Wyoming // Current TV

Fracking Investigation: Yes, It's Poisoning the Water

Detection of high concentrations of benzene, xylenes, gasoline range organics, diesel... more

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The New War on Wolves

Los Angeles Times... . PHOTO: Congress removed wolves in Montana and Idaho from... more

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Fracking: The Great Shale Gas Rush

The Pennsylvania homes of Karl Wasner and Arline LaTourette both sit atop the Marcellus Shale, a geologic formation that stretches from Tennessee to New York and holds vast deposits of natural gas. They also sit on opposite sides of a national debate over hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. That's the process that makes it economical for energy companies to tunnel 5,000 feet below ground and remove the gas—but also poses environmental risks.

Wasner settled 14 years ago in Milanville, in the state's northeast corner, and will leave if drilling companies set up derricks nearby. He already moved away for six weeks last year while an exploratory well was drilled nearby. The noise, muddy water pouring from his taps, and chemicals that turned up in a neighbor's well drove him off, he says. "I moved to a beautiful rural residential area," says Wasner, "not an industrial park."

LaTourette, whose roots in the area go back five generations, is banking on the drilling. Her family has leased almost 700 acres of farmland to Hess (HES) and other companies to tap into the Marcellus Shale. She won't say what she's getting, but signing bonuses can range from $2,000 to $5,000 an acre, and royalty payments are about 20 percent of the value of the gas produced.

President Barack Obama enthusiastically backs gas drilling, and these days 90 percent of it is done by fracking, which involves forcing below ground chemically treated water under high pressure to smash through layers of rock, thus freeing the gas to flow upward. Along with wind, solar, and nuclear power, natural gas is crucial to Obama's goal of producing 80 percent of electricity from clean energy sources by 2035. But the drilling is taking place with minimal oversight from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. State and regional authorities are trying to write their own rules—and having trouble keeping up.

Now, reports of contaminated water and alleged disposal of carcinogens in rivers have caught state and federal regulators, and even environmental watchdogs, off guard. Sometimes the fracking mix includes diesel fuel. Between 2005 and 2009, drillers injected 32 million gallons of fluids containing diesel into wells in 19 states, an investigation by Representative Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) concludes. Just as it recovers its footing from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the Administration faces a new threat, again involving a risky drilling technology and charges of lax regulation. Obama is "evaluating the need for new safeguards for drilling," says White House spokesman Clark W. Stevens. "It's likely that the science is going to say we need to regulate fracking," says Tyson Slocum, director of the energy program for Public Citizen, a liberal advocacy group. "But Obama's political team is going to say don't regulate, and I think the political team will win."

The Marcellus Shale may contain 490 trillion cubic feet of gas—enough to heat U.S. homes and power electric plants for two decades, says Terry Engelder, professor of geosciences at Pennsylvania State University. That makes it the world's second-largest gas field behind South Pars, shared by Iran and Qatar. The shale gas rush is creating thousands of jobs and reviving the economy in states such as Wyoming, Texas, and Louisiana. In Pennsylvania, where 2,516 wells have been drilled in the last three years, $389 million in tax revenue and 44,000 jobs came from gas drilling in 2009, according to a Penn State report. Perhaps best of all, natural gas emits half the carbon emissions of oil.

While there have been no documented cases of fracking fluids flowing underground into drinking water, there have been spills above ground. Fracking produces millions of gallons of wastewater; some of it containing benzene has spilled from holding tanks. The wastewater can overwhelm treatment plants not equipped to handle high levels of contaminants. A Feb. 26 New York Times article, using documents from the EPA and state regulators, described how radioactive wastewater is being discharged into river basins. Sierra Club Deputy Executive Director Bruce Hamilton says Obama "has been sold a bill of goods." But even the Sierra Club has struggled with fracking. Last year it overruled New York and Pennsylvania chapters calling for a national fracking ban; now it's reconsidering that decision, Hamilton says.

The Delaware River Basin Commission, which manages the watershed that supplies drinking water to 15 million people in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, has put gas development on hold while it drafts rules. Wasner and LaTourette were among scores of people to comment at a Feb. 22 hearing in Honesdale, Pa., on a commission proposal to regulate the drilling. New York also has fracking on hold while it develops a drilling playbook. The Marcellus Shale runs beneath the watershed that supplies just over 1 billion gallons of water a day to New York City, the U.S.'s largest unfiltered water system.

The White House has sent mixed signals. "It's not necessarily federal regulation that will be needed," EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson told a Feb. 3 Senate hearing, noting that many communities and states already monitor parts of the process. Energy Secretary Steven Chu seems to differ. In a 2010 speech, he said fracking can be "polluting" and that rules were inevitable. "We continue to believe that state regulatory agencies have the appropriate expertise" to oversee gas production, says Dan Whitten, a spokesman for America's Natural Gas Alliance.

Even if the EPA stepped in, its authority would be limited. A clause in a 2005 energy law—dubbed the "Halliburton (HAL) loophole" for the company that helped pioneer fracking and is a supplier of fracking fluids—exempts fracking from parts of the Safe Drinking Water Act. Representative Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) says Dick Cheney, once head of Halliburton, pushed for the exemption when he was Vice-President. Hinchey's evidence is circumstantial: Fracking was endorsed in Cheney's 2001 energy task force report, which led to the 2005 law and, according to Waxman, did not reflect the EPA's initial concerns about water pollution. Cheney declined to comment. Halliburton referred a request for comment to its website, which doesn't discuss fracking's risks.

So far, the EPA has begun a study of fracking's effect on drinking water. In February the agency said final results will come in 2014, two years after its initial target—and the 2012 elections. Its emphasis is "politics first and regulation second," says Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners, a Washington policy group. "It's impossible to miss the jobs power of fracking in the Marcellus."

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_11/b4219025777026.htmThe Pennsylvania homes of Karl Wasner and Arline LaTourette both sit atop the... more

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YouTube - What Will You Lose? Anti-gay extremists are pumping millions of dollars into campaigns across the country.

http://bit.ly/youlose - Anti-gay extremists are pumping millions of dollars into... more

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Ten States File Briefs in Appeal vs. Unconstitutionality Ruling of Prop 8

San Francisco:- Last month a federal judge ruled that that California’s... more

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Feds Warn Residents Near Wyoming Gas Drilling Sites Not to Drink Their Water - 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.The federal government is warning residents in a small Wyoming town with extensive... more

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Wyoming Wind Farm Tax Debate

There is a familiar debate in Wyoming. On the one hand you have a new industry trying... more

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Current Immigration News ; 2 Features

Wyoming illegal immigration cases triple- A third of Wyoming's federal... more

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Travel Bug Robert - Grand Tetons

Robert travels to the Grand Tetons near Jackson, Wyoming. You get the feeling... more

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Science and the Scriptures

While scores of theological scholars have been studying the literal meaning of... more

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Sacred Geometry - The Bridge between Science and Religion Part 1

The ability to locate records of knowledge dating back thousands of years has... more

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Pine Beetles causing campsite closures in the Rockies

CHEYENNE, Wyo. Some national forests in Wyoming are trimming their budgets, including... more

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Getting Beaten By Your Husband Is A Pre-Existing Condition!

It turns out that in eight states, plus the District of Columbia, getting beaten up by... more

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The Dick Cheney International Center

OH, THE IRONY!!!
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A decision by the University of Wyoming to name a new center for international students for former Vice President Dick Cheney is drawing criticism from people who say Cheney's support for the Iraq war and harsh interrogation techniques should disqualify him from the distinction.
The former vice president and wife Lynne are expected to attend Thursday's dedication of the new Cheney International Center on the Laramie campus.
Protesters plan to be there, too.
The center is funded in part with $3.2 million the Cheneys donated to the university in several installments while he was vice president.
The university's decision to name the center after Cheney, a former Wyoming congressman, prompted a petition that collected more than 150 signatures. The petition said polices of the Bush administration were "very controversial" and the name will affect how people perceive the center.
Cheney's support for harsh interrogations — torture, some say — is one reason to oppose naming the center after him, said Suzanne Pelican, who began circulating the petition a year ago.
Pelican also criticized the Bush administration's "go it alone" strategy when several U.S. allies opposed the invasion of Iraq and didn't participate in the war.
"We feel that by naming it the Cheney International Center, that the programs and UW can't avoid being identified with that ideology and that approach to global politics that the Bush-Cheney administration championed," Pelican said Tuesday.
Pelican is an extension educator in the university's College of Agriculture who plans to peacefully protest during the dedication.
A phone message left with Cheney's assistant Lucy Tutwiler wasn't immediately returned.
A state program matched the Cheneys' $3.2 million gift with $3.2 million in state funding. The university spent $3 million to renovate and expand an existing building for the center.
A total of $3.4 million has been allocated for scholarships for students to study overseas.
Another Laramie resident opposed to the name is Nancy Sindelar, with the group Veterans For Peace.
"Mr. Cheney is not the best example of demonstrating how nations should get along with each other," said Sindelar, who is retired. "Putting his name on an international center is counterintuitive."
Sindelar's group opposes the Iraq war, and its Wyoming chapter has held weekly protests in Laramie since before the war began.
On Thursday, Sindelar plans to be part of a march to Prexy's Pasture, the campus quadrangle where the dedication ceremony will be held. Demonstrators don't plan to disrupt the ceremony but will be visible, she said.
University President Tom Buchanan defended the naming decision in a recent opinion piece in the Casper Star-Tribune, writing "tolerance and diversity cut many ways," and the new center will benefit students.
"Whether you are Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, Catholic or Protestant, gay or straight, white or black, you are welcome at the University of Wyoming. Should we subject potential donors and the purpose of their gift to public referendum? I think not," Buchanan wrote.
The international center shares a building with the university's student health center and will have offices for university staff members who work with international students.
Students also will be able to hang out there, said university spokeswoman Jessica Lowell.
"This is a place where international students can come and watch soccer if they want to. There's a lounge for them," Lowell said.OH, THE IRONY!!! ------------------------- A decision by the University of Wyoming... more

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Swine Flu May Not Effect Old People

Older people maybe immune to swine flu thanks to past research for a type of H1N1... more

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Teacher pleads no contest to sex with student

Jamie Nicole Hale, 32-year-old choir teacher at Star Valley High School, was charged... more

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I Hate Your State. Part 3

I hate North Carolina through Wyoming.

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Wyoming Announces 42 MW Wind Farm

Installation of the 20 turbines which will make up the Silver Sage Windpower Project... more

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Bark beetles kill millions of acres of trees

Last year in Wyoming and Colorado it was 1.5 million acres. This year it is expected... more

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