either the people will be bankrupted, or the political system, we will fight against it, we will box into a corner and eventually overthrow it. There is no other choice. 20 years ago the workers could gain some victories through their struggles, but today we need radical change and only the people can bring it about.

People were lied to about these leases - seriously misled. They were told not to fear an "accident" - the shattering of the shale - when the company intended all along to intentionally shatter the shale. People were lead to believe there was a potential for ongoing revenue when they signed the leases, when it was a hit and run operation all along. The state legislature was enticed to pass a midnight exemption for the drilling company that completely contradicts existing state law protecting the land and water. The EPA was strong-armed into an exemption. None of this was open for public review. People in the community had no protection from this, and no recourse. The ground water over millions of acres has been permanently destroyed.

This is not about fracking, and turning fracking into the latest trendy cause for upscale liberals is not resulting in anything constructive - it is destructive.

No one, ever, under any circumstances, through any means, by any method, for any purpose should ever be able to do the damage that has been done. There is no way to reform this, no way to mitigate it, no way to "work on it," no way to improve it.

Fracking is but a symptom of something much bigger, something much more important. Fracking tells us that the real war starts now. Fracking tells us what happens with Capitalism. The fight is not against fracking - fracking is a symptom, an effect. Fracking is Capitalism - it is not Capitalism gone wrong, it isn't unregulated Capitalism, it isn't corporate Capitalism or shock or disaster Capitalism or Haliburton Capitalism or Dick Cheney Capitalism.

Every time we say "oh sure, we here know that Capitalism is the root problem, but most people are not ready for that," and every time we say "we have to stop fracking now and we will get to the deeper issues later" we are steering people away from the truth and we are placing people at great risk. We cannot afford to do that anymore.

When we go along with the "we have made progress" and "we have at least stood up to Haliburton" (speak truth to power blah blah) we are consenting - we are consenting to compromise, we are surrendering the initiative, we are consenting to an ongoing lie, to deception and destruction of the working class people.

I don't care if Anna Aurilio is a nice person, I don't care if she is competent, I don't care if her "heart is in the right place" I don't care of she is "against fracking."

"We got the jailers to agree to only cut off half of the prisoners' fingers, and only put one eye out, and prisoners will only be tortured now every other day."

That is how I read that email. It makes me physically ill.

Notice the "we can stop it here" statement in the email. Is it OK elsewhere? That is all they are accomplishing. They have driven the frackers back to Michigan.

It is the state's drinking water they are playing nice polite little liberal activist games with. The water. And it is merely a "stop the fracking" feel good cause? How is it that a corporation could place the entire water supply in a state at risk? You cannot reform the situation that led to this.

We have to start saying "we do not consent." We have to say that to the endless liberal sell-outs and compromises. They are not kinda sorta on our side. They are not "getting there" nor "coming around." There is nothing to be gained by being moderate and trying to avoid offending people.

Thought it would be only fair to write the actual response as well, redfaced and all! ;), considering your words )


Hi, Anne, I will happily contact Mr. Cuomo, however, I do believe you should clarify Paterson's action. As you know, he vetoed the bill asking for a moratorium on all hydraulic fracture drilling, which included vertical hydrofracking. In its place he ordered a moratorium on horizontal hydro-fracking only.

Many of the accidents in Dimmock, PA, were due to vertical hf drilling. This process is equally as risky, and allows the gas companies a means to prepare for horizontal fracking via a quick switch from vertical. Allowing the vertical drilling also will have additional and huge environmental impacts many of us protested against. The horizontal drilling is just one part of the problem.

Please inform your list serve of these truths as Mr. Cuomo should also be asked to countermand Mr. Paterson's allowance of vertical hydraulic fracture drilling.

Thank you for all you do.

Sincerely, blf


What was written to Mr. Cuomo was a little more STOP this all now, but not quite as strong as yours, TA, and a waste of time most likely regardless...(though telling anyone to consider Seven Generations for every action, and to make human life top priority might never be a waste of words...)

Thanks TA!

I could've used that in most of my posts at DU today. One minor topic today was the issue of Michael Vick getting a dog as a pet (which is not political, but then 9/10ths of what is discussed over there is not political...). I explained that sometimes things are so bad they can't be made right.

And that is straight to the point - "There is nothing to be gained by being moderate and trying to avoid offending people"

their political power is much more entrenched than combat with employers or legislators on their own terms could ever overturn. This is the point of the quote.

Its not saying "You can't do that (fracking, a zillion other things)", its saying "You don't get to call the shots anymore"

Its not so much trying to force everything else to be subservient to that singular objective, but rather an acknowledgement that there's no other definition of "winning". Thats one of the "advantages" the KKE has right now: no one is able to put forth some milder defintion of "winning" that isn't explicitly obvious to everyone as LOSING (austerity, etc)

"Fuck, it is like being locked in a cell and having the guard come in and punch you and then starting an anti-punching movement. As though it is OK to be in the cell in the first place. As though it is OK that the guard has total power over you. As though it is OK that we all pretend we are not locked in a cell. Just so long as the guard stops punching us, we are happy. Of course, long before our anti-punching activism ever gets anywhere the guard has moved on to worse and worse abuse and more and more people are getting locked up with more and more denial that it is happening."

I am going to use this.

Also, "We do not consent!" is the battle cry...

"The organs of the political state are religious in virtue of the dualism between the life of bourgeois society and political life - religious, in that man regards the transcendental life of the state which is so foreign to his real individuality as his true life, religious in so far as religion is the spirit of bourgeois society, the expression of the separation and division of man from man." Gesamtausgabe, Abt I, Bd, 1' p. 590.

There was also a reference to Hess and when I followed it I found this quotation, again from Karl:
"We have more important things to do than to worry about our miserable selves..." This line could have been used several times over the last few months - especially be me.

(The second quotation is from the same source as the first, I, 6, 18. If I screwed-up the quote, I had to do it by hand, so...)





Right. "We do not consent" negates the illusion upon which theyrest their economic power. I was reading Engels on Feuerbach, about the contradictions in society and politics and the innate "religious" nature of sociopolitical structures, especially those of the bourgeoisie that, in itself, creates a "fetish". The dual nature of a person's practical life and that person's "fantasy life" of "political equality". The reality is that citizens are not equal and are treated by bourgeois society in ways without any equality, at all; yet the citizen tries to "live" in the fantasy life of political and judicial equality and so becomes more and more detached from the real conditions of his life and that of his class.

By the simple, adamant "We do not consent!" that particular "fetish" is dealt a powerful blow.

That is good Kid. "You don't get to call the shots anymore."

Check out what Kid and Dhalgren posted, BLF.

[div class="excerpt"]Kid - Their political power is much more entrenched than combat with employers or legislators on their own terms could ever overturn. This is the point of the quote.

Its not saying "You can't do that (fracking, a zillion other things)", its saying "You don't get to call the shots anymore"

Its not so much trying to force everything else to be subservient to that singular objective, but rather an acknowledgment that there's no other definition of "winning". That's one of the "advantages" the KKE has right now: no one is able to put forth some milder definition of "winning" that isn't explicitly obvious to everyone as LOSING (austerity, etc)[/quote]

If we grant that they do get to call the shots there is no possibility of winning. On the fracking we should ask - who is calling the shots, and how and why? Activism based on the assumption that they get to call the shots reinforces the political power that is the root cause of the problem.

[div class="excerpt"]The dual nature of a person's practical life and that person's "fantasy life" of "political equality". The reality is that citizens are not equal and are treated by bourgeois society in ways without any equality, at all; yet the citizen tries to "live" in the fantasy life of political and judicial equality and so becomes more and more detached from the real conditions of his life and that of his class.[/quote]

The activists are trying to force us to live in the fantasy life, to "regard the transcendental life of the state which is so foreign to (our) real individuality as (our) true life."

So, "we do not consent" to them calling the shots, and we do not consent to the fantasy life.

thanks, they are very good. I don't need translating, but appreciate it.

Apparently Cuomo had been looking at the PA guy who welcomed the fracking with open arms no go, whew...anyone know anything about this guy?


ALBANY, NY (01/04/2011)(readMedia)-- Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced the following appointments and nominations to senior positions within the state government.

Joseph Martens will be nominated to serve as Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation. Since 1998, Mr. Martens has served as President of the Open Space Institute, directing and overseeing land acquisition, sustainable development, historic preservation and farmland protection. Previously, Mr. Martens served as Deputy Secretary to the Governor for Energy and the Environment from 1992-94 and before that Assistant Secretary from 1990-92. He is the Chair of the Olympic Regional Development Authority, which operates the 1932 and 1980 winter Olympic venues in Lake Placid and Wilmington, NY and Gore Mountain Ski Area in Johnsburg, NY. He also chairs the Adirondack Lake Survey Corporation, which continuously monitors Adirondack lakes and streams to determine the extent and magnitude of acidification in the Adirondack region, Mr. Martens studied Resource Economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and received an M.S. in Resource Management from the State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry at Syracuse University.

"Joe's lifelong experience of fighting to protect and preserve our environment will bring the highest level of stewardship to our state's beautiful natural resources. Joe knows how to strike the critical balance between defending our natural resources from pollution and destruction while at the same time fostering a climate of economic renewal and growth. His experience and record as a competent and productive manager will breathe life into this vital agency." Governor Cuomo said.

"Joe is an outstanding choice to lead such a vital agency at such at an important time. We are at a crossroads for the environmental movement in New York State and I know that Joe will continue to be a leader in the fight to preserve our great state's landscape, environment, and natural resources. I look forward to working with Joe and commend the Governor for making this nomination," said Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

"Joe Martens' experience, judgment, and temperament make him the right person at the right time to meet the challenges that DEC faces. He has the support and key relationships with the business and environmental community that will allow him to hit the ground running. The Governor's selection of Mr. Martens reflects his strong belief that protecting New York State's environment goes hand in hand with advancing the state's economic goals," said Ashok Gupta, from the Natural Resources Defense Council.

"Joe knows that one of the keys to not only preserving our environment, but creating good paying jobs is expanding the production of affordable and reliable energy across the state. He has both the hands on experience and also the bold vision to transform the DEC, steering it in a direction that strikes the critical balance of protecting our natural resources and our economy," said Gavin J. Donohue, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Independent Power Producers of New York.

By DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press David B. Caruso, Associated Press 54 mins ago

The natural gas boom gripping parts of the U.S. has a nasty byproduct: wastewater so salty, and so polluted with metals like barium and strontium, that most states require drillers to get rid of the stuff by injecting it down shafts thousands of feet deep.

Not in Pennsylvania, one of the states at the center of the gas rush.

There, the liquid that gushes from gas wells is only partially treated for substances that could be environmentally harmful, then dumped into rivers and streams from which communities get their drinking water.

In the two years since the frenzy of activity began in the vast underground rock formation known as the Marcellus Shale, Pennsylvania has been the only state allowing waterways to serve as the primary disposal place for the huge amounts of wastewater produced by a drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

State regulators, initially caught flat-footed, tightened the rules this year for any new water treatment plants but allowed any existing operations to continue discharging water into rivers.

At least 3.6 million barrels of the waste were sent to treatment plants that empty into rivers during the 12 months ending June 30, according to state records. That is enough to cover a square mile with more than 8 1/2 inches of brine.

Researchers are still trying to figure out whether Pennsylvania's river discharges, at their current levels, are dangerous to humans or wildlife. Several studies are under way, some under the auspices of the Environmental Protection Agency.

State officials, energy companies and the operators of treatment plants insist that with the right safeguards in place, the practice poses little or no risk to the environment or to the hundreds of thousands of people who rely on those rivers for drinking water.

But an Associated Press review found that Pennsylvania's efforts to minimize, control and track wastewater discharges from the Marcellus Shale have sometimes failed.

For example:

• Of the roughly 6 million barrels of well liquids produced in a 12-month period examined by The AP, the state couldn't account for the disposal method for 1.28 million barrels, about a fifth of the total, because of a weakness in its reporting system and incomplete filings by some energy companies.

• Some public water utilities that sit downstream from big gas wastewater treatment plants have struggled to stay under the federal maximum for contaminants known as trihalomethanes, which can cause cancer if swallowed over a long period.

• Regulations that should have kept drilling wastewater out of the important Delaware River Basin, the water supply for 15 million people in four states, were circumvented for many months.

In 2009 and part of 2010, energy company Cabot Oil & Gas trucked more than 44,000 barrels of well wastewater to a treatment facility in Hatfield Township, a Philadelphia suburb. Those liquids ultimately were discharged into a creek that provides drinking water to 17 municipalities with more than 300,000 residents. Cabot acknowledged it should not have happened.

People in those communities had been told repeatedly that the watershed was free of gas waste.

"This is an outrage," said Tracy Carluccio, deputy director of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, an environmental group. "This is indicative of the lack of adequate oversight."

The situation in Pennsylvania is being watched carefully by regulators in other states, some of which have begun allowing some river discharges. New York also sits over the Marcellus Shale, but Gov. David Paterson has slapped a moratorium on high-volume fracking while environmental regulations are drafted.

Industry representatives insist that the wastewater from fracking has not caused serious harm anywhere in Pennsylvania, in part because it is safely diluted in the state's big rivers. But most of the largest drillers say they are taking action and abolishing river discharges anyway.

Cabot, which produced nearly 370,000 barrels of waste in the period examined by the AP, said that since the spring it has been reusing 100 percent of its well water in new drilling operations, rather than trucking it to treatment plants.

"Cabot wants to ensure that everything we are doing is environmentally sound," said spokesman George Stark. "It makes environmental sense and economic sense to do it."

All 10 of the biggest drillers in the state say they have either eliminated river discharges in the past few months, or reduced them to a small fraction of what they were a year ago. Together, those companies accounted for 80 percent of the wastewater produced in the state.

The biggest driller, Atlas Resources, which produced nearly 2.3 million barrels of wastewater in the review period, said it is now recycling all water produced by wells in their first 30 days of operation, when the flowback is heaviest. The rest is still sent to treatment plants, but "our ultimate goal is to have zero surface discharge of any of the water," said spokesman Jeff Kupfer.

How much wastewater is still being discharged into rivers is unclear. Records verifying industry claims of a major drop-off will not be available until midwinter.

Natural gas drilling has taken off in several states in recent years because of fracking and horizontal drilling, techniques that allow the unlocking of more methane than ever before.

Fracking involves injecting millions of gallons of water mixed with chemicals and sand deep into the rock, shattering the shale and releasing the gas trapped inside. When the gas comes to the surface, some of the water comes back, too, along with underground brine that exists naturally.

It can be several times saltier than sea water and tainted with fracking chemicals, some of which can be carcinogenic if swallowed at high enough levels over time.

The water is also often laden with barium, which is found in underground ore deposits and can cause high blood pressure, and radium, a naturally occurring radioactive substance.

In other places where fracking has ignited a gas bonanza, like the Barnett Shale field in Texas, the Haynesville Shale in Louisiana, and deposits in West Virginia, New Mexico and Oklahoma, the dominant disposal method for drilling wastewater is to send it back down into the ground via injection wells.

In some arid states, wastewater is also treated in evaporation pits. Water is essentially baked off by the sun, leaving a salty sludge that is disposed of in wells or landfills.

Operators of the treatment plants handling the bulk of the Pennsylvania waste say they can remove most of the toxic substances without much trouble, including radium and barium, before putting the water back into rivers.

"In some respects, its better than what's already in the river," said Al Lander, president of Tunnelton Liquids, a treatment plant that discharges water into western Pennsylvania's Conemaugh River.

The one thing that can't be removed easily, except at great expense, he said, is the dissolved solids and chlorides that make the fluids so salty.

Those substances usually don't pose a risk to humans in low levels, said Paul Ziemkiewicz, director of the West Virginia Water Research Institute at West Virginia, but large amounts can give drinking water a foul taste, leave a film on dishes and give people diarrhea. Those problems have been reported from time to time in some places.

Those salts can also trigger other problems.

The municipal authority that provides drinking water to Beaver Falls, 27 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, began flunking tests for trihalomethanes regularly last year, around the time that a facility 18 miles upstream, Advanced Waste Services, became Pennsylvania's dominant gas wastewater treatment plant.

Trihalomethanes are not found in drilling wastewater, but there can be a link. The wastewater often contains bromide, which reacts with the chlorine used to purify drinking water. That creates trihalomethanes.

The EPA says people who drink water with elevated levels of trihalomethanes for many years have an increased risk of cancer and could also develop liver, kidney or central nervous system problems.

Pennsylvania's multitude of acid-leaching, abandoned coal mines and other industrial sources are also a major source of the high salt levels that lead to the problem.

Beaver Falls plant manager Jim Riggio said he doesn't know what is keeping his system off-kilter, but a chemical analysis suggested it was linked to the hundreds of thousands of barrels of partially treated gas well brine that now flow past his intakes every year.

"It all goes back to frackwater," he said.
Copyright © 2011 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

I'd have a little hope, but hope has no meaning anymore anyway...;)

:http://www.pressconnects.com/article/20110104/NEWS01/110104015/1116/news/Read+the+new+DEC+commissioner+s+speech

Excerpt:
"If nothing else, it seems to me, the Department
should go slow. The tragedy of the Deepwater
Horizon operation in the Gulf clearly demonstrated
that the unexpected can and will happen. It is also
clear that the gas industry has not been as candid
as it should have been with regards to the potential
for problems. That suggests to me that our fate—
and the need to separate objective science and
environmental assessment from industry rhetoric—
is in DEC's hands, and the stakes could not be
higher."

Pennsylvania’s Drilling Wastewater Released to Streams, Some Unaccounted For

As gas-drilling operations proliferated in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale over the past couple of years, most of the hundreds of millions of gallons of briny wastewater they produced was eventually dumped into the state's rivers. Much of the rest is unaccounted for. That news, from a detailed look [1] at the state's management of drilling wastewater by the Associated Press, should come as no surprise to readers of this site.

As we reported [2] in October 2009, Pennsylvania was largely unprepared for the vast quantities of salty, chemically tainted wastewater produced by drilling operations in the Marcellus, the gas-bearing shale formation that stretches under that state and into West Virginia, New York and Ohio. While the state Department of Environmental Protection called for the fluids to be sent through municipal treatment plants, those facilities are largely unable to remove the salts and minerals, also known as Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), from the waste.

As our story noted, abnormally high salt levels in the Monongahela River in 2008 corroded machinery at a steel mill and a power plant that were drawing water from the river. The DEP suspected that drilling wastewater was the cause and ordered upstream treatment plants to reduce their output. But months later levels spiked again.

AP examined the DEP's first annual report of waste produced by drilling operations in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale area from July 2009 through June 2010. Among the AP findings:

More than 150 million gallons were discharged into rivers after passing through treatment plants in the 12-month period. Enough, as the AP put it, “to cover a square mile with more than 8 1/2 inches of brine.”

More than 50 million gallons, or about one-fifth of the total waste fluid, was unaccounted for because of “weakness” in the state's reporting system or incomplete filings from drilling companies.

The AP report says researchers still don't know whether high TDS levels are harmful to humans or wildlife. But the analysis found that some public water utilities had exceeded the federal limit for levels of cancer-causing trihalomethanes, which can form when chlorine in drinking-water treatment systems combines with bromide, which can be present in drilling waste.

As we reported back in 2009, the federal EPA recommends against discharging drilling wastewater into rivers, but it allowed Pennsylvania to continue the practice because more stringent regulations were in the works. The DEP announced new limits on TDS discharges in August, but they apply only to new and expanding facilities. The department has not yet responded to ProPublica's questions about the number or nature of any new treatment plant applications, so it's unclear to what extent these new standards are actually being practiced.

Another solution, which DEP secretary John Hanger and drilling companies say is already in the works, is to encourage companies to reduce waste by reusing wastewater in new wells. Hanger told the AP he thinks about 70 percent of fluids are now being reused.

But as we reported [3] in December 2009, part of the reason drillers are able to achieve such high rates of reuse is that much of the fluid they pump into gas wells never comes back to the surface. When as much as 85 percent of the water and chemical mixture remains in the ground, drillers can dilute what little comes back with fresh water and reuse it. While that solves the issue of discharging briny water into rivers, it raises a separate set of questions about the implications of leaving fracking chemicals underground.

As the AP notes, industry claims of higher levels of waste-recycling can't be verified until the next DEP report is released, in mid-winter. Until then, Hanger called for “daily vigilance” of rivers and streams to ensure standards are being met.

http://www.propublica.org/article/pennsylvanias-drilling-wastewater-released-to-streams-some-unaccounted-for

well anotated with tons of links...

DOES FRACKING CAUSE EARTHQUAKES?
By Rady Ananda

During the last four months of 2010, nearly 500 earthquakes rattled Guy, Arkansas. [1] The entire state experienced 38 quakes in 2009. [2] The spike in quake frequency precedes and coincides with the 100,000 dead fish on a 20-mile stretch of the Arkansas River that included Roseville Township on December 30. The next night, 5,000 red-winged blackbirds and starlings dropped dead out of the sky in Beebe. [3] Hydraulic fracturing is the most likely culprit for all three events, as it causes earthquakes with a resultant release of toxins into the environment. [4]

A close look at Arkansas’ history of earthquakes and drilling reveals a shocking surge in quake frequency following advanced drilling. The number of quakes in 2010 nearly equals all of Arkansas’ quakes for the entire 20th century. The oil and gas industry denies any correlation, but the advent of hydrofracking followed by earthquakes is a story repeated across the nation. It isn’t going to stop any time soon, either. Fracking has gone global.

Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) pumps water and chemicals into the ground at a pressurized rate exceeding what the bedrock can withstand, resulting in a microquake that produces rock fractures. Though initiated in 1947, technological advances now allow horizontal fracturing, vastly increasing oil and gas collection. [5] In 1996, shale-gas production in the U.S. accounted for 2 percent of all domestic natural gas production, reports Christopher Bateman in Vanity Fair. “Some industry analysts predict shale gas will represent a full half of total domestic gas production within 10 years.� [6] In 2000, U.S. gas reserve estimates stood at 177 trillion cubic feet, but ramped up to 245 tcf in 2008. These new technologies prompt experts to increase global gas reserve estimates ninefold. [7]

much more at link

[The rest of this article, with many footnotes and a helpful map, is on the Global Research website at http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22667.]

bold is mine

http://a4gda.blogspot.com/2011/01/ex-gas-driller-writes-letter-telling.html


Ex Gas Driller Writes a Letter Telling the TRUTH
Jack is an ex-gas driller who is convinced that the current scheme of drilling/fracking is dangerous and fraught with misinformation. He sent me the following letter that really sets things straight:

The truth could have set them free and they would have no fear. Some truths:

• The truth is that the sand fracking has been the same for many years, only the pressure, chemicals, or fluids are changed for different formations. Since horizontal slickwater fracking began to be utilized recently, new biocides and other chemicals have been added. The lack of disclosure of the toxic chemicals is suspect. If they are hiding something it is for a reason, and you would be smart to fear.

• They say shale play is no different than any other drilling; in the past it was called directional drilling now it called horizontal drilling. The truth is they now start all drilling from the surface with TOXIC chemicals and if you only consider fracking alone; you will miss the greater danger. Most of the fresh water is contaminated in drilling the surface without laws in place for protection.

• They say the ARKANSAS OIL and GAS COMMISSION is a state agency. The truth is it was designed by oil and gas, for oil and gas, and is run by oil and gas; and because they judge one another and you will always lose.


• They claim gas drilling is good for our small cities. The truth is they are destroying the small cities. Property is devalued, taxes go up, people are fleeing the area, schools are considering closing, many cannot sell their property near a "dump site" and the rural community that feeds the small city is losing their water wells and will lose all. I have known many a prospering contractor who bought into this GAS scheme soon finds when the drilling ends and production takes over (without the need of local support or labor), that he will lose his family home and all he has gained.


• They claim you have to frack to get gas from shale. No, the truth is, there is only so much gas in any one given spot, if you drill in four different directions your gas well will produce at a slower rate for more years. This would actually create a better tax base for Arkansas and slower profit for the gas companies.


• They claim it is too late to tax the oil and gas. No, the truth is, we can call for a vote if we are a democratic state. Let us have, say, ten percent at the well head volume and retail price.


• They say drilling with air hurts nothing. Wrong, oil heat and air forms a toxic mix, for the same reason you have a pvc valve on your car. The manufacturer will tell you air from this compressor is not for breathing. So why does the state allow this near homes, and schools? Near my home they were using up to eight thousand cubic per minute.


• No oil or gas well produces without toxic gas. All natural gas must be cleaned and dried before it has a commercial value; the toxic gas is most often filtered or separated and released to air near homes and schools. These very toxic gases are of great danger. Also, where ever you see a pipe line compressor beware of the low the noise. It is often nerve wracking. If you examine the scientific evidence you will find that this noise is also a danger to hearing and the heart.


Some say oil and gas drilling (along with production) can be clean and safe. True, if the government demands it. These corporations have one goal: money. They are without human emotions: they have no sorrow, no guilt, no happiness, and no ending. They will continue to destroy until something stops them. They must be controlled, and you, the citizen, have that say.

Jack

blf:I'm not sure if they can ever be safe, but he's got the profit mongers right...
no soul and they have to be stopped,

For the last 6 months, every time I try to talk about this people tell me watch Gasland, watch Gasland, watch Gasland.

I've watched Gasland.